| TRANSIT by Ben Aaronovitch |
| Story 10 Synopsis: The Solar System, 2109AD. The launch of a system-wide tunnel is imminent, but beset by worrying delays. At its launch, something unknown enters the system, causing the deaths of the President and other dignitaries in attendance. Benny is swept along to the Stop, where she soon organises the locals. The Doctor helps out a student named Kadiatu as he tries to make sense of what's going on. An entity from another dimension has come through the new transit Stunnel, and is using Benny as a conduit whilst it organises itself. The Doctor struggles to find her, sent off on a wild goose chase to Mars by what turns out to be just a simulacrum of his companion. Eventually, he finds her just as the entity makes its final entrance to the system. He tackles it on its own ground, eventually separating it from Benny and taking her away just as its dimensional gateway closes. Whilst the people of the Solar System start to clear up the mess, the Doctor encourages a supercomputer to get tough, and Kadiatu uses a huge nuclear explosion as a source of energy to allow her to complete her time travel experiments. |
| Review:- Benny's first adventure out of her own timeframe, and it's not really much about her at all. Indeed, this is one of many books in which the author creates one new central character and focuses on them and their story to the exclusion of all else. Sometimes this works (eg The Sleep of Reason), more often, as here, it fails. Kadiatu Lethbridge-Stewart is an amusing new chapter in the story of Brigadier Alistair, but is all too often presented as "woo, a black companion!" for it to feel apt, and not totally tokenist. Her genetic past is slightly more interesting, although her superkiller status will soon be done with equally unwanted gusto when Ace is written back into the series. Whilst all this is going on, Benny is taken over by the nasty entity that drives the book, meaning she is hardly developed an iota. According to range editor Peter Darvill-Evans, this aspect, which provoked many complaints, was a result of Aaronovitch providing his book very, very late. As an excuse, it doesn't really wash. As it happens, I don't think it materially affects the book any more than other offending sections do. For offend is what this book did. Most simply, its use of bad language and unsavoury characters really emphasised that the book range was not simply a continuation of the television series, no matter how much its writers or editors claimed it was. Of course, there's no reason why places as bleak as The Stop shouldn't be shown, but the rather too real descriptions of Roberta and Zamina arguably go too far. Would they have seemed less believable without the 'warts and all' stuff? Perhaps only someone with experience could tell for sure. But most readers wouldn't need to know to either understand or to enjoy the book. In this case, getting attention worked to quite the wrong effect. Beyond this, there's not really much in the book. An alien thing wants to take power and the Doctor must stop it. The aside in Kent is padding, and so is the chase on Mars. Whilst it does provide colour and background to the whole idea of a connection across the solar system, it doesn't advance the story. That leaves us with the conclusion, where the Doctor takes a long time to find the real Benny, and then saves the day in a flash. Which is perhaps appropriate to the rest of the book, but is one more reason why people would take against this book. A lot of people did and do like it, though, to be fair. Indeed, it's quite a love-it-or-hate-it book - feeling indifferent to it doesn't seem an option. It's not a disaster, but nor is it anything like a triumph. |
| Disclaimer: I own a copy. |