The idea of writing a sequel to The Shining is a
dangerous gamble, even if it’s coming from Stephen King himself. The Shining is a story rooted in
addiction and a man trying and failing to overcome it, with a last minute
redemption at the end leaving the story of Jack Torrance closed. Jack is dead at the end of The Shining:
he died by fire when the Overlook Hotel’s boiler exploded defeating the ghosts
that haunt the building. This is a
closed plotline and King understands that death is a part of a story that should
rarely be undone. But, in 2013, King
released Doctor Sleep which proudly bears the tagline ‘a sequel to The
Shining’ on its cover and took a risk with the story he wished to tell and
the ending he wished to undo. King softened
the gamble by making Doctor Sleep follow different themes and characters
than The Shining, with the only returning character being an adult Dan
Torrance, living his life and trying to overcome the shadows of his own
path. The novel opens right at the end
of The Shining, with an extended prologue which shows Danny grow up and lock
the ghosts away that won’t leave him alone while Wendy Torrance tries her best
and Dick Halloran serves as a father figure to the poor boy.
At its heart, Doctor Sleep is a story of
breaking the cycle of addiction. It
doesn’t take long for Dan Torrance to fall into the alcoholism that plagued his
family, and like his father it nearly ruins him. Much of the first half of the novel is about
how he finds the right place and a healthy way to get sober and stay
sober. Like his father in The Shining,
there is a moment that scares him, but this time it isn’t death. It’s the potential ruining of a child’s life
due to a one-night stand where his hookup stole his money for cocaine and Dan
was going to steal it back, but a child coming in at the last minute doesn’t
stop him. This child makes him pause,
only for a moment, but it is enough to haunt the man for much of the rest of
the novel. Dan’s journey to sobriety,
like Jack’s fall, is an autobiographical element put into writing, just as blatant
as King’s other work and perhaps a bit distracting, but not enough to make it
unbearable. It makes Doctor Sleep a
personal book for King and that personal connection makes it incredibly
readable. Dan Torrance is a character
who the reader becomes endeared to as he’s already gone through hell and there’s
further hell waiting for him.
Dan earns the name Doctor Sleep once he settles down and
works through addiction through Alcoholics Anonymous. He uses his shining to help people in hospice
move on as a janitor/orderly, with a cat who allows him to see who is at death’s
door. He provides comfort to those ready
to depart. This is all in preparation
for his true purpose, to be a teacher, as Dick was to him, to another who
shines. Doctor Sleep is also a
book all about Abra Stone, who we follow from birth. Abra shines like Dan, but is much stronger and
spent more time honing her powers. She
communicates with Dan several times, making him and Tony her own imaginary friend. She also has a darker side, feeling several
other children who can shine be killed.
As much as Doctor Sleep is a novel about redemption, it is a
coming of age story for Abra, though going for a more student/teacher flair then
King’s usual work with that type of story.
Abra isn’t the normal social outcast like many of King’s child
characters, but embodies perfectly that feeling of being misunderstood by one’s
parents and almost a normal amount of growing up. Sure there is a reveal later in the book
which feels a bit forced and a bit too coincidental, when King meant it to be
sweet, but it undercuts a message of being able to break the cycle right in the
epilogue to the book.
King’s villains of Doctor Sleep are the True
Knot, a group of psychic vampires who feed on children who can shine, living
off their ‘steam’ to keep themselves young.
They are like an evil carnival of what King calls ‘RV folk’: incredibly
rich and riding across the country in campers, never really being noticed. Many of the members of the Knot are one-dimensional,
getting a backstory and some good lines and scenes, but not much else. The leader, Rose the Hat, is the exception to
the rule, as she is an incredible villain.
She embodies the ruthless leader, going towards her goals and having no qualms
about killing, but an Irish charm about her.
When she offers people to join the Knot, King writes her as an excellent
seductress, not in any sort of sexual way mind you, but this way that makes you
trust her. They also do horrible things
to children which are described in detail, yet Rose still seems sympathetic. She shouldn’t, she really shouldn’t but she
does. Overall, Doctor Sleep isn’t
The Shining. It isn’t on the same
level of storytelling (it’s not really a horror story though there are horror
elements), but it’s still a worthwhile read from King and a book I’d happily
recommend. 8/10.
Mixing science fiction and fantasy are of course
genres that have always been closely linked to one another and mix often. Doctor Who as a concept easily mixes fantasy
concepts with the science fiction genre with time travel and several plot
concepts that really only work with the idea of a soft fantasy magic system in
mind. The Daemons of course
follows Clarke’s Law closely, however, often the show setting out to write a
fantasy story seems to fail. The largest
example of this is the much maligned (and rightly so) Cat’s Cradle: Witch
Mark. It becomes surprising then
that David A. McIntee, an author known for either doing historicals such as White
Darkness and Sanctuary, or era tributes such as The Dark Path
and The Face of the Enemy, would write Autumn Mist. Autumn Mist is the twenty-fourth Eighth
Doctor Adventure and the penultimate story to feature companion Samantha Jones,
and after about fifty pages is something completely different from McIntee’s
usual style of novel. The book begins
like one would expect from McIntee: The Doctor, Sam, and Fitz arrive in Belgium
on 15 December 1944, the day before the Battle of the Bulge began and right in
the middle of Allies and Nazis. This is
conflict enough for the characters to interact with, especially with Fitz
having to masquerade as a Nazi due to confusion, and Sam appearing to have died
sending the Doctor into a depressive spiral.
McIntee sets up enough material to easily fill a novel
with a pure historical, one that may rival Sanctuary for the emotions it
draws from the reader, but Autumn Mist introduces a group of
extradimensional beings who have been living in eleven dimensions in harmony
with humanity for the most part since the beginning of time. The Sidhe are explained by McIntee as the
origin of legends of the fae and fae-like entities around the world, and their
inclusion as the driving force behind the plot gives Autumn Mist a
mythologic feel. This group of Sidhe are
ruled by Oberon and Titania who represent chaos and order, respectively, and
the Nazi forces have been breaking into their dimensions causing them to fight
back and retrieve Sam from her destruction.
Sam interacting with the Sidhe is incredibly interesting as they
interfere with her biodata once again, effectively adding a little bit of themselves
into her. Their attitude towards the
Doctor is interesting as he is given the moniker ‘the Evergreen Man’. This title alludes to the mythological story
of the Green Man, a protector of nature and representative of rebirth and
spring. McIntee uses this to reflect on
the differences between the Seventh and Eighth Doctors in the novel, which
ultimately falls flat as it is incredibly subtle. The only confirmation is one line near the
end of the novel which could easily be overlooked or thought of as accidental. Sam’s experiences also lead her to demand the
Doctor and Fitz to take her home, she’s done travelling and essentially leading
into Lawrence Miles’ two-part epic Interference.
Autumn Mist
suffers from some tonal dissonance, however, as the dark and gritty tone of the
World War II segments don’t really carry over into the Sidhe sections of the
novel whose tone is basically a serious A Midsummer Night’s Dream. This causes much of the novel to feel
incredibly disjointed in its construction and needing of some rewrites and
reworking to really come together. The
easiest fix would be to make the Sidhe sections of the novel darker and more in
line with the earlier sections of the book, especially as they are introduced
early on as mysterious and dangerous from the prologue until they actually
appear in the open. McIntee’s prose is
suited to a darker tone, but as it stands Autumn Mist is a book whose
disjointed nature makes it an often overlooked or even derided novel in fan circles
which is a shame. There are many things
to like about Autumn Mist, not enough as it stands to make it stand out
as one of McIntee’s good novels, but enough to at least make it a little
interesting to read and a book where the reader’s mileage will vary
overall. It does just about as many
things right as it does things wrong.
5/10.
The fourteen-book epic fantasy The Wheel of Time
was published from 1990 to 2013 and written by Robert Jordan (real name James
Oliver Rigney Jr). Jordan’s career as a
published author, however, began in 1980 with Tor Books under the pen name
Reagan O’Neal with a trilogy of historical fiction novels and initially rose to
prominence with a series of novels based on Robert E. Howard’s Conan the Barbarian,
but it wouldn’t be until October 2019, over a decade after his passing, that
his first novel would be published. Warrior
of the Altaii was written between 1977-1978, before Jordan had done any
work on what would become his magnum opus. Unlike many books that do not receive publication,
Warrior of the Altaii was not rejected because it was bad, it was rejected
due to issues in contracts, or just by making bad decisions. Publishing the book in 2019 with Jordan’s
widow and editor, Heather McDougal, in charge of the release of the novel
through Jordan’s publisher Tor Books. Going
into Warrior of the Altaii, readers shouldn’t be expecting the next
great epic from Robert Jordan. The book
is only 346 pages long, shorter than all but one installment in The Wheel of
Time (New Spring is shorter) and takes place in a completely
different world to the rest of Jordan’s work.
Warrior of the Altaii
is an incredibly interesting novel to read after being familiar with The Wheel
of Time as this novel has several precursors to Jordan’s magnum opus. There’s a sisterhood of magic users, the world
is dichotomized by gender, women in the role of power while men are the
warriors, and even a precursor to the ta’veren concept. There’s the attention to detail in the history
of the world, though nowhere near as deep as Jordan of a world as Jordan is famous
for. There never really was a feeling of
what this magic system could do, or if men could even use the magic at
all. There is a lot of development on
one city in this world, but the rest is left pretty blank to be honest. The villainous queen sisters Eilinn and Elana
reminded me of quite a few plot points used in The Great Hunt, readers
of that novel will know which ones I’m thinking of. The novel ends with a battle that only Jordan
could write, as he wrote so excellently in The Wheel of Time and
honestly Warrior of the Altaii feels like this may have been a point of
being the first installment in a series that never was.
Warrior of the Altaii is
through and through a novel from 1978 and an example of barbarian fantasy which
was popular at the time. Wulfgar, the
protagonist of this novel, refers to himself and is referred to as a barbarian at
several points through the novel. He is
the example of the strong leader in peak physical condition and laughs in the face
of danger, with plenty of women bowing at his feat. Yes, this book hasn’t been edited for
publishing in 2019, and is presented faithfully with all of its little
blemishes, but luckily Jordan manages to write something that is able to
overcome much of the releases at the time.
There are still the hints of the strong female representation and what Jordan
would do so well, but Warrior of the Altaii is one of those novels that
is intrinsically linked with pulp fiction.
I will also admit that this may be because barbarian fantasy is not a
genre I typically read, so if you are a fan of this genre you may get more out
of this. As it stands, Warrior of the
Altaii is an interesting read that as a first novel is definitely a good
novel, better than many other first attempts, and is of interest for fans of The
Wheel of Time in particular to see how Jordan’s style evolved. It is a great novel, if flawed by falling
into certain traps many first-time novels fall into. And yes I will review The Wheel of Time one day. 8/10.
To this point in the Past Doctor Adventures run, the
Seventh Doctor novels have been building their own idea of what Season 27 could
have been. The stories all feature the
Seventh Doctor and Ace, implied to be shortly after Survival with the
exception of The Hollow Men, and the books by Mike Tucker and Robert
Perry, coming from potential pitches to the BBC for television stories. Storm Harvest is the third novel from
this writing pair and of the three I have looked at thus far, it is the one
that most typically resembles a televised Doctor Who story. The novel is structured in a four-episode
structure, like the other works from Perry and Tucker, and concerns the Doctor
and Ace going on a holiday to the aquatic planet Coralee. Of course, the holiday takes a turn for the
worse when an archeological expedition uncovers the secret of an ancient
civilization on this leisure planet.
Much of the first half of the novel succeeds because of the archeological
expedition and some great worldbuilding from the authors. Perry and Tucker add to the mystery of Coralee
early on with the Doctor’s plot while Ace is processing the events of their
previous novel, Matrix. The
authors even include a footnote or two to explain where the characters are in
their relationship and why Ace is in need of a holiday at this point in her
life. There is this excellent idea of a
dark secret from the past that may be returning that works incredibly well to
ramp up the tension and give this novel the tone of a late 1980s action thriller.
Perry and Tucker also include talking dolphins, quite
a Douglas Adams style idea played entirely straight, as the talking dolphins
are from Earth and have become members of their own society. This isn’t the famous Hitchhiker’s Guide
to the Galaxy dolphins left the planet, but dolphins who have learned to
speak and function in human society which is just fascinating. It is a real shame that Perry and Tucker didn’t
spend much time to actually develop the dolphin society, leaving characters
like Q’lip in the background without a lot of development. There is an excellent character late in the
novel who turns out to be a sleeper agent for the invading alien Cythosi, which
use genetic modification and almost Slitheen-like skin suits to integrate their
sleeper agents. As a race, they are
essentially every late 1980s, early 1990s terrorist cell with an alien coating
which makes for some interesting storytelling throughout the book. They are an off-screen presence for much of
the early portions and it isn’t until the halfway point where any real threat reveals
itself. The real threat of Storm
Harvest are the Krill, a biologically engineered race of aquatic
killers. They are beautifully rendered
on the front cover, which for a 1999 Black Sheep cover has aged rather well,
partially due to the color scheme. The Krill
aren’t exactly mindless villains, but Perry and Tucker make them persistent
killers, consuming anything they come across, slashing people to ribbons, and providing
a great threat.
The biggest issue with Storm Harvest is that as
a novel this really is trapped by formatting.
Storm Harvest is a novel that would have felt much better if the
four-episode structure was paired down to three, like many of the Sylvester
McCoy stories on television excelled at. Yes that would have probably made this a
shorter Past Doctor Adventure, but there is a lot of padding here and the story
has the Battlefield problem of feeling like a three-part script expanded
out to four. This shouldn’t be a problem
as Perry and Tucker could have used the extra space for more character development,
as the side characters seem quite a bit underdeveloped. As it stands Storm Harvest is the
weakest of the three Perry and Tucker novels I have covered to date, but still manages
to be an enjoyable story. Seek this one
out if you are a fan of the action thriller genre and wish to see it with a
Doctor Who style twist, or were a fan of Mike Tucker’s 2001 Big Finish Production
Dust Breeding, which serves as a sequel to this. 7/10.
This review perhaps will be one that is shorter in
length than my usual fare and perhaps even one without a score. Today’s subject is Jeff Vandermeer’s 2014
science fiction novel Annihilation, the first installment in his Southern
Reach trilogy. Annihilation
is a novel where the writing style is perhaps the most interesting aspect of
the plot itself. The novel is presented
in first person limited narration from the perspective of a female biologist
who is part of the twelfth research team into Area X, an area closed to the
public for over thirty years, whose exploration is overseen by the Southern
Reach. Every previous expedition has
never come back or died soon after returning.
Vandermeer excels at writing a modern-day cosmic horror story, drawing heavily
from the story structure of H.P. Lovecraft.
The narrator throughout the novel speaks in the past tense and indicates
subtly that there is something not quite right about her experiences in Area X
and that she may not quite be the same person who entered the area. Vandermeer is a master at creating this real
sense of paranoia and uncertainty that the biologist is not a reliable narrator
or that the other characters are who they say they are.
There are only four characters who appear in the novel,
all women, all scientists, and all nameless.
The biologist, the surveyor, the anthropologist, and the psychologist
are the novel’s four players and over the short 200 pages of the book the
audience will see how Area X effects them.
From the outset there is a sense of mistrust, as the psychologist has
already put the members of the team under hypnotic suggestion. The Area’s flora and fauna are incredibly
dangerous and one major theme of Annihilation is the spiral into madness
that all four characters experience in their own way. In the works of H.P. Lovecraft, entering the
domain of a cosmic scale such as entering the incomprehensible Area X, breaks
them, leaving them insane and babbling.
The writing style reflects this aspect with an undercurrent of uncertainty
and complete mistrust. The background of
the biologist is expanded upon as within hours of her husband’s return from
Area X, their relationship breaks down and within half a year he has died from
cancer. The only thing certain about Area
X is that something is there, creatures that we can’t comprehend, and an effect
that leaves everyone broken.
Vandermeer asking so many questions really make Annihilation
a novel that is up to interpretation as to just what the events mean in the
greater context. It can be read as a
woman losing her mind or gaining enlightenment as interpersonal relationships
break down, which is the reading I am most inclined to, or as something completely
different. There is so much that is
uncertain that there’s even a possible reading of someone slowly descending
into hell. The tower/tunnel conflict is
fascinating and the manipulation almost makes the government it’s own higher
cosmic power. Overall, Annihilation
should be a must read, but one that you take slowly to understand just what it means,
or what it can mean. With a book like
this where there isn’t much that is where I leave you, no score.
By the end of the run of the Virgin New Adventures one
of the major complaints in fandom was that the books were relying too heavily
on long running arcs between books. The
Eighth Doctor Adventures, then, began as generally a series of standalone books
with the seeds of potential arcs appearing in Alien Bodies and Vampire
Science, before Longest Day formally began the series first actual
arc. This arc was resolved four books
later with Seeing I, which in turn set the seeds for the arc which comes
to the forefront with today’s book, Unnatural History. Unnatural History opens with perhaps
one of the best opening chapters in the history of Doctor Who novels and much
like Seeing I, Kate Orman and Jonathan Blum make you care for the
character of Samantha Jones who is living back in England in a very small room
on King’s Cross. And her hair is black. Yes, this is the novel which finally picks up
the idea of the dark haired version of Sam Jones who essentially embodies the
complexities and interesting story the character could have been. This dark-haired Sam could have easily fallen
into the trap of edge that such a damaged character often falls into, but Blum
and Orman avoid this by making her genuinely likable. She clearly is still the Sam that the
audience knows, looking for a cause, and attempting to prove herself, but she
has had the world around her constantly beat her down. She’s gone on drugs and spent her life trying
to distract herself, and is finally at a point where she has something in the
world when the Doctor enters her life.
The opening chapter is where the Doctor reconnects
with Sam, who disappeared from the TARDIS due to San Francisco in the year 2000
having physics break down and impossibilities are bleeding through. When the Doctor shows up Sam’s entire life is
immediately turned upside-down and Orman and Blum succeed at making the Eighth
Doctor come across as a broken man here.
His best friend up to this point doesn’t even know who he is anymore and
there’s a real sense that this almost breaks him. The Doctor doesn’t know how to convince this
new Sam to come with him to San Francisco where they can get to the bottom of
this mystery. Once the plot moves to San
Francisco, Orman and Blum prove once again why they are the best at writing the
Eighth Doctor as that childlike wonder is still there but understated. The Doctor is attempting to outsmart Faction
Paradox who finally rear their heads in this novel through a single agent running
around. The boy, as the character is
referred to, represents that type of lost soul that the greater organization preys
upon. The boy is completely psychotic and
is working in the background with the story’s greater villain to have access to
the Doctor’s own biodata, writing out the idea that the Doctor is half-human
(or is he no longer half-Time Lord?).
Things with the faction are left intentionally vague as Faction Paradox
feeds off misdirection and paradoxes to gain their odd powers.
Orman and Blum also explore some of the ideas laid
down in The Infinity Doctors by Lance Parkin with Professor Daniel Joyce
appearing here. Joyce is a professor
whose assistant is implied to be Larna from that novel and the idea behind the
scenes is this could be the Doctor’s “father”.
While this is left ambiguous intentionally it is an interesting idea as
the character only appears at a few points in the book, is married, and provides
something almost like comic relief for the characters. He’s the one who gives hints to the Doctor
and fatherly advice, being the only real evidence within the text unless you
know that in the Leekly Bible where the Doctor’s father was exiled Time Lord
Ulysses (Ulysses is the name of a novel by James Joyce). There won’t be dwelling on this, but the idea
is there and the character is excellent in helping heal the scar. Finally the character of Fitz Kreiner somehow
still manages to shine in a novel which is so heavily focused on the Doctor and
Sam. His experiences in Revolution
Man are slowly being overcome and this new Sam creates passions within him,
getting eerily close to acting on those passions. He is acting once again on his own as a
private detective and almost serves as a rock for the Doctor to rest upon. He deals with Kyra Skye, a medium in San
Francisco, who assists in finding where the tear is and how to close it. Fitz is a character who is putting everyone
else above himself. Overall, Unnatural
History is another instant classic from Orman and Blum and it’s honestly
surprising that this one doesn’t get talked about more often. 10/10.
