Doctor Who: The Last Resort (Doctor Who)

Rating:
Summary: The Last Resort
Review: A frustrating, infinitely perplexing, Doctor Who read...a story idea that I think needed to be done, but was almost guaranteed to be confusing beyond all previously known bounds.

Things are a big mess, in this one. The book starts with some kid building a homemade time machine, and after that--well, it's really hard for this reviewer to explain. I'd like to hear the author explain it--or better yet, the Doctor. Anyway, the timeline we know from the series gets various visitors from all sorts of other timelines...timelines that shouldn't even exist. There are several variations of Anji, Fitz, even the Eighth Doctor (once he deigns to appear on the scene). New characters, also, come in duplicates. People die. But, there are other versions of them to take their place. Scenes repeat, slightly different. The same tragedies take place over and over again; repeated victories are far fewer, it seems, though the Doctors, and Anjis, Fitzs, and assorted sundry characters to the tenth power all try to save time and space. Over and over.

It just goes on and on. Characters loop back to earlier portions of their own history. Some key players lose track of what reality they have ended up in--hmmm, is this the reality where Bob Heinlein was a US President, where Ancient Egypt has been fixed up with modern accoutrements due to all the time-travelling types who have shown up, or where the time police come to kill you because you're in the wrong wrongness? Don't ask me. Oh no no no No!--I completely understood it all in the end...uh, I just don't want to spoil it for you. That's right.

And time falling apart in this one...it's all the Doctor's fault this go-round. No, wait, it's Anji's, because all her selves can't seem to decide which Anji should get to live. No, wait, it's all Fitz's fault, because they all keep getting killed. No, I'm wrong, it's the fault of the kid with the jury-rigged time machine, because, uh, because--well, he definitely seems at the center of things. No, it's Sabbath's fault. It must be his fault because there's only one of him in this adventure, and the Doctor seems to think he's evil...

What a weird book! Necessary, but dizzying. No time to read it again, to try and sort it out better, but if another me turns up, he can read it.

Rating:
Summary: I think rhyme and reason just fell apart.
Review: I'm actually shocked by how much I disliked THE LAST RESORT. Paul Leonard is an author I have a lot of time for. I found something to enjoy in all of his previous NAs/EDAs (yes, even THE DREAMSTONE MOON which is almost universally loathed). Yet outside the first few chapters, I didn't enjoy any of it. There's just not much here to like. Stuff happens. None of it to people we're interested in. Then more stuff happens. Not much of it makes sense. Then the book ends. Readers are left, scratching their heads, wondering why on Earth this book exists. Maybe it doesn't. Maybe I imagined it. Once the scars heal and the memory fades, I doubt I'll ever have any reason to want to go back and prove that this book really was published.

There's a strong beginning to the story. We actually have a plot that fits comfortably into the on-going story-arc; without the Time Lords to enforce the Laws Of Time, dangerous and destructive time travel is appearing. "Destructive", because of the havoc inadvertently unleashed upon the cosmos. Alternative universes are springing up with each instance of time travel (at least, that's what the book says, although unexplained exceptions are made). Any time traveler changing history is now responsible for the existence of two time-streams -- the first being his original time-stream (the unmolested chain of events that led to his time travel), the second being the altered, new time-stream (the new and improved version which may in fact be a paradox). The book's most successful moments involve the comedy potential of having all manner of modern-day icons turning up in human history.

The biggest problem with this book is that it's obvious by about page fifty that this state of affairs can't remain true and there's clearly going to be a reset of one sort or another before the book closes. "But", I hear some of you saying, "Surely what's important is the journey itself, not necessarily what we arrive at." And usually I would agree with that sentiment. But this journey itself is technobabble-laden nonsense. Most of it probably makes logical sense, but it's difficult to care about any of it. We're told that Sabbath's nonsensical plan to fix everything will work, but we aren't told why or given any information that would let us figure it out.

We're told that alternative universes are popping up every time someone (off-screen) makes a change to history. So, how often is this occurring? How many time-streams are created during the first, say, one hundred pages? Does each inconsistency point to a newer history? Are there new universes created without immediately noticeable effects? Are new universes being created with every chapter? Every scene? Every page? Every sentence? As far as I can tell, each of these could be true, but we aren't told why or given any information that would let us figure it out.

So, given that the majority of the book is simply extended padding, is there anything worth reading in the bulk of pages that makes up THE LAST RESORT? Sadly, no. In the past, Leonard has done a reasonably good job of presenting solid characterization. At times, he's done astonishingly well on this point. But not here. His characters simply cannot overcome the "plot" that they're mired in. The only exception is a bright spot in the character of Iyeeye. Leonard is playing to his strengths here. I found her thoughts while in her own environment to be engrossing. The problem is that the story is far too splintered for a deep character like this. She's stuck in something that is impossible to care about and unfortunately the effect is to dull any interest she may have brought.

One of the advantages to creating a whole bunch of identical duplicates is that it allows the author opportunity to kill off characters as many times as he likes without having to bother creating new ones. Oh boy. But yet, maybe seeing exactly how a beloved character may choose to sacrifice himself in one reality would give us further insight into the still-living character in another time-line. It's a nice idea... that only happens once (Anji's journal). The literally thousands of other deaths are just pointless. In the MST3k episode "Time Chasers", a movie which shares the same philosophy of time travel as this novel, one copy of our bespectacled, big-chinned, hockey-haired hero is blown away. "Don't worry, folks", mocks one of the robots wearily, "This movie's got a spare." Oh, you wouldn't believe the amount of times I thought of that line during THE LAST RESORT.

The plot eventually turns back on itself. Maybe. Something inexplicable that occurs near the beginning finally gets a time-travely explanation towards the end although I'm not convinced that the link-up actually matters. It would be more impressive if there was any reason to care by that point or any reason to believe that they were all part of the same universe or time-line or whatever. So something matches up. So what? It's been mere days since I read the book and I'm already struggling to remember why key plot points took place. This novel is the poster child for demonstrating that a convoluted plot is no replacement for a complex one. A complex plot is one in which multiple layers are carefully interweaved -- characterization, plot and tone all work together to enhance the author's chosen themes. A convoluted plot is one in which weird stuff happens just because the author says so. It may all make sense by the end, but it might not. And you might not even be able to tell anyway.

I have absolutely no problem with a storyline that requires me to give it a lot of thought. But I balk when that extra thinking leads only to the discovery of plot-holes, inconsistencies and sloppiness. This is not Paul Leonard's finest hour.