The Death of Art by: Simon Bucher-Jones - A Re-Review

There is often a reason as to why I decide to give a novel a second look and a second chance at review.  Often it’s because I’ve heard other’s opinions and perhaps felt I was a bit too harsh or the review perhaps wasn’t one of my best pieces of writing, but this time we have a re-review that is something different.  The Death of Art is the fifty-fourth New Adventure and the only New Adventure by one Simon Bucher-Jones and as far as I know the only book review of mine which has been seen by the author himself, so hi Simon, I hope you’re reading and if you don’t like this I can look forward to some excellent remarks about envy, my male member, and my perceived age from your followers.  Yes, The Death of Art is the only review where I actually got quite a bit of pushback, and with a low, low score of a 2/10 equivalent and a continuous accidental referral to the author as Butcher-Jones, I understand where the negative feeling comes from.  On reread, the author would be at least happy to know that I have found more to appreciate in The Death of Art even if the book on the whole is still incredibly flawed.  Bucher-Jones’s first novel’s largest issue is a writing style which is not only incredibly dense, but includes a story that perhaps isn’t suited to Doctor Who.  Often it is said that the Seventh Doctor is one who while not always being in the foreground has an always felt presence, and The Death of Art’s greatest misstep is failing to do this.  The Doctor is not present for much of the early portions of the novel and it really isn’t until the second half of the book where it actually feels like this is a Doctor Who book.

The dense style Bucher-Jones executes in The Death of Art gives the early portions of the novel an especially difficult pace, not helped by certain diversions in the plot which really don’t move things around.  The novel opens with a “Chapter 0” that is essentially a prologue in everything but name, and that chapter could easily be cut without losing anything.  Bucher-Jones’ book at its core is a mystery, but the actual mystery doesn’t have a real inciting incident until about 50 or 60 pages into the 276-page novel.  Once the mystery actually begins the writing style becomes more suitable to what the story is trying to do, reflecting mystery stories of the 1800s such as Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes and Edgar Allan Poe’s Murders in the Rue Morgue.  The setting of the novel is Victorian Paris which becomes incredibly evocative for the mysterious goings on with the Brotherhood of Imminent Flesh and a bridge in the Psi Powers arc of the book.  Bucher-Jones straddles two main villainous groups throughout the book, the Family and the Quoth.  The Quoth (as in quoth the raven nevermore) are one of those very New Adventures races with almighty power and their own dimensional plane of existence.  They are the weaker villains, being evocative in places of Ben Aaronovitch’s People from The Also People, done poorly.  Had Bucher-Jones cut the scenes in Quoth space perhaps he could have used them in a more Lovecraftian, cosmic horror sense, being an indescribable race trying to break into the universe proper.

The Family on the other hand work well as a threat, with Montague acting as the man in charge.  He is a toymaker who displays psychic powers, as many of the villains and supporting characters in this arc, and has become influenced by the Quoth.  Bucher-Jones writes an unsettling villain here and the rest of the Family and members of the Brotherhood are excellent.  The Shadow Directory is also an evocative aspect of the story though sadly not used to full effect here.  The Doctor and Chris also feel in their element as they investigate the mysterious goings on in Paris, revealed to be several instances of murder and conspiracy as the story goes on.  Roz sadly seems to fall into a more cliché portrayal here, with her plot of being kidnapped and shoved into the catacombs of Paris where she meets a blind man just feels out of place.  Overall, The Death of Art while definitely better than I initially gave it credit for, shows potential for Simon Bucher-Jones as an author but is utterly skippable and wedged between two greats (Return of the Living Dad and Damaged Goods). 4/10.