Review - Martha in the Mirror

[neadods]

I owe Justin Richards an apology. In my previous review I said that his Doctors were always generic, and yet in Martha in the Mirror the Doctor is very recognizably written as that half of the incarnation pantheon in desperate need of ritalin. Which is a good description of Ten, so that's bang on.

Martha, on the other hand, spares us a gratuitous Rose remark, which is good. The bad news is she's written not only as generic, but a generic Jo-style companion, her main contributions to the plot being snarking the Doctor, ineptly searching a room, passing the sonic screwdriver, being warm and friendly to a small child, and (I'm not making this up) screaming.

I'd make a catty comment about how screaming as a plot point should have gone out in Zoe's era, but "Hush" was a damnfine episode of Buffy.

Buffy regardless, a line of the Doctor's puts Martha in the Mirror as post Human Nature/Family of Blood, meaning Martha's already had the burden of taking care of herself and an incapacitated Doctor once, and should be well on her route to being ready to walk the world. So I would have appreciated her being a lot more proactive. These days, I'd frankly prefer to see all the companions a lot more proactive than they're tending to be in most of the books. The Doctor saving the day doesn't mean that the others - particularly the women - don't get to make major contributions.

The plot is decent, if bogged down by unnecessarily strange details. Castle Extremis - a big honkin' castle sitting on a jut of nothing in the middle of space for some technobabble reason (roll with me here, we haven't even gotten to the bizarre concept of "tour guides" who aren't allowed to talk, even in response to questions from the people they're guiding), is the site of a peace treaty between humans and Zerugians. This is not the first time that peace has been proposed, only to fail and incur more war between the two species, and the intent of everyone at the table now is suspect. As a sign of good will, the Zerugian general has brought a replica of a famous mirror that was to have witnessed an earlier attempt at peace.

Then, when the local historian is admiring it, his reflection steps out and shoots him...

It's suitably creepy, in a children's book way. By which I mean that anyone over the age of 10 is going to see all the plot points coming a mile off. And yes, that's not a flaw, considering that it *is* a children's book but still... a fair chunk of the readership is well over the age of 10. All in all, I found it a pleasant enough read, but it's not one of the ones that I'm going to reread again for the sheer pleasure of the story.

Comments

[persiflage-1.livejournal.com]

This most recent batch have to be the most disappointing set of 10&Martha books so far. I was severely disappointed with how all of them were written, esp The Many Hands, which started out rather promisingly with Martha stopping a runaway stagecoach and then... Bah humbug !

I didn't get the point of the Tour Guides not being able to speak, except in so far as it allowed the "bad guy" to masquerade as someone else since he didn't have to speak and give himself away...

[neadods.livejournal.com]

I'm at about page 125 in Many Hands and loving it so far; he's going to have to fumble really badly to put me off it at this point.

As far as I can tell, the whole point of the silent tour guides was expressly so the baddie could sneak around, which is horribly clumsy and stupid. Particularly when it could be gotten around with the guy simply saying that there was more than one monk guide.

[persiflage-1.livejournal.com]

I'm at about page 125 in Many Hands and loving it so far; he's going to have to fumble really badly to put me off it at this point.

I'm glad you're enjoying it so far.

As far as I can tell, the whole point of the silent tour guides was expressly so the baddie could sneak around, which is horribly clumsy and stupid. Particularly when it could be gotten around with the guy simply saying that there was more than one monk guide.

Exactly ! Man, even an amateur like me knows better than that !

[neadods.livejournal.com]

even an amateur like me knows better than that !

Justin Richards is the line editor for the entire Who tie-in franchise - and between thee and me, whenever I read the stuff he's written, I keep thinking "those who can write, write; those who can't edit." He's got a good grasp of the tone and feel of Doctor Who, but his books tend to have these brain-bending "why did you do something that obvious?" moments.

[persiflage-1.livejournal.com]

Brain-bending is exactly it !

I've read some of his non-Who books (the Time Runners series) and they're a little bit better, but not much (although they're very DW-ish - the hero's called Jamie for a start and I can't believe THAT is a coincidence!)