Review - Doctor Who Spiral Scratch

This review originally appeared on my GoodReads Page, and was posted on October 4, 2012.

This is a tie-in to the wonderful British Science Fiction television show Doctor Who. It is not a novelization of an episode but rather an original story, that borrows the characters of the Sixth Doctor (played by Colin Baker) and Melanie Bush (played by Bonnie Langford) under license from the BBC. Doctor Who is the world's longest-running science fiction program, having run continuously from 1963 to 1989, picked up for a TV movie in 1996, and then returned to the screens in 2005 and still running strong. The program will celebrate it's 50th Anniversary next year (2013). The BBC Past Doctor Adventures (sometimes referred to as PDAs) were published by BBC Books and are one of five series of original tie-in novels. There was also a series of novelizations published by Target Books (the paperback arm of UK publisher WH Allen). Of all the various Doctor Whonovels I've read I find the PDAs and EDAs (Eighth Doctor Adventures, published at the same time) to be the best.

This was one of the best Doctor Who BBC Books Past Doctor Adventures I've read. The story felt like a good Doctor Who story, something that could have been done on the series - if they'd had the budget. It's actually a complex tale. The Doctor and Mel head to Carsus, the universe's ultimate library to meet an old friend of the Doctor's, a retired Time Lord named Rummas. It's not quite a vacation, but not quite a mission to save the universe - yet. However, while traveling to Carsus, various other versions of the Doctor and sometimes Mel appear in the TARDIS. When they arrive at the library, first the Doctor find Rummas dead, then he's alive. Mel sees other versions of his helpers at the library. And before long she and the Doctor have to save the universe.

However, it isn't just the universe at stake -- it's the multiverse. Spiral Scratch deals with multi-universe theory in a highly interesting way without being too bogged down in long explanations. Before long, The Doctor and Mel are trying to save Helen, but as things get more complex, and they continuously fail and return to the Library, it becomes apparent that something bigger is going on.

What that is... is Monica, a Lamprey, a creature that lives in the Vortex itself and devoures Chronon (Time) Energy. However, Rummas has become trapped - because Monica lives outside of time, and Rummas lives life in a normal line and cannot change his own past -- every time Rummas tries to stop Monica, she can simply slip back and stop him. Rummas, unaware of this, continues to call the Doctor to him, bringing in more and more versions of the Doctor from different alternate universes.

Our version of the Doctor, and Mel, are unaware of this - as is the reader at first, as they try to rescue various time-sensitives, from various planets, in various different universes of the multi-verse. And each time the Doctor fails - he or Mel sees ghost images of other versions of himself in the TARDIS control room.

The fun of this novel starts with the various different universes such as an Imperial Earth where Rome never fell. The novel also includes chapters without the Doctor or Mel as Monica goes about her business of wrecking havoc - which the reader can slowly put together like clues in a great mystery novel. I also liked the other versions of the Doctor -- one dressed in mourning black, with a scar on his face, missing an eye. He's kinder and gentler than "our Doctor" but also blames himself for Peri's death (in the universe where Rome never fell - she was from the Americas and a native princess named Brown Perpugilliam). Another Doctor travels with a human/Silurian hybrid named Melanie Baal. These "other" Doctors and Mels are fascinating.

The conclusion of the story is fantastic, and I loved it. I'm not going to spoil it here, but trust me... if you're a long-time Who fan, familiar with various versions of the show and official tie-ins to it, you will enjoy Spiral Scratch. Also, this novel fills in a continuity gap from the original series that most fans will recognize. I also loved, loved, loved that. And I will say, though normally I don't really like the companion Mel, I found that this book made me much more sympathetic to her, which is an accomplishment. I highly, highly, highly recommend this novel to fans of the TV Series Doctor Who. I also think that if you like a good tie-in novel with a strong SF plot, you'll enjoy this... though if you don't know Doctor Who you'll probably miss some subtleties of the plot.

Review - The Mermaids Singing

This review of Val McDermid's crime novel The Mermaids Singing first appeared on my GoodReads page and was posted on November 12, 2012.

Val McDermid's Dr. Tony Hill and Carol Jordan books are not for the faint of heart or young readers, however, for the rest of us this is a fascinating, well-written, tightly narrated novel that moves at a quick pace without running into the problem of "I'm running out of pages let's reveal the ending now" that too many books seem to have these days.

I'd first heard of Val McDermid's series when I saw "Wire in the Blood" on BBC America (cable/satellite TV). I didn't however see that series from the beginning, I caught it somewhere in the middle. So I have been slowly collecting the TV series (starring Robson Green and Hermione Norris) on DVD.

But I did also read the book Wire in the Blood (turns out it's the second book) and McDermid's The Last Temptation. It's been awhile since I read those two books in the series. But having just watched series (season) three of "Wire in the Blood" on DVD, I was in the mood for MORE so I downloaded The Mermaids Singing for my Sony e-reader in EPUB format.

The book is really good. If you like TV shows like Criminal Minds you'd probably really enjoy The Mermaids Singing. If you like gritty mysteries that don't shy away from the really gruesome aspects of a serial killer case, you'd also probably really like The Mermaids Singing If you're a fan of procedural mysteries you'll also enjoy The Mermaids Singing.

This novel is the first in the Dr. Tony Hill, Carol Jordan mystery series. It's set in the fictional Northern UK city of Bradfield. McDermid doesn't do a really good job of describing Bradfield, but I get the impression that's delibrate... the city is fictional to make it even more clear the book is fiction and to avoid stereotyping The North of the UK. As a side note, I also got the impression from this novel and other novels and films (Billy Elliott, The Full Monty that Northern England is very industrial and went through a horrible economic depression, especially in the 1970s (similar to the decline of steel and the auto industry in the US at the same time) -- in other words, poor, relatively uneducated people, very "blue collar", etc. That might be a wrong impression (being American even with a good 30 or more years as a British Media fan for both TV and books - understanding the implications of British cultural regions still throws me) but it's the impression I have.

Anyway, in Bradfield, Carol Jordan is a newly-appointed DCI for the Bradfield police. She's the first female DCI in the area, and she's investigating the brutal murder of a young man. There have been two previous murders in various parts of Bradfield and Carol thinks she has a serial murder on her hands, but the Old Guard (British equivalent of a police commissioner) pooh-poohs the idea because the young men who have been killed were found in gay districts of the city. It's worth mentioning the book takes place back in the early 90s if not earlier and was written a bit ago. Carol focuses on her job and building her team of officers and doesn't complain about the blatant sexism of her boss.

Meanwhile, Dr. Tony Hill, who literally wrote the book on serial killers is working with the Bradfield city government and police to establish a local version of a type of national criminal profiling database. This profiling taskforce will focus on all repeat crimes not just murders, and Tony had gotten the job by drawing up a profile for a serial arson case. Two things about the task-force: Tony also thinks Bradfield has a serial killer on it's hands - but he can't say anything because it's not his place, and to "go to the press" or whatever would be not only unprofessional, it would jeopardize what he's already doing - potentially doing more harm than good. It other words, his hands are tied. Tony, however, is an expert on serial killers, he's spent most of his career working in secure mental hospitals, and he's an accomplished profiler.

The database comes up several times -- and it's fascinating because the computer stuff throughout the book seems so out-of-date and anachronistic.

The one person at the beginning of the novel who not only realizes that a serial killer is at work but does something about it is another police officer, and sort-of Carol's direct supervisor. If this sounds vague -- it was, I couldn't quite keep the ranks straight in my head, and I've watched more than one British procedural police drama. Anyway, when there's another murder, he gets Tony in to draw up a profile, and appoints Carol in charge of the entire newly created taskforce to investigate. He also seconds all the individual DCIs who were assigned to the other murders to Carol. That the new victim turns out to be an off-duty police officer from another part of town complicates things. Tony and Carol, then, need to work together with the taskforce.

Dr. Tony Hill is a very damaged person; what surprised me, having read the second book first, is that Tony's issues and problems which I thought were a direct result of what happens to Tony in this book actually preceded it. The things that happen to Tony in The Mermaids Singing only make things worse. But Tony's deeply personal issues also are what created him, what made him, him, and allow him to put himself in the mind of the killer as he writes his profile. And Tony keeps his background secret -- the audience knows it, but the other characters do not, this brings a certain tension to the story.

Carol has her own issues. Yes, she's just come off a bad break-up so she's living with her brother and her cat. But she's got the intelligence at work to "grin and bear it" when dealing with her sexist boss, which is realistic. And she earns the respect of her "men", the officers in her command by being fair, direct, and working hard without complaining or whining. Also, realistically, Carol is in the position of having to be better than a man would be in her position. Again, not fair, but it's how it often is for professional women, especially professional women in a "man's" field.

Because I'd read the second book in the series first, I knew, going in, what was going to happen in the "surprise" ending, but I'm not going to spoil it here. I'm just going to say it's an unusual twist and I really, really liked it.

I also liked the characters, their relationships (Carol's brother Micheal the computer games designer is great, and the writing makes the book a fast, enjoyable read. Well, if enjoyable is the right word for a gruesome book of sorts.

One complaint, I read the e-book version, in EPUB, on my Sony Reader and it was FULL of errors and typos. It seriously looked like they'd used OCR to scan a paperback and never bothered to check the scans ("I've" was frequently "F've" for example). I don't know where you complain about e-book printing quality but it was really, really, really bad. I'd recommend trying to find a paperback copy of this book somewhere instead.

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Answer for question 4358.

[Error: unknown template qotd]So I still buy paper books - but I really like e-readers, especially apps you can download for free on your phone or tablet. There are three things I like better about e-readers: they are a more convenient size - many physical books are awkward and heavy; you can make the print size bigger and easier to read (I'm of an age that trying to read the micro-sized condensed print in many paperbacks is difficult to read and actually gives me a headache); and they are convenient to take with you everywhere - thus one reads more.
What really irritates me is the holier-than-thou attitude of people who hate e-readers. You know what? No one is coming for your books. You can still buy books. I actually tend to still buy non-fiction in paper, but buy fiction in e-book format. But I really have a problem with anyone who tells me, "Oh, you can't buy e-books!" Note - they never give you a good reason for their prejudice - like any prejudice.