| THE SLOW EMPIRE by Dave Stone |
| Story 46 Synopsis: The TARDIS is attacked by strange creatures called Vortex Wraiths, and are forced to land on a world called Shakrath, in a region of the universe where time travel is impossible. Imprisoned, they meet a loquacious native named Jamon de la Rocas, and when they escape, he joins them. They use the TARDIS to reach a nearby world of Thakrash, where they have further trouble and the Doctor becomes erratic. They meet a creature called a Collector, whom the Doctor allows to join them on their little quest. When they next come the world of Goronos, they are sidetracked by a huge computer which gives them fantasy lives to lead as part of its overall running, but when the Doctor rejects it, he is able to bring his friends out of it. Finally, he traces the organisation of the local area to an unnamed planet where he finds that the organising power is the Ambassadorial Corpse, who rule the empire through puppet Ambassadors on all the worlds they visited. They want access to the TARDIS, so they can spread through into the universe. The Doctor leads them to a secondary control room, which he has had rejigged by the Collector, and it destroys the Ambassadors, ending their tyranny. Jamon is allowed status as a new roving Ambassador to help bring some normality back to the empire. |
| Review:- A weird planetary quest, where the normal rules are in abeyance... This is rather a low-key book, whether by accident or by design. Though the scene of the TARDIS being attacked, and some individual encounters do achieve a sense of terror, most of the book is a pretty bland plod from place to place, where the Doctor doesn't feel terribly threatened, and is able to rescue his friends when they do get out of their depth. The twist of the setting, being a place where travel between planets takes centuries, doesn't really work as well as it is perhaps meant to. Once one journey of a thousand years is accepted, then several more just become a jumble of numbers, with no meaning to them. The main guest character is the chatty Jamon, who narrates about half the book. This does at least allow the book to sustain interest during the frequent times when it gets deadly dull. The other point of any note are the Notes which crop up periodically, and cut still shorter the journey of the reader to the end of the book. Only one of these is of any real importance, and that's where Stone apologises for the pun that the whole story is built around. Well, at least he's honest. Many more writers could do with apologies in their books, too. Fitz and Anji are just bystanders for most of the time - their experiences on Goronos allowing them a brief spell in the spotlight, before their return to the shadows. The Collector is a rather silly addition, but does at least bring more colour to a book that needs it. I suppose the tone of the book reflects the society depicted, but it doesn't half get you down. A harmless, forgettable little book that doesn't make a lot of difference to anything, or anyone. |
| Disclaimer: I own a copy. |