So Vile a Sin
is a novel about war. It presents just
how horrible the Brotherhood are, how they are connected to the Forrester
family, and how Roz Forrester loses her life saving the universe. Yes this is the end of Roz and much like the
end of Earthshock, we don’t see Roz
actually die. There’s the final charge
and you know, she is gone and the Doctor cannot get her back. The final fifty pages or so of the novel deal
with the aftermath unlike Time-Flight. Benny is called in and we get diary entries
about what happened. Chris loses it as
he’s lost his best friend and the Doctor doesn’t know how to react to
everything going on around him, going so far into depression that Kadiatu
Lethebridge-Stewart has to snap him out of it.
Benny tries to cope while Jason is there to help her through it. Roz’s family is an interesting beast as they
of course are sad, but had her genetic material cloned into a sort of niece who
in the story serves as sort of a legacy to the dead companion.
The novel is a very
serious affair, but Aaronovitch and Orman bring in characters from SLEEPY and Transit to lighten the mood somewhat which is at least humorous, if
it really doesn’t serve much of a purpose except to give some light onto those
characters. Really this story is about
Roz growing up completely to face the consequences of her actions and her
family which is done really well as Orman is excellent at writing character
drama. The conflict is caused by the
Empress of the Earth Empire who is a slave to a computer and a puppet to the Brotherhood. The war has just as many instances of horror
as Just War. We are introduced to Leabie Forrester, Roz’s
sister whom she doesn’t get along well with.
Roz has always been presented as a rebel but in the novel we see just
how much of a rebel she actually is with her family as they wished her to
become a priestess, but she became an Adjudicator instead. It’s an interesting way of doing a character
arc as you have Roz who is a strong character, but her sister is even more
interesting. Leabie is just as difficult
as the Doctor when it comes to master plans as she has her own ambitions as she
is an aristocrat.
To summarize, So Vile a Sin is a very good book with
most of its problems coming down to the fact there are two very different
writers attempting to write the same story.
The plot is very scattered and the arc really doesn’t get a conclusion,
but we do get to say goodbye to a great companion. I’m still very glad this novel was able to be
published and I can recommend it for these reasons but it is only worth 70/100.
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