The Also People by: Ben Aaronovitch: Four Drunks and a Murderer

I gave Ben Aaronovitch’s first Virgin New Adventure, Transit, a 30/100 saying just how bad of a novel writer he seemed to be, especially in the way he handled his characters.  It then becomes odd when you realize that his second Virgin New Adventure, The Also People, is a novel that is extremely light on plot and is completely devoted to fleshing out the characters of the Doctor, Benny, Chris and Roz in the frame of your classic murder mystery which really is just the background for most of the story.  With the track record of Transit’s characters being extremely unlikable, you would think that The Also People wouldn’t work as a story, but this is a real return to form for Aaronovitch who returns to the writer we saw in Remembrance of the Daleks and Battlefield which honestly makes this novel just work.

 

The plot of the story picks up right where Head Games left off with the fallout between the Doctor and his companions brings them to the Worldsphere for a vacation where they eventually get embroiled in a murder mystery.  That is the outline for the entire novel of The Also People and on the surface it shouldn’t really work as a story, but because of how Aaronovitch writes everything to be so enticing, it becomes one of the best Virgin New Adventures out there with some concepts that really come across well and even more adult content that Aaronovitch actually writes well.  I’m going to get the supporting characters out of the way first as none of them are human.  The cast is made up of a race of artificial intelligence known as the People who are watched over by God who on this planet is another piece of artificial intelligence.  They all come across as truly alien beings which is extremely difficult to pull off which is emphasized by their interactions with Benny, Chris and Roz.  Chris and Roz in particular as they both get respective lovers in this novel which has love scenes done really well.  It isn’t pornographic as taking the route of Love and War handles the sexual elements by explaining what the characters are feeling and not trying to make you feel stimulated in a sexual way.  I’m not going to go into the supporting cast individually as while they do have extremely different character, Aaronovitch doesn’t make it easy to type their names with random capital letters and punctuation marks denoting the weird grammar of this novel.

 

I’m instead going to take a minute to reflect on the main cast as it is extremely important to notice just how much the characters have grown.  Let’s begin with the Doctor who after the events of Head Games has realized that his duties as Time’s Champion should be over and he needs to start respecting his companions more to make their own decisions.  The problem is that he has embodied Time’s Champion for such a long time he isn’t able to become the Doctor again which is a terrifying implication that doesn’t bode well for the Eighth Doctor.  He wants to allow Benny to make her own decisions, but ends up almost accidentally manipulating her into saving Kadiatu, who has completely gone mad after the events of Set Piece which just terrifies him to pieces.  He has an interesting stance on Chris who it is subtly implied that they are of the same feather as the Doctor wants to have the naivety of the young Adjudicator.  Roz actually scares him more as he finds her to be the soldier who while not always agreeing with him, doesn’t question him which scares the Doctor to no end.  Aaronovitch uses The Also People to have the third person omniscient narration get into the head of the Doctor which is great.  There is some great imagery which can be seen on the cover which makes the novel as a whole feel like it is written by Douglas Adams.

 

Benny is handled much better in The Also People when compared to Transit as here she is allowed to be her usual character.  Her interactions on the Worldsphere with the People are interesting as she just uses this as a vacation which of course means to get drunk and have a good time.  She eventually gets to have more to do which is good as she tries to keep Kadiatu sane for the second half of the novel is great.  There is also a chapter devoted to her dream where she, a Dalek, a Cyberman and a Sontaran called Grinx have a philosophical debate which is just hilarious to read and serves as another example of Douglas Adamsian humor which just works for the novel.  This also gives a great segue into Kadiatu Lethebridge-Stewart who really doesn’t appear much in the story, but when she does she works as a foil for Benny.  She has gone insane, but is allowed to change over the course of the story and become a female version of the Doctor, travelling time much like Ace had in the end.

 

Chris actually gets to have some of his best material as he expresses just how childlike he actually is.  He finds travelling with the Doctor amazing for just how imaginative the universe is.  His bedroom in the house they stay in actually floats around according to his brain patterns allowing for his imagination to run wild.  He gets to have a sexual relationship with one of the People obsessed with airplanes who serves to make him feel better after the events of Head Games.  It is really difficult to describe the portions of the book dedicated to Chris without giving away some of the funniest scenes that come from the novel.  Roz on the other hand doesn’t get much time in the novel, but when she gets the focused it is done extremely well to explore her past.  She is ashamed of her middle name, but not of her heritage.  She had an affair with Martel before his death which the novel explores and her scenes with Benny are just hilarious.

 

To summarize, The Also People really should be adapted for audio, but without anything dumbed down for the adaptation process.  I could easily see Ben Aaronovitch himself, Andrew Cartmel or even John Dorney adapt it into the form.  100/100