| THE ALGEBRA OF ICE by Lloyd Rose |
| Story ? Synopsis: The TARDIS is playing up. The Doctor is concerned that 76 Totters Lane may have been changed. Edgar Allen Poe keeps dying, wrongly. Plotting time divergences on a computer, the Doctor tracks down a man named Ethan Amberglass, and asks him about his research into the Riemann hypothesis. Meanwhile, in a field, the Brigadier finds a crop circle that isn't a circle, but is made of ice. A webzine-running sceptic named Adrian Molecross snoops around, and has his hand burned off. The Doctor visits the site at night, digging a circle for protection. Ace and Ethan turn up, and save the Doctor from whatever is causing the patterns. The Doctor tries to allow Ethan back to his life, but fails. Molecross tracks Ethan down, to the Doctor's dismay. Sheridan Brett, a wealthy man who is working with Patrick Unwin, and is associated with the creatures behind the weird crop circle, gets information from Molecross, and subsequently uses Unwin to kidnap Amberglass. Brett tortures Amberglass to get him to work with Unwin. Feeling guilty, Molecross goes to try and help Amberglass, but realises Brett is too dangerous. Ace hears Brett's threat and helps Molecross free Ethan. The Brigadier visits the Doctor, who fills him in on what Brett is up to. Brett & Unwin have relocated to the Swiss Alps. The Doctor tracks them down. Molecross stows away in the TARDIS. Whilst the Doctor prevents another attempted intrusion, Brett attacks him, and demands help. Unwin frees him. Ace attacks Brett during another attempt. Ethan realises the Doctor is planning to kill him to prevent any further attempts, but the Doctor denies it. They return to England, and revisit the site of the original ice pattern. Ethan is kidnapped, by Brett. Ethan manages to overpower Brett, and Molecross arrives to rescue him. Brett is believed dead, but he has become a worm for the invaders, who are trying to use the TARDIS as a power source. The Doctor goes to confront the invaders on a neutral ground, and Ace follows. Brett appears in the TARDIS, menacing Ethan and Molecross. They try to find a way to stop him. Molecross eventually kills himself stopping Brett. Ace rescues the Doctor, who was planning to kill himself to stop the invaders. He reduces their equations to zero. Ethan, having been bothered all along by the symptoms of a tumour, succumbs to it. |
| Review:- Another adventure for the 7th Doctor and Ace, this time with added help from the Brigadier, as aliens try to invade Earth, starting in England. So far, so what? It starts with a suggestion of universe-altering, but unlike the recent storyline that covered the 8DAs for years, this is a more simple and direct plot, involving one group of nasty aliens trying to take over our universe to destroy it, more or less. By using an exceptionally nasty tool, Sheridan Brett, they become more convincingly dangerous than the Council of Eight managed to. To some, this is a book about the importance of mathematics. But that seems irrelevant to me. It's no more realistic than a flock of Daleks swooping down to blast your house to bits. But, it is dramatic, so maybe I should be grateful for small mercies. What starts with an icy pattern escalates into an attempted invasion, as a introvert genius mathematician and a curious webzine reporter join forces with the Doctor and Ace to thwart Brett and the aliens. Somehow, despite that unpromising precis of events, it's got a lot to recommend it. The dialogue is often excellent, and the short cast means that the characters we do meet are all well developed (except the Brigadier, who is pretty superfluous to matters). Against that, the plot relies on coincidences and repeated capture-escape-capture-escape, which is made all the more silly by the escapes often being quite simple (and often involving Molecross, who spends most of the latter part of the book turning up unexpectedly, in defiance of logic, just to provide a shock). Then there is the matter of Ace's relationship with Ethan, which is so ludicrous as to be parodic. If the book as a whole is some kind of homage to Virgin's New Adventures, then that might explain this, but if this is the case, it's the most spoofy part of the whole book. The drama of the TARDIS being hacked into works, and the dilemma of the Doctor's willingness to kill Ethan doesn't. It's a mish-mash of a book, where something good is counterpointed by something bad. The denouement is over in a flash, and the Doctor's guff about reducing all equations to zero totally flattens the preceding drama. Whilst there is a lot of joy in the book (and I was grateful that after all the hints, Ethan's illness is finally explained at the end), there is also a lot of dross. Perhaps the aptest summary for me is the view of Justin Richards, who apparently reassured Ms Rose after she claimed to be struggling with Ace, that this is her story, her book. It isn't. Tucker & Perry have a better handle on Ace than Rose does - Matrix being a good example. I don't mind recommending this book, but it's far from a must-have. |
| Disclaimer: I own a copy. |