| INTERFERENCE: BOOK ONE: SHOCK TACTIC by Lawrence Miles |
| Story 25 Synopsis: The Doctor is summoned to Earth, where he becomes concerned by a strange arms dealer called Guest. He disappears, trapped and tortured. Fitz is sent to Geneva, but trapped in his room by the UN, and then zapped by the Cold, waking up almost 600 years later. Sam tries to continue the investigation, and meets Sarah Jane Smith. Guest's group are called the Remote. Whilst Sarah tries to kybosh plans to spread the Cold, Sam is taken to the Remote's home on Anathema. Fitz, stuck, decides to throw his lot in with Faction Paradox. The Doctor makes a last-ditch attempt to get help, but only succeeds in contacting Sarah, and giving her a clue to his location. Meanwhile, he also contacts his 3rd incarnation, warning him not to be diverted from going to Earth. But he ends up landing the TARDIS on Dust, where a desperate town in visited by a travelling show, run by the mysterious I.M. Foreman, and outside the town, the Remote launch their ship to investigate. |
| Review:- There had been previous experiments linking the old & new Doctor ranges, but this was the first where the same writer wrote both halves. Indeed, and not for the first time, Miles does his own thing, crafting a story which is 70% new, 30% old, though both elements are connected. What the first book has strongly in its favour is the pacing. The story rattles along quite excitingly, as Sam tries to save the day without the Doctor, Fitz finds himself out of his depth, Sarah adapts herself to modern life, and the Doctor suffers a lot, for no apparently good reason. The main baddies we meet are the Remote, led by Guest. His two sidekicks, Compassion and Kode, are further backed up by Ogrons, who at least get some respect here (much as the Krotons did in Alien Bodies). When one of the Ogrons turns to help Sarah, it seems entirely credible, although the author's sniping about humans not being able to tell the Ogrons are aliens is one of many trite comments in what the author proudly boasts is a political book. But then, you can hardly avoid the politics because the author beats his audience about the head with it repeatedly. Regrettably, instead of a rapier to make his point, he prefers a bludgeon, and thus makes a terrible mess of it. The repeated arguments, usually with Sam, about the rights and wrongs of torture equipment never develop into proper discussion because the author either isn't interested, isn't capable, or can't be bothered. When Compassion says matches and cars can be used dangerously, just like shock batons, Sam never responds that their primary purpose is not torture, whereas it is with shock batons. This isn't even nursery-level idiocy, which renders much of the rest of the book as worthless. Fitz' journey is a similar sort of silliness. Given a straightforward mission, albeit a tall order, he is put on ice quite rapidly, and stranded further and further from home. He becomes a part of the Remote plan for Anathema, whilst clinging to the hope that he might get home. What his interludes do point up is one of the book's strengths, which is its sense of pace. The story moves from chapter to chapter between Fitz, the Doctor, and mainly Sam and Sarah. The Remote seem to have all the cards, and other characters like Alan Llewis and Lost Boy find themselves struggling to make sense of it all. The increasing desperation of the Doctor, and the cruel fate of Badar offer a sort of pause from the ongoing plot, as the Doctor falls victim to the margins of the story. Tortured for no reason, he begins to fear he will never be saved. What he is meant to learn from this is another matter. And so to the latter section of the book, where the Doctor and Sarah wind up on Dust, to become bit part players in I. M. Foreman's tale. The desolate and hopeless state of things is best shown when the Doctor gets hot coffee thrown in his face. If this is meant to show that the Doctor can't solve everything by good manners, it's a wonder what the point is. The first book tells a poor story well, although much of it is padding, really. The story concludes (sort of), of course, in Book Two: The Hour Of The Geek... |
| Disclaimer: I own a copy of the book. |