| THE ALSO PEOPLE by Ben Aaronovitch |
| Story 44 Synopsis: The Doctor brings his friends to meet the People, ostensibly for a holiday. The People are hugely technologically advanced, living alongside thinking machines, overseen by an entity called God. Whilst Chris and Roz fall in love (though not with each other), the Doctor lets Bernice in on his secret: Kadiatu is kept here under surveillance. He is unsure whether to let her live or die, and entrusts the task to Bernice. Meanwhile, a drone is killed during a thunderstorm, and God asks the Doctor to investigate. It relates back to an incident when a ship went briefly mad and killed thousands in revenge. Roz solves the case, and the renamed ship nearly kills her. The Doctor induces a mental storm in its processing, and blows it to bits. Kadiatu recovers her wits, and resolves to travel again, with a drone for company. |
| Review:- Into the realms of the fantastic, a world of perfection, but with more than one snake in the grass. After a long gap from his previous NA, Transit, Aaronovitch returns with a book of equal scope of imagination, but perhaps rather more positive a slant. The paradisical People live in a jolly utopia, but with an ever-present worry about the Time Lords and the threat of war. When a robot dies in a storm, it soon turns to a murder case that could tip the society over the edge... On the other hand, there is the subplot with the returning Kadiatu, last seen in Set Piece, and here on her last legs. The moral dilemma of whether the Doctor can and will let her live, seems rather opaque, just something to give Bernice a subplot. Since Chris and Roz are too busy with romance, and too new to the Doctor's life, for the job, Bernice struggles with her task. The mysterious murder of ViCari slowly comes clear, but in such a supposedly advanced society, the whole notion of sentience in machines means they're just as capable of crime as anyone else. Inbetween the duration of these plots comes plenty of description of the People and their Worldsphere, of the whimsical sentience called God, and the jolly times to be had. Of course, this is of questionable value, and it certainly seems less an attempt at wish fulfilment, as a depressing exercise in chronic smugness. Certainly the sequence where Chris' lover controls her biochemistry to ensure she has his child, but modified to her own ends, is utterly stomach-turning. But what it demonstrates is not so much the cold nature of the People, as the disturbed mind of the author. It says a lot that Kadiatu's plot ends when she just... gets better. As if that were the case for any other human being in a similar crisis (clue: it isn't)! Injury is added to insult when she is merely forgiven for her earlier mistakes, and left to learn from them. By luck, the murder plot is better handled, albeit the notion of robots killing because of a human impulse for revenge is thinly explained, and the Doctor's retribution on the killer is harsh in the extreme. But then, he has been written into a corner after all. This makes for an interesting diversion from the Doctor's usual adventures, even with the wonky suggestion that the Time Lords are waiting in the shadows (because they can't possibly have good intentions, can they?) all the time. But as a repository for some truly awful ideas, it really is better left on the shelf. |
| Disclaimer: I own a copy of this book. |