For an adventure with so much potential, this is a damp squib. Perhaps it falters because I read it shortly after Steve Lyon's Salvation and the basic premise is the same. Aliens offer Humans everything that they could ever want. Salvation of course is written in Lyons' distinctive style that gets under the skin of the characters and really brings them to life. Miller unfortunately does not succeed in the same way. The characters here, if not bland, are generic to the point of insignificance. The Doctor, Ben and Polly run around without really doing anything. They could be any Doctor and companions, what's worse, they could be any science fiction protagonists.
It is unfortunate therefore that the characters, undistinguished as they are, are the most successful part of the book. The plot is, at heart, a good idea with so much potential for examining Hollywood, film noir, Scientology and so on. But not only is every target, no matter how big, missed, but Miller doesn't even have the decency to get the whole thing to make sense. Events occur with no consequences, characters disappear without a word, things happen for no reason and the aliens powers are inconsistent to the point where, shown any kind of scrutiny, the plot falls apart like a tower of jenga hit by a wrecking ball. To give a couple of instances. Characters that meld with the Seyloid (hoho) aliens exude irresistible charm, look like ravishing film stars and can influence whoever they talk to. All such melded characters do this, except for Wallis, the second most important melded character, the only visible change in Wallis apparently is that he's started smiling more. And his subordinates are happy to argue with him. Wallis has none of the powers attributed to the Alien melded humans. A second instance has Ben finding two corpses in a wardrobe which move. The corpses are later revealed to be animated by the Seyloids. However, they also quite happily walk around amongst the Humans, they are not malevolent or trying to hide and also have a purpose to fulfill. So what the hell were two of them doing inside a wardrobe? It's not even a particularly interesting wardrobe. The whole little scene is unbelievably pointless and forgotten about as soon as it's over. The character Maria is built up as a major player and then pointlessly disappears for the final act, barely mentioned again.
Perhaps the biggest crime is the Doctor's treatment of Polly. At one point the Doctor refuses to allow Polly to come with him in accessing the Police forensic department, because it is "too dangerous". Half a page later, the Doctor waltzes into the police station and stays there for several hours without even being challenged. Polly meanwhile wanders off and gets taken in by the Seyloids. It's nonsensical and lazy writing, the plot requires Polly to join the Seyloids, so Miller gives us an insulting excuse to separate the team. It would have taken about two extra sentences to give a plausible explanation for this event but no.
Ultimately the book truly fails by simply being boring. The prose is workmanike, there is nothing to make us want to stay involved. And on top of all the other inconsistancies, there really is very little to recommend.
2 out of 10
Showing posts with label PDA. Show all posts
Showing posts with label PDA. Show all posts
Monday, 3 May 2010
Saturday, 28 November 2009
Byzantium - Keith Topping
Byzantium takes place in the strange interlude between Episode 1, Scene 1 of The Romans, and Episode 1, Scene 2. The space between the Tardis falling off a cliff and the crew being comfortably installed in Rome. Keith Topping sites an entire adventure in this space. This book has been criticised (I Who) for having no plot. That's not strictly true. It is a historical, and it's only a conceit of Doctor Who that History has a plot, Byzantium in fact gains far more truth out of the situation by having the Tardis Crew simply wandering around, surviving, while chaos whirls about them. That doesn't necessarily make it more interesting than say The Aztecs, or The Romans itself, but it allows for a different look at the period, than would be gathered by concentrating on the regular characters. Being fair, Topping's Byzantium is well researched, but retains a small number of little niggles (As I was reminded on a forum, minarets did not exist in the 1st century A.D.). Topping is interested in creating a living, sprawling city on the brink of madness. Byzantium is full of Greeks, Romans, Jews, Christians, Zealots, Arabs and Slaves, all of whom have grudges against each other. And in order to highlight this, he splits the Crew up between the four main groups - Ian joins the Romans, Vicki finds a Greek family, Barbara is wooed by the chief Rabbi and the Doctor hides out with the persecuted Christians. They each meet a few people and then reunite at the end against the backdrop of a massacre. This would be fine, if we cared about the supporting characters such as in The Massacre or Reign of Terror, or if the main characters had any major advances or revelations in character. But neither happens.
To draw the criticisms of this book properly, we should look at the main characters and how they fare first of all. Ian gets the meatiest chunk, lodged with the Praefect of the city, he helps to bring him and the Roman General together to put down a looming rebellion by the lower officials. Except that this isn't Ian. For a good three quarters of the book, it's Ben Jackson. Ian is not a 60's swinger, so words like "Daddio" and phrases such as "I'll give you a good biff on the conk." are utterly wrong for a man whose roots lie in the fifties rather than the sixties. Towards the end of the book, Ian sees his friend die, taking a knife that was meant for him, and barely reacts. Shortly after, he stabs a zealot that is threatening Barbara and Vicki, but does so "with a bemused smile". While it's just about possible to extend artistic license to see Ian in a purple shirt, red tie and talking like he's jive king of England, the idea of Ian being able to kill so easily and without remorse simply makes him someone else to the hero of the TV series. Vicki fares better until she is confronted by a Roman Soldier who intends to rape her. Topping has already explicitly stated that Vicki is 14 (Which she isn't by any stretch of the imagination) and so her use of the word "deflowered" at this point is really quite wrong on every level.
The Doctor ends up hiding in caves with the Christians for the entirety of the novel. At one point he translates a bit of the gospel of Mark and at another diagnoses one of the Christians with cancer. It says something that these bits are the most interesting part of the book. Barbara fares best, in her natural element of history and Topping gets a few nice touches with her. Sadly, this is not enough to rescue the book.
The main problem is, Topping has too big a cast and only spends a minimal amount of time with each. A big cast is great if you are writing War and Peace, but here characters are sketched out vaguely, we have a page or two with one, before we are whisked off to meet another. All of whom are involved with plots, or not, in which case they are just trying not to die in a horrible way. If the character is a Roman or a Jew, they are arguing, killing people or plotting. If the character is a Greek or Christian, they are hiding away, doing very little. Trying to distinguish between the various Romans, who all have similar names, titles and few distinguishing features except mutual distrust, or between the Christians, who have no surnames and no distinguishing features and do nothing at all, quickly becomes exhausting, if not depressing.
Perhaps I'm being unfair. My favourite literary work is The Alexandria Quartet, in which Lawrence Durrell skillfully creates Alexandria as a seething turmoil of Copts, Jews, Arabs, Christians, Egyptians, French, Irish and English with beautifully conceived characters that is one of the greatest works of the Twentieth Century. It's kind of impossible not to compare the two as they are in a similar vein, and that's unfair to Topping as no one has asked him to write a masterpiece of literature. But still, it's not difficult to see Byzantium as, not a failure, but a missed opportunity. Topping has a great turn of prose when he applies himself, and he succeeds in building an atmosphere to the final conflagration, as well as proving the cheapness of life as anonymous support character after anonymous support character is struck down without fanfare. If only we cared.
A smaller cast, closer involvement by the regulars, more time to explore would have provided a much tighter work. As I say, the chapters spent with the Christians were also the highlight of the book, despite their lack of activity, it was far more enjoyable to see the Doctor learning about history first hand and his palpable enjoyment in such, than endless Roman/Zealot Plotting that all means nought anyway when they are simply slaughtered out of hand.
So, while I hold that the lack of a plot is not a barrier to this book, it's ambition of scale is. If it had been a character piece of the Regulars watching from afar, it could have been great, but it tries to hold an overview and juggle too much. You can lose a plot or you can lose the characters and still get a good read. Losing both leaves the reader with no interest. Extra point for ambition.
4/10
To draw the criticisms of this book properly, we should look at the main characters and how they fare first of all. Ian gets the meatiest chunk, lodged with the Praefect of the city, he helps to bring him and the Roman General together to put down a looming rebellion by the lower officials. Except that this isn't Ian. For a good three quarters of the book, it's Ben Jackson. Ian is not a 60's swinger, so words like "Daddio" and phrases such as "I'll give you a good biff on the conk." are utterly wrong for a man whose roots lie in the fifties rather than the sixties. Towards the end of the book, Ian sees his friend die, taking a knife that was meant for him, and barely reacts. Shortly after, he stabs a zealot that is threatening Barbara and Vicki, but does so "with a bemused smile". While it's just about possible to extend artistic license to see Ian in a purple shirt, red tie and talking like he's jive king of England, the idea of Ian being able to kill so easily and without remorse simply makes him someone else to the hero of the TV series. Vicki fares better until she is confronted by a Roman Soldier who intends to rape her. Topping has already explicitly stated that Vicki is 14 (Which she isn't by any stretch of the imagination) and so her use of the word "deflowered" at this point is really quite wrong on every level.
The Doctor ends up hiding in caves with the Christians for the entirety of the novel. At one point he translates a bit of the gospel of Mark and at another diagnoses one of the Christians with cancer. It says something that these bits are the most interesting part of the book. Barbara fares best, in her natural element of history and Topping gets a few nice touches with her. Sadly, this is not enough to rescue the book.
The main problem is, Topping has too big a cast and only spends a minimal amount of time with each. A big cast is great if you are writing War and Peace, but here characters are sketched out vaguely, we have a page or two with one, before we are whisked off to meet another. All of whom are involved with plots, or not, in which case they are just trying not to die in a horrible way. If the character is a Roman or a Jew, they are arguing, killing people or plotting. If the character is a Greek or Christian, they are hiding away, doing very little. Trying to distinguish between the various Romans, who all have similar names, titles and few distinguishing features except mutual distrust, or between the Christians, who have no surnames and no distinguishing features and do nothing at all, quickly becomes exhausting, if not depressing.
Perhaps I'm being unfair. My favourite literary work is The Alexandria Quartet, in which Lawrence Durrell skillfully creates Alexandria as a seething turmoil of Copts, Jews, Arabs, Christians, Egyptians, French, Irish and English with beautifully conceived characters that is one of the greatest works of the Twentieth Century. It's kind of impossible not to compare the two as they are in a similar vein, and that's unfair to Topping as no one has asked him to write a masterpiece of literature. But still, it's not difficult to see Byzantium as, not a failure, but a missed opportunity. Topping has a great turn of prose when he applies himself, and he succeeds in building an atmosphere to the final conflagration, as well as proving the cheapness of life as anonymous support character after anonymous support character is struck down without fanfare. If only we cared.
A smaller cast, closer involvement by the regulars, more time to explore would have provided a much tighter work. As I say, the chapters spent with the Christians were also the highlight of the book, despite their lack of activity, it was far more enjoyable to see the Doctor learning about history first hand and his palpable enjoyment in such, than endless Roman/Zealot Plotting that all means nought anyway when they are simply slaughtered out of hand.
So, while I hold that the lack of a plot is not a barrier to this book, it's ambition of scale is. If it had been a character piece of the Regulars watching from afar, it could have been great, but it tries to hold an overview and juggle too much. You can lose a plot or you can lose the characters and still get a good read. Losing both leaves the reader with no interest. Extra point for ambition.
4/10
Sunday, 20 September 2009
Ten Little Aliens - Stephen Cole
If ever there was a book of two sides, it is this. On the one side, it is great, a taut, fast paced, claustrophobic thriller that is quite horrifying in many places. On the other side, it's a horrible mess.
Let me try to explain this supposed contradiction. Ten Little Aliens wears its influences on its sleeve. Alien the movie and Agatha Christie's Ten Little Indians (Her original title of Ten Little Niggers having been written out of history).
I've never read Ten Little Indians, never read any Christie in fact, so perhaps I should give it a go, but I'm guessing the plot of Cole's story holds some resemblance to Indians (Notwithstanding the People eating reincarnated Aliens). So if the plot is essentially a mystery, the setting is pure space horror. Confined tunnels in an artificial asteroid that is powered by chewing up people. Invulnerable stone Angels whipping terrified space marines off to die. Disappearing corpses of Alien Terrorists. So good, so cliche, but it works because Cole really puts the atmosphere across. He deploys a couple of tricks including the Find Your Own Adventure Chapter 14 to place the reader right alongside the characters. While Find your own adventure may sound cheesy, Cole has written it right into the story. It makes sense, it really works, and incredibly, the atmosphere builds if you do it properly and read just one path through instead of trying to read all the paths.
If this had been a Space Hulk story say, then job done. Great read for a sci fi horror fan. But it isn't. It's Doctor Who. And this is where the book starts to fall down.
You can't fault Cole for bravery. Into this horrendous tale of wholesale slaughter in horrible ways, he's chosen the First Doctor as his hero. A quite astonishing choice. Bill Hartnell isn't exactly Ellen Ripley.
This is unfortunate. Doctor Who has rules. I hate to say it, but it does, indefinite rules perhaps but there are some things which just aren't going to work. Doctor Who can work in almost any context. That's one of the beautiful things about it. But putting the First Doctor into what is essentially the Space Hulk/Aliens Universe, doesn't. Or if it is going to work then it needed a better writer of character than Cole. His description is wonderful. His characterisation, apart from Frog and flashes of Ben and Polly, isn't. The Doctor is generic, apart from the blatant nods towards the oncoming regeneration, but there's nothing else to say that this couldn't be Troughton running around. The setting is of course, base under siege, although the intriguing twist is that the base is owned by the Aliens - the Schirr. Cole has certainly thought hard about the placing of the book, both The War Machines and the The Tenth Planet are base under siege, but still, the Doctor just isn't Hartnell, although to be fair, it's almost impossible to imagine the First Doctor in this setting.
This is why Cole was brave. He gave himself a very tough job, he couldn't quite live up to it.
The marines don't fare too much better either. Alright, they are cannon fodder. But it's kind of a mistake to kill off the marines who actually have a character and allow the survivors to comprise, among others, two who have received absolutely no characterisation at all. That said, as I've already mentioned, Frog is a wonderful character and Shade and Haunt are reasonable.
There are other problems with the book, considering that it is Doctor Who and not some other series. The worst being the magic aspect. The Schirr's entire plan relies on a ritual that is never fully explained, but requires ten of them and ten of the humans, except that one of the Schirr is executed for betraying the others, should this alone not have destroyed the ritual? In the ritual, the Schirr commit suicide, some of the dead Schirr are brought back to life, some of the humans are transformed into Schirr, the original Schirr then eat the bodies to gain eternal life and then meld with a mental life form. Er, what???
Such a convoluted ritual seems to suggest that Cole doesn't actually know what's going on, at some points he seems to be making it up as he goes along. This is compounded at the end by the Doctor simply stating that anything we don't understand may appear to be magic but is simply higher technology. In other words, a cop out. It lets the book down.
I can think of other things too, Ben gets the best deal out of the regulars, but again, his anachronistic comment of "bricking it" and gaining an injured ankle which ceases to trouble him immediately after the incident, rankle. The Christie part of the novel - the mystery, apart from the double dodge in the first couple of chapters, is pretty much pointless. The Doctor does some of the hard graft and then the chief alien tells him all his plans. All these things contrive to pull this book down.
And yet. Having pulled the book to pieces, I enjoyed it immensely. I read it through in two days and was hooked every step of the way. Here lies the contradiction.
This is a blockbuster movie of a book. Really well written science horror that is great to read. Put it under any kind of scrutiny however and it starts to disappoint, although it won't fall apart. But as a Doctor Who novel, which should stand up to scrutiny and shouldn't be about the blockbuster, it fails.
So the best thing I can say about the novel is, I enjoyed it, immensely. And the worst thing I can say about it is that it would have been improved by not having the Doctor in it at all.
6/10
Let me try to explain this supposed contradiction. Ten Little Aliens wears its influences on its sleeve. Alien the movie and Agatha Christie's Ten Little Indians (Her original title of Ten Little Niggers having been written out of history).
I've never read Ten Little Indians, never read any Christie in fact, so perhaps I should give it a go, but I'm guessing the plot of Cole's story holds some resemblance to Indians (Notwithstanding the People eating reincarnated Aliens). So if the plot is essentially a mystery, the setting is pure space horror. Confined tunnels in an artificial asteroid that is powered by chewing up people. Invulnerable stone Angels whipping terrified space marines off to die. Disappearing corpses of Alien Terrorists. So good, so cliche, but it works because Cole really puts the atmosphere across. He deploys a couple of tricks including the Find Your Own Adventure Chapter 14 to place the reader right alongside the characters. While Find your own adventure may sound cheesy, Cole has written it right into the story. It makes sense, it really works, and incredibly, the atmosphere builds if you do it properly and read just one path through instead of trying to read all the paths.
If this had been a Space Hulk story say, then job done. Great read for a sci fi horror fan. But it isn't. It's Doctor Who. And this is where the book starts to fall down.
You can't fault Cole for bravery. Into this horrendous tale of wholesale slaughter in horrible ways, he's chosen the First Doctor as his hero. A quite astonishing choice. Bill Hartnell isn't exactly Ellen Ripley.
This is unfortunate. Doctor Who has rules. I hate to say it, but it does, indefinite rules perhaps but there are some things which just aren't going to work. Doctor Who can work in almost any context. That's one of the beautiful things about it. But putting the First Doctor into what is essentially the Space Hulk/Aliens Universe, doesn't. Or if it is going to work then it needed a better writer of character than Cole. His description is wonderful. His characterisation, apart from Frog and flashes of Ben and Polly, isn't. The Doctor is generic, apart from the blatant nods towards the oncoming regeneration, but there's nothing else to say that this couldn't be Troughton running around. The setting is of course, base under siege, although the intriguing twist is that the base is owned by the Aliens - the Schirr. Cole has certainly thought hard about the placing of the book, both The War Machines and the The Tenth Planet are base under siege, but still, the Doctor just isn't Hartnell, although to be fair, it's almost impossible to imagine the First Doctor in this setting.
This is why Cole was brave. He gave himself a very tough job, he couldn't quite live up to it.
The marines don't fare too much better either. Alright, they are cannon fodder. But it's kind of a mistake to kill off the marines who actually have a character and allow the survivors to comprise, among others, two who have received absolutely no characterisation at all. That said, as I've already mentioned, Frog is a wonderful character and Shade and Haunt are reasonable.
There are other problems with the book, considering that it is Doctor Who and not some other series. The worst being the magic aspect. The Schirr's entire plan relies on a ritual that is never fully explained, but requires ten of them and ten of the humans, except that one of the Schirr is executed for betraying the others, should this alone not have destroyed the ritual? In the ritual, the Schirr commit suicide, some of the dead Schirr are brought back to life, some of the humans are transformed into Schirr, the original Schirr then eat the bodies to gain eternal life and then meld with a mental life form. Er, what???
Such a convoluted ritual seems to suggest that Cole doesn't actually know what's going on, at some points he seems to be making it up as he goes along. This is compounded at the end by the Doctor simply stating that anything we don't understand may appear to be magic but is simply higher technology. In other words, a cop out. It lets the book down.
I can think of other things too, Ben gets the best deal out of the regulars, but again, his anachronistic comment of "bricking it" and gaining an injured ankle which ceases to trouble him immediately after the incident, rankle. The Christie part of the novel - the mystery, apart from the double dodge in the first couple of chapters, is pretty much pointless. The Doctor does some of the hard graft and then the chief alien tells him all his plans. All these things contrive to pull this book down.
And yet. Having pulled the book to pieces, I enjoyed it immensely. I read it through in two days and was hooked every step of the way. Here lies the contradiction.
This is a blockbuster movie of a book. Really well written science horror that is great to read. Put it under any kind of scrutiny however and it starts to disappoint, although it won't fall apart. But as a Doctor Who novel, which should stand up to scrutiny and shouldn't be about the blockbuster, it fails.
So the best thing I can say about the novel is, I enjoyed it, immensely. And the worst thing I can say about it is that it would have been improved by not having the Doctor in it at all.
6/10
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