EDA #17 Beltempest

Beltempest by Jim Mortimore

In Brief: The Doctor and Sam have a Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day. 

The Tardis hurls The Doctor and Sam into the potential collapse of an entire solar-system. Billions of people are set to be killed, millions have already died. The Doctor tries to get to the bottom of the situation while Sam becomes involved with an undying messiah.

Then it turns out to be caused by powerful super-beings going through berthing pains and we are reminded of our place in a large and uncaring universe.

Ok, so there's more to it than that but Beltempest felt like Jim Mortimore in an iPod shuffle. What's here is good, but we've seen (or read it rather) all before (in the likes of New Adventures's Parasite and Eternity Weeps). It's his normal mix of the apocalypse writ large mixed with a dollop of dark humour.

But this minor complaint makes it sound like the book was dull, which it wasn't. It's possibly the most intense entry in the series so far, especially as Sam faces the weight of choices she must make. Actually this is possibly the best use of the character so far, as her being driven to the verge of madness by events in the book gives an edge that's so far been missing. Too often she's come across as a somewhat empty and under-written character (The Amy
Pond of the 90s?).

What I also appreciated though is that a story like this could *only* be done as a novel, there's no way a television production could capture the sheer *size* of what happens. However it can be heavy going, and the book felt very rushed towards the end. Still, it's a well-written and challenging entry in the Eighth Doctor Adventures, which is very welcome.

I can't quite say that the book was great, but it was a very good and memorable experience. Albeit one I probably don't need to go through again.

EDA #16 The Janus Conjunction

The Janus Conjunction by Trevor Baxendale

In Brief: Colonists. Soldiers. Giant Spiders. Radiation. An Ancient Super-weapon.

Another day in the office really.

The Janus Conjunction is another entry in the "solid but unremarkable" entries in the range. The Doctor and Sam arrive on radioactive wasteland of a world which has a mysterious special link to another planet in the same system. Included in the mix are a couple of warring factions (colonists and a breakaway group of soldiers). By the end of the book there has been the defeat of evil, the saving of worlds, and much technobabble (oh for the days of "I'll explain later.").

So overall I can't complain too much about the book, since it met the goal of being a standard run-around. While there's a sense of disappointment that there wasn't great ambition sometimes a run-around is just fine.

However, what I *did* find interesting is how different what was typical in 1998 is so completely different to what we find in Doctor Who today. The biggest shift is that The Janus Conjunction is very big on gun/knife-fights and dwelling on hardware and soldiering and other such butch endeavours. This is Who trying to be all pro-military like Stargate. There's little of the humour or whimsy that one would find today, even the most action-based stories have a lightness of touch that's missing here.

Also the use and function of Sam in The Janus Conjunction is markedly different from the likes of Rose/Donna/Amy. Her character is essentially a throw-back to the companions of old, a distillation of Jo Grant and Sarah Jane Smith but with some late-90s "Go Girl!" added. But there's no attempt to modernize the character in any way, she's still around mainly to get into situations that The Doctor needs to fix or when someone needs to be around to have the plot explained to them.

Of course, since these books were being written for an audience of older Doctor Who fans (and in the late-90s it's not like there were new ones) it makes sense that many of the authors would be working with the old tropes. For that reason I can at least tolerate the character, as I have the benefit of distance to know that her time as part of Who-dom was limited.

Otherwise there were really no memorable characters (we're definitely not in The Scarlet Empress anymore) and none of the places visited were particularly interesting (ruins and a farming colony). Still, at least the range is keeping away from constantly bringing back old characters/monsters and the characterization of the 8th Doctor is becoming more comfortable (even if he does at times come across like a hyperactive version of the 3rd who says a lot of words 3 times).

So is there much else to day? Not really. The Janus Conjunction is a slight entry in the series which wasn't great but at least didn't offend. I'll just say it was all amusingly old-fashioned and move on.