All-Consuming Fire by: Andy Lane - A Re-Review

Writing a second review to a novel often means that decisions have to be made to reflect changes I may have had on that novel, so it is odd when upon reread my thoughts on All-Consuming Fire have not changed much.  Already one of the best Virgin New Adventures, upon reread I find myself appreciating Lane’s style and story more than ever now that I have experienced much of the original Sherlock Holmes canon.  Lane takes careful steps to match the style of Arthur Conan Doyle from the way that all of the characters speak in almost exaggerated dialogue, and the plot being seen through the filter of Dr. John Watson who has compiled the reminiscences of the Case of the All-Consuming Fire.  Lane has captured the mannerisms of Holmes and Watson well, modeling them on the book characterizations for this novel and not the more traditional Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce portrayals.  The book is written in the way that it feels like it is part of Doyle’s original canon and not the Virgin New Adventures: it’s the missing fifth Sherlock Holmes novel that just happens to contain the Doctor, Benny, and Ace as major supporting characters.  The first thing Lane does in the novel to establish this firmly into the canon of Holmes by making one of the novel’s major villain’s Baron Maupertuis, who is mentioned in The Adventure of the Reigate Squire from The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes.

Maupertuis works very much in the same way as other Holmes villains: he is one that works in the background and the second half of the novel is spent tracking him down on the alien planet of Ry’leh.  He embodies the upper-class villain, misguided in his own beliefs even if his plan to steal books from the Library of St. John the Beheaded, the only person in history to do so.  This library is eventually what the Braxiatel Collection will partially grow from and creates a great setting for an inciting incident and to base an investigation.  Much of the outlandish points in the case, like many Holmes cases, can be explained rationally with the aid of science fiction technology that is not unreasonable to assume to be possible.  There are also several settings and characters which will be a treat to Holmes fans: the Diogenes Club, Mycroft Holmes, and Professor Moriarty all appear in this novel, Moriarty admitting that this is the first time he has met Holmes and foreshadowing The Final Problem nicely.

While the Doctor is still manipulative in All-Consuming Fire and his presence is felt in his absence, there is much more of a trickster spirit around him.  The Doctor here has some idea what is going on and is clearly delighting in outsmarting the Sherlock Holmes at several points in the book.  He spends his time on the sidelines where he can direct the events and push things into what he thinks are the right direction.  He has sent Benny and Ace ahead to India and Ry’leh respectively, meaning that the main trio of Holmes, Watson, and the Doctor drives much of the book.  Once Benny appears in the narrative, she integrates herself incredibly well and even gets her own adventure with Watson.  Lane sidelines Ace for even more of the novel which actually makes her harsher characterization hit softer than other novels where she suffers from this.  There are also twists and turns around every corner making the book one of the best of the VNAs mainly because of how unconventional, yet simple the story is.  It owes a great deal not only to Doyle, but also to H.P. Lovecraft who inspires the villains.  Steven Moffat clearly has read this as Extremis draws quite a few ideas from here.  It’s highly recommended to Who and Holmes fans alike. 10/10.

Mistborn: The Alloy of Law by: Brandon Sanderson

Writing a time skip in your series is a very difficult thing to do accurately and can be done either one of two ways.  First, you can make it a short skip so you can keep the same characters who are now older and more experienced or second, you can make it a large skip and keep the same world, but introduce a whole new set of characters.  In continuing Mistborn, Brandon Sanderson goes with the latter approach, jumping forward three centuries and introducing an entirely new cast of characters in The Alloy of Law.  The existence of this novel is interesting as Sanderson never intended the second era of Mistborn to be this early in the timeline, instead wishing for what is now to be known as Era Three.  The book was written to be a transitory novel and as such does not like the first book in a series, but a complete standalone tale.  As such it’s a much shorter novel than the initial trilogy, only coming in at about 380 pages and providing a relatively quick read.  Sanderson makes the correct decision to introduce a smaller cast of characters and play in the sandbox of an idealized Wild West version of Scadriel before wrapping things up in enough of a bow that the next era of Mistborn could begin straight away.  Of course, this isn’t how it turned out as The Alloy of Law begins Mistborn Era Two which has already published three volumes, with a fourth coming at some point in the future (probably 2021).

The Wild West theme in this novel is taken to full effect as Scadriel has become industrialized, much further than it was in the original trilogy.  There are early automobiles and trains, and a police force not unlike the Victorian police as Sanderson sets things up, while the main characters don’t represent cowboys so much as lawmen.  Both main characters use guns, something that Sanderson clearly has thought about how it would work with Allomancy and Feruchemy working together.  There’s a decent portion where the main characters are receiving special guns which allows Sanderson to go hard on explaining how this technology works with the magic system he has in place.  Hemallurgy seems to be one part of the magic system which has been forgotten or at least left in the past with the new technology.  There are also trains, the trains are fun and oddly just work in with the setting incredibly well.  It’s impossible to deny that Sanderson’s setting is one of a romanticized Wild West: there is an unspoken code of chivalry and the tropes of a Wild West story are played around with throughout the novel.  If you’re looking for realism, this isn’t the book for you, but if you’re looking for an escape into a fun fantasy pastiche of the Wild West, this may be the book for you.  The plot of The Alloy of Law is a fairly standard hero kidnaps a damsel in distress tale of this type of Wild West story, but Sanderson does make up for the lack of depth in introducing some really fun characters.

Sanderson introduces a double act of main characters who bounce off each other brilliantly.  First is Waxillium Ladrian, the main point of view character, and the one with the most focus throughout the book.  The prologue sets Wax up as a lawman in grief over a lost love being forced to marry due to his status as a lord, his fiancé becoming the victim of a kidnapping by a band of Allomantic robbers.  He’s the straight man of the pair, with a dry way of speaking and a distant personality, affected greatly by the grief of losing his love.  He’s also a character who is restraining himself to fit into society, hiding a more adventurous nature and an itching to see justice served to evildoers.  He is the heir to his royal house and doesn’t really know what to do with that information.  Wayne is the other half of the pair and he is straight comedy.  Lovable rogue comes to mind when discussing Wayne, but he’s a bit more than that.  He’s a master of disguise, adopting several throughout the novel to Wax’s own chagrin.  He’s also kind of a criminal and general bad influence, but Sanderson gives him such charm that everything works really well.  Both characters are Twinborn, a new kind of magic user on Scadriel, essentially Mistings which can use one Feruchemical talent, creating new and interesting combinations of power sets.  The Alloy of Law is not a book where the godlike strength of Vin, Elend, and Sazed is present, instead opting for people who are skilled, but still regular people.  Wax’s fiancé is really the weaker character: Steris is a proper lady and that’s really it.  She’s the damsel, the thing for Wax and Wayne to reluctantly save (they aren’t really in love, both are just marrying for power).  The marriage contract is interesting and at least on the surface not predatory.  Her illegitimate sister Marasi is much more interesting and works really well with Wax and Wayne.  Not romantically, but just as a group of three misfits attempting to save the day.  Sure she’s really insecure at the beginning of the novel, but that’s where her character arc is growing out of.

Overall, The Alloy of Law isn’t at all like the first Mistborn trilogy, however, there is enough to like here that it is a worthwhile read.  What it lacks in plot, it makes up for in characters, who are incredibly fun.  7/10.

The Dying Days by: Lance Parkin - A Re-Review

The Doctor Who fandom doesn’t really appreciate how good the Virgin New Adventures run was.  Running from June 1991 to April 1997, this series of 61 novels were the primary source of new Doctor Who stories once the show was taken off-air in 1989.  Sure, there was a rough start but by the final novel’s release date in April 1997, the novel line had a system and was ready to go out with a bang.  The previous novel finished the Seventh Doctor’s adventures with Lungbarrow completed the Cartmel Master Plan and wrapped many of his threads up, and the final book works to set up the continuation separate from Doctor Who.  The Dying Days is the first original novel to feature the Eighth Doctor, Bernice Summerfield, Ice Warriors invading England, Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart, and Brigadier Bambera.  Lance Parkin writes a novel that demonstrates how even with a story that could easily be on television in the era.  There are only ever three Ice Warriors in a room at one point, much of the special effects could easily be done with models and minimal CGI, and there are plenty of action sequences and chases to keep things going.

 

The structure is also an obvious send-up to the Pertwee era with UNIT as a driving force of combating the invasion.  The Brigadier is called out of retirement and Brigadier Bambera is there for support.  If there was one complaint it’s that while Bambera is used well, she is still relegated to a supporting character for the novel.  There’s some great stuff early on with Bambera: catching up with her relationship with Ancelyn, and attempting to get to the bottom of the conspiracy with the Ice Warriors.  Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart, on the other hand, gets to have one final spotlight as UNIT is brought to 1997, after Battlefield, and with a compromise in the team.  The Brigadier has to help Alexander Christian, an astronaut who worked with UNIT, apparently responsible for murdering his crew on a mission to Mars.  There is a real connection between the two men: both have seen real horror in their time, and that horror is almost coming back to haunt them.  There is also something amazing about the Eighth Doctor meeting the Brigadier: they immediately create a rapport between each other, helped by an unseen adventure which is in the Doctor’s future, and there really is a sense that the Brigadier would do anything for the Doctor.

 

Bernice Summerfield, however, really is the start of the show.  Since Happy Endings, the Virgin New Adventures has been wrapping up her character.  She found her father in Return of the Living Dad, said goodbye to Roz in So Vile a Sin, and prepared for her own series of adventures in Eternity Weeps, but The Dying Days is where those adventures start.  Several sections of the book are told from her perspective which makes her really see what she can do as a professor on Dellah, the beginning of her own series after this novel.  Her relationship with the Eighth Doctor also allows Lance Parkin to really create a dissociation with the characters.  The Eighth Doctor is not the Seventh Doctor: there isn’t a master manipulation and he’s really just making things up as he goes along.  Parkin does an admirable job of characterizing the character from only having the TV Movie to work off.  There is no doubt that Paul McGann is the Doctor from this book, and while the BBC Books would go in a very different direction, this allows a glimpse into an Eighth Doctor era that never was.

 

Lance Parkin is also incredible at writing a book from an alien perspective.  The Ice Warriors in the novel get their own points of view throughout the novel and these sections are written as if they are by an alien and translated into English.  The spelling of the sections, especially in referring to the human characters, are done using English translations of Martian, often replacing ‘s’ with ‘x’, and ‘ai’ with ‘y.’ It’s a small detail in the prose, but its inclusion makes the experience of reading it much more immersive.  The Ice Warriors are also characterized incredibly well: warlike, yet honorable to a fault.  They don’t necessarily understand humanity, and are only invading because of humanity’s own disruption of Mars.  Parkin also includes a human villain in Lord Greyhaven, a power-hungry man working to become Prime Minister by getting the Ice Warrior Xznaal crowned the king of England.  He has been playing the long game which makes him a perfect match for the Seventh Doctor, and an even better foil for a novel that doesn’t include the Seventh Doctor.  It never becomes parody of the Seventh Doctor, but it is enough to make it interesting.  Overall, The Dying Days is a brilliant end where Lance Parkin is allowed to give the range an ending with a bang and get back at comments made by Philip Segal about how you can’t do an invasion on a BBC budget.  9/10.

Mistborn: The Hero of Ages by: Brandon Sanderson

The first Mistborn trilogy ends with The Hero of Ages as its final installment where the stakes are raised and Brandon Sanderson promises that not every character will make it out alive.  While the first two novels in the trilogy include a gradual power incline in terms of their heroes and villains, but this is turned up to eleven in the final novel as the villain is an anthropomorphized personification of the concept of evil itself.  “Ruin” like the other two villains in the trilogy follows the same format of being off the page for much of the novel’s page count, but its effects are still felt by the characters and through their actions.  The world of Scadriel is literally turning to a ruinous state as the mists are invading, ash is falling more than ever, and people are falling ill.  Sanderson sets this book as characters in a time of plague, perhaps explaining why it took far too long to finish reading.  “Ruin” as a character allows Sanderson to explore religious themes as the “Hero of Ages” is eventually revealed to be a literal translation for the concept of a God.  By God, Sanderson explicitly states an omniscient, omnipresent, and all-loving deity through his wordplay, which is where the book perhaps falls down in its theming.  There is a success in the novel where the misdirection on who the Hero of Ages is, as it is a final twist for the story, and at least poking fun at the ‘fantasy hero becomes a god’ trope in fiction, however, it is the weaker apologetics in the book which brings things in The Hero of Ages to leave the reader wanting.

Sanderson does succeed in making “Ruin” work as an amoral force of nature, avoiding becoming an analogy to the concept of Satan.  “Ruin” is a fully fleshed out character who only seems to be tormenting Vin in the second half of the novel because we are seeing its actions through her eyes.  It’s also what pushes Vin to the completion of her own arc: it is only in The Hero of Ages where she really can recover from the abuse that her brother put her through as a child; it is only here where she truly can love Elend, in what is essentially his final moments.  Vin has gained power and much like the Lord Ruler in The Final Empire, she is starting down almost the same path.  She wants to see everyone saved, which is what brought the Lord Ruler into his tyranny, and the reader hangs on to see just how her character arc will conclude.  On the other hand, Elend essentially serves as Vin’s own foil.  His growth to leadership in The Well of Ascension has grown here as he has found himself to be a Mistborn, and he serves, for the first time, as a primary protagonist for the series: leading his troops and acting as a general throughout the novel.

The worldbuilding is also a point where the novel shines as Sanderson really explores the origins of his fantasy creatures as either of “Ruin” or of “Ruin’s” opposite “Preservation”.  Much time is spent with the kandra, eventually culminating in the reveal of how the kandra and koloss came to be.  Sanderson lets his horror muscles fly as there is quite a bit of body horror here as spikes being driven into people to put them under someone’s power are described in detail.  Marsh gets his own point of view which creates a disconnect for the character as he has lost all of his humanity at this point.  He is not acting in his own manner and does horrendous acts, yet is redeemed in the end by being allowed a quick death.  There’s also deeper themes of making men into idols, with apparitions of Kelsier being shown to Spook, implied to either be part of “Ruin” or of “Preservation” in this novel.  Spook is one of those interesting background characters, who Sanderson uses for several purposes throughout the trilogy, from comic relief, to being given his own story of growth.  The Hero of Ages may have more issues than the previous installments in the trilogy, but it does provide a satisfactory end to the story.  Yes, there are more Mistborn novels, but they tell different stories set further in the future.  As a book, it makes the trilogy worthwhile and if you have read the first two there really is no reason as to not pick up this concluding installment.  8/10.

Falls the Shadow by: Daniel O'Mahony - A Re-Review

Falls the Shadow is a book which has been described as 356 pages of an excuse for pain and torture, and this cynical analysis is a Schrodinger analysis.  It is both correct and oh so incredibly wrong at the same time.  Daniel O’Mahony’s only entry in the Virgin New Adventures line of novels is a book with pain and suffering as a major theme, but hidden within its pages is a much deeper story about the insanity of the universe and what happens when time travel goes wrong.  In essence, the novel is O’Mahony’s answer to Marc Platt’s Ghost Light: the TARDIS ends up in a Victorian manor house which is inhabited with crazy people.  There is a professor doing his own experiments with a daughter who is insane, a visitor to the house who does not like the inhabitants, and eventually god-like beings who throw even more of a wrench in the mix.  O’Mahony subverts the Seventh Doctor formula of this story by having the TARDIS crash land in the house and the Doctor doesn’t actually have a plan.  He, Ace, and Benny are all stuck in a home where their only goal is to survive with their sanity intact.

The trick to writing a longer Doctor Who book is to ensure that the prose is excellent, and Daniel O’Mahony shows an incredible skill in writing his own little universe in microcosm.  The prose is lyrical from the simple description of characters walking down a corridor, to having someone’s blood sucked by vampire orchids, and even the end of the universe.  There are several references, obvious and subtle, to classic literature, the works of Stephen King, poetry, and pop songs of the era.  O’Mahony uses these allusions to plant the idea in the reader that Falls the Shadow means different things and there is an open end to the ways that it can be interpreted.  It’s certainly a style which can get the reader to work their way through the book within 24 hours and have a review up within an hour of finishing the book.  The villains of the piece are Gabriel and Tanith, the Light analogues in this retelling of Ghost Light.  They are representations of how the universe came to be and the spark of madness and unravelling which occurred when Professor Jeremy Winterdawn played with dimensional transcendentalism and interstitial time.  They are both insane and the source of the torture in the novel.  They are psychopaths, sociopaths, and up the garden paths.

There is a trio of characters living in the house already who have found themselves living out their own little soap opera love triangle of insanity.  Harry Truman is a man with a disfigured face, Justin Cranleigh is an explorer who has gone insane, and Cassandra Winterdawn has gone blind.  There is a moment early on in the novel where the scene is established as Cassandra opens a wardrobe in which hides Benny and carries on a conversation with Cranleigh as if she isn’t there.  The reader won’t immediately associate with the character being blind, making the reader question what this house, this Shadowfell, is really hiding.  It’s a device used early on to make the story work, as the reader no longer knows just what they can expect from the book.  Cranleigh and Truman are introduced as two sides of a standard love triangle, but by the midpoint there is something revealed about each of them that makes them somehow more insane than they were initially introduced to be.  While they are crazy Jane Page, an English assassin has come to the house with no real identity of her own to kill Winterdawn because of reasons.  Page isn’t her real name, she doesn’t actually have a real name and O’Mahony intentionally leaves it ambiguous if she’s a real person or just a construct of Gabriel, Tanith, Qxeleq, Shadowfell, or the overactive imaginations of the characters in the house.  O’Mahony evokes the Gray Man mythos for the beginning of the universe and the initial species who has tea with Benny and influences Ace’s decisions.  He is not an analogue for the Doctor, the Doctor is in the story after all, but he is an analogue for something bigger, something different.  Overall, Falls the Shadow may not be a book for those weak of heart or stomach, but it is one that leaves an impression and says something and nothing at the same time.  It is a paradox, and a brilliant one at that.  9/10.

Mistborn: The Well of Ascension by: Brandon Sanderson

One important aspect of Brandon Sanderson’s The Final Empire is that while it is the first installment of a trilogy it’s also telling a complete story from beginning to end, leaving the reader satisfied.  The Well of Ascension was published a year after The Final Empire’s publication which continues the trilogy and shifts the focus of the story from a heist, to a story that’s more political in nature.  While the first novel was defeating the big bad Lord Ruler and saving the day, The Well of Ascension is what happens next.  The climax of The Final Empire leaves a dictatorship with a power vacuum and Sanderson uses The Well of Ascension to focus on how the world can begin to rebuild, and the grimy aspects of that long process.  Vin has become the focus of a religion among the ska as responsible for freeing them from their chains, Elend has found himself the king, and the rest of the original crew have traded thieving for politics.  Elend has written a complicated constitution as the monarchal dictatorship becomes a representative democracy and several disgruntled nobles assault the city.  Luthadel under siege is the state in which most of the novel occurs, giving The Well of Ascension a more desolate and depressing atmosphere than the initial book.  Sanderson sets from the outset to give the reader a story that isn’t the happily ever after for the characters, but only the real beginning of their troubles.

Straff Venture, Elend’s father, serves as the primary antagonist of this novel, and like The Final Empire, he remains in the distance throughout the book, while his effects are felt.  Straff has the city under siege, with a true invasion only stopped by a political rival, Lord Cett,  This is a double-edged sword, however, as once Straff appears as a villain he is found to be more underwhelming, sending underlings to do his dirty work and not really being that impressive of a villain overall.  He has a Mistborn who gets a plot with Vin throughout the novel, bringing her story to the forefront.  Zane Venture is a character who has a voice in his said, the voice revealed not to be insanity, but a Mistborn who provides a foil and mirror for Vin.  Both come from an abusive father figure, but while Vin eventually made it out of her abusive upbringing, Zane didn’t.  Sanderson uses Zane as a character who thinks he’s able to get out, but is somehow more stubborn to the possibility of help, forcing himself into some sort of learned helplessness.  He’s also a character who the reader doesn’t really get to see the thought process of as he doesn’t get his own point of view chapter outside of smaller portions of other chapters.  This means that Zane is only perceived by the reader through the reactions of others, and that is primarily Vin.  Vin’s growth throughout The Well of Ascension is a continuation of working through her own self-doubt: she’s defeated the Lord Ruler and has found mutual love with Elend, but everything about the world is telling her that it is going to come crashing down.  She’s only really brought up because she has found a support structure to surround herself with throughout the book, but that doesn’t stop the doubt from greatly effecting her actions and sense of self-worth.

Meanwhile, Elend Venture has his own demons to fight as the studious man has been put into a position where he has to lead a group of people and avoid becoming a dictator.  Elend is a man with a naïve optimism that everyone is looking for the fairness, which is obviously not happening.  He begins the book as the king of the new empire, and Sazed, a Terrisman servant responsible for memorizing several faiths, sends him an advisor to actually make him a king.  Elend is someone who also suffers from similar self-doubt to Vin and throughout The Well of Ascension he builds himself up to be a good leader before being deposed for his previous inability to act as a king.  He’s a fascinating character because of this, as the election of a new king forms a large portion of the novel, giving Elend a status as a main character.  This overcoming of self-doubt becomes a major theme throughout the book, especially as it ends with a hook for the final installment taking up the last 200 pages of the book or so.  The climax of the novel is excellent and while Vin and Elend are the primary driving forces throughout The Well of Ascension, the rest of the crew and the new characters get their own chance to shine.

Lord Renoux in The Final Empire was already established to be an imposter, but it is revealed by the end of that book that he was a kandra, a shapeshifter which eats the bones of others to take their forms.  They have contracts with humans which they must be fiercely loyal and OreSeur, is the kandra’s true name, now under contract with Vin.  Sanderson has created a fascinating shapeshifting species here as while the kandra can impersonate humans to near perfection, that’s all it is, an impersonation.  There really is something alien about the character through dry wit as OreSeur impersonates a wolfhound throughout the novel, not a human.  He becomes Vin’s constant companion and bodyguard in essence, and adds an espionage flavor to the political machinations.  Sanderson also really introduces a second magic system to go side by side with Allomancy here.  Ferruchemistry is essentially a mirror to Allomancy and while mentioned in the first book, it is put into practice here.  While there are plenty of other characters in the over 700 page novel, it is this that really should be enough to sell the book if it hasn’t as The Well of Ascension is a continuation of the series by shifting the tone and forcing the characters through different situations and down a very different path.  9/10.

Interference - Book Two: The Hour of the Geek by: Lawrence Miles

Metatextual analysis is weird.  It’s looking at a text through a lens dependent on the existence of other texts which changes the context of the text you’re looking at.  For instance, Tom Stoppard’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead is a play that only works within the context of William Shakespeare’s Hamlet.  Including metatext in your work is a gamble, it can become like Stoppard and excellent, but it can also come across like say Hell Bent where it comes off as pretentious.  Interference Book One: Shock Tactic was the start of a book published in two parts, finished with Interference Book Two: The Hour of the Geek.  Miles introduces metatext to the first installment, but it really is the second installment which fulfills the metatext of what Miles is doing, writing an analysis of Doctor Who as a program.  The 300 pages of this novel analyzes what Doctor Who means, who the Doctor is, who the companion is, and somehow manages to predict to what the show would evolve into with scary accuracy.  Unlike the first review I wrote, this isn’t going to explore Miles’ plot, it’s largely a continuation of part one and is excellent, but I’ve said just about everything that I can about that aspect of the book.

Miles plays with the idea that the Doctor is dead, he has been dead since The Monster of Peladon, caused by a paradox on the planet Dusk.  Killing the Doctor at this point is his razor to cut canon in two.  It’s the Tom Baker era where the expanded universe started to take shape with Doctor Who Weekly and of course the 90’s already gave the world the Virgin New Adventures and Virgin Missing Adventures.  It’s cutting everything up and telling the reader to just enjoy the ride.  It’s a story, stories matter.  There’s the setup for future arcs and the promise that this tangled web is going to be untangled eventually, but for now enjoy the ride because it’s important.

The character of I.M. Foreman is Miles metatextual answer to the Doctor as a character, a runaway from Gallifrey who has quickly used up their regenerations for a good show.  They mean merely to entertain.  Their final life is even female and their place on Dust is one of self-discovery becoming what they need to become, who they need to be to serve the frame story.  Gallifrey is going to be destroyed one of these days, restored, and destroyed again because of some enemy and Foreman won’t be there, but perhaps they can save it.  From that description everything from Jodie Whittaker’s casting as the Doctor to stories like Hell Bent, The Timeless Children, and Death in Heaven have their roots here which is odd.  It’s not like Miles was a fan of the revival, but he’s been unintentionally pulling the strings all along.  Like the Eighth Doctor here, he just doesn’t seem to know that’s what’s happening with him.

The Eighth Doctor here is broken.  Sam leaves him and Fitz suffers a terrible fate at the hands of Faction Paradox, while Compassion begins to live up to her name while being forced into the role of companion.  Sarah Jane sees what he has become, and he turns his back on her.  He is a pawn in some cosmic game of creating interference for brainwashing purposes.  The geek is eating everything up and there really isn’t much that is bringing everything back.  Spaceships made of bone provide some of the visceral imagery found in this book’s pages while the story finds its way to an unsettling conclusion.  It goes beyond the pulpy fiction of most Doctor Who and into something greater.  Miles is writing something that he never intended to return to, he was saying goodbye to something he loved while leaving his mark.  It’s something that I think needs to be read to be fully understood.  While Shock Tactic took over 1,000 words to discuss, this one doesn’t need nearly as many, it’s cutting the fact and setting up the Doctor as damaged with a clone and a construct as companions leaving Sam in some sort of happiness, something that the VNAs would never do.  It leaves you thinking and perhaps that’s what the best works can do.  10/10.