| ONLY HUMAN by Gareth Roberts |
| Story ? Synopsis: The Doctor plans to take Rose to Kegron Pluva, but Jack spots a temporal disturbance, so the Doctor takes them to Bromly instead. Whilst the Doctor and Jack try to pinpoint the source, Rose learns of a disturbance in a disco involving a caveman. The Doctor is able to take the TARDIS to the hospital where the caveman was taken, but the army are already there. They manage to spirit him away, but find they cannot return him to his own time. So they leave him with Jack, whilst they return to 26,185 BC. There, they find more time travellers, living in a huge underground wooden village, Osterberg. Though initially greeted with indifference, Rose puts the wind up the sceptical Quilley. The Doctor tries to work out what's going on. Rose goes to the surface to meet the Neanderthals, but they are attacked by cavemen, and she is kidnapped. Meanwhile, the Doctor inspects the Osterbergers rip engine, and realises there is more going on than even Quilley realises. Behind the Grey Door, they meet a vicious human-eating monster, but the Doctor cons it into leaving them alone. Chantal, the leader of Osterberg, arrives, naming the monster as a Hy-Bractor. The Doctor and Quilley try to escape, but are stunned in the process, and given pacifying drugs. Rose is engaged to marry a caveman, but she sneaks off. The Doctor manages to overcome the drugs, and ties Chantal up. He then sets out to find Rose. Chantal gets free, and unleashes the Hy-Bractors, her design for perfect humans. The Doctor finds Rose, and tries to persuade the cavemen to hide, before the Hy-Bractors can eat them. But they refuse. So Rose goes through with her marriage, and then the caveman scarper. The Doctor and Rose try to find the Neanderthals, but walk into a trap. Chantal threatens Rose, in return for the secrets of the TARDIS. The Doctor manages to stop her getting in, so she goes to use her rip engine, despite the Doctor's warning. She dies. The Doctor devises a temporary way for the humans to destroy the Hy-Bractors, but one still escapes. He orders it not to eat any more humans. The cavemen and the Neanderthals come together with the few surviving Osterbergers. The Doctor and Rose return to the present day in the TARDIS, where Jack has taught the caveman to lie, and he's found a job and a wife in the process. |
| Review:- Time travel is the big idea here, with the human race put under the microscope from all angles. The initial intrigue over the caveman in modern-day Bromley leads to the real action, as the Doctor and Rose head back to the past, leaving Jack safely in the present with poor Das. The idea of the Doctor and his companion facing the unknown in the distant past reminded me of The Taking Of Planet 5, although it could be reminiscent of Genocide. Once in the past, things pick up. The Osterberg settlement is a threat, however passive and friendly its people are. The key is Chantal, and the mystery of the Grey Door. The opening prologue that reveals the young Chantal as a single-minded redesigner gives way to the adult Chantal having gone all the way in that direction. In fact, not only has she helped control human reactions, she's worked out a new level, the Hy-Bractors. Chantal is the key character in the book, which isn't always a good thing when it's the baddie character, but she is so chilling that she really convinces as a threat. The scene where it's revealed that she's cut open the Doctor's chest and removed a heart here seems extremely scary. By the time she's removed Rose's head, then the impact starts to lessen. Despite that, her matter-of-fact attitude also enhances the Hy-Bractors, whose vicious eating of humans is tempered by the grisly manner in which they have to check they're attacking the right creatures. Quite how they were superior to humans is another matter - after all, Chantal is unbalanced. Her vague match is Quilley, the Refuser, who is a student of humanity without the pacification drugs from Chantal. But he is as blind to reality as the others, though he does manage to fight against it. His survival, and bringing together the Neanderthals and the cavemen is a really nice scene of hope after adversity. It's not all plain sailing, however. The cavemen are rather too silly, although that may be the point. Rose being forced into an arranged marriage, and the idea that their society owes as much to Eastenders as anything, seem quite stupid. It reads as if Roberts is just indulging himself. Although this is as nothing to the Jack & Das sections. Though a clever device to get across the true thoughts of both these men, and display their contradictory view of events, their subplot drags on without reaching a satisfactory resolution. Das fits into modern England, and that's it. What this suggests is that this is just an excuse to keep Jack out of the main narrative, which is pretty feeble cheating. Presumably the intended younger audience is not expected to care, but anyone with any interest in stories would find this strange. The Doctor is fairly well-written, but unlike some other books, I couldn't easily picture him. He has good material in encouraging Quilley and investigating the Grey Door, but he's less a motivating force of change, as an agent caught up in events. This doesn't really help his character. Overall, it is one of Roberts' better books, the set-up and villain are pretty strong, but there are many flaws present. It's a self-conscious book, that thinks it's smart. |
| Disclaimer: I have a copy of the book. |