Tempest by: Christopher Bulis

 

It seems like whenever I look at something by Christopher Bulis there is a tendency to open discussing how hit or miss he is as a writer.  When it comes to Doctor Who books, it is telling that when writing he would often contribute more often to the range that celebrates previous Doctors instead of contributing to the ongoing story post-Survival.  He contributed Shadowmind to the Virgin New Adventures and Vanderdeken’s Children to the Eighth Doctor Adventures, but outside of those two, his Doctor Who work is all pre-Seventh Doctor.  The surprise came with Tempest, the tenth novel in the Bernice Summerfield era of the New Adventures, was from Bulis which represents an interesting opportunity.  This is an opportunity to write something that really isn’t a Doctor Who story.  The Benny books by this point have made themselves clearly distinct from Doctor Who despite recurring elements, Benny is her own character with her own motivations and sense of morality.  Bulis takes this in an interesting direction, using it to tell essentially a standalone science fiction story, not contributing to a lot of the story arc elements that have been brewing in the Benny books up to this point, which isn’t a bad thing.  Not every book needs to be a big story arc player and this particular novel is one that definitely is helped by not doing that.

 

Tempest is primarily a pastiche of Agatha Christie novels, specifically Murder on the Orient Express, but done with Benny’s particular brand of humor which is a wonderful twist for much of the novel.  It’s a book where you kind of already know what you are going to get if you have read any of Christie’s work.  Now, Bulis does include what feels like a lengthy prologue encompassing much of the first third or so of the novel and instead of an outright murder based on revenge like Murder on the Orient Express, Tempest focuses on a robbery where things eventually turn to murder.  Bulis is also aware of the ending of Murder on the Orient Express and is clear that that is not going to be at all what the book is going to be giving you.  This is a mystery which has some decent red herrings and a twist that does manage to subvert expectations when it is eventually revealed who is responsible for the murder and the theft.  The item of the robbery is something that all the characters have this tendency to discuss, but reading there isn’t really a good explanation of what it is and why people want it.  There’s a lot more about the planet Tempest, which like the name implies is one ravaged by storms, squalls, and hail.  The train setting is fun and it gives Benny a group of characters to play detective with, however, those characters aren’t actually all that interesting.  Bulis makes them all one note portrayals to serve the mystery and pastiches of some of Agatha Christie’s well known characters or the public perception of Agatha Christie characters.

 

Overall, Tempest is actually a lot of fun to read, but is a story that doesn’t go to many depths.  It’s very much a popcorn style novel with a nice little murder mystery at its heart with some robbery elements to make it a little more distinct from a regular murder mystery, and Benny at the center of everything is such a very nice thing.  This is just a book from a writer who does something fun and solid but not amazing.  7/10.