| DANCING THE CODE by Paul Leonard |
| Story ? Synopsis: In the African state of Kebiria, journalist Catriona Talliser witnesses a UNIT Captain die in unusual circumstances. When she challenges the Kebiriz leader, she is thrown into prison. The Doctor has built a machine that predicts the Brigadier will shoot he and Jo, so heads off in the TARDIS. Jo goes with Yates and Benton to Kebiria, but they are arrested on landing. Jo finds herself in prison with Catriona, but they manage to escape, killing a guard in the process. They also free another prisoner, Vincent Tayid, a notorious terrorist who's a friend of Catriona's. Yates is ordered to leave the country. The Doctor realises he has to help out, but the TARDIS blows a gasket. He and the Brigadier take a plane, but are attacked and forced to crash. The Doctor tries to draw fire, and is captured, where he meets Jo again. The Brigadier meets up with Yates and thinks he has the Doctor and Jo. But back in England, he realises they're alien duplicates and shoots them, completing the prophecy. He goes back to Kebiria, and finds the Doctor and Jo. Then Jo is taken hostage, and makes her way to the Nest which the aliens, Xarax, have built. She has been infected by them, and decides to become their replacement Hive Queen. The Doctor and UNIT return to England so the Doctor can synthesize a neutraliser to the Xarax. Meanwhile, the Americans order a nuclear strike against Kebiria. The Doctor succeeds, but has to use a Xarax rocket to return to the Hive in Kebiria to neutralise that, too. He also manages to disable the nuclear warheads. The Xarax threat is over. |
| Review:- Paul Leonard rightly deserves his esteem as one of the more thoughtful writers who tries to get unfamiliar points of view across. Here, he follows his Venusathon, Venusian Lullaby, by writing a UNIT tale that could never have appeared on screen, except by bankrupting the BBC. It begins with the subplot - the Doctor's prediction of his murder. This seems clever, and sets up an intriguing dynamic between him, Jo and the Brigadier, but would he really be so insensitive as to allow both of them to watch it? Understandably, it perturbs them both, and leads to them considering their actions in a way they normally wouldn't. Sadly, as soon as it becomes blindingly clear that duplication is one of the Xarax traits, the resolution to this subplot is just a matter of time. So what of the main plot? Well, the idea seems to be to show that aliens sometime invade less familiar countries, and that UNIT have a global reach. This allows for some less-than-subtle descriptions of the pseudo-lands of Kebiria and Giltea. Basically, though the locals are nice people at heart, they're not like us in the West. Well, there's a shock, eh? The other theme is to demonstrate Jo's increasingly activist attitude, thus teeing her up for The Green Death, which follows this book (and a few others). Her mantra becomes "we must do something". She first says this when imprisoned with a female journalist, Catriona Talliser, and despite initial misgivings, each learns from the other. When Jo is forced to accept help from noted terrorist Vincent Tayid, she has to try and square her ideals with the harshness of reality. When alone and infected in Kebir City, she decides to take action and seek out the Xarax hive herself, proving how resourceful she can be. And ultimately, when the crisis is over and the squabbling resumes, she can't bear to stand by without trying to help. As for the Doctor, he gets to fly a UNIT plane and a Xarax rocket, communicate with the aliens and suffer temporary blindness. His attempts to broker peace without further destruction lead nowhere as the humans ignore him. He does finally succeed despite the odds, but given the huge cost, it's a less than complete victory. As an experiment to show how it would be if aliens invaded Earth outside England, it's fairly successful, and shows an escalated tragedy. As an attempt to give other cultures a chance to show their grace under fire, it's fine. But as an engaging novel that makes the reader think as well as care, it stumbles on the block of being rather boring. And there is a section towards the end where the Doctor flits from Kebiria back to England and then back again in what seems ludicrously swift time, whilst the ticking-clock of imminent nuclear attack goes on in the background. And the ending is rather flat, which at least matches the non-drama of the twisted Zalloua's attempts to use the Xarax. Its heart is in the right place, but that's about all. |
| Disclaimer: I own a copy. |