EDA #4: Genocide

Genocide by Paul Leonard

In Brief: The Human-race has been wiped from history and Earth is now inhabited by the peaceful Tractites.

Paul Leonard can turn out some more than half-decent prose. Even as Genocide loses steam in its second half the quality of Leonard's writing keeps the pages turning. The Doctor and Sam land on Earth but it's not the planet we know as a race known as Tractites (horses with arms) now live there, and have done so for millions of years. With history having somehow been changed The Doctor has to both find the cause and ultimately make the decision of which version of reality will be allowed to exist.

The strongest part of Genocide is the first act, as we get a tour of a Tractite-inhabited Earth and the set-up for the moral issues that are to come. Leonard is a good scene-setter, he's able to really give a good sense of place and location. Also his characterisation is decent as he makes sure that the various aliens and humans encountered have interesting personalities. They aren't just blobs (or horsies rather) with funny names.

Add into the mix some out-of-time paleontologists, a crazed nutter who wants to wipe out history and one Jo Grant. Jo is brought into the story via a sub-plot set in the present-day (well, late-90s) Africa, where the paleontologists have discovered anomalies in the fossil-record and make a call to her to come and help. Unfortunately Jo doesn't really add much to the book and there's a sense that Leonard might have been stuck with a brief to include her but couldn't come up with a good use of the character. Also this 1990s version of Jo completely lacks any sense of the character's normal personality, with this older single-mother version being somewhat bland.

Still, despite the misuse of Jo much of Genocide is very good, with the revelations around the change of history being slowly given out, making sure that the reader's interest is maintained. Unfortunately about half-way through, with a change in location to pre-historic Africa that the book suffers a bit. There's not quite enough story to maintain this part of the book, and there's a fair bit of of padding as characters encounter assorted beasts and dangers. While the book never becomes terrible it does become a bit of a slog at this point.

Also, the central question of choosing between the Tractites and Humans in regards to the eventual fate of the Earth becomes somewhat muddled. With it eventuating that the Tractite-future would result in the destruction of the universe due to various temporal-imbalances there's never really a choice for The Doctor or other characters to face. They *have* to ensure that the human race survives. Even though the humans will eventually cause the destruction of the Tractite home-world (with the surviving Tractites using a "time tree" and going back in time to wipe out humanity before it starts, timey-wimey) it's obviously a better option than everything being wiped out.

Genocide could have been stronger if the Tractites could have actually had their future; it would have had a greater impact. As is the later part of the book just feels like The Doctor & Co. going through the motions until the proper future is restored. Like in The Bodysnatchers The Doctor resolves a situation without really having had to live with the repercussions of his actions.

But overall Genocide was actually pretty good, despite flaws. It's padded, but not horribly so and there are some clever ideas at work (especially a bit where a message for Sam is left in some million-year old rock, however unfortunately it doesn't say HELLO SWEETIE). With another edit (perhaps removing 50 pages or so) and better use of Jo Grant the book could have been great rather than just above average.

As The Eighth Doctor Adventures, now that I'm 4 books into the series, remains a difficult subject to form an opinion about. Much like The New Adventures had to cope with the shadow of the TV-show these books are trying to find a different direction to the previous series. While the realisation of The Doctor is getting stronger, with authors becoming more comfortable with him being more the man of action than before the same can't be said for Ms. Sam Jones. While not a horrible character she unfortunately has yet to improve on being a rather spoiled and petulant teenager.

With the New Adventures having the more mysterious and manipulative 7th-Doctor the other regulars (Ace, Benny, Chris, Roz) tended to carry much of the books. With the 8th-Doctor not having the pre-planning nature of his predecessor he ends up being much more at the centre of events and much more the main protagonist of the series. So with The Doctor now *doing* more it means that the companion's part is reduced, with the result that Sam has yet to really have a chance to do much other than cause problems and add complications. As such the character ends up being a bit of an albatross around the neck of the series. While she's obviously an effort to move away from the "tougher" companions of the New Adventures the result is still too much like a step backwards.

But still, Genocide is a huge step-up in quality from The Bodysnatchers and is a sign that hopefully the series is finding its feet.