| SUPERIOR BEINGS by Nick Walters |
| Story ? Synopsis: The Doctor and Peri gatecrash a party given by a small group of Eknuri, advanced humans. But the party is attacked by Valethske, vulpine warriors who carry off many of the partygoers for livestock. The Doctor takes the TARDIS onto their ship whilst it's emerging from a century of travel, and rescues Peri and others, though not all the captured Eknuri. Then, unable to reach the TARDIS, they take a shuttle and land on a nearby paradisical planet. The Valethske soon follow, and capture them, but the Doctor buys time by explaining about his time machine. Peri and the other survivors are allowed to live, but set to work. They escape, but only Peri survives for long. The Doctor finds one of the Valethske isn't as keen on their Great Mission as everyone else, and is himself doubtful that their lost Gods will be found on this planet. In fact, the Gods, the Khorlocthoi, are here, but having evolved onto a higher mental plane, were unprepared for their bodies continuing without them, leaving a bleak existence. The Valethske destroy the surface vegetation on the planet, stopping the food chain, and stopping their gods. But the mental power behind things retaliates, and the bulk of the Valethske are wiped out. The remainder set off to try and find their way back to their home planet. |
| Review:- A strange exercise in hubris, and superior power. Presumably the intention is that Peri is very, very early into her time with the Doctor, although it doesn't really help the book. She is very definitely inferior to the Eknuri, for example. Biologically advanced humans, they are physically superior to her, but consider themselves intellectually superior to the Doctor, but they lack courage. This point is rammed home when they are attacked by the Valethske. It is tempting to suppose the idea for the book came from the idea of "fox hunters" and the obvious basic twist of the foxes doing the hunting. What might pass for a brief comic idea is instead drummed to death by a deeply tedious quest plot, where the wholly repulsive Valethske travel across space on a fool's errand to find their gods, so that they can destroy them. Rather an extreme solution to religion, perhaps. Of course, whilst they are superior physically to the Eknuri, they're not intellectually superior, and their quest is a load of nonsense, too. But the point is that the Khorlocthoi (and I must have moaned about silly long alien names before, it still stinks) were superior to the Valethske, which is why they want to destroy them, to confirm their own superiority. In fact, it is their very superiority that means these gods have slipped through their grasp, but that superiority is also flawed, for they have found themselves trapped in a mental dead end, existing in a rather basic way. Against all this power play is the Doctor, who as a Time Lord, has some fair claim to be the most superior of the lot. Crucially, he doesn't lord this over anyone, which is to his credit. However, he is often written to be as brusque and unlikeable as everyone else. With Peri, and the worthless xeno-expert Aline (anagram of alien, get it?!) Vehlmann, also proving to be the sort of travelling companion who you'd want to avoid at all costs, this is a hard book to tolerate, and that doesn't help, either. Nor does the arbitrary and brutal deaths meted out to characters we come to know, albeit not care about. They appear to exist merely to add pages to the text, or to save the regulars from harm. This is not endearing. Ultimately, it is Veek, the Valethske who decides the quest is a dumb idea and wants to go home, who is seen to make the right choice, although considering the havoc and destruction caused to reach that point, it seems a bit of a Pyrrhic victory. An unpleasant read that doesn't particularly expand the mind. |
| Disclaimer: I own a copy. |