Elizabeth Sandifer

I’ll Explain Later

Kate Orman’s SLEEPY is the book that actually kicks off the Psi-Powers series in any meaningful sense. Which is still not all that meaningful, as the Psi-Powers arc is infamous for its loose connections and lack of general coherence. SLEEPY tells the story of an Earth colony plagued by a mysterious outbreak of psychic powers and the various conspiracies that led to this state of affairs. These latter conspiracies dovetail out beyond the book and take us through almost to the end of the line. Being a Kate Orman book, everyone loves it. Dave Owen called it “one of the most memorable New Adventures to date.” Lars Pearson says it “has Orman at her prime, carving characters and sub-plots with the finesse of a sculptor.” And yet it’s the weak point in Orman’s oeuvre from the Shannon Sullivan poll, coming in at “only” 26th with a 71.8% rating. Of course, another way to put that is that Orman is one of four writers (Cornell, Lane, and Parkin are the others) to have put out multiple New Adventures and had them all in the top half of the charts. DWRG summary. Whoniverse Discontinuity Guide entry.

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It’s March of 1996. Oasis are at number one with “Don’t Look Back in Anger.” That lasts a week before Take That enter with “How Deep is Your Love.” That lasts until the end of the month when Prodigy take the number one spot with “Firestarter.” Celine Dion, Boyzone, Bon Jovi, Garbage, and, actually, The Beatles, or, rather, their creepy zombie “record over John Lennon’s old demos” version all also chart. As does the X-Files theme.

In news, John Howard wins election as Prime Minister in Australia. The Dunblane massacre takes place where you’d expect it to as Thomas Hamilton kills sixteen people, fifteen schoolchildren aged five to six. The mad cow disease furor properly breaks out as the British government admits that BSE has likely been transmitted to people, resulting in a ban on the export of British beef. And three British soldiers are sent to prison for life in Cyprus over the death of Louise Jensen.

While in books we get SLEEPY, which, as mentioned, properly kicks off the extremely loosely connected Psi-Powers arc. Perhaps the first question to ask is why there’s such a thing as a Psi-Powers arc in the New Adventures. They’d gone since 1994 without an arc, after all, and it was hardly like people were clamoring. On top of that, there seems like a bit of a letdown in the concept. I remember this being tangible at the time, although it’s difficult to disentangle that from the general sense of limbo that the New Adventures were, by early 1996, firmly in. They were pre-emptively superceded by the TV Movie, which, by the time SLEEPY came out, was only two months away. But there’s something more fundamental than just the fact that this was a plot arc that made its debut under a certain measure of erasure.…

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I’ll Explain Later

We’ve skipped Shakedown, Terrance Dicks’s novelization of his direct-to-video project with added framing story featuring the Doctor, and Just War, which is absolutely phenomenal and will get covered in the book version.

Andrew Cartmel’s Warchild completes the trilogy began with Warhead, and features the final fate of Vincent and Justine, who were introduced in that book. It also ostensibly kicks off the Psi-Powers Series, an infamously loose series of books that runs over the final year or so of the New Adventures, but as it has next to nothing to do with any of the other books in that series we can largely leave that alone until Monday. Like all of Cartmel’s books it is neither loved nor hated, slotted at thirty-sixth in the Sullivan rankings with a rating of 65.8%. At the time Dave Owen gave a more or less positive review that largely declines to provide anything like a good pull quote. “The writing style is mature and restrained,” perhaps. Or “Warchild holds the readers interest.” Lars Pearson gushes more usefully: “An incredibly mature, humanistic book.” DWRG Summary. Whoniverse Discontinuity Guide Entry.

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It’s February of 1996. Babylon Zoo are at number one with “Spaceman.” They remain there for the entire month. Blur, Bjork, Joan Osborne, Mariah Carey, Cher, George Michael, and Radiohead also make the top ten, while popular albums include Oasis’s (What’s the Story) Morning Glory, Alanis Morrissette’s Jagged Little Pill, Tori Amos’s Boys for Pele, Radiohead’s The Bends, and Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds’ Murder Ballads, which is on average an astonishingly lovely month for albums. I’d give you the lower chart data, but the absurd fact that it is possible to control the publishing of factual data means that the website I use to get chart data just got a takedown notice from the Official Charts Company, and the Official Charts Company’s own site doesn’t offer data past the top ten. Not, mind you, it doesn’t offer data past the top ten for free. No, it doesn’t offer it at all. Period. Bastards.

Wikipedia, meanwhile, still happily offers a summary of the news. What we’ve missed: The Dayton Agreement, which brought an end to the Bosnian war, was signed in Paris, which is a very poor definition of Dayton, Ohio. The European Court of Justice made a big, important rule that football players who have reached the end of their contracts may transfer for free to another club. And Calvin and Hobbes ended. Whereas in the month this book came out, Deep Blue defeats Gary Kasparov for the first time. The IRA ceasefire ends as the IRA bombs Canary Wharf. Prince Charles and Princess Diana agree to divorce. The Conservative Party manages to fall to a two-seat majority. And Pokemon Green came out in Japan, beginning that whole thing.

While in books, Andrew Cartmel’s Warchild. This is one of those properly strange moments in writing the blog: the last time we deal with Andrew Cartmel. This is strange in several regards.…

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I’ll Explain Later

The Also People is Ben Aaronovitch’s second New Adventure, and features a murder mystery in a utopian technologically advanced society modeled on the works of Iain M. Banks. It also largely resolves the plotline of Kadiatu Lethbridge-Stewart, although she’ll make two more appearances in the books. It’s highly acclaimed. Dave Owen admitted at the time that he was “tempted to say that The Also People is flawless,” while Lars Pearson more recently enthuses that it’s “meaty and domestic” and “deserves every drop of the hype.” Good thing, as there’s quite a bit of it – The Also People is ranked third on Shannon Sullivan’s rankings, with an 86.7% rating. DWRG summary. Whoniverse Discontinuity Guide.

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It’s November of 1995. Coolio is still at number one with “Gangsta’s Paradise.” A week later he’s unseated by Robson and Jerome with “I Believe/Up on the Roof,” which sees out the month. The lower charts are far more interesting this time: Everything But the Girl, Oasis, Blur, Madonna, Enya, Bjork, Bon Jovi, Boyzone, Queen, Tina Turner, Meat Loaf, and Def Leppard all chart, almost none of them with anything close to one of their best songs.  (Actually, Oasis chart with “Wonderwall,” which is at least one of their best known songs. Amusingly, it doesn’t hit number one in the UK, but does in the US.

In news, the big one is Yitzhak Rabin’s assassination in Tel Aviv. Nine members of the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People are executed in Nigeria more or less on the behalf of Shell Oil. The US government shut down for a few days. Both Toy Story and GoldenEye come out in theaters. And Princess Diana gives her famed interview to Martin Bashir, scoring all-time record ratings for a current affairs program in the UK. Thrilling.

In books, The Also People. The last three novel entries have all, to varying degrees, dealt with a certain level of inadequacy in the quality of writing in the New Adventures line. This is, as I have said, probably the biggest barrier between them and bringing Doctor Who back in the long term. If you compare Head Games to its nearest new series equivalent, which would probably be The Stolen Earth/Journey’s End, the biggest thing that jumps out is that the latter is, like everything to come out of the Davies or Moffat systems, a well-oiled machine in terms of the tightness of its storytelling. Even when the new series coughs up a complete turkey of an episode the basic mechanics of its storytelling are largely impeccable. Its worst episodes still hum with a unity of approach such that every detail is turned carefully towards the questions of storytelling and every beat of the narrative supports a thematic or emotional payoff.

On their good days the New Adventures can match that handily. But their good days are, if not quite few and far between, at least sporadic. The Also People is, however, one of their good days.…

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We’ve skipped the perfectly serviceable Zamper and Toy Soldiers. Head Games is a doozy – the sequel to Conundrum as well as part of a paired release alongside the Missing Adventure Millennial Rites, also in October of 1995, which constitute Virgin Books’ attempt to deal with the Valeyard and the regeneration of the Sixth Doctor. It also has both Mel and Ace. It’s… ambitious, as we’ll see. And yet largely praised. Lars Pearson somewhat idiosyncratically calls for a beverage pairing, saying that it “leaves a lump of your throat as you down cup after cup of cafe mochas.” Dave Owen, at the time, was a beverage agnostic, and was altogether more dour, suggesting that the book was good on the matter of “the psychodrama going on in the TARDIS,” but calling it “dreary” and “dull” when talking about any other parts. It is indeed considerably less popular than Conundrum, hanging out in the mid-list in thirty-fourth place on Shannon Sullivan’s rankings with a 68.3% rating. DWRG Summary. Whoniverse Discontinuity Guide Entry.

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It’s October of 1995. Simply Red are at number one with “Fairground.” The only bad consequence of skipping Toy Soldiers is that we missed the opportunity to name-check “Boombastic” by Shaggy, not because it’s good, but because it’s “Boombastic” by Shaggy. It’s at number three. In any case, in the last week of the month Coolio unseats Fairground with “Gangsta’s Paradise.” There’s a metaphor in there somewhere. Mariah Carey, Michael Jackson, Bon Jovi, Iron Maiden, Pulp, and The Rembrandts also chart, while Oasis debuts at number one on the album charts with “(What’s the Story) Morning Glory,” i.e. The album of theirs that Americans have heard of.

While we were not reading books DVDs were announced, the White Earthquake struck Chile, Bermudans rejected independence, and Microsoft released Windows 95. While in the month of this book, the Million Man March, consisting of somewhere in the range of 400-800 thousand people, takes place in Washington DC. And Julie Goodyear leaves Coronation Street. Nothing else happens that month. Nothing. (Oh fine. OJ Simpson is acquitted.)

While in books, Head Games. Encyclops, commenting a few entries back, suggested jokingly a glossary of terms that are cliches in fan-analysis of Doctor Who: “romp,” for instance – an admittedly problematic term, and “gurning,” a delightful word that fills a hole in one’s life that one didn’t even know existed. And then there was the third term he proposed, “nightmare brief.” It is, indeed, a fan cliche. But a history of the term is still interesting. The term refers to those occasional stories that happen in which two or more pre-ordained events end up taking place in a single story. The archetypal nightmare brief is probably Planet of Fire, in which Peter Grimwade got to deal with Peri’s arrival, the death of the Master, squaring away Kamelion, writing out Turlough, and going to Lanzarote all in one story.

The nightmare brief is not merely an event story. Remembrance of the Daleks, for instance, is not a nightmare brief, in that seemingly every idea involved in it was always Aaronovitch’s intention.…

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Sky Pirates!, Dave Stone’s first New Adventure, is a novel in the comedic sci-fi style of Terry Pratchett or Douglas Adams, albeit with a bit of a dark tinge. It’s not hugely popular. Lars Pearson calls it “a drug-induced work, perhaps best suited for trippy, skewed-view people.” Dave Owen is polite, but calls it “a bit of an ordeal.” Shannon Sullivan’s rankings have it languishing down at 47th pace, with a 60.9% rating. It’s worse than Iceberg. DWRG summary. Whoniverse Discontinuity Guide entry.

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It’s July of 1995. Robson and Jerome are still at number one with “Unchained Melody/White Cliffs of Dover.” A week later The Outhere Brothers take over with “Boom Boom Boom.”  U2, Foo Fighters, Jamiroquai, Bobby Brown, Shaggy, Seal, and Method Man also chart. I have a bad feeling that I accidentally ran the July chart for Original Sin, since this is flagrantly the same chart. I’ll want to fix that for the book version. In news, John Major retains leadership of the Conservative party. Aung San Suu Kyi is freed from House Arrest in either Burma or Myanmar, depending on your taste. And there’s quite a bit of to-do over Iraqi disarmament.

While in dead trees, Sky Pirates! The obvious thing to note about Sky Pirates! is that Dave Stone is no Terry Pratchett. But who in their right minds would expect it to be? One of them is among the most successful writers in the United Kingdom, the other is writing for the New Adventures, and, as we previously discussed, there’s a cap to the expectations one can reasonably have there.

This is, however, a problem for Sky Pirates! in a way that it isn’t for, say, Original Sin. Because as we discussed on Monday, the comedic narrator is first and foremost a matter of style and craft. And doing a Terry Pratchett-style comedy novel when you’re not a Terry Pratchett quality writer then the gulf is going to be more visible than if you’re writing a pulpy action thriller, which is a genre where the difference between a very good writer and a pretty good writer is narrower. Comedy is terribly, terribly unforgiving.

And so, yes, Stone’s novel has problems. Where the books he’s emulating – The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and Discworld – weave comedy around social and political observations, Stone too often delivers lengthy lectures on sexual politics with a few jokes in them. It’s a subtle difference, but a massive one. Stone is also prone to trying a bit too hard to create a distinctive narrative voice, falling back on gratuitous verbosity and the deeper recesses of the thesaurus in place of actual wit or content.

But that’s the obvious thing to note. We strive for better here. And while I think even a positive reading (and I don’t think the New Adventures require such extreme words as “redemption” for the most part) has to acknowledge the fact that the New Adventures simply aren’t drawing top drawer writers on a regular basis, and it would be utterly unreasonable to expect otherwise.…

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Original Sin, by Andy Lane, introduces Roz Forrester and Chris Cwej, the final two original companions of the Virgin line. It serves as a semi-sequel to Lucifer Rising, in that it fleshes out the time period and the nature of the Adjudicators (basically, at this point, cops), and has a surprise reveal of Tobias Vaughn as the villain behind it all. At the time Dave Owen, newly installed as Doctor Who Magazine reviewer, calls it “a truly auspicious debut for two new companions,” while Lars Pearson declares it “all the more impressive because it doesn’t try to impress you.” It’s quite popular, at sixth in the Sullivan rankings with an 83.1% rating. DWRG summary. Whoniverse Discontinuity Guide entry.

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It’s June of 1995. Robson and Jerome remain at number one with “Unchained Melody/White Cliffs of Dover.” A week into the month, The Outhere Brothers unseat them with “Boom Boom Boom,” which rides out the month. U2, Foo Fighters, Jamiroquai, Michael and Janet Jackson, Clock, Shaggy, and Seal all also chart, more than one of them with songs from the Batman Forever soundtrack.

In news, what is apparently the busiest hurricane season in sixty-five years begins. So that’s ironic, as I post this from generator power. Jacques Chirac resumes nuclear tests in French Polynesia. US Air Force Captain Scott O’Grady is shot down over Bosnia and Herzegovina, and is rescued. A hijacking situation in Japan is defused after a knife-wielding man attempts to force the release of Shoko Asahara. And John Major pulls a stunt resignation as leader of the Conservative Party to allow a leadership election, which he wins.

In exciting sci-fi television tie-in novels, Original Sin. The needle that the New Adventures perpetually threaded between serious-minded, action-packed sci-fi drama and the sort of ludicrous camp that Doctor Who can do better than any other sci-fi show of note is, perhaps, captured more perfectly in this than in any other novel. On the one hand we have a grim and murder-filled future, a book where the Doctor acquires a pair of cops as his newest companions, and a major secondary character who’s a serial killer. On the other, one of the new companions spends most of the book with a body modification making him look like a giant teddy bear.

This may be a strange thing to focus on, but it still gives some intriguing insight into the way in which the books go about things. There is, after all, no inherent reason not to give the Doctor a giant teddy bear as a companion in the novels. Left to their own devices the comics gave us a shape-shifting penguin, after all. And so the decision to have Cwej be a giant teddy bear for large swaths of this story, but to make sure he gets reverted to human form at the end presents a strange ambivalence: a moment where the books seem to say “this far and no further” in terms of that sort of mad inventiveness.…

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