| SKY PIRATES! by Dave Stone |
| Story 40 Synopsis: Hoping for a holiday, the Doctor instead tries to answer a distress call, but finds it's a trap, and the TARDIS is caught in a reality bomb. He and Bernice are deposited in one part of the System, whilst Roz and Chris and the TARDIS are in another. Whilst the ship repairs itself, Roz and Chris become slaves of the Sloathes, vicious metamorphic aliens who are becoming a growing force in the System. The Doctor and Bernice manage to get passage with Nathan Li Shao, on a quest to find the Eyes, 4 sacred jewels spread around the planets of the System. When the Eyes are gathered together on Planet X, then the System will probably collapse. One Sloathe goes seriously rogue, becoming a huge omniphagic entity. Roz and Chris find a friendly Sloathe, and realise that they're not as bad as it first seems. At the point of the Eyes being restored, there is an intervention, and the System survives with new life. The Doctor, Bernice, Roz and Chris return to the TARDIS and leave. |
| Review:- And so enter Dave Stone, the wacky would-be Douglas Adams of the NA range (and beyond). Following on from one rather Earth-centric space opera, this is a more cosmopolitan effort, as the Doctor and friends find themselves in parts unknown, where the same old power games and struggles for survival are all-too known. At one level, this is a simple quest to recover 4 fabulous and important jewels. By spending time on each planet, it divides the story into manageable chunks, which helps with the overall problem of trying to assimilate both Stone's rather verbose style, and the definite intricacies of the System depicted. For their first adventure, Roz and Chris are sensibly kept together, so they can relate their new experiences without being patronised/comforted by a more experienced Bernice or Doctor. These are also stuck together trying to unravel the mystery of Leetha's quest, and whether it has a deeper significance than seems the case. Though as outlandish as most characters and situations here, Leetha and the rascally Nathan are understandably motivated. The Sloathes are a strange concoction. Their shapechanging is nothing new, though the rather vicious usage of appendages, and their addictive connection to their slaves provides some interest. What seems strange is that they're not out-and-out bad guys, despite their status as such. Their cheery manner and ludicrous names combine to make them seem less evil than the Zygons, for example. Ultimately, it turns out that they're actually not really bad at all. Which bodes well for the System's future. Probably the major fault is the nature of the plot suggesting that some behind-the-scenes figure is manipulating everything. As a metaphor for the actual writer, this is deeply poor, and lends a distance to the plot which doesn't help its credibility. How can one trust in characters to behave freely when everyone feels they're in some kind of pre-ordained groove? Especially when the resolution is so nebulous as it is here. It is also tempting to think that The Eyes Of The Schirron would have been a better title, but would have needed a more interesting book to go with it. On the whole, whilst a fun, challenging and imaginative read, it could have done better with a lot more discipline. |
| Disclaimer: I own a copy of this book. |