| INTERFERENCE: BOOK TWO: THE HOUR OF THE GEEK by Lawrence Miles |
| Story 25a Synopsis: Sarah tries to track the Doctor down, suspecting he is in Saudi Arabia. With assistance from one of the Remote, she travels to Riyadh. She finds the TARDIS, and then the Doctor. Back in the TARDIS, he begins to piece together events. On Anathema, Sam is fed into the Remote's Media, where she explains what it is to have principles, which gives the Remote a martyr complex, which leads to chaos. Compassion decides to head for Earth with Sam. The Doctor lands the TARDIS on Anathema, because Guest plans to free the Cold from another universe. The Doctor realises that the Cold is, in fact, in the middle of the spaceship (which is a Time Lord weapon)that Anathema has been built on, and if Guest frees it, it will collapse, destroying a huge part of the surrounding area, which includes Earth. Guest won't listen to reason, so Sam uses the Media to change his mind. The Doctor sends the ship elsewhere, and Guest remains on Anathema. Sam carries out her promise to remain on Earth, where Sarah agrees to look after her. Compassion joins the Doctor, and Kode is restored to being Fitz. Meanwhile, on Dust, the Remote have landed at the village, seeking a TARDIS to get off the planet. I.M. Foreman lines up his travelling troupe in opposition. All of them are his future regenerations, he being a very old Gallifreyan priest. His final incarnation is a whirlwind of energy which consumes the Remote ship. Before it can consume his TARDIS, too, the Doctor gulls it into taking and remaking Dust, which it does. But the Doctor has put the wind up the law, and gets shot for his troubles. Worse, a Faction Paradox device intended to take over the planet, instead takes over him whilst he regenerates, Sarah struggling to return him to the TARDIS... |
| Review:- A big story needs a big conclusion, and this sort-of has one (or maybe two). Presenting answers to the Doctor's past, present and future, tasked with writing Sam out and pushing the Doctor in a new direction, Miles crafts a grand space opera with stunning danger for everyone... As with the 1st half, the great strength is the book's pace, particularly in the main feature. Fitz' journey finally makes a frightening sense, tying in with the ongoing problems of the Remote, and it's a wonder Sam is too dim to work out his fate when most will have twigged it long before it was explained to them. His cohort, Compassion, is sadly not well described beyond her usual disdain and apparent resemblance to a chubby Nicole Kidman. Though their leader, Guest, is also pretty opaque, at least his actions are explicable. Perhaps the vagueness is a deliberate reflection of the Remote themselves, and the message of the book. If so, what a waste. Sarah's successful 1st half culminates in her rescue of the Doctor, after which she is surplus to requirements and dumped home again, playing no part in the denouement on Anathema. But what a denouement it is. And it does put Sam centre-stage. First, she gives her politics to the Remote's Media, and then uses that connection to foil Guest before he can mistakenly unleash the weapon that Anathema is built on. And she validates Sarah's involvement by going off with her at the end. She gets to part from the Doctor with some dignity, and expresses her love for him in a manner that puts the later screen exit of Rose quite to shame (cf. Doomsday). If the revolution on Anathema seems like a rather fey end to the guts of the book, the final section on Dust provides more believable tension. The Remote there are led by Father Kreiner, which reveals that Kode wasn't totally Fitz at all - the original let his abandonment take over, and sided with Faction Paradox. This is both a startling and imaginative twist, whilst also being disgraceful and twee - oh no, the companion turns evil, yawn, haven't seen that before, many times in fact. But with most of the citizens of Dust brought down, it falls to the Doctor, Sarah and I.M. Foreman to put things right. Before that resolution, Foreman tells of his past, a tale that turns out to be deadly serious for the Doctor, when he realises the junkyard he got stuck in on Earth, 1963 (cf. An Unearthly Child), was a disguised proto-TARDIS, and his wanderlust derived partly from Foreman. Is it any wonder that the Doctor stands aside to let Foreman run his own show? The revelation of the identities of his merry band is an idea that makes sense this once, but wouldn't need to be revisited again. The final form, Number 13, is rather a deus ex machina, putting paid to the Remote, and revitalising Dust. It is a typically modest triumph for the Doctor to find a way to turn a barren, desolate hellhole into a lush, blooming paradise. And yet... there's still time for a twist in the tale, and the Doctor is first shot, then infected by Faction Paradox. This final twist sets up events in the EDA range that will culminate some books later in The Ancestor Cell. But that's another story... Overall, as a one-off experiment, Interference probably justifies itself. It tells two disparate stories in entertaining and exciting ways, full of interesting 3-dimensional characters, and tries to put some colour into its vision of Earth. If the politics is often atrociously naff, well, as the Doctor finds out, you can't win them all. |
| Disclaimer: I own a copy of the book. |