Customer Reviews

Millennium Shock (Doctor Who (BBC Paperback))

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

 

 

A decent adventure, filled with lots of descriptive action and gory expolsions. If you liked the television stories that were focused on Earth, with the Doctor working with the British government to stop an alien takeover, then you will most likely enjoy this book. The political strategizing by the Prime Minister and the Soviet Priemere gets in the way of the sci-fi aspects, but I will admit that I was never a big fan of the Doctor/UNIT stories. (If I wanted a James Bond story I'd go elsewhere!) Mr. Richards does do a good job of characterizing the 4th Doctor and Harry. (I wish Sarah Jane had appeared in more than the first few pages). If you prefer your Doctor Who stories to center around lots of time traveling, foreign places, and mythology you should check out Richards' missing adventure "Sands of Time".

Richards describes overmuch, tends to use all of his research, isn't all that good at characterization, and, frankly, isn't all that good of a writer - his supposed article by (professional journalist) Sarah Jane is something she'd probably be ashamed of. That being said, he does know how to write ripping yarns, and particularly climaxes. So I'll forgive him a lot for that. However, Sarah Jane makes but a cameo in this one, which is disappointing since that's why I bought it.

Basically another largely pedestrian novel in the series, though at least more straightforward than the full-of-itself Interference, which I read previously.

I can come to accept just about anything when it comes to science-fiction but . . . the Prime Minister's name was Terry Brooks? Like the semi-famous fantasy author? Either that is one heck of a coincidence or it's an inside joke I just don't get.

But while we ponder that, why don't we focus on the rest of the novel as well? A Fourth Doctor adventure, it features everyone's favorite scarf wearing time traveller hooking up with old friend Harry Sullivan to fight some aliens who are taking advantage of the upcoming Y2K bug to try and take over the world. Or activate a sentient alien computer virus that will take over the world for them. It all really amounts to the same thing.

Richards sets up an interesting premise that unfortunately has kind of dated horribly. When the book was released the fears over Y2K were fairly imminent, but they were fears that went away on January 1st, 2000 when it was clear that if the world was going to end, it wasn't going to be due to computers that didn't know how to read a calender. Thus the gripping sense of suspense isn't exactly going to reach Tom Clancy levels of "It could happen to you!" that it seems to be striving for, even though Richards gets bonus points for having things actually go wrong, so we get a glimpse of what might have happened. But even that seems to fall by the wayside and the brief broad scope we get isn't really enough.

Which leaves us with nonstop intrigue and action. Sort of. The novel seems to be striving for several different tones all at once, with a creepy sense of encroaching paranoia seeping into the scenes where the aliens are manipulating events and performing surgery on people, a James Bond sense of careening action every time Harry Sullivan whips out a pistol or when a CIA agent shows up (U!S!A!), and the suffocating complications of global politics as the Russians wander in from another story entirely.

The problem is that these all seem to be occupying different novels and thus in order to make them coexist inside his own book, Richards has to basically flatten out the tone so that every thing reads at the same general level of excitement . . . that is to say, more like a medium speed car chase. While the Doctor and Harry do quite well for themselves and manage to engage in several clever things (the Doctor in particular gets several good scenes, made all the harder by not getting into his head, which means that since he's often alone you have to judge him purely by his actions, not an easy thing with this more distant incarnation), there's a certain rote progression to everything so that it never really feels organic. This is the way the plot has to go and thus it does.

It doesn't help that the aliens are never really scary, coming off as second-rate Cybermen (at least none of them ever say, "You will be like us" as they convert yet another person) or that with the characterizations not being the most dynamic thing in the world it's hard to tell who are real people and who are emotionless aliens. It boils down to people in suits sitting in rooms discussing their plans and things blowing up in between discussions, with the occasional gunfight just to liven matters up. It's well done and the aliens' plan does seem to be rather well thought out, even if the solution does somewhat hinge on the sonic screwdriver once again doing whatever the plot requires it to do. But the Russian plot also never seems to really connect with the rest of it and for some reason it feels like the mixture of action, military plotting and political maneuvering should have more impact.

But it's nice to see Harry being proactive and the Sarah Jane cameo is nice. It would have helped to have read the Missing Adventures novel that this is based off of sooner than ten years before but that really isn't the author's fault. It's all very competently written and sometimes even exciting but more often than not you're turning the pages mostly due to habit, waiting to get to the climax.

The souvenier from an earlier adventure seems innocent enough until the Doctor determines it's the clue to the current dilema.
Harry Sullivan has a great read in this book and it's nice to see him operating outside of UNIT. A book that uses current events (at the time)and one we can all relate to.

The Doctor, travelling alone, has decided to visit his old friend Harry Sullivan but is again caught up in the machinations of the Voractylls (from the New Adventure System Shock) during the turn of the Millennium. One good thing about the novel is the fact that even though it took place on British soil - there were no involvement from UNIT, just the regular Army. Characterisation is excellent, you'll find yourself laughing at the wordplay between the Doctor and Harry which is reminiscent from their time on the show. If it wasn't for the fact this was a Doctor Who novel you would think this a novel by Clive Cussler or Tom Clancy. Packed full of action, well written. RECOMMENDED!!!!

'By moving he had spoiled her grasp, and instead of clamping his windpipe, she succeeded only in tearing a chunk of flesh out of his neck. It hurt like hell, and Harry cried out. He could feel the blood already oozing out of the ragged wound. And now she was between him and the door...'

This the Doctor Who response to the Millennium. Not the first, I might add, since the Paul McGann TV movie also partly partied on this night of festivities. Justin Richards takes his starting point from the Millennium Bug, something which really might cause catastrophe on the night of 1 January 2000. Condef, a British electronics company, has developed a chip to counter the bug. But the British Government is also preparing to bring out the troops to help people when the crisis hits. But some people are determined to take advantage of the chaos. Could there really be a coup? And just who is trying to steal Russian nuclear weapons? What does it have to do with a pen given to Harry Sullivan by Sarah? The Doctor and Harry (now of MI5), must battle to expel a snake from netparadise...

'Millennium Shock' starts slowly, and the Fourth Doctor is a bit of a disappointment here. Richards gets his mannerisms right, but what's left is merely a cipher. Once the action does get going, the book is quite exciting. However, there is something iffy about the resolution. And as for the millennium? Well, even Ian McEwan's Booker Prize winning Amsterdam mentions that.

The sequel to the earlier 'System Shock', this story features the fourth Doctor, travelling alone after 'The Deadly Assassin', arriving back on Earth in December 1999. The year 2000 is fast approaching, and the world is concerned about what the Millennium Bug will bring (ah yes, the good old days!).

One company, Condef, promises to provide solutions to every Y2K problem, no matter how unprepared you are. But someone is gathering together old I2 equipment...

The Doctor is duly aided once more by Commander Harry Sullivan of MI5, formerly a travelling companion. And, while she is largely absent from these pages, Sarah Jane Smith is still a significant player in this book. (Interestingly, apparently Justin Richards had planned for Harry and Sarah to be married...).

The book's main problem is that it suffers from sequelitus - if you've read 'System Shock", you know a lot of what happens in 'Millennium Shock' even before you pick it up. Still, it isn't a bad read.

I bought this book when the millennium was still coming and the Y2K bug was still up in the air. I laughed when the bug didn't come. Still, it was interesting to speculate on how close it might have come to being what Richards described. I liked how it was never made clear whether Richards believed the Y2K bug was a realistic problem, but still had the world come to a halt. It's also nice to have the Doctor confront topical issues, though I wish they didn't date so quickly. Still, it was a fun read, both before and after the big clock kicked over into double zeros.