| UNNATURAL HISTORY by Jonathan Blum & Kate Orman |
| Story 23 Synopsis: The Doctor lands the TARDIS in San Francisco, 2002, to check out a rift which threatens the planet. But the TARDIS goes into it, stabilising it briefly, and when Sam falls in, an alternate version of her is brought out. The Doctor travels to London to find her and persuade her to come over. Reluctant, she goes anyway. The Doctor realises Faction Paradox are in town to try and get her. But there is also a powerful alien collector, Griffin, trying to categorise all the unusual specimens drawn to the rift, including Sam and the Doctor. Despite his best efforts, the Doctor fails to stop Griffin or heal the rift. In the end, Sam is forced to sacrifice herself and enter the rift, allowing her other self out again, who pushes Griffin's box of tricks into the rift, which allows the TARDIS free whilst solving the problem. |
| Review:- Unfinished business is the order of the day, when Faction Paradox come to town, but the Doctor finds that the big trouble is all his fault... Sequels can be tricky things. If the original is liked, there's a lot to match up to. If the original is disliked, the risk is that the same will be happen again. Here, though not quite a direct sequel to events in the TVM, the story develops from the effects of what went on, chiefly the Doctor's regeneration and his final showdown with the Master inside his TARDIS. It turns out that there was a huge consequence in the form of a nasty rift in the very alley where the TARDIS landed, and it threatens reality as we know it. To make matters worse, the Doctor puts the TARDIS inside it to delay the effects of it, after Sam investigates and is also sucked inside. Her mishap leads to the main crux of the book, with an alternate version of her walking the streets (needs rephrasing, I know) in London. Once the Doctor brings her to San Francisco, things begin to kick off. On the one hand are the spooky phenomena, unicorns etc, not to mention the threat of a Kraken on the way. On the other hand is the unnaturalist, Griffin, who comes from some weird place outside the ordinary, and seeks to bring order from chaos, and that includes the Doctor, almost Mr Chaos. To some extent, the book is one long prologue to the inevitable sacrifice of Sam to allow her other self out of the rift. Whilst the less-than-enthralling saga of the Doctor's biodata plays out to inevitable dullness, even if allowing Griffin to display some awesome sadism and showing how powerless the Doctor really is to stop him, Faction Paradox are present merely to underline the tiresome EDA plot of Sam's rewritten identity. This whole idea took root in Alien Bodies, and this book is something of a set-up to the big return of both FP and their originator, Lawrence Miles, in Interference. Whilst Sam and the Doctor hog the main plots, Fitz is left rather as a bystander. His early triumphs in investigation turn out to be worthless when it's revealed that Griffin had already checked his sources first, and his relationship with this Sam seems merely to get his fancy out of his system. Once again, it does not make a series more adult to cock a snook at the infamous "no hanky-panky in the TARDIS" ideal. Of course, in keeping with the ongoing nuttiness of the EDAs, the resolution ties in with the Doctor's hitherto unnecessary penchant for developing escape scenarios and numbering them. Quite what the point of that was still eludes me, but it does allow for the obvious quandary for Sam, when the knowledge the Doctor is relying on to save everyone is unknown to her, but not to her other self. After spending many, many pages getting Sam to see that the Doctor is not only a nice bloke, but someone who deserves help, she realises the sacrifice he hoped she would make is the only course of action left to take. And luckily, the renewed Sam dumps Griffin's special cabinet into the rift, as Griffin is also knocked into it, and they all lived happily ever after. The End. Except Faction Paradox claim that this is what they wanted all along, so the bad guys win. Oh, and that's not terribly adult, either. This book wastes all its characters, and makes San Francisco seem all-too ordinary. Its plot is very thin, and is wrapped up in irritating padding (the whole business with Daniel Joyce seems opaque to the point of ridicule) and a ticking-clock drama that is all anticipation and no delivery (or point). I was trying to think of one rock-solid good thing I actually liked about this book. And eventually, I found one - the cover's very pretty. |
| Disclaimer: I own a copy of the book. |