Doctor Who: Halflife (Doctor Who (BBC Paperback)) [Paperback]

Mark Michalowski (Author)

Book Description

Series: Doctor Who (BBC Paperback) | Publication Date: April 27, 2004

To lose your memory once may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose it twice looks like carelessness. The Doctor's not himself. He's not quite sure who he is, but he's definitely not himself. It doesn't help that he's forgotten quite why he came to the colony world of Espero in the first place, but he's sure it was something important. Whatever the reason, he's not the planet's only visitor. Before long, he's engaged in the search for a time-bomb - a time-bomb that could have consequences not only for Espero, but for the Doctor himself - and his missing past.

Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Random House UK (April 27, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0563486139
• ISBN-13: 978-0563486138
• Product Dimensions: 6.9 x 4.3 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,396,532 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

0 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Still Life, December 28, 2004

By 

Andrew McCaffrey "The Grumpy Young Man" (Satellite of Love, Maryland) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Doctor Who: Halflife (Doctor Who (BBC Paperback)) (Paperback)

HALFLIFE didn't have to do a lot to impress me. Coming after the "Alternative Universe / Causality Is Falling Apart / Sabbath's Employers Are Really Dull" arc, all HALFLIFE had to do was show up, being vaguely enjoyable, and it would automatically rise above the average and set itself up as the bold look forward.

I did, in fact, find HALFLIFE enjoyable, although I couldn't describe it as much more than mediocre. It does a lot of nice things, but it doesn't have enough of a wallop for them to be really effective. The book is successful when concentrating on the characters (I particularly enjoyed following Trix's story), but less so when forced along by its (merely adequate) plot.

For example, take the setting that we have. It's actually quite good and an effective use of world-building. I was really interested in this planet and enjoyed the first half of the book more than the second because that was the portion where much of the exploration and explanation took place. Yet, it doesn't quite ring totally true. In a nice touch, the population is made up entirely of non-white human colonists (despite the freedom that the novels allow, we still usually end up with planets populated by four to six British character actors). But somehow their society's ruling structure is based on Northern European fairy-tales (we have the evil, scheming Queen; the old, sick, kindly King; the dopey, "bad" Prince; etc).

There's a lot of other stuff that almost works, but just stops short of being really effective. Take the book's characters. When they're introduced, they're thinking, living creatures who you could imagine having lives of their own. Yet once the story gets going, they become more generic. In fact, in the later stages, I was having trouble keeping two characters separated in my mind despite the fact that in the beginning they had vastly different characteristics.

And as for the amnesia stuff that appears here again... Why is it I feel that I have more confidence in the amnesia idea than the editorial staff does? I mean, honestly, it's not that big of a deal. The Doctor's lost some -- but not all -- of his memory. This prevents him from spouting random continuity references every few paragraphs. Fine. Great. Must we keep going on defending it? If it's going to be resolved, can we get on with resolving it? If it's going to be the current state of affairs, can we not just treat it as the current state of affairs and continue forward? We aren't exploring this situation or learning more about it or doing new fascinating things with it, we're just rehashing it over and over again. Granted, Michalowski tries to make something interesting out of it, but it's an uphill fight. Moving into what seems like Year Twenty-Seven of this story element, I just can't imagine there are too many people left in the readership who even care at this point. I know I don't.

Despite my whines, this is still a decent story told simply and well. It's not the greatest book we've seen in this line, but it's head and shoulders above most of the previous story-arc. Its characters at least start off competently, and while the story may seem predictable at times, I found it absorbing the whole way through. If this is the Grand Future (at least until that Grand Future is bulldozed by the Second Rising of the New Series), then I'm warming to it. But, guys, no more amnesia waffling, okay?