| THE STONE ROSE by Jacqueline Rayner |
| Story 7 Synopsis: Mickey calls Rose back - he's got a surprise to show her. In a museum, there is a 2,000 year old statue of Rose. The Doctor thinks it's odd. So he and Rose travel back to AD120 to check it out. They save a rich man named Gracilis from a mugging. He is in Rome looking for his missing son, Optatus. The Doctor and Rose also meet a girl, Vanessa, who is said to predict the future. Gracilis buys her to take back to his villa to help find Optatus. Rose doesn't believe she can predict the future, but the Doctor works out the truth - she's from the year 2375, but has been stranded here for 10 months. Gracilis employs a sculptor, Ursus, who has recently shot to fame for the accuracy of his statues. Too late, Rose realises his secret. The Doctor too, realises what happened to Optatus. He sets out for Rome to try and find the missing statuefied Rose. He borrows a horse from an important Roman, and is arrested for it, and put to fight in the Colosseum. He manages to hold off the wild animals, and when other slaves are brought in, he helps them escape. United with Gracilis, he is given a phial to reverse the effects of Ursus' process. They go around Rome, bringing Ursus' statues back to life, though still unable to find Rose, or Ursus. Back at Gracilis' villa, the Doctor frees Optatus. Then he takes the TARDIS back to the present day, in order to bring the statue there back to life. But it fails. Then he realises that the statue isn't an exact copy of how Rose looked. He takes the TARDIS back in time, and catches up with the statuefied Rose in a glade, restoring her. They track Ursus down to a cave where he is courting Minerva, a goddess. The Doctor realises that this isn't the real Minerva, but the machine that brought Vanessa back - a GENIE. Built with the ability to grant wishes, it would go on to destroy civilisation on Earth. In a melee, Ursus gets stabbed, and the GENIE absorbs his corpse. The Doctor and Rose put right a few mistakes, and set up the Doctor receiving the phial. Once everything is settled, and Vanessa is returned home, Rose wishes for the GENIE to find a place where it can live happily without causing so much trouble. The Doctor reveals that he checked the Museum statue, and found that he made it, rather than Ursus. |
| Review:- A present-day mystery sends Rose and the Doctor off on a trip into the past, and a look at life in the Roman empire. The opening mystery serves merely to allow fleeting appearances for Jackie and Mickey (though he at least gets to turn up again later on), and provide an excuse for the Doctor and Rose having an adventure in Rome. Well, it's one way of doing things, I guess. Once in Rome, the Doctor and Rose luckily stumble on the one person who can lead them to a statue-maker. This is scarcely the last coincidence in the book, either, with nary even an authorial comment on it. To take this all seriously is asking too much of anyone, whatever age. The stonemason, Ursus, is a lumbering brute with a bad attitude, who has mysteriously become super-proficient after years of being hopeless. And nobody thought to query this. Coincidentally, a slave girl can supposedly foretell the future, although she is soon exposed as a fraud, after she is helpfully bought by friendly Gracilis. Surely her previous owner wouldn't have wanted to sell her at all? But no. It goes on. Rose goes along to Ursus' studio because she knows a statue of her comes from somewhere. The Doctor then foolishly splits up from Vanessa to spread the search wider, although she is soon forgotten. Quite how a reluctant slave would have succeeded in her searching is not considered. The Doctor borrows a horse, and is amusingly punished for it, which makes a change. Sadly, his punishment is just an excuse for a tedious extended riff in the Colosseum. The story then reaches a dead end, and the Doctor pops back to the present to see Mickey again. Strangely, the realisation that the modern-day statue isn't a petrified Rose galvanises him into a furious period of activity (which we only learn about later). The real Rose is rescued, Ursus dies the cursory death of the under-written, and the action moves to the GENIE. But even this is stricken by dreadful padding, as the Doctor is written out for several pages, before returning for the big (or not) finish. I might feel less caustic towards this were it not for the fact that a) Ms Rayner does not impress me as a writer, and b) Ms Rayner hadn't mentioned in her brief bio that she has a degree in ancient history. Now, to me, that smacks of rather smug self-protection. After all, whatever complaints one might have over descriptive accuracy are smashed on the rocks of this background. Sadly, I also have studied ancient history, and that's not what is wrong with this book. It's riddled with poor characters, thin plotting, and a lack of drama. I also can't shake off the suspicion that the title came first, from the late-1980's pop group, and the story came after. The counter-argument is that these books are aimed at younger children. Which is a bit limiting. Whether young children feel as insulted by the inadequacy of this book is another matter. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone wanting a book that doesn't insult their intelligence. |
| Disclaimer: I've read the book. |