Customer Reviews

The Banquo Legacy (Doctor Who)

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

BANQUO LEGACY is fantastic. It's dripping with atmosphere, it has a cracking plot, and it feels miles away from being "just another runaround". This is such a relief after so many forgettable books (there's been so many of them before this, that I can't even remember when the last memorable book was) to have something that's just flat-out good.

The book is split into two memoirs. One is written by a solicitor who is being paid to be an impartial witness to a scientific experiment. The other is written by a police inspector who is called to the scene after everything goes fatally wrong. Set in the 19th Century, the story feels very much at home in the culture of the original mad scientists and the stories of the intellectuals of the time. The real authors of the book, Andy Lane and Justin Richards, set the stage wonderfully, with every detail fitting perfectly into the Victorian mystery novel that they've created.

There are some wonderful themes running through this book; the most satisfying and well executed would be the reflections upon seeing an objective reality from two differing, subjective standpoints. This is most obvious in the narrative, as the overall story is told from the point of view of two different people. This leads to a handful of overlapping scenes where certain details and events are described twice with slight differences in their recollection; it's an effect that's pulled off very nicely. This theme also extends into the experiment that they are observing, which is based upon the placing of thoughts and experiences from one mind directly into another. It crops up in one or two other places (most notable the sections involving Compassion) and is quite rewarding to the reader once one figures out what is going on.

The only real problems with this book are that the authors were so skillful at creating a late 19th Century atmosphere that the references to Time Lords, TARDISes and other anachronisms seem very much out of place. Perhaps there would have been a better way to incorporate these elements into the story without their metaphorical seams showing. Despite these minor details, this is quite an enjoyable book and comes as a breath of fresh air. Don't skip this one.

While not as dense and complicated as lots of the other Doctor Who books, this is an interesting mystery set in the late 19th century which begins with Compassion pulling off something that is quite strange and would not be something you'd expect a TARDIS to be able to do! Then she, along with the Doctor and Fitz, are forced to take refuge at Banquo Manor, posing as guests who are scheduled to arrive to witness a scientific demonstration. As the drama at Banquo Manor unfolds, things go from dark to horrific. The most interesting aspect of this story is that it is told from the viewpoints of two of the guests at Banquo, alternating between them from chapter to chapter. We see some events described twice, from two different points of view, and both are ultimately befuddled by the Doctor's involvement.

Original, witty, poetic. Two of Doctor Who's best authors teaming up to tell a simple horror story (well, maybe not that simple) from two different perspectives. I read this in a few hours and was so mad when it was done. And was even more mad that Paul McGann wasn't starring in the DVD release of this!!!
Mr. Lane & Mr. Richards worked terribly hard to achieve the local and historical flavor of the piece but it is more than evident in the content that they had fun doing it. And MAN, did I have fun reading it. Scary in some places, laugh out loud funny in others. Some good BBC books before this one, some bad ones, but I must say this was arguably the first GREAT ONE. The Talons of Weng-Chiang of the 8th Doctor.
The only "negative" I can say is that one should read some 8th Doctor/Fitz novels before this one to really get attached to their interplay. There's some "techno-babbly" stuff about Compassion being a TARDIS and yadda-yadda-yadda, but this is a character driven story, enjoyable for all Doctor Who fans. Highest possible recommendation.

After suffering from an Artron energy inhibiting device Compassion is near death and must take refuge in someone else's body to recuperate whilst the Doctor has lost the ability to regenerate while the inhibitor is active. They are thrust into a situation involving an experiment gone wrong, the walking dead and a timelord agent that has lain in wait for the Doctor to arrive for 100 years. Set in 1898 the novel is told from two different accounts written in a diary/report format from an inspector from Scotland Yard and a Solicitor. This format of writing has given the book an incredible amount of realism with the aspect of the time period it is set in and the style of writing is very reminiscent of Bram Stoker's Dracula. Plus the scenes involving being stalked by the living dead are incredibly reminiscent of Michael Myers from the Halloween series - SPOOKY!!! This is definitely in the top ten of Dr. Who novels written to date. WELL RECOMMENDED!!!

"The Banquo Legacy" suffers by obviously being a non-Doctor Who novel with Doctor Who grafted onto it. A typical, almost cliched gothic mystery is given a few SF motifs, and a very trite explanation is given for the Doctor and Fitz's involvement (Compassion is almost a non-player).

Not the worst EDA, but it does manage to mark time until the next novel, the end of the Faction Paradox cycle.

I will give these two guys a lot of credit for trying here, because for the most part they succeed.

So many books into the Eighth Doctor adventures, it must be hard not to make them too cookie cutter. It's clear that there's an overarcing plot that is going somewhere and as we get closer to the culmination of said long-running plot, there runs a risk of the foreshadowing overshadowing the story itself. The story could easily fall into the mold of standard Doctor adventures, with nothing to differentiate it from the ones around it other than the setting or the occasional change in the status quo. And with a fanbase that will probably eagerly lap up whatever is handed to them, the motivation to break format can't be all that enticing.

But Lane and Richards do a couple interesting things here. Unfortunately, they don't go quite far enough, but the fact that they even attempted it is heartening.

First off, other than a brief scene in the beginning to set the situation up, we never get into the heads of the Doctor, Fitz or Compassion. The Time Lords have set a trap for them and Compassion isn't able to work properly. The Doctor and Fitz need to go find out what's blocking the source of time energy before Compassion falls apart completely. She can't dematerialize and the Doctor may not be able to regenerate if something really bad happens. Fortunately for them they're in Victorian England, where they should fit right in.

Thus the story shifts to two separate first person narratives, one from a gentleman in a house where an experiment is being conducted and the other from a police officer who is investigating one of the people running the experiment but winds up getting caught up in the excitement. This technique actually winds up giving us a fresh perspective on the crew, as we're not privy to why the Doctor is doing certain things, we can only go by what he says and how he acts, which is often very confusing to the people in the house. And while it doesn't offer any radically fresh insights (other than that Fitz is really terrible at a German accent, which is funny considering that he's of German descent), it puts them at a distance and forces us to judge them purely on what they're doing.

The authors also come up with a nifty way of sidelining Compassion yet again (for like the fourth book in a row . . . guys, if you weren't ready for the consequences then you shouldn't have done it) and given the narrative structure of the book actually winds up making her creepy and effective because she winds up saying all kinds of weird things that only make sense to the reader and the Doctor. Of all the ways of keeping her out of trouble I've seen so far, this one probably ranks as the most creative.

You'll notice I haven't talked much about the plot. Unfortunately, the plot is kind of the weak point, not really shoring up what the authors are doing. The experiment that is being conducted is in thought transfer, but nothing really seems to happen with it other than giving everyone who is still alive a zombie-like foe to constantly run away from in various permutations. The house starts turning into a version of an Agatha Christie novel as the people inside get bumped off one by one. And while the authors do have some fun with differing perspectives, they don't go nearly as radical as Ms Christie did years ago and have one of the narrators be utterly unreliable, which at least would have been an interesting spin on things. But the implications of the experiment are soon forgotten as everyone tries to flee from the homicidal zombie person and the B-plot beings to rear its ugly head with the Time Lord agent taking dominance. Even the evocative beginning with a past murder hardly seems to tie into the main plot except tangentially and give a convenient excuse for the mayhem that occurs later, without any real resonance.

Another side effect of the first person structure is that the authors can't seem to let go of the notion of explaining everything, so instead of the Doctor being this strange person who does strange things, he basically winds up explaining all the stuff that's going on to an increasingly confused cast of characters, mostly for our benefit so we have some idea of what is going on. A better idea might have been to keep us more in the dark and depict how utterly weird the Doctor and crew seem to ordinary people, who aren't used to time travelers and living time machines showing up and causing havoc. In some ways it feels like a missed opportunity.

But with the main plot not being prominent enough, we're left with a story that is exactly what the authors didn't want, a stopgap setup for the big changes to come in another book or two, instead of the fine standalone story it could have been. The need to keep things wedded to the long-term plot means the book sacrifices in mood what it needs for clarity. It's not bad but it is frustrating because it could have been so much more if the authors had pushed it just a little further, if they had been allowed.

Still, they took a chance and for the most part it worked. I can't even fault the authors for taking a chance and doing their best to not make just another Doctor Who adventure and even if the trappings underneath are more standard than the structure might initially lead you to believe, even a small attempt to break from the pack is welcome.