| THE SUNS OF CARESH by Paul Saint |
| Story ? Synopsis: Troy Game has a problem. She is lost, and soon finds she is no longer on her home planet, Caresh, but is on Earth, 1999. She befriends a local, Simon Haldane, who takes care of her. Meanwhile, the Doctor is recalibrating the TARDIS, after the lifting of his exile, and whilst on Dagusa, he runs into an old Gallifreyan acquaintance, Lady Solenti. She asks him to look into a problem involving a time fracture on Earth, and the disappearance of her partner, Lord Roche. Roche is on Earth, being pursued by two Furies, who aim to stop his palns for Caresh. Troy leaves Simon after he comes on a bit strong. She meets Jo, who is in Chichester, looking for the source of the time fracture. The Doctor finds Roche's TARDIS, old and abandoned, containing a very old Fury. As it dies, it causes the time fracture, which affects a teenager, Zeke Child. Roche tries to confuse the Furies by regenerating to look like the Doctor. After a while, the Doctor takes Jo and Troy to Caresh, where they hope to save Caresh from an apparent icy future. Caresh orbits 2 suns, at random times. It is set to orbit, Ember, the weaker sun for 74 years, which will kill all life, including the ferocious Leshe, predators who travel with the ice. Roche planned to bring a neutron star close by, so that Caresh moves into permanent orbit around Beacon, the stronger sun, so the ice never advances, and the Leshe die out. Solenti tries to stop the Doctor fulfilling Roche's work, but fails. He works a solution, but Troy intervenes, thinking he is Roche in disguise. Time runs out, but the Doctor diverts the neutron star, saves the day, and all go home happy. Sort of. |
| Review:- Well, a slightly fuller synopsis there. This was a mixture of a read, some bits good, some bad. Given that 65% of the book is on Earth, followed by a finish on Caresh, I wonder how anyone can feel this is structured. The Earth bits get some cheap laughs from Troy the busker, and the gruesome Furies, turning people to stone, or not, in Haldane's case, or only a shirt for the Doctor. Hmm. The stone TARDIS is a bit clever, although thinking about it, that would be mostly the work of the Fury. The Doctor gets a haircut, sings, takes a bus ride, nearly drowns, escapes from a moving train, and when despite telling Jo that the nick of time has been and gone, he STILL saves the day! Jo is as flat as usual, and tedious to boot. Troy is obviously our main character, and she manages to make the Careshi seem an interesting race worth saving, so it's a shame that everyone else on Caresh is so crap. I have to mention the scintillating TARDIS goes haywire, causing a 15 mile trail of chaos, and the appearance of Michael Sheridan, erstwhile believer in the unbelievable, who just disappears! At least Haldane gets a credited death, although that smacks of all build-up and no delivery. Still, at least we get Solenti, and her regenerating dog. Roche is unpleasant, unlikeable, wrong, and gets away at the end. Not a JR, not even a Cliff Barnes. More a Mike Baldwin. He also vanishes for a huge chunk of the story, although nearly everyone left talks about him in unflattering terms. On the other hand, the title's good (and relevant to the story!), although the cover's pretty drab, making it so obvious who the star is (and it ain't everyone's favourite Time Lord, I can tell you!) Also on the plus side, we have a story that revolves around science, and understandable things like planetary orbits. The Leshe are quite gruesome, but their attacks seem to fade in importance, and are downplayed by the angry citizens of Fell Island. The 1999 setting is a quirk, allowing for the non-appearance of UNIT, and a convenient trip for Lethbridge-Stewart and the gang, to Caresh. The Zeke Child sub-plot confuses, and just seems to make the Earth section seem like padding. And, oh yeah - Jeapes' Syndrome. I wonder who that's a reference to, eh, children? Would this have worked as a BBC production? No. Can I find it in my heart to like it? No, but I can't do anything about it now. |
| Disclaimer: I've read this book. |