Customer Reviews

Doctor Who: The Taking of Planet 5 (Doctor Who (BBC Paperback))

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

 

 

typically, i am not an avid reader of sci-fi. but since the BBC took the dr. who series back from virgin, the novels have typically been written with a very adult realism and a focus on tight storylines that was missing from many of the virgin books. there were some incredibly unique ideas that bucher-jones and clapman never allowed completely to be realized. their writing style was fast-paced, but many times they substituted huge scientific-sounding words and phrases (some real and some of their own creation) instead of focusing on important visual and conceptual descriptions. the basic plot was engaging and thought provoking, but more than once the action was brought to a screeching halt by some very odd description (compassion smelled musky? what was THAT about...) or an implausible plot turn. it is never fully explained who or what the original elder thing population infiltrated by the time lord soldiers truly is. the reader might assume they are mictlan, but too many aspects of this secret conflict are never clearly explained. And why have they chosen the fictional elder thing form? it is these details that become frustrating because they deserve a much better physical description and plot explanation. the authors have introduced one of the most original concepts of the series. the idea of the tardis as a bio-mechanoid lifeform was one of the most pleasant and exciting surprises of "The Taking of Planet Five". that, and the return of the fendahl, could have made this an incredible story. it is unfortunate that a completely ridiculous conclusion left this reader thinking....WHATEVE.

The Taking of Planet 5 possesses an intriguing plot - the time-looped planet that holds the Fendahl - but suffers from a number of factors - incredibly convoluted explanations that would require a PhD in quantum theory to understand, flimsy characterisation where the 'bit players' are concerned, and dreadful typesetting. At least the last problem cannot be attributed to the authors!

As a result of the extensive over-explanation, it's very hard to visualise a lot of what is actually going on. There seems to be a lack of urgency while the tangent rolls off onto yet another huge explanation.

Compassion is as charming as ever. Miles didn't seem to think when creating such a antithetical companion, it is as a result very hard for the reader to empathise. If the character doesn't care, why should we care what happens to her? If the companion was more emotionally attached to either Fitz or the Doctor, it might make her future 'destiny' a little more bone-jarring and involved. As such, it's all too easy to think of her as a plot device.

There's a cute Transformers reference in here early on, and one of the best lines comes from the Doctor himself.

Overall: An interesting if a little complicated story. Younger readers will find it very hard to follow. Best read it a few times over!

There are so many ways that this could have been an outstanding novel that it's frustrating: the core plot is gripping; many of the characters are fascinating; and the imagery and ideas are wonderful. So where did it go wrong? The story leans FAR too heavily on the past. It seems that barely a page goes by without the authors making a "clever" reference to a televised story or previous novel. They even go as far as including a footnote for a previous novel. Another problem lies in the TARDIS crew. Fitz shines, but the Doctor gets tortured yet again while Compassion does a credible impersonation of someone with absolutely no personality whatsoever. The biggest problem, though, is that I never bought into the main threat of the book. Frankly, it says a lot for how well-written this book is that I came away from it entertained at all, something that is a sore diappointment after reading the vastly superior _Interference_ and _The Blue Angel_.

There's . . . wow. There's a lot going on in this book.

One aspect I do like of the Eighth Doctor novels is how they tend to go places that the televised series won't, which may be because the books are developed more for the hardcore fan as opposed to the folks who want to tune in and see what historical figure the Doctor meets this week. Still, it's not in the same way that the Virgin series would often go more "adult" and push the boundaries in terms of the subject matter (sometimes good and sometimes not so good). No, the big difference is that the BBC series had a tendency to go all out bonkers in terms of story.

In this novel alone we have the concept of fictional aliens coming to life, a far-future race of Time Lords, a branch of those far future Time Lords who have taken themselves out of time and created a fictional Hell to live in, the concept of TARDISes as bio-mechanical creatures, the potential return of the Fendahl from the Fourth Doctor story and the introduction of something that can eat the thing that eats everything. And that's just the stuff you can pick up from skimming. It's a LOT to devour.

The problem is a lot of it is just thrown at the reader without giving them a chance to catch their breaths and absorb what the heck is going on before the next idea gets tossed out at them. I spent a good portion of the novel feeling like I was one step behind and not to brag or anything, but I made it through "Ulysses" without too much of an issue, so I'm not quite certain the problem is me. The authors have a great love of many concepts in the same way that Lawrence Miles did but lack his ability to organize them into something coherent, as well as his overriding sense of vision. This is all going somewhere, but in the same sense that a train without working brakes is heading somewhere.

The individual parts are neat, even if I don't fully understand it I like the idea of far-future Time Lords that are unrecognizable to us and have their own weird way of doing things, even as they're stuck in a war. I like the concept of the Celestis and Mictlan, even if I don't fully grasp the implications of it, or what it has to do with the rest of the plot. I like the way that the novel treats the TARDISes are living machines, which has been hinted at all throughout the series and becomes rather fascinating. I even like the callback to the Fendahl, because it never really appears but everyone acts entirely afraid of it regardless, which is a good way to make an old concept menacing.

But the individual characters, on the other hand, are almost all interchangable. I can't get into any of the future Time Lords or the Investigators or the people in Antarctica. The plight of the human beings doesn't move me at all (partway through I started forgetting who was who and it only took me a few hours to read this book over less than a week) and the aliens don't feel . . . alien enough. They just felt like somewhat odd and stilted people, instead of utterly bizarre lifeforms that we might only vaguely recognize parts of ourselves in. All their speech patterns and talk were more or less conventional and considering how strange the circumstances and their origins, I expected a little more.

The TARDIS crew makes it out better. The Doctor barely seems to be in the novel but Fritz is turning out to be everything that Sam wasn't and watching him getting his bearings has been fun. Compassion is an interesting addition, because she's almost the anti-companion, callous and detached and direct, she can easily take care of herself to the point where you wonder why she's mixed up with this lot. It's about the strangest TARDIS crew we've seen and that in itself is fascinating.

The rest, though, the rest is just a mess. The book lurches directly into incomprehension at some points as the writers pile more scientific phrases on the story than a long night of drinking at MIT would and the ending both seems to go on for too long and make no sense (it doesn't help having the two aliens being the focal point of the climax, with the Doctor and company nowhere in sight). I'm sure it makes sense if the authors explained it but they aren't here and I am. In the end it remains too bizarre to become engaging and yet not strange enough to elicit a fascination in puzzling out its mysteries. Not weird so much for the sake of being weird as just plain odd, it remains a journey without a very rewarding destination, even some of the sights along the way are kind of neat.

This book would be great if the authors would have left part of the details out. They should have stuck to the Celestis and future Time Lords. The Eldar Ones was a bit too detailed. Going into so much description of the villans (or what appear to be villans) took away from a better view of the Celestis/Time Lord battle. The details of Mictian were good and the authors should have kept with the imagery throughout.

THE TAKING OF PLANET 5 just doesn't feel like a complete work. I must agree with other reviewers who have stated that the authors don't appear to be comfortable working with the ideas and themes developed by other writers. This is unfortunate because almost the entire story is nothing but ideas that have been pulled from previous books (most notably, Lawrence Miles' ALIEN BODIES). The concepts never evolve past the point of being Someone Else's Creation, and the result is that nothing feels as though it has any consequence at all.

There are a few good ideas contained in the book, but almost every one of them fails to yield anything of further interest after being stretched out to their full potential. I'll use an example from the very beginning of the book: the Museum of Things That Don't Exist. When this is first mentioned in the story, there's a certain air of mystery about the place. It certainly sounds like an idea brimming with creative potential and something that the Doctor Who format could do particularly well, especially in novel form. The problem with it is that when we actually get there, the museum turns out to be dead boring. Instead of surreal displays or books of magical and unexplained happenings we end up with nothing more than reconstructions of a few hoaxes and fictions that would only be significant to someone from Twentieth Century Earth. A nice idea ruined by poor execution, which is indicative of the majority of the flaws present in this book.

The plot is very complicated and there are several things going on at once. This results in the people involved in the story coming across as rather shallow. There simply isn't room inside the story for all of these characters. This is a pity as there are one or two there who seem like they could have been quite interesting, if only there had been room enough to flesh them out completely.

There are one or two bright points in the book. The Interludes are very strongly written and effectively convey some of the concepts that the main portion of the book had neglected. The Doctor is characterized well in the portions that he's in; it's a pity that those portions are so few and far between. The book seems far more concerned with relating more pieces of the future war between the Time Lords and the enemy than it does with telling a full story. This wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing except that it takes the Doctor out of the main thrust of the story right from the beginning, and the hints about the War (and the fate of the Celestis) simply aren't interesting enough to sustain the book purely on their own. But these hints and disclosures are all that we have here.

All in all, the presence of several big concepts and arc-related revelations don't prevent this book from ending up being extremely dull. It's not a poorly written book, just one that feels more like a vessel for bigger things to be put through it, never once standing up and existing on its own merits. It tries to be hard-SF by throwing around a lot of scientific gobbledygook, but it's never quite as clever as it thinks it is.

I really enjoyed this book. It is outstandingly well written, and keeps on the plot-line of the Eight Doctor, expanding the story bit by bit.

If you've been following the books, this is a wonderful addition to the storyline.

Also, it is great to see a Crossover story between the Cuthulu mythos and the Dr. Who world.

I highly recommend this book.