2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Early hilarity gives way to excruciating mediocrity, January 23, 1999
By A Customer
This review is from: Placebo Effect (Doctor Who Series) (Paperback)
This book starts with great humour as we see a Foamasi alien discuss human sexual behaviour. We have those ominous scenes which tell of a thrilling adventure to come...but it all subsides in a whimper. Gary Russell's problem as a writer in this story is that he is too self-indulgent, having so much fun with old ideas and concepts that he forgets to pace the plot nicely. The end, which could never be called a climax, is particularly dissatisfying. When a book draws upon a TV show as heavily as this does and dabbles too much in homage, it can never hope to succeed as gripping fiction. But the humour gives the story its moments and Sam's recovery from her crush on the Doctor is a refreshing change. And Russell does deliver some nice moral arguments which, if emphasised over the schlocky plot, would have made the book a much better work.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Where's a good can of Raid when you need it!, February 28, 2000
This review is from: Placebo Effect (Doctor Who Series) (Paperback)
A good story that reintroduces the Wirrrn. The book quickly becomes creepy and if you dislike bugs like I do it becomes downright icky!
The action takes place on an artificial world called Macawber's World where the year 3999 Millennium Olympiad games are about to take place. Add in corporate espionage, a fanatical religious group, a Royal Entourage (reminded me strongly of Diana at first and quickly degenerated), a wedding where the Doctor is the Best Man and green scaly aliens and you've got yourself a ripping good story. Makes you long for a really BIG can of Raid!
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5.0 out of 5 stars
Too many cooks, not enough broth, August 21, 2008
This review is from: Placebo Effect (Doctor Who Series) (Paperback)
Sometimes the propensity of "Doctor Who" to take various elements and sort of mash them together and in the process create something that you'd never really be able to experience anywhere else. When this works properly you get works of near genius, such as taking the Daleks and sticking them inside an authentic Victorian house, or the more recent examples of jamming a spaceship and pre-Revolutionary War France together. But there are times when the pieces all don't come together properly and while you don't get a total mess, you get a work that isn't quite the sum of its parts. This is one of those works.
The Doctor and Sam show up on Micawber's World in time for the 3999 Olympics. Not surprisingly, bad things are starting to happen and nobody quite knows why. There's Foamasi on the planet doing their usual dastardly things, quite a few people are starting to act decidedly odd and somehow it's all sort of connected but not in the way you might think. And underneath it all an old enemy is really about to make life miserable for everyone.
Yeah, the Wirrn show back up, after having not been seen for like thirty years. This in itself is not a bad thing as they are surpremely scary monsters and actually do work fairly well when not on the screen. And a lot of the scenes where they are taking over people or their agents are spreading whatever mischief that the insects are up to are extremely unsettling because they seem implacable and unstoppable and nobody knows what the heck is going on. Having them in the book alone makes for a fairly gripping plot.
Unfortunately what happens is that six other things are going on and the Wirrn sort of get shoved into the background while the B-plots circulate in the foreground. And it's just too much. You have the Foamasi, who are very entertaining in their own right, running about and manipulating each other while the Doctor tries to sort out who is in the right and who is just causing trouble, meanwhile there are several other subplots devoted to various going-ons at the Olympics and Sam's run-ins with a church that thinks that aliens and people shouldn't breed. As you can tell, things start to get crowded.
It also doesn't help that the plot sort of meanders, we digress for a while to cover the wedding between two former companions that you've never met (who vanish anyway partway through, presumably on a honeymoon) . . . it's a cool concept to imagine the Doctor having years of adventures in the five minutes he's gone from Sam but there are times when I'd rather read about those adventures than the ones going on in the book itself. Also the book gets sidetracked briefly while Sam and the cult leader have a debate about evolution and creationism, which is neat and all but is never followed up on, so you get a "what does this have to do with the plot?" moment.
That doesn't mean the book isn't bad, it's just . . . not exciting. The Foamasi are actually a welcome addition to the novel, they are a lot of fun with their criminal logic and rules and they deserved more of an appearance than just "The Leisure Hive" . . . but as the old cliche goes, there's just not enough room in the book for all of them. The Foamasi on their own would have worked but with they and the Wirrn jockeying for key plot positions, it winds up that neither of them win. The Doctor isn't aware of the Wirrn until near the end and their plot gets wrapped up real fast with a "let's kill all the monsters!" moment.
And with all this going on, the Doctor and Sam unfortunately come across as a bit generic, they do all the right stuff and hit all the right bits but they never have any real standout moments and while Sam isn't as annoying as she has been, she's not a real go-getter either. Well written and not terrible, it's merely okay and for all the stuff that was crammed into it, it should be better than that.
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