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Title: The City of the Dead (Doctor Who) by Lloyd Rose ISBN: 0-563-53839-2 Publisher: Bbc Pubns Pub. Date: September, 2001 Format: Mass Market Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $6.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4 (6 reviews)
Rating: 3
Summary: The City Of The Dead
Comment: Another one of these much-praised Dr Who entries that ended up not doing all that much for yours truly.
First, it's confusing. This plot is scattered and rambling--sort of a murder-mystery thing, where sideshow characters keep getting in the way and don't seem to have the sense to remain as properly-leashed red herrings.
Then we have magic, full-blown, finally entering the Dr Who universe, and I don't like it. Water elementals, pentagrams, demons summoned, spells and charms, and the Doctor sorting through all this as if he's always believed in magic--I don't get it, frankly. Call it boldly experimental...or call it what I call it: completely out of place, too much too late. You can't have magic denied in a series for forty years, and then just toss it at us in heaping platefuls like it's perfectly acceptable.
Next, the Doctor is too fragile, too scared, and too addle-brained. Rose, like that other female scribe of the Doctor's, likes to expose the Doctor's vulnerabilities, and likes to have him cuddling with women at some point. Doctor as sex object--hmmm, it's not working for me. The Doctor is supposed to be a Time Lord, which should not be interpreted as "Doctor as incredibly sensitive male, Doctor as incredibly fragile male, because he's from another planet"; it's not that simple, it never has been.
The author tries to be cunning in making Fitz and Anji nonentities in the story, so she can have time to punch holes in the Doctor's essence for the whole book, but I've never seen the Companions more clumsily moved about and, ultimately, dismissed. I love it when the Doctor is in the spotlight, but let's not get carried away! Having the story simply vomit the Companions away is not very professional.
What does work here is the mystery, underneath all the confusion, even though it does happen to remind me of what underpins the last bad horror novel I read (The Jonah, by James Herbert), and even though it rudely forces magic into Doctor Who. On one level, the book is an affront--on another, it's a decent tale for Hallowe'en fans, who like the horror-based entries that crop up in this series on a fairly regular basis. It's creepy, it's necromantic, it's gory at times, it's a supernatural thriller with the Doctor in it.
I have major issues with the book on a number of fronts. Read it for its (hopefully) unique take on the Doctor, and magic, and then forget about it.
Rating: 2
Summary: What about the cat?
Comment: The Doctor has been having disturbing dreams. He arrives in present day New Orleans to stumble upon a murder, apparently committed to obtain a mysterious artifact -- an artifact which later turns up in the Doctor's own pocket. At the same time, an unknown force is threatening the TARDIS. Add in a homicide detective who has eyes on the Doctor's companion Anji, a melodramatic tour guide with mystical aspirations, a talented but very eccentric artist, and some water elementals and you've got THE CITY OF THE DEAD.
It's a bit of a mess, really.
The main story involves a magician with designs on using the Doctor in a ritual for reasons which are never made quite clear. The problem is that there are so many characters and subplots going that none of them get explored adequately. To confuse matters, there seems to have been a lapse in editing in the last quarter of the novel that results in some serious jump cuts. At the end of one chapter, the Doctor has the upper hand on the villain. At the beginning of the next, said villain is going about some other business elsewhere; then suddenly, he is back and has the Doctor on the ropes again. Was there something missing here? Also, a number of time issues throughout don't make sense.
Finally, the book suffers from awkward attempts to direct it toward a more adult audience. I'm more than happy to see DOCTOR WHO maturing with it's fans, but the "mature" happenings in this story come off as clumsy and even absurd.
The Doctor is still amnesiac, although thankfully he is not as much of a nonentity as he was in THE BURNING, the last DW novel I read. He is well-characterized, but that's really the only positive thing this author has accomplised.
Rating: 5
Summary: Home Sweet Homicide
Comment: One of the most gorgeous "Doctor Who" novels written in years, who cares if the climactic chapter of "The City of the Dead" doesn't make all that much sense? This debut novel is by Lloyd Rose, whose pre-DW resume includes an episode of "Homicide: Life on the Streets", one of the most highly-regarded US TV series of the past decade. Any writer with that sort of credit (even if that episode was from the show's waning final season) deserves a shot at improving the DW universe. Rose takes the ball and runs so far with it, you'd think she played running back for the New Orleans Saints.
The story is a New Orleans murder mystery, and of course one of the leads is a homicide detective. However, to the book's credit, he's a thoroughly original character, and not a thinly-disguised Andre Braugher or Richard Belzer. The biggest revelation is that magic is real, here. Yes, there has been magic in DW stories before -- demons, spells, even lousy scientific techno-babble explanations. But "City" essentially reinvents the wheel: for the first half of the book, characters talk about magic, but we never see evidence that it's real. You can believe the book isn't even science fiction. Then, the floodgates open, and Rose separates the pretenders (the "wanna-blessed-be's", as they were one called on Buffy, a show which obviously influences this novel a great deal) from the powerful mages. An effective setup creates a more intense finale than usual.
The Doctor is the triumph of this book, of this year, of the entire BBC Eight Doctor series. Finally, an author gets so deftly inside his head that she singlehandedly puts the print Doctor right up there with all his living, breathing TV counterparts. This Doctor thinks, worries, misses the point: doesn't know the difference between Creole and Cajun, and finds menace in a salt-shaker (this last bit perhaps the funniest meta-reference in any "Doctor Who" format). Anji, dating again, and Fitz, more than ever like Xander Harris, are equally well-portrayed, but unfortunately vanish over the final third of the book.
The last chapter is a special-effects light show, with revelation poured upon revelation and honestly, after one insufficient read, a bit of a muddle. I'm sure it all makes sense -- indeed the rest of this book was so strong that I'll just take the ending on faith. Meanwhile, it's a sure bet that Rose's next "Doctor Who" book will be better than this one, an eleven out of ten.
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Title: Dark Progeny (Doctor Who) by Steve Emmerson ISBN: 0563538376 Publisher: Bbc Pubns Pub. Date: August, 2001 List Price(USD): $6.95 |
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Title: The Adventuress of Henrietta Street (Doctor Who) by Lawrence Miles ISBN: 0563538422 Publisher: Bbc Pubns Pub. Date: November, 2001 List Price(USD): $6.95 |
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Title: Mad Dogs and Englishmen (Doctor Who) by Paul Magrs ISBN: 0563538457 Publisher: Bbc Pubns Pub. Date: January, 2002 List Price(USD): $6.95 |
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Title: The Book of the Still (Doctor Who) by Paul Ebbs ISBN: 0563538511 Publisher: BBC Worldwide Pub. Date: May, 2002 List Price(USD): $6.95 |
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Title: Trading Futures (Doctor Who) by Lance Parkin ISBN: 0563538481 Publisher: Bbc Pubns Pub. Date: April, 2002 List Price(USD): $6.95 |
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