The book of time-travel
Written: Dec 15 '03
|
Product Rating:
|
|
|
Pros: Fun prose and dialogue, great rendition of the Doctor and friends
Cons: Not so good minor characters, questionable ending
The Bottom Line: The Bottom Line is lost in time...long may it stay there.
|
|
|
| hist's Full Review: |
The Book of the Still (not The Book of Stills, like the database says) is a debut Dr. Who novel by Paul Ebbs. It's a cracking good debut, too. Marred only by a questionable ending, it's a fun ride until you get there. Even then, the ending is more "convenient" and confusing then outright bad.
A Brief Description of Doctor Who
Doctor Who is a science fiction adventure series about the Doctor and one (or more) of his companions. They travel around in the TARDIS, which looks like an English police box, but is really a time travel machine. It's bigger on the inside then on the outside. The Doctor is a Time Lord, a race of beings who can regenerate when their current body is dying. So far, the Doctor has regenerated seven times, which means he's on his eighth incarnation.
The book series consists of two lines: a line about the Eighth Doctor and his companions, and a line that consists of "past Doctors" (Numbers 1-7). The past Doctors are from the TV series that ended in 1989, while the Eighth has only been seen on television in a movie on the Fox network in 1996.
The Story
This is a Dr. Who novel starring the Eighth Doctor, Fitz, and Anji
The Book of the Still is something that should not exist. It's a book that acts as a lifeline for time travelers. If you're trapped, just find the book (it exists in all time zones), write your name in it, and you can be instantly rescued as other time travelers find your name and location. Whether its existence is due to the strange time effects taking place since The Adventuress of Henrietta Street is unclear. Whatever it is, the Doctor has been suffering some weird physical effects from his proximity to it since landing on Lebenswelt. He's been fainting, experiencing different psychological problems, etc. So he tries to steal it in a high-tech burglary that unfortunately goes awry.
Anji despises Lebenswelt and wants to get away as soon as possible, and she's greatly worried about the Doctor and his 20 year prison sentence. Fitz finds himself fitting in to the party lifestyle that exists on the planet, falling back into his "'60s groovy" persona until he falls into the wrong crowd. He falls in love with Carmodi, a woman who also has designs on the book. When Fitz disappears, Anji is beside herself wondering what she is going to do to rescue the Doctor, find Fitz, and get the hell off the planet before things go from bad to worse.
So, of course, things fall apart before she can do any of that. Who are the Unnoticed? And why are they willing to destroy whole worlds to prevent the book from falling into anybody's hands? The Doctor tries desperately to keep as many people alive as possible while still making sure the flow of time is not damaged. But can he do both?
What Did I Think?
Paul Ebbs has been involved with Who fandom for quite some time, but this is his first professional publication in the genre. At times, you can tell, as a bit of prose falls flat or a character seems a little off (or, even worse, pointless). However, you can also tell he's been a fan for a while now, as he glories in our favourite characters and tells a funny yet interesting tale using deep time-travel theories (especially paradoxes). The prose is not beautiful in an aesthetic sense, but it is a joy to read. He has a way of describing things in pop-culture concepts, especially when he's telling things from Anji's point of view. While this doesn't help if you don't understand the reference (it is useless to describe someone as looking like a pop culture figure if the reader is unfamiliar with that figure), it makes a for a hilariously funny read when you do. Especially good is Anji's comparisons of Rhian to Daphne/Velma from Scooby Doo.
That's what Ebbs adds to the mix of the Eighth Doctor adventures. Humour. Sure, Trading Futures was a James Bond romp, but before that the book range has been deadly serious with an almost complete lack of the funny stuff. The Book of the Still does more than enough to compensate. The narration is very light, and the sections are very short and punchy, making for a quick read. I did get a bit annoyed at Anji's constant running-together of words ("ignorantstupidknuckledraggingsexuallyunconsciosthrowback" for example), but it was manageable, and perfectly showed her constant frustration at the whole situation.
In fact, Anji isn't the only one that Ebbs gets right. Fitz finally has a real romance (well, real to him, anyway) without the Doctor's involvement. While the romance itself may not be real, his reactions to it are. Unfettered by his long experience with the Doctor, we get to see Fitz as he would be if he wasn't being a cosmic hobo. Meanwhile, the Doctor himself is pretty good as well. He scrambles around manically trying to fix everything, being mysterious at times as well as unsure of himself (continuing the amnesia storyline that's been going through the Eighth Doctor books for awhile now). Watching these three characters interact with the others (they're not together much in this book) is a real treat.
Ebbs doesn't do quite as good a job with the other minor characters (some of them so minor that they don't even get names, just "mayor"). While Rhian (the woman the Doctor meets in prison) is fine, I didn't really like Carmodi, which is a shame considering that she's the driving force for one of the plots in the novel. She's irritating, perhaps even more so because she writes the epilogue at the beginning of the book (yes, the beginning…don't ask) and practically begs the reader to not judge her too harshly. I'm sure part of my feelings about her were intentional on Ebbs's part, but we're not supposed to be so irritated by a character that we don't want to read more about her. Unfortunately, that was true of Carmodi.
Finally, we get to the ending. I won't spoil it here, but it basically makes the previous 250 pages meaningless. People speak of the reset button on Star Trek television shows (where everything that happens in the episode is effectively "reset" to the circumstances at the beginning of the episode, meaning that the episode essentially didn't happen). While The Book of the Still wasn't quite that bad (our characters are still affected by it), it positively reeked of this. This fact is all that saves it. On top of that, though, the ending is a bit confusing. I can't go into detail without spoiling it, but I'm still not sure I understand it.
All in all, The Book of the Still is a fun read that is well worth checking out by the discerning Dr. Who fan. Don't let the ending get to you, and maybe you'll understand it better than I did. If so, then you'll enjoy it even more. If not, then at least you'll have had a fun trip on the way there.
Recommended:
Yes
|
|
|
|
Epinions.com ID:
hist
|
 in Books |
|
Member: David Roy
Location: Vancouver, BC
Reviews written: 723
Trusted by: 218 members
About Me:Thinking of taking Greyhound? Be careful:
|
|
|
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.