Another Who-related review post
Thursday, 12 February 2009 13:01![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
usuallyhats
Have just finished the New Adventure Conundrum and felt moved to write a review of it. Fair warning: I was not exactly a fan.
The more I see of NA!Seven and Ace, the more I dislike them. I have a low tolerance for mystic, all-knowing, more than just a Time Lord characterisations of the Doctor, and with Ace it just feels like all that lovely growth and character development she has in Survival has somehow gone sour. It doesn't help that Our Heroes are on the outs with each other. I'm willing to accept that it makes sense if you've read the previous ones, which I haven't, but it's just not something I enjoy reading, y'know?
It was also very metatextual, which is always risky: when it works, it's great and I love it, when it doesn't, it just comes off as being a bit clever-clever. Since the book failed to get me on-side from the start, every new metatastic bit or "authorial" insert just irritated me more. Having the Doctor comment that the solution to the whodunnit element is "predictable, improbable and rather contrived" doesn't make up for the fact that it, well, is. By contrast, Jasper Fforde's books, for example, work (usually) because there's a solid plot at the heart of them and the characters are real enough for us to care about them.
So yes. Between all that and the random bits of not-for-kids-no-really nastiness (personal taste again, but I think if you're going to have graphic violence it has to mean something), not one I'd recommend, I'm afraid. I think it may be time to accept that random New Adventures are just not for me as poking around the internets it seems that this one is quite popular. It did have Benny in it, I liked that, though she doesn't get to do much.
The more I see of NA!Seven and Ace, the more I dislike them. I have a low tolerance for mystic, all-knowing, more than just a Time Lord characterisations of the Doctor, and with Ace it just feels like all that lovely growth and character development she has in Survival has somehow gone sour. It doesn't help that Our Heroes are on the outs with each other. I'm willing to accept that it makes sense if you've read the previous ones, which I haven't, but it's just not something I enjoy reading, y'know?
It was also very metatextual, which is always risky: when it works, it's great and I love it, when it doesn't, it just comes off as being a bit clever-clever. Since the book failed to get me on-side from the start, every new metatastic bit or "authorial" insert just irritated me more. Having the Doctor comment that the solution to the whodunnit element is "predictable, improbable and rather contrived" doesn't make up for the fact that it, well, is. By contrast, Jasper Fforde's books, for example, work (usually) because there's a solid plot at the heart of them and the characters are real enough for us to care about them.
So yes. Between all that and the random bits of not-for-kids-no-really nastiness (personal taste again, but I think if you're going to have graphic violence it has to mean something), not one I'd recommend, I'm afraid. I think it may be time to accept that random New Adventures are just not for me as poking around the internets it seems that this one is quite popular. It did have Benny in it, I liked that, though she doesn't get to do much.