Customer Reviews

Casualties of War (Doctor Who Series)

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

 

 

"Casualties of War" is a book with the joke title already slipped in. After 65 pages and a 2-month break from reading, I fretted that calling it "Casualties of Bore" seemed too obvious to elicit even a smile.

Luckily, I returned to the book and now I'm happy to give it high marks. "Casualties" takes DW touchstones such as World War I and mindless zombies (think Toy Soldiers, Human Nature, and Theatre of War, good sources all) and rewrites them in an original, unpredictable way.

This Doctor, fresh off a year of excesses in the Faction Paradox arc, is streamlined and amnesiac, with only the stray continuity reference or "Terminator" quote to guide him. He doesn't just recite Shakespeare -- he'll perform an entire play on command, with manic intensity. He'll seem to fall in love, but vanish without a trace, making friends easily, but seemingly unwilling to keep them.

The three main supporting characters -- Briggs, Cromby, and Mary, are unique in DW that they all survive the book. Cromby's private battles against the mud men are increasingly funny and it's good to see him win at the end of the day -- in most other books, this guy is cannon fodder by Chapter 10.

There are lots of other characters who show up briefly and then vanish, but at least manage to shine when they're around. The late-night conversation between two nurses, apropos of nothing, rings true to life. This is good.

A word on the prose. Way, way too many adjectives. And adverbs. And sentence fragments. But at least the prose is internally consistent and allows for some decent POV tricks. One chapter ends with Cromby, Briggs and Mary staring at the same horrific sight -- Emmerson shows us what all 3 characters think, in successive passages. All in all "Casualties"'s prose manages to linger with the reader, and is thus above-average for this kind of book.

The plot has holes, and it shows. I was never sure if the dead soldiers were actual corpses, or made entirely of primordial mud, or some combination of both. The coda about the flu epidemic seems misplaced. Every third passage ends with either a cocked pistol or a blinding white light --. Private Corey reminds Emma of "her brother", and yet she falls in love with him. Yay.

Still, "Casualties of War" surpasses "The Burning" in terms of plot, character, and writing style. The Doctor may no longer know who he is, but at least he has things to tell us still.

I've always thought WWI is the perfect era in which to set a horror story, and that Doctor Who, at its best, was a horror series, even when it dressed the stories up in science fiction trappings. Casualties of War proves both those points admirably. As usual, all the weirdness is explained before the end of the tale, but that doesn't make it any less dark and creepy, without being overly graphic.

Steve Emmerson tells his story in a fairly straightforward, linear fashion, which allows the reader to focus on the three-dimensional, likeable characters. The more we get to know these people, the more heart-rending the story becomes, as we fret and worry about what will happen to them. He describes the action with detail and clarity, and I found myself wishing once again that Doctor Who was still on television, and telling stories just like this.

Mr. Emmerson's portrayal of the eighth Doctor is superb. If it hadn't been just as good in last month's The Burning, I would say this is the best he's been in a while. This book continues the Doctor's plight from The Ancestor Cell and The Burning, but (intentionally), you don't need to have read those books to understand what's happening. Well, you do, but you don't need to understand, because the Doctor doesn't know what has happened to him, either. Series consulting editor (and author of The Burning) Justin Richards has effectively restored the mystery to the character by separating him from his companions, his TARDIS, and his memory of his own identity. Readers can see the pure essence of the Doctor, unobstructed by references to a past he can't remember, unable to rely on Time Lord abilities he is no longer aware he has. As far as anyone around him is concerned, he's a mysterious wanderer, just like he was when we first met him back in 1963.

The book isn't 100% perfect; more of the climax happens offscreen than I usually prefer. However, after months of books where the regular character subplots easily overwhelmed the main stories, it's nice having the books appear to tell compelling stories again.

CASUALTIES OF WAR is a bit of a mixed bag, though ultimately its good points more than outweigh its flaws. On the surface, it has quite a few similarities to the previous book, THE BURNING, though a closer inspection reveals some very interesting differences. The plot is explained slightly more reasonably here. Some of the characters fall into clichés, but the ones that Steve Emmerson really cares about are very realistically drawn. Overall, I though that it while there were several flaws, this was quite a worthwhile book.

The plot is relatively slow in building, but that works well here, as Emmerson is quite good at building up the tension without going overboard. We see more of how the events impact upon the characters rather than a lot of details about the particulars themselves, and I feel that this attitude really paid off well. That said, however, the plot is almost paper-thin, with more effort going into characterization and tone. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, of course, but one wishes that as much time had been spent on plot as on the rest.

Unlike THE BURNING, I felt that the details of the alien supernatural threat were explained well enough. In the previous book, the particulars were left so unexplained that by the time one got to the end of the story several elements still remained dangling. This gave the impression (rightly or wrongly) that the author hadn't thought things through all the way and not bothered to come up with an explanation. While there were a few minor, annoying gaps left in CASUALTIES OF WAR (and one major one at the end), I felt the explanations and the framework that we got here were much more satisfying.

The reworking of the Doctor seems to be a gamble that is paying off well (at least at this point in the Earth Arc). He's moved a little bit beyond the alien, unknowable figure who showed up unannounced at a dinner party in THE BURNING, yet he is still the unapproachable, slightly aloof person who doesn't know who he is and where he came from. Emmerson is quite good at telling different parts of the story through different narrative voices, and that really brings the Doctor to life. Through the villain's eyes, we see the dangerous, Sherlock Holmes figure who is gathering evidence and getting closer to the truth. Through the policeman's eyes, we see someone almost at home in tales of the supernatural, yet grounded enough to suggest practical solutions. And through the eyes of Mary Minnett, we see a confused, passionate, and almost romantic figure.

CASUALTIES OF WAR does exactly what it sets out to do, and it does it rather well. The story is well told, effective in its realistic feel, and quite entertaining. The Doctor continues his journey of a hundred years, learning more about himself as we also learn more about him. Despite a few portions where the action begins to drag, this is definitely a worthy read.

I enjoyed this book. Good characterisation, a well-told story and the Doctor stripped back to basics. His 'love' interest was engaging and likeable and I enjoyed the zombies! I hope Steve Emmerson writes more.

Overall I enjoyed this book, although I found something missing. By the note at the end of the book about the Influenza epidemic of 1918, I got the impression this was not the book that was submitted originalally (what did the flu have to do with the clay soldiers??). The mood of the book was well done, the supporting cast interesting, the setting was wonderful and the Doctor well written. This book would have been more interesting if it HAD dealt with the strange Spanish Lady epidemic of 1918 which killed more people around the world than WWI,WWII, Korea and Vietnam combined but mysteriously vanished from our history books. Wouldn't it be nice to think there is a clever Dr. Who reason for this?? Instead we are given a chop job with the pre-requisite bugged eyed monster which the Doctor destroys without really breaking into a sweat (How did he do that anyway?)I think authors need to remember that Dr. Who also had clever historical stories which had NO bug eyed monsters in them!! Not a bad book, but hardly earth shattering.

Marginally interesting, although delays in England means that us U.S. readers (who missed Ancestor Cell and The Burning) haven't a clue what's going on. Well more so then usual, at any rate. I'd heard good stuff about the whole "Doctor loses his memory" thing in The Burning, but found Casualties of War didn't really do much with it. The Doctor gets a lovestruck somewhat emancipated (you won't see stodgy old-fashioned non-PC Victorian women drawn to the free-spirited Doctor) local woman as his companion of choice while he deals with the mysterious sightings of dead soldiers in a WWI English village near a army hospital.

Emmerson is a first-time Who writer, but still seems puzzled on how to end a story with a Doctor who...well, doesn't remember he's the Doctor. There's a kind of virtual-reality supernatural showdown, the Doctor emerges triumphant, the bad guy is thwarted, and life goes on. The two or three supporting characters are well drawn, but they're developed from your basic English-vilalger stereotypes nonetheless.

Overall, an okay read, but after all I heard of the preceding two books (which I still haven't read yet, and Amazon doesn't carry), I guess I expected more.

There's a certain drama inherent in setting events during World War One. Maybe because it's the first really horrible modern war, where large numbers of people were exposed on a grand, near worldwide scale on what war could actually do to you, where the armies involved seemed engaged in a race to find the most creatively brutal war to slaughter each other, day in and day out. It was a level of both physical and psychic horror that most people just weren't ready to experience.

So why don't we drop in a Doctor who doesn't exactly remember who he is? Again.

I have to say this far in I'm not quite buying the portrayal of the amnesiac Doctor. He more or less acts like the regular Doctor we've all come to know and love, just without being as quick to reference Gallifrey or other stuff. By doing this and "The Burning" from points of view other than his it allows them to hedge their bets and make him like act he always did without having to really address what he knows and what he doesn't, because you can just blame it on him playing his cards close to his vest. But if you didn't know he had holes in his memory, then it wouldn't be really clear from the story. I do like the idea of him having to age forward in order to meet Fitz, so he's got to get to his friend via the slow route, the route that the rest of us have to take.

The setup is actually suitable creepy. In a village where all the able bodied young men have been taken off into war, a hospital is set up where a doctor can treat them for the psychological damage that the war inflicted on them. It should come as no surprise when not long after strange corpses start walking around, even while said doctor denies anything weird is happening at all.

What makes this work is that it's not clear what the heck is going on until really late in the story, giving the author a chance to effectively ratchet up the tension. This wouldn't work if he didn't have a deft hand with the supporting cast, but face with a lead character who has to be distant by editorial mandate, he manages to populate the book with a number of people who are at least interesting to read about. None of them may be very deep (he manages to give an element of sadness to the local vet who lost her brother, as well as the simple determination of the farmer) but their reactions to the situations seem both true to life and to their characters and help carry the novel as things get progressively darker and stranger. A number of chapters do end on a cliffhanger of people getting knocked out but if that's my worst complaint then I think we're doing okay.

It helps that Emmerson deals as best he can with the actual damage done by the war to the poor soldiers that are coming back and making it essential to the plot. It's a heavy topic for a SF book based on a TV show and he doesn't get super-deep with it, but neither does he flinch away from the fact that these are scarred men who are attempting to operate around the scars. Yes, there are apparent corpses walking around and killing people, but the bulk of the novel revolves around people learning to deal with each other and with a changed situation. In that medium, the Doctor almost floats above the entire affair, driving the plot if only because he's the one person who has the best chance of figuring out what's going on, while everyone else interacts beneath him. It's telling that there are sections where the Doctor does not take a part and those sections are quite okay. Yet when he's around he makes an impact, which is key as well.

It would help with a stronger villain, as we all know who is behind it and almost what the cause is way before the book decides to let us know. The actual cause, if you want to stretch out the metaphor, is the war itself, tearing a hole in the collective psyche of a nation, and all the rest of the action is just pantomime to disguise that fact. It gives a SF result to a very real cause and avoid being silly, which is no mean feat. You wind up with a very character driven stories that seems to have soldier-zombies and an evil doctor and a Doctor without a memory. There's no reason for this bucket of roving cliches in search of a story to work, but work it does. Most of this is probably due to Emmerson's skill at keeping things moving without getting too fancy. It won't set off any literary fire alarms and he won't dazzle you with bizarre concepts or off the wall plotting but it winds up being a solid and well told story. Maybe it's the lowered expectations coming off of "The Burning" (which admittedly had high expectations coming off "Ancestor Cell") since the book isn't so much introducing the new status quo as keeping the ball moving along. But whatever the reason, it made for a pleasant read in my hotel and in the airport. If they could figure out a way to alternate these solid little numbers with a game-changer every so often, I don't think I'd have too much room to complain.

"Casualties of War" is the second in a new Doctor Who story arc. It isn't a bad book, but unfortunately it isn't a great one either.

From my perspective, this book reads like a re-run of "The Burning" - which is unfortunate, since it folows on from that book. The Doctor turns up in a small English village, notionally without his memory and with his TARDIS unavailable as it is healing. A mysterious force from the beginnings of time is threatening the village and, after numerous casualties, the Doctor and some temporarily acquired friends triumph.

Unfortunately, for the second of so far two books in this story arc, I really had no impression that the Doctor is without his memory. His actions are so normal that this is unnoticeable. As in "The Burning", a variety of interesting characters are introduced solely for the purpose of killing them off. Once upon a time, death wasn't something that happened in every one of the Doctor's adventures. It would be nice if this happened again, even just once!

However, this is all a little too harsh. Steve Emmerson in what I believe is his first book shows that he certainly has the ability to write a readable book. Had it not been preceded by "The Burning", "Casualties of War" might have been a more enjoyable experience for me. So Steve, please write another!

My wife was never really a fan of the show but, during the Levene era, she read all the books as they came out every month. The last one she read was _The Dying Days_. Even if I talked up the better ones with her she just wasn't interested in the BBC books. She'd pick one up, leaf through it, and put it back down.

Until now.

She picked up _Casualties of War_, read the first few pages, and now she's on me to finish it as quickly as possible so she can have it.

Seems like the new direction might be working.