| MATCH OF THE DAY by Chris Boucher |
| Story ? Synopsis: The TARDIS lands shakily in a bland complex. The Doctor and Leela look around, and find themselves in an arena, where Leela is challenged to a fight. She defeats her opponent but doesn't kill him, and both she and the Doctor are arrested. The Doctor manages to get them free, after making a promise to a fellow prisoner to find a dualist named Keefer. Leela becomes frustrated that the Doctor seems keener to fit into the role of her agent, and embarks on a quest to find Keefer. She is kidnapped and taken to a space yacht where the elusive, rich Lady Hakai is waiting. Keefer evades death, and sets off on a quest to find Hakai, believing she has been trying to kill him. The Doctor finally sets off after Leela, and finds her on Hakai's spaceship, where Hakai wants her to fight Keefer, who has also been brought there. The Doctor takes them away, back to the arena where he and Leela were originally arrested. He learns that Hakai was responsible for the attempt on Keefer's life - she managed to kill most of the other major fighters. She claims to want to end the duels, but she is herself killed. The Doctor and Leela leave. |
| Review:- Chris Boucher's SF credentials are rarely in doubt, and here, he weaves a tale that gives the series an SF credence it doesn't often seem to get. The setting is well set-up, and the plot unfolds at a mixed pace, with Keefer's efforts to elude death mixing with the Doctor and Leela's apparent slow race to find him. It often seems that Keefer's story is the more compelling, as he is part of the existing structure, whereas the Doctor and Leela are fish out of water. Whilst this is Leela's usual state, the Doctor being wrongfooted by events is less common. He spends a lot of time thinking to himself, which seemed more tolerable in Boucher's last book, Psi-ence Fiction. Here, whilst giving an engaging account of the Doctor's thought process, it doesn't seem to help the story, or the reader's comprehension. But then again, perhaps an opaque view on the world of conflict presented is the best way to show it. As the plot hinges on the effects on those at the apex of this society, then it might be awkward to make it all clear from the start. Then again, it's barely more clear by the end. Keefer being one of several top fighters to face death, and (it turns out) the only one to survive, sets his story off with interest that is quite absent from the dreary trial of the Doctor and Leela. At least his all-action escapades and quest to seek revenge give the book a focus, and when his search is tallied to their search for him, the book begins to meld into a fairly pleasant thriller. Leela being chosen as Keefer's opponent gives a bit of drama to the latter stages of the book, whilst the Doctor's juggling of his quest to find them both, and the cop corruption twist means that there is always something happening as things progress. It's a bit of a shame that the conclusion is rather bemusing. After taking a long time to travel a long distance to Lady Hakai's ground, the return journey takes considerably less pages. Then everything is resolved in a bit of talking, and that's pretty much it. Overall, it's a decent book with a lot of thought gone into it. It's just not made rewarding to get much out of it. |
| Disclaimer: I own a copy of this book. |