NA #44 The Also People

The Also People by Ben Aaronovitch

In Brief: The Doctor and company holiday inside a giant sphere that contains its own sun and two-trillion inhabitants. Conversations with God and Dalek poetry ensue.

Very possibly The Also People is the best entry in the entire New Adventures range. What's surprising is that such high praise doesn't come from a tale of high adventure or timey-wimey shenanigans but rather due to having a book based around well-written and interesting characters in an intriguing setting. While I'm sure the pacing and lack of "action" wouldn't be to everyone's taste (those sad sad people) there's a refreshing maturity to the novel that is hugely appealing. With such a large Tardis team at the moment getting a chance to slow things down and get to know the characters, in particular Chris and Roz, actually improves the entire series as we can get much more invested in events when we understand their impact on the regulars.

In contrast to Generic Companion #1 and #2 we've had throughout 2011 in the form of Amy and Rory.

Giving his companions a chance to rest The Doctor lands in the WorldSphere on The People, a super-advanced utopian society made up of a combination of biological and mechianical beings. Managing all (including the sphere's artificial sun) is the supercomputer God, who provides for all and asks in return only the occasional conversation and to be able to provide a mysterious yellow dip that nobody eats at parties. While of course The Doctor has ulterior motives (Kadiatu Lethbridge-Stewart ended up within the WorldSphere after the events of Set Piece) and there is a murder-plot thrown in, most of The Also People revolves around the regular characters as they get to know some of the citizens of the Sphere.

There's also some romance afoot as well for Roz and Chris, although as ever in Who it ends in tears. Benny gets some good moments as she's faced with a deeper understanding of the moral choices that The Doctor has to make, particularly around the now-feral Kadiatu. 

I remembered a great deal of this entry in the New Adventures from my original read back in 1995 (in a good way), and was glad to find that the book hasn't aged a bit in the past 16 years (especially after the oh-so-90s Head Games). The Also People is also a great demonstration of how much the New Adventures strove to move beyond just being a tie-in to the TV-show. The appeal for much of Who (at least to me) has always been about how the series centres around throwing its characters (and the audience) into new and unusual situations and seeing the impact (both good and bad).

There's not really much more to say about the book since it's hard to be critical when there's so little here that warrants criticism. The Also People is funny, sad, moving, breezy, deep and everything good about Doctor Who wrapped up in 250+ pages.