Infinite Requiem

This was the first new Doctor Who: New Adventures novel I had read in a couple of years, but regrettably, it will not be one of the few I keep on my shelf. (The others are Timewyrm: Exodus, Cat's Cradle: Time's Crucible, and Blood Heat.)

It's interesting at times but extremely unpleasant, and is gratuitously sprinkled with the author's irrelevant personal philosophy. It's a tale of woe, like most of the middle-period and later New Adventures. The best substantive things I can say about it are: that it's superior to Daniel Blythe's previous New Adventures novel, The Dimension Riders; and that it chracterizes the Seventh Doctor well and in keeping with the other New Adventures novels. The Seventh Doctor has never been one of the most show more popular, and has almost certainly been the most controversial; but if only because he was the first Doctor to be featured in original novels that were deeper and more adult than the Doctor Who shown on television up to that point, the Seventh Doctor has actually received a deeper and more complex characterization than any other Doctor, including the ones shown in the contemporary program. Infinite Requiem, as miserable as it is, emphasizes not so much the ruthless Time's Champion as the angst-ridden, unhappy, and very old traveler; and to boot, the horrible events of the plot leave him very cranky at the end. show less

Now that Doctor Who is over for the season, I thought I would go back to some of the old "New Adventure" novels from the 90s that have been sitting on my TBR pile forever, in hopes of staving off the withdrawal symptoms. Whether this one has helped to scratch the itch any, though, I can't really say.

The story, which is set largely, though not entirely, on a war-torn human colony world in the 24th century, features a trio of dangerously powerful, amoral telepathic beings that have been scattered to different points in time and space and are seeking to reunite. It's an okay plot, but not a particularly gripping one. I can't say much more for the characterization, either. Bernice, the companion at this point in the series, feels pretty show more generic, and the minor characters, despite attempts to render them otherwise, are flat at best. The Doctor does have some decently Doctor-ish moments, but there are also far too many moments where the author seems to be attempting to substitute continuity references for characterization. Admittedly, it might have helped if I'd read it in the proper context, as it features the characters in the aftermath of major changes that happened in the previous book, which I read fifteen years ago and scarcely remember. But I'm not sure it would have helped very much.

Bottom line: it's a reasonable enough installment of the Doctor's adventures, but not an especially interesting one. show less

http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/2016376.html

Apparently this has some continuity with The Dimension Riders by the same author, but I'm afraid I had forgotten the key details. I did enjoy the Doctor and Bernice skipping between time zones (1997 and 2387, and the far future), actually rather reminiscent of the previous novel in this series, Set Piece but perhaps slightly better executed, the 1997 scenes being particularly vivid. However the telepathic gestalt alien is not terribly exciting by Who standards.