Customer Reviews

Escape Velocity (Doctor Who)

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

 

 

The Doctor has been on Earth with no memory of his past for over a century. He has an appointment to meet Fitz in a bar called St. Louis'. He hopes to learn who he is from this man he doesn't remember. But for Fitz, only a few days have passed, and when he hears about a man with two hearts being killed in Brussels, he heads off to investigate...

'Escape Velocity' is the final story in the "trapped on Earth" story arc, and features the welcome return of Fitz Kriener. Fitz's concerns about the Doctor bring them both into the plots of a small group of aliens, trapped on Earth and trying to esacpe, and the attempts by two of Earth's richest men to become the first independently-funded men in space.

It is also the story of Anji Kapoor and Dave Young, a couple who are having troubles - and they haven't seen nothing before this story...

As a conclusion to a story arc, it is fairly satisfying (although I was somewhat disappointed that the Doctor made no mention of Miranda - anyone would think 'Father Time' never happened!), but it is perhaps more successful as the re-launch of the series into its travels through time and space. In doing so, it evokes the very first Doctor Who TV serial, 'An Unearthly Child', quite successfully by way of returning the series to its roots without necessarily ignoring over 35 years of stories in between.

This is apparently Colin Brake's first novel, although he is a writer of TV scripts, and he appears to have mastered the art of novel writing very well. Hopefully we'll be seeing more books form his pen in the future.

I'm not quite sure what to make of ESCAPE VELOCITY. On one hand, it is certainly a very flawed work, with many more holes and problems than I'm usually comfortable reading. On the other hand, I can't say it was an entirely unpleasant read, or even an unenjoyable one. It's a fun romp, if you turn your brain off at the door.

There are a lot of major problems with this book. The motivations of the main villains are not stated until near the end, and even then they are so ill-defined, that it's difficult to grasp what they are doing and why they are doing it. Unfortunately, this fault extends to a lot of the other characters as well. The book spends far far too much time telling us about people rather than showing their actions to us. There are places where it feels as though it is still in outline form, waiting for the author to come over and flesh out these sequences. The prose doesn't do any favours in this department either, as it's workman at best, but occasionally slumps down into incoherence.

The poor pacing is probably one of the main aspects holding this book back. Every time it starts to do things well, the action will start skipping ahead randomly, utterly killing any positive momentum that it had gained. It's not so much a case that the book takes two steps backwards for every one step forward -- rather it takes one step backwards, three steps sideways, a step and a half in a diagonal direction, and spins around on its tiptoes before being gang-tackled at about the 40-yard-line for a minimal gain (and if you like that NFL analogy, wait until you read the ones in the book). This was really a shame, as the bad parts really started to outshine the places that had potential. About half-way through the story I found myself mentally cheering the book on, hoping against hope that it would succeed despite itself. I felt like a soccer mom, bravely shouting encouragement to her skinny, smaller-than-the-other-kids child to defy the odds and not let the team down. And fortunately, despite some moments where it gets really rough, ESCAPE VELOCITY did not score an own goal.

On the plus side, the introduction of the new companion, Anji, is done fairly well. It's obvious that a lot of thought has gone into what makes this character tick. Alas, not as much thought has gone into what makes this character tick inside the context of this story. What everyone has said about her character outline being randomly cut'n'pasted into the text here is completely, one hundred percent correct. It would have been nice to see Anji's thoughts and reactions better integrated into the story.

I also liked the method in which the Doctor arranges to meet Fitz "at St. Louis"; this was quite clever. The reaction to the restored TARDIS was done very well, and the characters of Anji and her boyfriend had a nice chemistry going. The problem is, however, that for everything that I liked, there was something lurking around the next page to annoy me. The aforementioned lack of proper motivations, the pointless inclusion of the UNIT competitors and, worst of all, the sheer silliness of the ending.

ESCAPE VELOCITY was a hard book to dislike. Although it made several major mistakes, it managed to somehow tell an entertaining story that held my interest throughout. It goes from good points to bad in a seemingly random, unpredictable manner, but for all its flaws, it seems to have its heart in the right place. Recommended as a fun romp, as long as you aren't looking for something to take completely seriously.

The Doctor and Fitz are reunited at last. But the Doctor isn't quite the man Fitz used to know. Searching for Anji Kapoor's kidnapped boyfriend the Doctor And Fitz soon find themselves caught up in a struggle between two rivals to be the first privately funded man in space.

Being the last in the `Stranded on Earth' story arc sees a fun, classic story like the ones before the arc had begun. Fitz is back, hours after the eventful happenings on the now non-existant Gallifrey. The TARDIS has returned. A new companion has come aboard and best of all, the Doctor is his old self again (well kind of, he still lacks a lot of his memory and has a tendency to end a situation with more violence than usual.)

A strange part of the novel is the inclusion of the American version of UNIT, they do play a part but have no bearing whatsoever on the story. The ending is great, ending it with the same feeling ,story that continues into the next story (like with the classic 1st Doctor televised stories) and makes this a great starting point for new Doctor Who readers. This is a fun, light hearted book that rounds off the whole `Exiled on Earth' arc wonderfully. RECOMMENDED!!!

Colin Brake's first Doctor Who novel is not a resounding success. The prose is a bit laboured, the Doctor's first meeting with Fitz in 100 years (as far as the Doctor is concerned) is rather anticlimactic and the characters are rather wooden.

The reason this book gets three stars, though, is Anji. Her character is a breath of fresh air after the companionless books that have just passed. Brake goes into a lot of detail about her and we really get to know her. Her relationship with her boyfriend is real (I've known people like him).

Escape Velocity brings the Caught on Earth arc to a conclusion. It's not necessarily a satisfying one, but it does provide a good jumping off point for the next series of adventures (even down to the menacing shadow on the TARDIS door at the end of the book).

Escape Velocity should have been a watershed book for the 8th Doctor line. There's an awful lot of agenda on the plate of Colin Brake, writing a DW novel for the first time. There's the return of Fitz, last seen 6 books ago. The introduction of a new companion, Anji (a soulful, sexy... stockbroker??). The return of the TARDIS, the original TARDIS (last seen a year ago). And the escape of Doctor Who into Time and Space once more.

Escape Velocity is a genial romp. Two factions of an archetypal alien race (the insane warmongerers and the peaceful philosopher-kings) are stranded on Earth, working on competing teams to send the first privately-built vehicle into space. Those competing teams were once friends (and of course, right in betweeen is the women they loved). This is a simple and effective setup, and a good thematic backdrop for the Doctor's own escape into space.

However, the book tends to zip along with all the energy of a pulp story, when it could be argued that this novel, of all others, required a little more thought and dignity (and better-edited prose). Nothing unpredictable or novel ever happens.

It's best to read "Escape Velocity" as a collection of set pieces. The Doctor's reintroduction to Fitz, and the TARDIS's rebirth, both should bring a smile to the reader's face. Anji, the new companion, is an excellent stockbroker and a slightly less excellent girlfriend. We know this because Brake tells us so -- every couple of chapters, when it becomes important, a piece of character outline is stapled into the text. This is nothing new -- technical fiction writers dump their exposition into the text at necessary times (Tom Clancy and Michael Crichton to name obvious examples). It speaks better of the surrounding books that we've come to expect more than this from our "Doctor Who" potboilers, and that's why it's disappointing here.

Escape Velocity is a fast, easy read, safe and predictable. Not necessarily in a good sense. When the Doctor is returned to space, we don't get a taste of new, dangerous uncharted waters -- we simply get a replay of the very first "Doctor Who" cliffhanger, from 1963. A sense of adventure and the unknown has been lost, and it will be up to future writers to return "Doctor Who" to the cutting edge where it has thrived for parts of five decades.

For all those people who were getting frustrated that the Doctor was slumming his way through the twentieth century missing most of his memory, yours prayers are half answered. Finally he gets reunited with Fitz and the two of them proceed to have an old adventure in the classic style, meeting up with new girl Anji (who is caught up in events with her boyfriend) and dealing with two factions of aliens, one of whom wants to raze the planet to dust and the other just wants to get off and go home. Each faction has sided with a different private spaceship developer, who used to be friends and now are rivals and were once caught in a love triangle with a third woman who has a precocious daughter. I'm amazed I was able to get all of that out in one sentence.

Frankly, I'm rather amazed that they gave this one to a first time Who writer. Normally you give the arc-ending stories to the Big Guns, your Lawrence Miles and Kate Ormans and Paul Cornells, the people who could handle the big emotional fallout and changes that would come along with the end of a long running storyline, setting us up for the epic and then leaving us prepared for the new status quo. Here we basically get a resolution that is low-key and it quickly becomes business as usual, which is mildly disappointing. For several books now we've watched the Doctor make his way through the twentieth century the same way you and I have to, one slow year at a time. But his character doesn't seem all that changed by the experience, nor does he really make any mention of anything significant that might have occurred during that time (like, say, raising a daughter), other than a subtly disturbing moment of physical violence, he more or less seems like the same man before he lost his memory. The reunion with Fitz, which we've been anticipating for several books now, is more or less matter of fact and completely what you'd expect, without any fanfare. Which would have been okay if the book had then set out how just because the Doctor and Fitz were back together again things wouldn't exactly be the same, leaving Fitz to adjust to the new situation, or the Doctor to adjust to having a friend again, albeit one who remembers being with him far longer than he recalls.

Except it goes out of its way to reassure us that matters are going to be just like they were before, like the last several books had never happened. In fact it goes so far as to imply that with the Time Lords being erased from history, the events from "Ancestor Cell" won't even be remembered either. Which makes you wonder if none of those events ever happened, if he lost his memory too? I also wonder what the Eighth Doctor was doing during the UNIT era of the Third Doctor, when aliens were invading left and right. But that's just me.

Instead we get this alien plot, which seems remarkably similar to recent plots with aliens hidden on Earth and secretly manipulating technology for their own ends, especially since we have the now getting cliched idea of having two factions, one wanting to get off-world and one wanting to take over the world. The aliens themselves aren't too bad, except they're basically defined by whatever camp they fall into, either bloodthirsty or noble.

Ah! But at least we get new companion Anji, you say. Which is a blessing, in a sense. It's always nice to mix up the TARDIS crew with some new blood and in her first outing she definitely doesn't rate as annoying as Sam did. But she doesn't rate as much as anything, giving us the usual fish out of water stance and yelling at her boyfriend an awful lot (the book narrowly misses the opportunity to give us a situation where a couple is staying on the TARDIS, which could have presaged Amy and Rory by a whole decade practically . . . even if that would have made Fitz rather uncomfortable). She plays well off Fitz and Brake does get some mileage out of the fact that Fitz's mentality is set in the middle of the century in terms of his slang and worldview, even though he looks like a young man. Having Fitz back might be the best change, as his bravado and comedic timing is sorely missed, plus with the Doctor still having holes in his memory it makes him look like the seasoned professional.

For the most part, the plot tends to spin its wheels until we reach the ending, feeling like a stock adventure when everything should feel changed. Having the TARDIS crew go through what should be a normal adventure but having to deal with nothing being the same would have been an interesting contrast, comparing how it was before to how things could be now. Instead we get a subplot with a rival for UNIT (and a supporting character from another novel) that winds up not amounting to much of anything and really just wastes pages, existing only to attempt to liven things up when all the stabs at science become too much. The TARDIS returns in a scene that should be magical but just feels perfunctory and that maybe might bring the Doctor's memory back. Maybe. Meanwhile the ending starts to pile into a mess as characters start making questionable choices (I'm looking at you, aliens) or other characters reveal motivations that exist purely to get them off the board before the book ends. By the end of the book we should feel like we're in a new era but instead it feels like nothing has changed.

It's not bad and maybe it's just the heady weight of expectations that makes me come down so hard on this. But after all the churning through the century, we don't get any new insights, we don't even know if his memory is back (I suspect that they're going to have it come back when convenient, which is pretty much what happens here). I'd prefer his memory to be gone, so we get a Doctor without the weight of his vast years of experience, who walks into every event having to actually explore and discover and deduce (much like the early years before he became a walking encyclopedia of the universe) and frees him of the weight of the backstory and so on. That would be a new era, forcing the team to use new approaches and forge new relationships. Instead, stuff blows up. If this is a marker for what we're going to get going forward, well at least we'll be in comfortable and familiar territory. But I was hoping for a little more than that.

When I heard about the events after the book "The Ancestor Cell", I was deeply heartbroken. Gallifrey did not have to be destroyed, neither did the Doctor's memory needed to be taken from him, because it sucks. I'm glad that the TARDIS is back, the Doctor's memory though, that's another thing. At the end of the book, he couldn't even remember Sam, which is a great disappointment. Not to mention, I was still a little upset. I feel a bit better, but not entirely well until the Doctor's memory completely returns. As for Gallifrey, perhaps it is best to put things to rest.