An Eighth Doctor, Anji and Fitz novel. The planet Khnemu is a closed system, where space travel is prohibited by the white and black holes that distantly ring the galaxy. Each person on the planet carries in their genes a hereditary 'Godswitch' which enables 'God' to monitor their every move.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Vanishing Premise,
By Andrew McCaffrey "The Grumpy Young Man" (Satellite of Love, Maryland) - See all my reviews (VINE VOICE) (REAL NAME)
This review is from: Vanishing Point (Doctor Who) (Mass Market Paperback)
There's nothing more frustrating than seeing a book that has a lot of potential starting to lose steam. Unfortunately, I experienced that sensation far too early in VANISHING POINT. There's a lot of really excellent material in the book, but for everything that it does right, there's something that it does wrong. A few changes, and this could have been one of the all-time best Doctor Who stories, but alas, much of what exists now simply doesn't quite work, ambitious though it is.The premise to this book is fabulous. A society exists where God is real and death has meaning. Their faith isn't defined in the same way that ours is, as their religion is based upon fact and hard evidence. This is a beautiful premise and that it ended up being mishandled was quite frustrating. After carefully setting up this interesting scenario, Stephen Cole quickly backs away from it and confounds our attempts to view this sort of society by introducing us only to characters who begin the book full of doubts about the "facts" of their religion. The beautiful background simply never materializes, as apart from a few information dumps at the beginning, it never quite makes the impact on the story that it should have. No one that we see has really bought into the religion (though we are told that loads of other people in the population have), so it's difficult for the reader to understand the doubts that the characters already have. People with doubts are certainly interesting to read about (and they are portrayed extremely well here), but one really gets the impression that there was an opportunity wasted here. That said, the characters that we do encounter are drawn extremely well, never falling into cliché or stereotype no matter how easy it would be for them to do so. Every action is believable and interesting. The regulars get a lot of good stuff to do and each of the secondary characters leap from the page. This makes up a little from the fumble that I mentioned earlier. The characters that we end up being presented with are drawn extraordinarily well. The action flows fairly quickly and entertainingly. There are a few nice twists and turns to keep the reader interested, but there are also some long fight/escape sequences that go on for a tad too long. The prose is quite variable; while it mostly remains passable in some places it's quite effective and in other places it's difficult to read. A little sharper editing could have fixed these problems quite easily. What we have is good, but needs some further refinement. The ending also feels a bit confused and uncertain, with a few Doctor Who stereotypes rearing their ugly heads. If I never see a bad guy laboriously explaining his intricate plan to the Doctor before allowing him to escape, then I doubt I will miss it all that much. Something else that should have been left on the cutting room flow was the strange and pointless "romance" that Fitz gets himself involved in. I put the word romance in quotation marks, because it's one of those romances that leaves you unsure of just what happened. It comes out of no where, lasts all of ten pages, and then leaves no impact on the rest of the book. On the other hand, the other slight romance in the book is handled relatively well. It's nicely understated and does everything right that the Fitz romance did wrong. It's just a pity that this one, too, dissipates halfway through the book. It's a shame that the book contains the flaws that it does, because this really could have been something really special. If it had gone through another draft or two, we'd be discussing one of the great Doctor Who stories. The addition of an another character, one without doubts (or perhaps showing the Holy Man, Nathaniel Dark, at a point while he still has complete faith), would have made a world of difference in showing off the excellent premise. While I will always enjoy something that aims high like VANISHING POINT does, it's even more frustrating when a book like this doesn't quite pull off all the tricks that it could have.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Examination of God or an adventure story?,
By David Roy (Vancouver, BC) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Vanishing Point (Doctor Who) (Mass Market Paperback)
Vanishing Point is a novel that's hard to pin down. It starts out as a very nice examination of religion and how people relate to it. There is the crisis of faith as seen from both the layman's side and the clergy's side. It then becomes a study on genetic engineering, though that part is not very deep. The issue gets glossed over and replaced with a "should we experiment on people who don't know they're the subjects of experiments?" book. Finally, it becomes an action/adventure story. This is where the book fails, I think. There is a place in this world for books that examine hard issues. There is a place for adventure stories. They can sometimes even coexist. However, in this novel, the reader gets a bit of whiplash as it moves from one to the other. That being said, I did find this novel quite interesting, and one of Steve Cole's best. While he doesn't write a theological text, the issues are brought up very well by the supporting characters who inhabit the novel. I particularly enjoyed the "monk" character (who's name I can't remember and the book is at home). What does a clergyman do when he begins to doubt? The conflict is well-established and his final decision, while inevitable, is still gut-wrenching. The ending, though, is a disappointment. While I was on the edge of my seat wondering exactly how the Doctor was going to fix everything, I don't think it necessarily fit with the rest of the book. Year of Intelligent Tigers is a good example of how to do a "heavy" book that still has good adventure elements. In Vanishing Point, it falls a little flat. It is still well worth a read, though.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
God moves in less mysterious ways,
This review is from: Vanishing Point (Doctor Who) (Mass Market Paperback)
The Doctor has been showing off - he has brought Fitz and Anji to a planet where it is pretty much impossible to get to. Such an isolated place would seem somewhere where a series of experiments could be run, away from prying eyes. And experiments on a very large scale have been carried out here...An odd book for the Doctor Who range, this book has a religious storyline running through it. The adventure takes place in a society that has been shaped by a very strong religion, a religion that offers truth to its adherents. And the outcasts of this society also play an important role in the book. Steve Cole is a writer who produces a reasonable book, but seems to achieve better results with a partner. This is a solo book, and not what it might be. Somewhat downbeat, the book probably isn't one that you'd want to read if you are depressed.
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