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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Vastly overrated!, August 15, 2001
This review is from: Father Time (Doctor Who) (Mass Market Paperback)
Lance Parkin's latest "Who" outing starts out promising, but quickly blows all its potential and then spends 200 pages making us wish the book had taken a smarter turn somewhere. Each of the three section of the book shows promise, but then quickly manages to fizzle, and none of the sections is resolved in a manner that feels satisfying. Parkin also fills "Father Time" with small plot asides that quickly deflate suspension of disbelief, like a character from the Doctor's past showing up but failing to make any difference in the Doctor's understanding of his identity, or the bit about the Doctor becoming a significant figure in the 80's. Many of the plot points, like the division between the Doctor and Miranda, feel forced and hollow, but the biggest problem with the book is that in all its sections, it opts to take a stupid action approach in order to resolve everything. The primary feeling a reader will take away from this book is disappointment. The cover and the back-cover blurb suggest something introspective and perhaps something insightful into human -- and more-than-human -- nature. What we get, however, is a creeping feeling that "Father Time" was a great opportunity sadly missed.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Mystery. History. Family. Fun., February 27, 2001
This review is from: Father Time (Doctor Who) (Mass Market Paperback)
I've avoided reviewing Doctor Who novels, despite having strong opinions about many of them, because, as an object of cultic veneration, the Doctor Who franchise tends to get plenty of review as is -- mostly highly polarized, fandom being as naturally argumentative as it is. But good things need to be said about this book (and the handful that have preceded it in this story arc), and only one person has, to date. Since the last several seasons of the television program itself, writers of Doctor Who in its every form have had to cope with the paradox of maintaining the sense of mystery that is central to the character and his universe, while still doling out the hints and glimpses (and occasional but compulsory outright Revelations) that fans demand. An unfilmed last-season episode (later published as the novel Lungbarrow) would have finally revealed who the Doctor had been in the far distant past -- and then left us wondering just who *that* person had been. Clever. A more recent "take" on the series, this time in the novels, maintained that the Doctor's timestream had either become or had always been (or both) mutable. Some days his story was one thing, some days it was another. Some days it wasn't mutable. Paradox. Nifty. The current story arc (ending with the next book in the series, one senses) takes a different approach: *we* know who and what the Doctor is, for certain values of "know," but *he* doesn't. The flavor and mood of mystery, and the ability to reveal or refer to as much of the character's history as we want. Brilliant. An amnesiac Doctor, reduced to something resembling normal humanity, lives his elongated life one day at a time. Trapped. Lost. Powerless. Sad. The Eighth Doctor -- who began his life a supposed half-human -- has finally found his niche, after five years (in real time) of not *quite* fitting. And this book, Father Time, completes the picture by giving this Doctor the last bit he needed: a daughter. A savvy, brilliant, late-blooming, serious, alien daughter -- like and unlike the First Doctor's granddaughter Susan, like and unlike the Eighth Doctor. She's wonderful. He makes sense now. This is good Doctor Who.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Doctor's Daughter??!!, February 9, 2001
This review is from: Father Time (Doctor Who) (Mass Market Paperback)
The amnesiac Doctor has been on Earth for over a century now, and is living as a recluse in Derbyshire. The snow is falling, and all seems quiet. But the peace isn't going to last. There is a threat from the future menacing a girl with two hearts. A girl who calls the Doctor "Dad"... Normally, when I get my Doctor Who books for the month, I start with the Past Doctor book - mostly out of comfort. This time, though, the magic name "Lance Parkin" made me start with the Eighth Doctor book. As I've said elsewhere, if you see Lance Parkin's name on the cover, get it. This book is set in the 1980s, and Mr. Parkin is reveling in it. There are regular references to songs of the period (and the book takes place over the decade, so there is a variety of music, too), and he takes then effort to remind you of what we now take for granted that people in the 80s did not. After 'The Infinity Doctors', you just know that Lance Parkin is the right man to write a book in the current story arc. In that book, we had a Doctor who was both familiar and strange - and so too do we have another familiar and strange Doctor in this book. And given how largely non-Canonical 'The Infinity Doctors' was, surprise surprise - there are some links between that book and this. Mr. Parkin also writes with a moderate sense of mischief, strewing the book with many references to the history of Doctor Who. I won't spoil them for you, other than mentioning that two of the chapters are entitled 'Escape Velocity' (the title of the next Eighth Doctor book) and 'Death Comes to Time' (the new Doctor Who radio serial, currently in production). And the Doctor's daughter? She's mentioned in the blurb, so I feel no guilt in mentioning her here. But you'll need to read the book to see exactly who she is - maybe. Like many good authors, there is just enough uncertainty about the character that you want another book to make it clearer.
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