Time Zero (Doctor Who)

Rating:
Summary: Right on target
Review: Hat-trick!!! 3 out of 3, right on target! Suns Of Caresh, Camera Obscura and Time Zero. 2 months ago I was despairing how far (and for how long) the Doctor Who books had fallen, culminating in Combat Rock and the literally dozens of poor to average books preceeding that. Now these 3 come along all at once.

Time Zero is extremely well written, and portrays a good sense of mystery throughout. The plot held my interest, keeping me wanting to come back for more. This book has the usual 8th Doctor Adventure page count but its smaller font meant even more story for my money than usual.

The book has a nice use of Quantum theory and 'parallel worlds'. It places just enough of a spin on the common 'parallel universe' idea used a few times already in the Doctor Who series, to make this novel new and interesting.

I have to admit that I'm getting a bit tired of Sabbath doing a 'Master' in each book (who is he disguised as this week?). Its not a very original way to handle the character. If we're going to have a Master-clone, why not just use the real thing?

One of the best books in years! Hopefully the start of a Doctor Who Renaissance, especially since Time Zero is obviously the start of an 'arc plot'.

Rating:
Summary: Who on Ice
Review: Justin Richards is the editor of the Doctor Who line of books, so it's only fitting that he get the occasional "big" book rather then just doing fill-ins when an author misses a deadline. He can always be relied upon to give us an interesting story, often compelling and never boring. Time Zero is one of the big ones, though not as big as everybody thought it would be. It doesn't really end the Doctor-Sabbath war of ideas concerning how the timestream will ultimately work, instead blowing everything up and forcing the Doctor to try and pick up the pieces over the next few books. Time Zero keeps moving at a steady pace, gripping the reader, but then it hits a patch of ice. Still a very good book, though.

After the events of Camera Obscura, Fitz has decided to join an expedition to frozen Siberia in the 1890s and Anji just wants to go home. The Doctor is alone again, but things are already set in motion to link him with his companions yet again. Fitz's expedition was attacked by dinosaurs from a history that never happened, and the Doctor has Fitz's journal to prove it. The journal also indicates that Fitz never returned. Anji's back working the financial markets, but gets co-opted into joining an American expedition to Siberia that has unknown purposes, though it involves the Naryshkin Institute. The Institute ostensibly is trying to create a black hole, but why? And what do the Americans want with it? Are all these events linked? The Doctor seems to think so. He's the only one who does, and his arrival on the scene could be the catalyst that destroys the world, or at least the past. Repercussions could stretch back to the beginning of the universe. Or even farther.

Richards manages to tie all of these events together expertly, leaving each plot line to move on to the next one just when it's getting good. The suspense was killing me at a few points, when Fitz was endangered by the dinosaurs or it looked like Anji might get killed. This had the classic feeling of a "companion leaving" story, and I wouldn't have put it past Richards to kill one of the companions in their final book, so the sense of danger was palpable. Only the Doctor seemed safe, as it's obviously his series. Richards also keeps the reader guessing on how everything ties together, with only Siberia visibly linking everything at first. It's definitely a high-concept book, with alternate realities, time experiments, black holes, and an examination of the universe and how it functions. But Richards also grounds this in some believable characters and modern-day action, including two Special Forces units.

The characters are what make the book great. The Doctor, Anji, and Fitz are simply wonderful, with the Doctor being at his frenetic best. He's on top of things, he's a force of nature at times, almost child-like at others, but always the moral center that everything revolves around. He's calm when everything around him is hysterical and he's intelligent as well. Gone are the days when he would do something truly stupid and naïve, the "congenital idiot" that some fans labeled him. Anji and Fitz are just as good, each leading their own scenes, taking charge (figuratively, if not literally) and displaying the attributes that we've always loved about them. While this is the Doctor's book, they aren't sidelined like they are in Camera Obscura. They are an integral part of the plot. While Anji doesn't get to actually do a whole lot, she gives us a viewpoint into Hartford's team and what they're doing, and she shows quick flashes of brilliance even as she's horrified by what Hartford is doing.

Most of the other characters are quite good as well, though I thought Hartford was a little too over the top in his ruthlessness and I didn't quite buy his transformation at the end. It does give a new look at his previous actions, but I don't think it actually worked. Hartford and his group are chilling and work wonderfully, but Fitz's expedition members are given just enough characterization to make them mildly interesting, but the bits before the expedition reaches the castle dragged a bit because I just didn't care that much about them. Things picked up once the dinosaurs got involved, though.

So the book is moving along very nicely, I'm contemplating taking a longer lunch at work because I want to finish this fascinating novel. The Institute is rigged to explode and there's a countdown and everything. Then Richards steps on a technobabble landmine, all of a sudden trying to explain all the concepts that he's been examining. Revelations of who's who and who's been pretending to be who come fast and furious, and the book comes to a screeching halt. I put the book down and went back to work, eager to finish it but not driven to like I had been. The tension burst out of the book like a balloon. Don't get me wrong, Richards quickly recovers from it and the climax is just as exciting and thought-provoking as the rest of the book, but there's a brick wall right in the middle there that just brought everything rudely to a halt. It's the only real problem in an otherwise wonderful book.

Don't let that stop you, though. Time Zero is yet another hit in the Eighth Doctor line of books

David Roy

Rating:
Summary: Who on Ice
Review: Justin Richards is the editor of the Doctor Who line of books, so it's only fitting that he get the occasional "big" book rather then just doing fill-ins when an author misses a deadline. He can always be relied upon to give us an interesting story, often compelling and never boring. Time Zero is one of the big ones, though not as big as everybody thought it would be. It doesn't really end the Doctor-Sabbath war of ideas concerning how the timestream will ultimately work, instead blowing everything up and forcing the Doctor to try and pick up the pieces over the next few books. Time Zero keeps moving at a steady pace, gripping the reader, but then it hits a patch of ice. Still a very good book, though.

After the events of Camera Obscura, Fitz has decided to join an expedition to frozen Siberia in the 1890s and Anji just wants to go home. The Doctor is alone again, but things are already set in motion to link him with his companions yet again. Fitz's expedition was attacked by dinosaurs from a history that never happened, and the Doctor has Fitz's journal to prove it. The journal also indicates that Fitz never returned. Anji's back working the financial markets, but gets co-opted into joining an American expedition to Siberia that has unknown purposes, though it involves the Naryshkin Institute. The Institute ostensibly is trying to create a black hole, but why? And what do the Americans want with it? Are all these events linked? The Doctor seems to think so. He's the only one who does, and his arrival on the scene could be the catalyst that destroys the world, or at least the past. Repercussions could stretch back to the beginning of the universe. Or even farther.

Richards manages to tie all of these events together expertly, leaving each plot line to move on to the next one just when it's getting good. The suspense was killing me at a few points, when Fitz was endangered by the dinosaurs or it looked like Anji might get killed. This had the classic feeling of a "companion leaving" story, and I wouldn't have put it past Richards to kill one of the companions in their final book, so the sense of danger was palpable. Only the Doctor seemed safe, as it's obviously his series. Richards also keeps the reader guessing on how everything ties together, with only Siberia visibly linking everything at first. It's definitely a high-concept book, with alternate realities, time experiments, black holes, and an examination of the universe and how it functions. But Richards also grounds this in some believable characters and modern-day action, including two Special Forces units.

The characters are what make the book great. The Doctor, Anji, and Fitz are simply wonderful, with the Doctor being at his frenetic best. He's on top of things, he's a force of nature at times, almost child-like at others, but always the moral center that everything revolves around. He's calm when everything around him is hysterical and he's intelligent as well. Gone are the days when he would do something truly stupid and na?ve, the "congenital idiot" that some fans labeled him. Anji and Fitz are just as good, each leading their own scenes, taking charge (figuratively, if not literally) and displaying the attributes that we've always loved about them. While this is the Doctor's book, they aren't sidelined like they are in Camera Obscura. They are an integral part of the plot. While Anji doesn't get to actually do a whole lot, she gives us a viewpoint into Hartford's team and what they're doing, and she shows quick flashes of brilliance even as she's horrified by what Hartford is doing.

Most of the other characters are quite good as well, though I thought Hartford was a little too over the top in his ruthlessness and I didn't quite buy his transformation at the end. It does give a new look at his previous actions, but I don't think it actually worked. Hartford and his group are chilling and work wonderfully, but Fitz's expedition members are given just enough characterization to make them mildly interesting, but the bits before the expedition reaches the castle dragged a bit because I just didn't care that much about them. Things picked up once the dinosaurs got involved, though.

So the book is moving along very nicely, I'm contemplating taking a longer lunch at work because I want to finish this fascinating novel. The Institute is rigged to explode and there's a countdown and everything. Then Richards steps on a technobabble landmine, all of a sudden trying to explain all the concepts that he's been examining. Revelations of who's who and who's been pretending to be who come fast and furious, and the book comes to a screeching halt. I put the book down and went back to work, eager to finish it but not driven to like I had been. The tension burst out of the book like a balloon. Don't get me wrong, Richards quickly recovers from it and the climax is just as exciting and thought-provoking as the rest of the book, but there's a brick wall right in the middle there that just brought everything rudely to a halt. It's the only real problem in an otherwise wonderful book.

Don't let that stop you, though. Time Zero is yet another hit in the Eighth Doctor line of books

David Roy

Rating:
Summary: Multi-threaded
Review: Justin Richards usually treats us to a story with a carefully constructed, logical structure containing few thrills but enough plot twists to keep the reader involved. TIME ZERO continued his reputation in this manner and delighted me in many ways. Primarily a fun-filled action-adventure, the book has enough little extra touches and flourishes to pull it firmly above the bounds of mediocrity.

The back of the book tells us that Fitz has gone to his certain death, and that Anji has resumed her normal life and job. The most memorable sequences deal with those two companions, and in particular I very much enjoyed the chain of events that lead Anji back into the Doctor's company. In a series that at times recently has seemed to be more plot-based than character-driven (with a handful of notable exceptions), it's reassuring to see that the editor has a firm grasp of his major characters and is more than willing to let these characters control vast quantities of his own book.

The plot, as mentioned, is pure Richardsian logic, although there were one or two stretches that went a bit too far for the sake of plausibility. Of course, it was great fun seeing such varyingly different plot strands binding together to eventually form a single cohesive story. Fitz's Siberian expedition, Anji's reclamation of her life, the Earth exploration into time travel technologies, the research scientists' discoveries, and the Doctor's own investigations are intergraded together carefully and the numerous storylines make for an intriguing mystery.

On the down side, there are several action sequences that aren't quite as exciting as they should be; the tense drama comes from the scenes directly before or after them as the various characters discuss and reflect on their fate. This isn't wholly a bad thing, yet obviously I couldn't help but think that having everything running smoothly rather than having breaks for the physical conflicts would be better. Picky, I know, but I am usually bored by fight sequences in Doctor Who books, and while the ones in TIME ZERO were better than most, they were nowhere near to being my favorite parts of the book. At best they were acceptable, though the stress they put the characters through made them worthwhile.

The story may be slightly confusing in places and require a bit of flipping back to previous pages in order to work everything out, but I quite enjoyed the finished product. I almost always have a lot of fun following Justin Richards plots to their conclusions and TIME ZERO is certainly not an exception to that rule. This book seems to be setting up some conflicts and storylines that will have far-reaching effects upon the future of the series. A few of the Doctor's speeches on those subjects echo PDE's afterword to DECEIT and I found myself digging up my copy of that NA to spot the parallels to that previous editor's understanding of the Doctor Who universe. Event novel, or not, TIME ZERO delivers the goods.

Rating:
Summary: Multi-threaded
Review: Justin Richards usually treats us to a story with a carefully constructed, logical structure containing few thrills but enough plot twists to keep the reader involved. TIME ZERO continued his reputation in this manner and delighted me in many ways. Primarily a fun-filled action-adventure, the book has enough little extra touches and flourishes to pull it firmly above the bounds of mediocrity.

The back of the book tells us that Fitz has gone to his certain death, and that Anji has resumed her normal life and job. The most memorable sequences deal with those two companions, and in particular I very much enjoyed the chain of events that lead Anji back into the Doctor's company. In a series that at times recently has seemed to be more plot-based than character-driven (with a handful of notable exceptions), it's reassuring to see that the editor has a firm grasp of his major characters and is more than willing to let these characters control vast quantities of his own book.

The plot, as mentioned, is pure Richardsian logic, although there were one or two stretches that went a bit too far for the sake of plausibility. Of course, it was great fun seeing such varyingly different plot strands binding together to eventually form a single cohesive story. Fitz's Siberian expedition, Anji's reclamation of her life, the Earth exploration into time travel technologies, the research scientists' discoveries, and the Doctor's own investigations are intergraded together carefully and the numerous storylines make for an intriguing mystery.

On the down side, there are several action sequences that aren't quite as exciting as they should be; the tense drama comes from the scenes directly before or after them as the various characters discuss and reflect on their fate. This isn't wholly a bad thing, yet obviously I couldn't help but think that having everything running smoothly rather than having breaks for the physical conflicts would be better. Picky, I know, but I am usually bored by fight sequences in Doctor Who books, and while the ones in TIME ZERO were better than most, they were nowhere near to being my favorite parts of the book. At best they were acceptable, though the stress they put the characters through made them worthwhile.

The story may be slightly confusing in places and require a bit of flipping back to previous pages in order to work everything out, but I quite enjoyed the finished product. I almost always have a lot of fun following Justin Richards plots to their conclusions and TIME ZERO is certainly not an exception to that rule. This book seems to be setting up some conflicts and storylines that will have far-reaching effects upon the future of the series. A few of the Doctor's speeches on those subjects echo PDE's afterword to DECEIT and I found myself digging up my copy of that NA to spot the parallels to that previous editor's understanding of the Doctor Who universe. Event novel, or not, TIME ZERO delivers the goods.

Rating:
Summary: I have read this book
Review: Well, I started reading this book, see. And then I got really interested, and kept on reading. And then I discovered suddenly that I was trying to understand quantum mechanics, at which my pleasure sort of ended.

The characters are developed very well, and I guess it is well-written, and the dialogues are believable and at times memorable, but unfortunately the plot gets lost as we poor readers need to appreciate the subtleties of event horizons, multiverses, parallel universes, black holes, time travel, photons, singularities, gravity eddies, and the speed of light, just so we can follow a debate between two men who don't agree on the finer points. This would not be a problem, of course, if understanding the finer points weren't necessary to follow what the Doctor is doing, or whether some people are dead or aren't.

If the author had tried less, ah, hard, to try to explain everything he knew about the science behind science fiction, the book would definitely have been more enjoyable.

In this book, the author's sense of humour works and complements the Doctor's personality well.