Amorality Tale (Doctor Who)

Rating:
Summary: Smoggy Who
Review: Amorality Tale offers a very rare combination for the Who fan: a pairing of the Third Doctor and Sarah Jane Smith. It's an intriguing combination and one I've been awaiting for quite awhile. The story, however, doesn't do them much justice. It suffers from a stock alien race, tired writing, and is damnably depressing to boot.

Don't start reading Amorality Tale if you're already down in the dumps. There is so much death, destruction, and evil atmosphere that it could bring down Kathie Lee Gifford. The book almost wallows in it at times. I see the intent behind it, which is to make the alien Xhinn a very vile race, worthy of what the Doctor has to do to stop them. However, it doesn't come off very well and just lies there like a lead balloon. Not only that, most of the people who die in this book are ciphers, so we don't really have anything invested in them. It's like reading death statistics in the newspaper. Sure, it's sad, but why should we care on an emotional level? Bishop tries to give humanity to some of them, but it's so superficial that it doesn't work.

The characters, for the most part, are a bunch of cliches. There's the couple who never really loved each other, but come together at the time of greatest crisis. The gangsters are mostly stock characters, speaking their gangster lines like in most movies of the type. Tommy's a mean guy, but loves his mom and has a few noble qualities. There's the hard-done-by woman across the street with three kids and no husband, with no prospects in life but getting by. There's the thug with the heart of gold, who really doesn't want to be doing what he's doing, but keeps it up out of loyalty. We've seen all of this before.

The regular characters don't suffer quite as much, though I thought Sarah was slightly out of character. A bit of a relationship develops between her and Tommy that I don't see the "real" Sarah allowing to happen. Sarah is an activist and a feminist. She realizes that she has to adapt to the time period she's in, but that shouldn't change her actual attitude. I don't buy the grudging respect that she develops for Tommy, even as she hates his exterior. I can see the "necessary evil" aspect of allying with him against the Xhinn, but not the rest of the relationship.

The Doctor and Sarah do have some good scenes together, however, and Bishop does get their relationship almost exactly right. The Doctor knows that he can't change history and that he has to balance stopping the Xhinn with allowing the people who actually died in the smog to carry out their destiny. Sarah initially resists this, feeling that the Doctor is being heartless, but she begins to understand the position the Doctor is in. It's a bit heartwrenching. While it does add to the general depressing atmosphere that clouds the book, in this case I think it's effective. The Doctor's character does suffer a bit from Bishop using too many of his mannerisms from the TV series, however. While the character should be recognizable, he shouldn't be just a collection of Third Doctor cliches. He uses the Venusian martial arts just a little too much for my taste. It's become a stereotype and I wish Bishop would have avoided it a little bit.

Finally, we come to the Xhinn. I am getting tired of monolithic races who want to invade Earth just for the sake of invading Earth. Here we have another race that just colonizes planets for the heck of it, with no real motivation otherwise. Again, this is a Third Doctor cliché (though the rest of the TV series suffered from it a bit too). Again, it's one that I wish Bishop would have avoided. They're almost like a force of nature rather than a race of intelligent beings. It's a bit more understandable in the TV series, but in novels, the villains should be fleshed out more. As it is, they're just in the book to be evil.

Ultimately, this book fails on a couple of levels. It isn't very entertaining, and it's not very interesting, either. There are lots of scenes of death if that's your bag. Otherwise, though, I'd avoid it. The Third Doctor and Sarah deserve a better story.

*Note: I did appreciate the historical note about the real London killer smog. I was intrigued by the idea enough to go do a little research on it, but then saw the note and didn't have to.

Rating:
Summary: Smoggy Who
Review: Amorality Tale offers a very rare combination for the Who fan: a pairing of the Third Doctor and Sarah Jane Smith. It's an intriguing combination and one I've been awaiting for quite awhile. The story, however, doesn't do them much justice. It suffers from a stock alien race, tired writing, and is damnably depressing to boot.

Don't start reading Amorality Tale if you're already down in the dumps. There is so much death, destruction, and evil atmosphere that it could bring down Kathie Lee Gifford. The book almost wallows in it at times. I see the intent behind it, which is to make the alien Xhinn a very vile race, worthy of what the Doctor has to do to stop them. However, it doesn't come off very well and just lies there like a lead balloon. Not only that, most of the people who die in this book are ciphers, so we don't really have anything invested in them. It's like reading death statistics in the newspaper. Sure, it's sad, but why should we care on an emotional level? Bishop tries to give humanity to some of them, but it's so superficial that it doesn't work.

The characters, for the most part, are a bunch of cliches. There's the couple who never really loved each other, but come together at the time of greatest crisis. The gangsters are mostly stock characters, speaking their gangster lines like in most movies of the type. Tommy's a mean guy, but loves his mom and has a few noble qualities. There's the hard-done-by woman across the street with three kids and no husband, with no prospects in life but getting by. There's the thug with the heart of gold, who really doesn't want to be doing what he's doing, but keeps it up out of loyalty. We've seen all of this before.

The regular characters don't suffer quite as much, though I thought Sarah was slightly out of character. A bit of a relationship develops between her and Tommy that I don't see the "real" Sarah allowing to happen. Sarah is an activist and a feminist. She realizes that she has to adapt to the time period she's in, but that shouldn't change her actual attitude. I don't buy the grudging respect that she develops for Tommy, even as she hates his exterior. I can see the "necessary evil" aspect of allying with him against the Xhinn, but not the rest of the relationship.

The Doctor and Sarah do have some good scenes together, however, and Bishop does get their relationship almost exactly right. The Doctor knows that he can't change history and that he has to balance stopping the Xhinn with allowing the people who actually died in the smog to carry out their destiny. Sarah initially resists this, feeling that the Doctor is being heartless, but she begins to understand the position the Doctor is in. It's a bit heartwrenching. While it does add to the general depressing atmosphere that clouds the book, in this case I think it's effective. The Doctor's character does suffer a bit from Bishop using too many of his mannerisms from the TV series, however. While the character should be recognizable, he shouldn't be just a collection of Third Doctor cliches. He uses the Venusian martial arts just a little too much for my taste. It's become a stereotype and I wish Bishop would have avoided it a little bit.

Finally, we come to the Xhinn. I am getting tired of monolithic races who want to invade Earth just for the sake of invading Earth. Here we have another race that just colonizes planets for the heck of it, with no real motivation otherwise. Again, this is a Third Doctor cliché (though the rest of the TV series suffered from it a bit too). Again, it's one that I wish Bishop would have avoided. They're almost like a force of nature rather than a race of intelligent beings. It's a bit more understandable in the TV series, but in novels, the villains should be fleshed out more. As it is, they're just in the book to be evil.

Ultimately, this book fails on a couple of levels. It isn't very entertaining, and it's not very interesting, either. There are lots of scenes of death if that's your bag. Otherwise, though, I'd avoid it. The Third Doctor and Sarah deserve a better story.

*Note: I did appreciate the historical note about the real London killer smog. I was intrigued by the idea enough to go do a little research on it, but then saw the note and didn't have to.

Rating:
Summary: Woke Up This Morning
Review: It's not a very good book, but "Amorality Tale" is actually one of the rare Past Doctor novels that would translate well to television. Set in December 1952, when the East End of London was choked by a killer smog that took 10,000 lives, David Bishop's tale is populated with gangsters and a man of God. Some creative casting turns the book into that science-fiction episode of "The Sopranos" that never got written, and all of a sudden this annoying little novel becomes a winner.

Think about it. Tommy Ramsey (it's spelled as "Ramsay" too) is the head gangster in the run-down East End -- which, in United States terms, is clearly the New Jersey, to central London's New York -- so he's obviously Tony Soprano. Cast him as James Gandolfini and you've got a deal. Meanwhile, his gang is being eyed lustily from the outside by a big-time gangster named McManus (or, depending on the page, MacManus) who does side deals with Ramsey's lieutenants and wears a camel-haired coat. That's Johnny Sack, played on TV by Vincent Curatola. Ramsey's bodyguard is named "Brick", the big guy with the sensitive heart. That's Big P, of course, so get Vincent Pastore on the phone. Bob Valentine, the drunken detective on the Ramsey payroll... well, he's either John Heard's detective from Season 1 of "The Sopranos", or the Bobby Valentine who used to manage the New York Mets. Meanwhile, Ramsey's doting mom may actually try to kill him. Sound familiar? The rest of Ramsey's mob is pretty faceless, but if you randomly read their dialogue with the voices of Tony Sirico and Joe Pantoliano, it's palatable.

Why go through this elaborate casting exercise? Well, to avoid the pain of all the downbeat badly-written death. We learn from the very beginning that the body count will reach five figures, so we learn not to get too attached to the many one-dimensional secondary characters we meet. But there is a neat trick to figure out just when they'll die. These cardboards are lovingly introduced with just a name (sometimes a first and a last name, even), and a comedic physical description. But that's all we learn... until the character's entire backstory is dumped on us in a three-paragraph splunge. When you see that splunge.. duck! Someone is about to die horribly! It's the summer blockbuster tactic of not naming a supporting character... until the moment before his death, when his name is used four times.

Amorality Tale does well with its prose for about 100 pages. The Doctor and Sarah infiltrate themselves into the East End and watch Ramsey square off against an upstart kid named Callum. We know Callum doesn't belong, because he has pale skin and black eyes. We also know that the man of God, Xavier, doesn't belong -- he's a Catholic priest but his liturgy is entirely Pentecostal (on "The Sopranos", the Catholic priest was played by Paul Schulze, who also plays a good guy/bad guy on "24", so he fits in this cast too). Oh, and there's clearly something odd about the Bread of Life he's trying to sell. So those are the two mysteries. But on page 100, Callum's secret is revealed, and the novel falls apart with an annoying screech right there.

We're introduced to the inevitable alien race, given only a vague description as "creatures of light and darkness". What does that mean? Actulaly, they're also said to have "a hundred eyes". Yes, but there's a song that says the night has a thousand eyes! And a thousand eyes can't help but see. Top that one, will you?
The Pertwee years were characterized not by monsters, but by developed alien races. The Silurians, the Peladons, the Draconians... these were literate creatures, with a purpose. Event those aliens that wanted to conquer Earth -- Nestenes, Axons -- were given a twist (the Nestenes could manipulate plastic, and Axos came in friendship). The Xhinn, however, just want to grind up the humans into paste. Their "twist" is that they come in groups of three, and speak for pages at a time in single-sentence paragraphs. Boy, doesn't this eat up the word count 'til the cows come home.

By the book's final day, just about everyone is dead. I think only four named characters survive. There's an attempt at Pertwee-style morality when the villains are dispatched, or when Ramsey continues to kill after earning the Doctor's trust. Nothing ground-breaking. Finally, in the epilogue, a long-dead character comes back to life. O-kay. Thanks for playing. Time to store my copy of "Amorality Tale" in a bowling bag and spend a long weekend in the Pine Barrens with a Czechoslovakian interior decorator.

Rating:
Summary: Woke Up This Morning
Review: It's not a very good book, but "Amorality Tale" is actually one of the rare Past Doctor novels that would translate well to television. Set in December 1952, when the East End of London was choked by a killer smog that took 10,000 lives, David Bishop's tale is populated with gangsters and a man of God. Some creative casting turns the book into that science-fiction episode of "The Sopranos" that never got written, and all of a sudden this annoying little novel becomes a winner.

Think about it. Tommy Ramsey (it's spelled as "Ramsay" too) is the head gangster in the run-down East End -- which, in United States terms, is clearly the New Jersey, to central London's New York -- so he's obviously Tony Soprano. Cast him as James Gandolfini and you've got a deal. Meanwhile, his gang is being eyed lustily from the outside by a big-time gangster named McManus (or, depending on the page, MacManus) who does side deals with Ramsey's lieutenants and wears a camel-haired coat. That's Johnny Sack, played on TV by Vincent Curatola. Ramsey's bodyguard is named "Brick", the big guy with the sensitive heart. That's Big P, of course, so get Vincent Pastore on the phone. Bob Valentine, the drunken detective on the Ramsey payroll... well, he's either John Heard's detective from Season 1 of "The Sopranos", or the Bobby Valentine who used to manage the New York Mets. Meanwhile, Ramsey's doting mom may actually try to kill him. Sound familiar? The rest of Ramsey's mob is pretty faceless, but if you randomly read their dialogue with the voices of Tony Sirico and Joe Pantoliano, it's palatable.

Why go through this elaborate casting exercise? Well, to avoid the pain of all the downbeat badly-written death. We learn from the very beginning that the body count will reach five figures, so we learn not to get too attached to the many one-dimensional secondary characters we meet. But there is a neat trick to figure out just when they'll die. These cardboards are lovingly introduced with just a name (sometimes a first and a last name, even), and a comedic physical description. But that's all we learn... until the character's entire backstory is dumped on us in a three-paragraph splunge. When you see that splunge.. duck! Someone is about to die horribly! It's the summer blockbuster tactic of not naming a supporting character... until the moment before his death, when his name is used four times.

Amorality Tale does well with its prose for about 100 pages. The Doctor and Sarah infiltrate themselves into the East End and watch Ramsey square off against an upstart kid named Callum. We know Callum doesn't belong, because he has pale skin and black eyes. We also know that the man of God, Xavier, doesn't belong -- he's a Catholic priest but his liturgy is entirely Pentecostal (on "The Sopranos", the Catholic priest was played by Paul Schulze, who also plays a good guy/bad guy on "24", so he fits in this cast too). Oh, and there's clearly something odd about the Bread of Life he's trying to sell. So those are the two mysteries. But on page 100, Callum's secret is revealed, and the novel falls apart with an annoying screech right there.

We're introduced to the inevitable alien race, given only a vague description as "creatures of light and darkness". What does that mean? Actulaly, they're also said to have "a hundred eyes". Yes, but there's a song that says the night has a thousand eyes! And a thousand eyes can't help but see. Top that one, will you?
The Pertwee years were characterized not by monsters, but by developed alien races. The Silurians, the Peladons, the Draconians... these were literate creatures, with a purpose. Event those aliens that wanted to conquer Earth -- Nestenes, Axons -- were given a twist (the Nestenes could manipulate plastic, and Axos came in friendship). The Xhinn, however, just want to grind up the humans into paste. Their "twist" is that they come in groups of three, and speak for pages at a time in single-sentence paragraphs. Boy, doesn't this eat up the word count 'til the cows come home.

By the book's final day, just about everyone is dead. I think only four named characters survive. There's an attempt at Pertwee-style morality when the villains are dispatched, or when Ramsey continues to kill after earning the Doctor's trust. Nothing ground-breaking. Finally, in the epilogue, a long-dead character comes back to life. O-kay. Thanks for playing. Time to store my copy of "Amorality Tale" in a bowling bag and spend a long weekend in the Pine Barrens with a Czechoslovakian interior decorator.