The Quatermass Book Marathon Blog: Seventh Heaven

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Book 25...

REVIEW: Doctor Who: Time of Your Life by Steve Lyons

Due to my more eclectic reading habits, I sometimes read books out of series order. Years and years ago, at the height of my Doctor Who fandom, I read Killing Ground, a Missing Adventure story which had a character, Grant Markham, introduced in a previous story that I had not read. However, that has changed...

The year is 2191. The place: the Meson system. The Meson Broadcasting System has taken over the TV networks of every planet in the system, filled with at best mindless, and at worst violent programs. The Doctor, still traumatised by the events of his trial and the true nature of the Valeyard, has become a hermit, but the Time Lords want him to do their dirty work at the MBS satellite. While he investigates, Angela, a girl who tagged along with him in murdered by a strange entity, a soap star murders a technician for having sex with his lover, a programmer in a different star system becomes suspicious about some new technology, and an anti-violence protestor is trying to get filth off the television. The Doctor doesn't know what he's supposed to do, but in a society so innured to violence, can he stop the goings-on before it is too late?

This is far from the first time that TV would be satirised in Doctor Who (Vengeance on Varos, from the same era), and it wouldn't be the last (Bad Wolf), so while the concept is a good one, the story comes off as being somewhat confused and overcomplicated. Complicated, I wouldn't mind, as long as it was a little clearer as to what was actually going on. The satire doesn't feel quite as sharp as it should be, and the overall tone feels more like a different science fiction story rather than Doctor Who, perhaps even a little too dark.

The Doctor is written as he should be, and Lyons should be given plaudits for that much. Most of the other characters, however, are less striking. Raymond Day, Hammond, Anjor, and the ill-fated Angela are exceptions to this rule, as is the amusing satire of Mary Whitehouse, Miriam Walker (who, ironically enough, becomes an ally of the Doctor). The villain, Krllxk, is a weak realisation of what is otherwise an excellent concept, and the other characters seem too mired in darkness to be noteworthy.

Time of Your Life, unfortunately, is below the par for a Doctor Who novel. It's not bad, just a little disappointing.


8/10

First words: 'But first, this:'

Last words: (Not recorded due to spoilers.)

The next book will probably be Duty Calls, the fourth Ciaphas Cain novel by Sandy Mitchell.

Book 26...

REVIEW: Duty Calls by Alex Stewart (as Sandy Mitchell)

Perhaps this book may be the last one that I read for this book-reading blog. But given my earlier enjoyment of the Ciaphas Cain series, I don't expect this one to be going out on a bad note. But I might very well be wrong. After all, I have only read two books from the series, and a third time, despite the cliche, may not be a charm...

Ciaphas Cain and the 597th regiment have been called into Periremunda, a planet with a mostly hostile environment, and a populace succumbing to severe unrest. An attack on a convoy he travelled in begins to arouse his suspicions, and the presence of associate and lover Inquisitor Amberley Vail only serves to confirm it. Vail is after a rogue researcher, but what ties her mission to an apparent genestealer infestation?

As usual, the plot is quite good, but not stellar, mixing action, a certain amount of dark humour (though given the setting, I'm surprised it isn't even darker), and thriller-style plots. The universe of Warhammer 40,000 is not for everyone, but I would assume that the Ciaphas Cain series would make a good entry, though not this particular volume, which suffers from being a sequel to a previous book in the series that I have not read.

The usual suspects in terms of characters are pretty interesting, with Cain himself being the sardonic narrator, Amberly Vail being both a normal character and an equally sardonic editor, and the stinky Jurgen. Not all of the characters get the best page time, and the main villain of the piece, who isn't revealed until the end, is disappointing if only because not enough time is devoted to developing their character.

Duty Calls is a decent entry in the decent Ciaphas Cain series. A fairly average book by my standards, but good to read and kill some time.


8.5/10

First words: Editorial Note:

Last words: Nevertheless, on that note of somewhat strained levity, this extract from the Cain Archive comes to a natural conclusion.

Book 27...

REVIEW: And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie


So far, my venturing forth into the world of Agatha Christie had been somewhat disappointing. While by no means bad, the books I had read hadn't quite clicked with me. Deciding to forgo Miss Marple, I decided to attempt one of her most famous works that didn't involve either Marple or Poirot. Once given rather more offensive names, the story is now called in modern times, And Then There Were None...

Soldier Island, off the Devon coast. Eight people have been invited to this place under various pretexts, while two more wait at the behest of their master, Mr and Mrs U.N Owen. In their rooms are framed copies of the nursery rhyme Ten Little Soldiers, and on the dining room table are ten soldier figurines. But after dinner, a gramophone record is played, with a voice accusing all ten people present on the island of being murderers who got away with their crimes. The ten are now stranded on Soldier Island, and someone is picking them off one by one, according to the nursery rhyme. Is there someone else on the island? Or is the murderer in fact one of their number?

Compared to other mysteries, I found And Then There Were None easier to follow, with many of the clues a little easier to spot. Although the murderer does admit some clues, I also noticed a few others that could have easily pointed in their direction. The story itself, being largely confined to a single island, is highly conducive to a tense, enjoyable story, although despite their culpability, you do sometimes want one or two characters to survive.

The characters are the weakest part of the otherwise tight and thrilling story, but they are all interesting to one degree or another. Of these, the calm and collected Justice Wargrave, the tormented Vera Claythorne, the suspicious Dr Armstrong, and the stuckup Emily Brent, are of the most interest. Vera most of all evokes a significant amount of sympathy, given her repentance and torment.

And Then There Were None is what Christie, in what I have heard of her reputation, should be. An excellent, thrilling mystery that has a shock ending.


9/10

First words: In the corner of a first-class smoking carriage, Mr Justice Wargrave, lately retired from the bench, puffed at a cigar and ran an interested eye through the political news in The Times.

Last words: (Not recorded due to spoilers.)

Book 28...

REVIEW: The Sandman, volume 8: Worlds' End by Neil Gaiman et al


I begin to approach the end of the series that I started so long ago. The Sandman is a rich dark fantasy series that, while variable, has more hits than misses. So now I come to the last set of stories before the denouement of the series, Worlds' End. But would I enjoy it? Or would it stumble just as the finish line hoves into view?

Brant Tucker and Charlene Mooney, while driving to Chicago in summer, are caught up in a sudden snowstorm, and crash. Staggering to a nearby inn, the pair of travellers soon find out that Worlds' End is no ordinary inn, and that the snowstorm is a reality storm, taking place during a time of great upheaval in the universe. The pair of travellers listen to tales from other travellers, including a tale of the dreaming city, a tale of the faerie Cluracan and a diplomatic mission that goes awry, a tale of the sea and immortality, the tale of a teenaged president who never was, and tales from the necropolis of Litharge...

Like a couple of previous volumes, this volume of The Sandman is more of an anthology, albeit one linked by the Worlds' End inn. They aren't quite at the level of those seen in Fables and Reflections, and while many of them have fairly intelligent concepts behind them (particularly A Tale of Two Cities), they don't quite reach the same level. These are still good and enjoyable stories, and fans of The Sandman will enjoy them all the same. I enjoyed Cluracan's Tale, Hob's Leviathan, and Cerements, along with the final sequence, most of all.

The characters are probably more interesting than the stories themselves, especially considering that they are being told by many of the characters. 'Jim' and Cluracan (the latter of whom appeared back in Season of Mists), along with Petrefax, are perhaps the most interesting tale-tellers, but we have welcome recurring characters, particularly Dream, Death, and even, at one point, Destruction. The artwork is of the norm for The Sandman, although not as good as some comics today.

Worlds' End, while not quite as good as the last two volumes have been, is nonetheless a good continuation of the series. It also sets up what is to come, in the story of Morpheus, Dream of the Endless...


8.5/10

First words: Looking back on it, the thing that still surprises me is my own reaction to it all.

Last words: Good night.

BTW, for anyone still following this thread, the next book may very well be one of the following: Game Over (which is a history of Nintendo), Half Sick of Shadows, and Apocalypse Cow (both of which are Terry Pratchett Prize winners).

Book 29...

REVIEW: Apocalypse Cow by Michael Logan

I had actually intended to enter the Terry Pratchett Prize back in 2010, but due to my own need for high quality, I never completed a book on time. Two books won that year, Apocalypse Cow by Michael Logan, and Half Sick of Shadows by David Logan. And finally, those two books got published earlier this year. They may have won the prize, but would they win my interest? I decided to begin with the provocatively titled darkly comic book Apocalypse Cow...

In Scotland, an abbatoir is burnt to the ground to try and stop a new kind of virus from spreading. Problem is, the cow infected has escaped, and is spreading the virus to not just cows, but other animals. The government is trying to cover things up, and the plague and attempted coverup impacts many people. Like Geldof Peters, whose New Age mother bans meat-eating, and makes him wear hemp clothing, which he is allergic to. And then there's Lesley McBrien, a journalist eager to make the big time on her own, and gets a tip about the coverup, only to foul it up badly. And there's abbatoir worker Terry Borders, whose love life is hampered by the smell of dead cow on him, and who was at ground zero. They're not heroes. They're caught up in one of the most disastrous events to ever befall the UK, and they want to leave. But not only do they have infected animals after them, but also the persistent Mr Brown, who wants to see everyone who knows the truth dead and buried. So they're pretty much boned...

Apocalypse Cow is not Terry Pratchett. Nor is it anywhere near his level. But the book itself is an enjoyable dark comedy (especially for a first book), albeit a gruesome one that reads somewhere between a spoof of Resident Evil and The Stand. It does feel a little too simplistic, too straightforward, and at times, a damn sight too perverse. In fact, it may be all the hype about this story for winning the prize, but I feel a little cheated. But there are still some good gags, and even some biological justification (as well as humour) for the more disturbing behaviour of the infected animals.

The characters are fine enough, and for the main viewpoint characters, fleshed out enough to give a certain amount of realism. But Mr Brown is a ridiculously cardboard villain who seems to be acting more out of malice than engaging in a coverup, and while one does feel sorry for Fanny Peters (Geldof's overbearing New Age vegetarian mother) once she dies, you don't feel a hell of a lot sorry for her for being so wilfully idiotic.

In the end, Apocalypse Cow was average, at least by my standards. It's a good first effort, but the humour could have been a little better polished, and I felt that some characters were too cartoony.


8.5/10

First words: The man in the sharp blue suit stood atop a wooded hill, dangling an expensive pair of leather shoes from one hand, and watched grey smoke belch from the burning abbatoir below.

Last words: (Not recorded due to spoilers.)

Book 30...

REVIEW: Doctor Who: Dark Horizons by JT Colgan


It's about time that I come to another Doctor Who novel to read, and this one is one of the latest. My experience with the latest novels starring the Eleventh Doctor have been variable: The Coming of the Terraphiles was below average by my standards, despite being written by famous fantasy writer Michael Moorcock, but The Silent Stars Go By was rather more successful. And now, I come to Dark Horizons...

12th Century Scotland, at the very northern tip of that country. The villagers live in fear of Viking raids, and one ship is getting close. But it has no interest in raiding. Rather, it is transporting the Duke of Trondheim's daughter, Freydis, into a marriage she doesn't want with Icelandic leader Gissar Poldaverson. But a strange fire engulfs the ship while it's close to shore, and the Doctor, who has happened to land nearby, saves Freydis and some of her escorts, including the smitten Henrik. The villagers, led by Corc, are reluctant to give the survivors any help, but they may have little choice. Something dangerous lurks in the waters off the coastline, and with another Viking ship on the way to make sure that Freydis gets to her destination, the Doctor will be hard-pressed to fight off not only a Viking attack, but also the attentions of the aliens behind the strange flames, the Arril...

With the new TV show off the air longer than usual, it's welcome to get a new story, and Dark Horizons is quite a good one. A bit simple, but otherwise a good story, with an intriguing (if not quite original, as the Arril seem to be the bastard offspring of the Wire and the Gelth) alien adversary in the Arril, and an interesting setting that is reminiscent of, but distinct from, 1965's The Time Meddler. Here, the Doctor is trying his best to save everyone, and we have some intriguing links between the Doctor, and Loki of Norse myth.

The characters are fine enough, with the Doctor being as he should be on TV, and the striving Henrik and the haughty and independent Freydis the pick of the guest characters. Eoric and his younger brother Luag are the most interesting of the villagers. The Arril have enough sympathy to their story that you can feel sorry for them, but they also seem rather stupid for disregarding the Doctor's warning. You'd expect that of more megalomaniacal villains.

Dark Horizons, then, is a good Doctor Who book, with plenty for the fan to enjoy, and an intriguing pseudohistorical story. Fans will definitely like it, and even a casual reader might actually get sucked in.


9/10

First words: The Doctor looked down at the board, sighed and gently knocked over the king with one finger.

Last words: (Not recorded due to spoilers.)

Book 31...

REVIEW: The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side by Agatha Christie


Once more, I come to Agatha Christie, for what may be the last time in this book-reading blog, and to Miss Marple. The previous three Christie stories had been rather variable in my opinion, with my favourite, And Then There Were None, not even a Marple book at all. So when I decided to try The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side, I wondered whether it would be any better...

Hollywood royalty, in the form of Marina Gregg and her current husband Jason Rudd, has come to the quiet village of St Mary Mead. That in itself is interesting enough for the listless Marple. But a local woman called Heather Badcock, noted for being rather thoughtless, dies not long after speaking with Gregg, her idol. The drink that poisoned her was Gregg's, and while suspicion falls on those who may want Badcock dead, Gregg seems to think that she was targeted. There are many suspects, as Gregg has had multiple marriages, not to mention multiple adoptions that went sour, and Gregg herself cannot have children. The murder comes at the right time to stimulate Marple's mind, but she, along with Chief Inspector Dermot Craddock, have to find the killer before they are more successful. But is Gregg the real target? Or was someone else?

Compared to the others that I read, this mystery feels a little easier. This was one of the later novels to be written, so that may have been part of it, and compared to The Moving Finger, Marple is a prominent part. The twist is an excellent one, and one possibly inspired by the real life tragedy of actress Gene Tierny, and while the clues are subtle, they are there.

Marple, as she was in A Caribbean Mystery, is a delight, and the various characters within do maintain some interest. Of particular note are central characters actress Marina Gregg and Dermot Craddock, who is a competent police officer trying to unravel the situation. But other characters don't make as much of an impression, and while much is made about Badcock's character (or lack thereof), some characters range from the average to the annoyingly shrill (Miss Knight being firmly in the latter).

This book is the best I have read of the Miss Marple series, and certainly a fine example of Christie's writing. Not perfect, but a good read nonetheless.


9/10

First words: Miss Jane Marple was sitting by her window.

Last words: (Not recorded due to spoilers.)

Book 32...

REVIEW: Half-Sick of Shadows by David Logan


Having read one winner of the Terry Pratchett Prize, Michael Logan's Apocalypse Cow, and found wanting, I decided to try the other winning entry, Half-Sick of Shadows. I had already gained the impression that it was a very different beast to its zombie apocalypse co-winner, but I wondered whether it would be as good, or even better. Time, and reading the book, would only tell...

The Manse: an isolated house in the middle of nowhere, home to the strange Pike family. Edward and Sophia are twins, inseparable, but all that begins to change starting from the day before Granny Hazel is buried. A stranger in a Morris Minor turns up, and asks the five-year-old Edward to be his friend, before leaving in the car that he claims to be a time machine. Not long afterwards, Edward is packed off to boarding school, while Sophia has been told by her father never to leave the Manse, or else she will be cursed. A strange tale unfolds involving life, the universe, and a strange boy known as Alf whose destiny, and that of the twins, may very well be intertwined...

Half-Sick of Shadows is of the same quality as Apocalypse Cow, but for very different reasons. This book is a far more intelligently conceived and written book than Apocalypse Cow, a bildungsroman (or coming of age story) set in the strangest of places. There is something darkly lyrical and even a little magical about the prose, which is a pity, as the story itself doesn't seem to have a point. I dunno whether it's because of my style of reading, or because the clues were too obscure, but I couldn't make too much sense of the ending at all. I get the feeling that David Logan is a fan of David Lynch's work, as this feels like a Lynch film. The connection with parallel universes as required by the rules of the competition is, while intriguing, not fully fleshed out, or at least not explained to my satisfaction. Apocalypse Cow, while not as intelligently written, was more entertaining.

Unlike Apocalypse Cow, the characters feel better fleshed out and less cartoony. Even with the lack of explanation I felt was in the story, one could still believe that they had lives inbetween incidents on the page. Edward is an intriguing protagonist, and the enigmatic Alf, while not quite explained, is still an interesting character all the same. I feel that the residents of the Manse are rather f***ed up, though, feeling like extras from a Stephen King novel made normal.

Half-Sick of Shadows is as good as Apocalypse Cow, albeit for very different reasons. While I give them the same score, I would prefer Apocalypse Cow in terms of sheer, unadulterated entertainment value.


8.5/10

First words: Before the beginning: nothing.

Last words: Dead silence.

The next book will probably be Doctor Who: Love and War by Paul Cornell...

Book 33...

REVIEW: Doctor Who: Love and War by Paul Cornell


Before he came to write for the TV series' revival, Paul Cornell wrote multiple Doctor Who novels in the spinoffs published by Virgin Publishing and BBC Books. I have read all of the actual Doctor Who books, save for one. It was a story pivotal to the mythology of the series, as it wrote out Ace, and wrote in the first original companion in the New Adventures, Professor Bernice Summerfield. And now, finally, I have come to it: Love and War...

This is the story of Heaven, a planet between the empires of Earth and Draconia in the 26th century, a beautiful planet designated as a memorial and graveyard world for these empires as they fight against the Daleks. This is the story of Professor Bernice Summerfield, excavating ruins on Heaven, as she meets the two people her destiny will be forever intertwined with: a time-travelling alien known as the Doctor, and his 20th century human companion known as Ace. Arriving on Heaven, supposedly to examine a book contained at a library, the Doctor is nonetheless strangely disapproving, even hostile, when Ace falls in with the nomadic Travellers, and begins to fall for one of their number, the pyrokinetic Jan. An evil force has infiltrated Heaven through the Church of the Vacuum, and already, it may be too late to stop. But the Doctor is still going to try. This is the story of how the Doctor lost the faith of one companion, but gained a new one. This is the story of how Ace left the Doctor in the worst possible circumstances...

What can I say? This is a story so pivotal to the mythos of the Doctor Who Expanded Universe. We have Ace departing (and under very bad circumstances), a new companion, the later extremely popular Bernice Summerfield, and one of the greatest threats in the series' history, regardless of whether it is in the main series proper or not. It's a relatively simple plot, but an ultimately thrilling and thought-provoking one, showing the Doctor at last going way too far in his manipulations, and paying the price.

The Doctor and Ace feel like they came out of TV, and we have here the Doctor struggling not only with his darker urges, but also an unknown infection that forms part of a larger storyline resolved later. And we have Ace finally having enough of his manipulations, and fleeing him. Bernice Summerfield has a good introduction, as a more mature, sardonic character. The other characters have their function, but feel just real enough to work. I wish there was just a bit more to them, but otherwise, everything works out well. The Hoothi are a credible, horrific menace, and one of the most grotesque monsters to ever be born from the series.

Love and War, then, joins a hallowed group of reviewed books. It is now the ninth book to receive a perfect score, alongside A Game of Thrones and the first volume of the graphic novel adaptation, the Doctor Who books The Ancestor Cell and The Quantum Archangel, The Shining, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, a volume of the manga Monster, and Terry Pratchett's I Shall Wear Midnight. It should be read by every Whovian. That's all.


10/10

First words: Two birds circled each other in the sky above the Lincolnshire marshes.

Last words: Long ago in an English autumn

Make that ten perfect books. I forgot to add the eight volume of Transmetropolitan. I may have missed others...

Book 34...

REVIEW: The Sandman, volume 9: The Kindly Ones by Neil Gaiman et al


Having made it my mission to try and finish The Sandman series, I come to the penultimate, and perhaps most important volume of all, The Kindly Ones. Despite the name, it's a rather dark adventure that all but brings a close to the saga of The Sandman. But does it make for a good story? Or should the Furies rip this one to shreds?

Hippolyta 'Lyta' Hall, formerly the superheroine Fury, has a grudge against Dream of the Endless. She believes, falsely, that he killed her husband, and his declaration that her child belonged to the Dreaming didn't help matters. So when Daniel Hall goes missing, Lyta believes the worst: that Dream has not only taken her son, but murdered him. But the truth is very different: determined to wreak havoc on Dream for the debt Dream imposed on him, Loki, assisted by the murderous fae Robin Goodfellow, has kidnapped the child. Lyta, suffering from a complete breakdown, seeks out the help of the Kindly Ones, the Furies. And the Furies have designs on Dream for mercy-killing his son. The Dreaming will be torn down, uncertainty will reign, and Morpheus, Dream of the Endless, will be forced to make a terrible decision. Except this may be a decision he made a long time ago...

After all the previous volumes of The Sandman, it feels like almost everything else was a set-up to this point. The Kindly Ones is an epic, and this is far from an exaggeration. The vast majority of characters who have appeared thus far in the series come back, and we see where threads of stories from the past have come together in this present. This is the story of Morpheus' downfall, a downfall he may very well have intended. It is a heartrending tragedy of two characters in particular, Morpheus, and Lyta Hall. And the ending, and its aftermath, is shocking, but satisfying, and while it leaves things in the air, it could well have served as a good conclusion to the series.

Morpheus is as himself, but he shows that he is aware of his changing nature. His actions and the hints that he may have set this, consciously or not, into motion, help make his end all the more tragic. So too is Lyta Hall, who, while paranoid and very much insane, is nonetheless an extremely sympathetic antagonist, even when she enlists the help of the Furies. The Furies themselves (aka the titular Kindly Ones) are an intriguing variation on the triple goddess who made regular appearances throughout the series. To list the other characters who make great appearances would mean being here a long time, but they all do things to perfection. The artwork is rather strange, and even childish in a manner, but somehow, it works.

The Kindly Ones was something I wasn't expecting, or rather, I wasn't expecting it to be as perfect as it was, so soon after I gave another book a perfect score. The Kindly Ones, then, becomes the eleventh book to get a perfect score. Good on you, Neil Gaiman. You deserve it.


10/10

First words: There's a dream in which huge faceless women with wolves astride them are chewing at my entrails and legs.

Last words: It is done.

Sorry, twelve books that have a perfect score, or at least that I can recall. So, the perfect score books are:

Doctor Who: The Ancestor Cell by Stephen Cole and Peter Anghelides

Doctor Who: The Quantum Archangel by Craig Hinton

Doctor Who: Shada by Gareth Roberts, from the scripts by Douglas Adams

Doctor Who: Love and War by Paul Cornell

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by JK Rowling

The Shining by Stephen King

Monster, volume 4 by Naoki Urasawa

Transmetropolitan, volume 8: Dirge by Warren Ellis et al

A Game of Thrones by George RR Martin

A Game of Thrones: The Graphic Novel, volume 1, adapted from the novel by George RR Martin

I Shall Wear Midnight by Terry Pratchett

And now, The Sandman, volume 9: The Kindly Ones by Neil Gaiman et al

Book 35...

REVIEW: Doctor Who: Theatre of War by Justin Richards


And now, for the latest Doctor Who book to be reviewed for this book-reading blog. I can't think of any pithy introductions for it, to be perfectly honest, so let's skip the introductions for now. Save for that it mixes Hamlet, an interstellar war, a vast collection, and mud...

Menaxus: site of a long-dead civilization who seemed to be obsessed with the theatre. Five years ago, an archaeological expedition sponsored by the theatre-obsessed totalitarian regime of Heletia went there, but only one person, Professor Lannic, escaped. Now, as the war between the Heletians and Rippareans gets even more violent, Lannic prepares to return, sponsored by the Braxiatel Collection. Bernice Summerfield joins the expedition. But the expedition gets into trouble, and with a threat in the dark and the war getting closer to Menaxus, she summons the Doctor and Ace. There, in the mud of a dead world, they must find the secret behind the theatre before it kills them all...

This New Adventures book is a rather straightforward one. The plot is intriguing, but rather average by my standards. And it feels like two plots were bolted together, albeit in a fairly good manner. The concepts explored are good, but the story itself feels rather average in the end.

The Doctor and Bernice are good, though it feels like Ace has regressed somewhat to a more teenage level rather than the woman she has become by this point in the series. Braxiatel is an intriguing creation, a master manipulator equal to the Doctor, but the other characters, with the exception of the childish Exec of Heletia, are not as good.

Theatre of War, then, is of average standard compared to the other New Adventures. Not bad, not excellent, just good.


8.5/10

First words: The history of Menaxus took forty-three solar days to invent and, like all good lies, are grounded in truth.

Last words: 'I was just paying homage to a great poet and playwright.'