Doctor Who: Fallen Gods

Rating:
Summary: Doctor Who? No-one I recognised!
Review: I must admit to being very disappointed with most of the Telos novellas released so far. I've come to the conclusion that a large part of this dissatisfaction is due to the fact that I'm a very 'traditional' fan, and the majority of stories so far fall way outside the scope of a 'traditional' Who story. The only book I've felt worth keeping from the range so far, is Foreign Devils - probably the most traditional of the lot.

After reading the latest novella Fallen Gods, I felt obliged to put fingers to keyboard and express my opinion. Lets get this out of the way first - I'm not a Kate Orman fan. In my opinion, her books have generally been readable, but not much more, and Left Handed Hummingbird is easily one of the worst DW novels ever written - a DW book in name only with the 7th Dr being totally unrecognisable. So, my opinion of Fallen Gods?

Kate Orman has perpetrated the worst sin an author can commit - she's bored her readers! When I received the book in the mail, I was pleased to note that it was the longest novella so far released. By the time I was about 10 pages in, I started wishing it had been the shortest. I was bored with this novel almost from the first page! The pace was morbidly slow, the plot virtually non-existant, the main characters uninteresting and the 8th Doctor unrecognisable (maybe I've missed something in all my years of watching and reading DW, but how often did the Doctor go around killing his 'companions' because they didn't do what he wanted them to?)

As a (very) short story, this may have been redeemable, but as a 140 page novella, don't bother.

Rating:
Summary: Doctor Who? No-one I recognised!
Review: I must admit to being very disappointed with most of the Telos novellas released so far. I've come to the conclusion that a large part of this dissatisfaction is due to the fact that I'm a very `traditional' fan, and the majority of stories so far fall way outside the scope of a `traditional' Who story. The only book I've felt worth keeping from the range so far, is Foreign Devils - probably the most traditional of the lot.

After reading the latest novella Fallen Gods, I felt obliged to put fingers to keyboard and express my opinion. Lets get this out of the way first - I'm not a Kate Orman fan. In my opinion, her books have generally been readable, but not much more, and Left Handed Hummingbird is easily one of the worst DW novels ever written - a DW book in name only with the 7th Dr being totally unrecognisable. So, my opinion of Fallen Gods?

Kate Orman has perpetrated the worst sin an author can commit - she's bored her readers! When I received the book in the mail, I was pleased to note that it was the longest novella so far released. By the time I was about 10 pages in, I started wishing it had been the shortest. I was bored with this novel almost from the first page! The pace was morbidly slow, the plot virtually non-existant, the main characters uninteresting and the 8th Doctor unrecognisable (maybe I've missed something in all my years of watching and reading DW, but how often did the Doctor go around killing his `companions' because they didn't do what he wanted them to?)

As a (very) short story, this may have been redeemable, but as a 140 page novella, don't bother.

Rating:
Summary: Adrift in the skies of the Bronze Age
Review: The novella is a tricky form in which to write--it's too long to be a short story, too short to be a novel. With that in mind, I was relieved to see that FALLEN GODS not only succeeds as a novella, but as a reading experience on the whole.

The world of the Bronze Age comes to life through Blum and Orman's writings; this isn't a story set in our world but with fancy outfits, but one deep in the culture and beliefs of the Aegean Sea. The story itself moves at just the right pace, opening with our protagonist literally dropping into this time period, as well as introducing the first manifestation of our "villains". As we as readers learn more about the truth of the fire bulls and the royal palace, alliances form and are broken, and nothing you knew is truly correct.

Most importantly, as a novella FALLEN GODS is able to boil a plot down to its basics, but still has enough room for Blum and Orman to leave in the little details that are hallmarks of their writing. Could this have worked as a full novel? Possibly, but it would need additional subplots and stories tacked on board to make up the rest of the space. As a novella, though, it's near perfect. One of the high points of the Doctor Who Novellas line from Telos Publishing; well done.