| FOREVER AUTUMN by Mark Morris |
| Story 16 Synopsis: The TARDIS detects a huge splurge of energy, which the Doctor traces to a tree in the New England town of Blackwood Falls, the day before Hallowe'en. He learns a book was dug up from the base of the tree by three young lads, but the book vanishes before he can find it. An eerie green mist has also come from the tree, making people anxious and afraid. After eyewitness encounters, the Doctor identifies the trouble as being the Hervoken race, who must have crashed a long time before, and caused the town to be built above their ship, so they could feed it with energy from the populace. With the book, the Necris, they can cause a huge increase in energy, during the imminent Hallowe'en celebration, and use it to launch their ship, which will devastate the town, and most of the area. The Doctor tries to offer them safe passage elsewhere, but they scorn him. So he uses the Necris against them, causing their ship to explode, and them all to die. Blackwood Falls returns to normal, albeit lacking the nasty big tree the town was named after. |
| Review:- Spooky goings-on in America, as the pagan festival of All Hallows Eve is corrupted and twisted by a nasty bunch of spooks from outer space. Isn't it always the way? Arguably the American setting is a strength for the book, given the fact that the USA makes more out of Hallowe'en from a commerical standpoint than anywhere else on Earth. Somehow, a more British version would have seemed rather darker from the word go. On the downside, nearly every local character is saddled with a hokey you're-overdoing-it name eg Thad, Brad, etc As for the Hervoken (hey, sounds a bit like Hoboken, fancy that?), then their chief defect is a too-great similarity to the Carrionites from The Shakespeare Code. But since that story was a flop to me, perhaps they would have done better on the printed page. Fortunately, Morris capitalises on this problem by making their similarity a major point, although their conflict, the Witchy Wars, is an understandable if dreadful appellation (I've seen someone call this "a great name for a war" !) The Doctor and Martha fare quite well, although the mention of Rose is hysterically unmerited and almost as bad as when it happens on screen. That the Doctor should trust Etta when the townsfolk do not is a good moment, although his eventual defeat of the Hervoken is rather too doubtless (akin to the end of Human Nature/The Family of Blood) - the Doctor allows terrible things to happen in the expectation that the villains will mend their ways, and then kicks their arses with ease when they don't. Hmm... The all-pervading green mist allows for an eerie tone across the book, and the usage of spooky iconography works broadly well, despite it being a bit for-the-sake-of-it. The title is also just about tolerable, despite its pop-culture-riffing. Besides all this, it's a doddle to read, and pretty entertaining along the way. There are moments akin to cliffhangers (the attack of the cats, for example) and visual moments such as the attack of the killer clown. Horror addicts would probably have spotted a whole list of such cliches, though it hardly seems to detract from the actual story, rather enhancing it. Certainly the final showdown with the kids possessed by their ghastly costumes is highly memorable stuff. On the whole, despite its flaws, it's not a bad book. |
| Disclaimer: I've read the book. |