NA #40 Sky Pirates!

Sky Pirates! by Dave Stone

In Brief: The Doctor, Benny, Chris and Roz find themselves in a nihilistic version of The HitchHiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

But with song-and-dance numbers.

Insane, bizarre, probably divisive and quite quite enjoyable, Sky Pirates! is definitely one of the most memorable of the books in the entire range of New Adventures. While I imagine the book wouldn't be to everyone's taste the huge imagination involved in Stone's world-building mixed with his OTT writing-style meant that I was totally with this book from Page 1.

That's not to say that the book is perfect, it could probably due with a bit more focus and a bit of an edit (at 300 pages it's the longest of the New Adventures), but at the same time I don't mind a bit of indulgence here and there when the result is so enjoyable.

So what is the book about anyways? The Tardis falls into a small pocket universe known as The System, which is filled with a variety of humanoid species on a collection of rather improbable planets. However The System has been invaded by the villainous shape-shifting blobby Sloathes, who are enslaving the local population and stealing all of their pretty things. Add to this a pirate crew, a "chosen one" and a quest for The Eyes That Will Save Everything. The book goes for a bit of a "quest" feel as the regulars (including new additions Chris and Roz, a little underused) end up in various parts of The System over a course of several weeks.

Sky Pirates! is a great book for Benny, as the sense of humour which follows the character is really allowed to come to the fore-front as she's faced with planets shaped like snowmen and a sun with a giant smiley-face on it. However it's her view of The Doctor that really stands out in the book, as she realises that her earlier hope of being an equal to him was a false hope, at best she might be a prized pet. That's not to say that the book makes The Doctor out to be uncaring, but this is easily the character at his most manipulative and alien, getting people to do what he needs through subtle hints and false comedy. The climax in particular, as The Doctor faces the reason The System has him at his most God-like and terrifying (although that's not visible to most).

So while much of Sky Pirates! at first seems to be extremely OTT by the end it's surprising at how serious, and actually horrific, much of what happens ends up being. Like the earlier Parasite this is a disaster of huge proportions, with only the survival of a few giving a sense of victory (well relatively few compared to the earlier book's survival-rate of none). Still, the book is hardly a downer. In fact it in many ways pushes the Doctor Who envelope farther than any other book so far (and definitely more than almost any TV-story). Although I guess that's the benefit of a novel not having to worry about the budget.

So an excellent, if diabolical, entry into the series. This book has reminded me about how enjoyable Who can be when it goes for something new and succeeds.