Shakedown (The New Doctor Who Series)

Rating:
Summary: Shake it, Uncle Terry!
Review: I like Terrance Dicks' prose. I can't help it; I grew up reading Terrance Dicks novelisations. My Target collection and I were inseparable. I took those books to school; I took them on holiday with me; if I had been a member of the child slave trade, you can be sure that I would have brought a grubby copy of INFERNO down the salt mines with me.

Good heavens, I don't think I meant to say exactly all that. Yet, I must point out that I am predisposed towards liking Terrance Dicks books. It can't be helped; it's now hardwired into my brain. But it's not something I'm ashamed about, even now, as the world of original Doctor Who novels has moved beyond Uncle Terry's monthly churn-out. For every Terry failure, there's a wonderful Terry success. For every regurgitated ENDGAME, there's a fantastic TIMEWYRM: EXODUS. For every boring Benny chapter in BLOOD HARVEST, there's a fun Chicago chapter in, er, BLOOD HARVEST. Well, you get the idea. In any case, I found SHAKEDOWN to be very much in the style of previous Terrance Dicks books (which is what everyone said about every Terrance Dicks book, except, of course, for the first one). And what I mean by that is that it combines the fun and adventure of a solid, uncomplicated story with a breezy, entertaining style.

Well, before I get utterly carried away (quiet, you), I should at least make an attempt at describing this novel. It's a Sontaran/Rutan story. It separates the Doctor and companions in true Terry-style, and places them each in their own subplot. Chris and Roz are on the trail of a Rutan spy, tracking it from planet to planet, as it endeavors to stay one step ahead while on a secret mission of its own. Benny is dropped off on a university world, where her task is to study the history of the Sontaran/Rutan War. The Doctor's subplot involves him not being in the story very much, but don't mind about that because this is a Dicks novel and it moves too fast for anyone to notice or care about that.

As the introduction, back cover, inside pages, back page advertisement and photo inserts (including a wonderful shot right up Michael Wisher's nose -- thanks, lads) tell us, this is partially the novelisation of a direct-to-video story written by (who else?) Terrance Dicks. So, Terrance Dicks is novelizing a script by Terrance Dicks; did the 70s never end? Truthfully, the novelisation only takes up about sixty pages in the middle, and doesn't have a huge impact on the rest of the book (although a handful of characters do filter through). The sections before and after the novelisation are quite entertaining -- much more so than the novelisation itself.

Terrance Dicks has written so many adaptations of Doctor Who and related stories that I imagine that he must be able to do them in his sleep by now (and he probably does -- poor Mrs. Uncle Terry). But strangely enough, it's the novelisation portion of this book that drags the most. The middle sixty or so pages add absolutely nothing to the rest. Nothing, zilch, nada. It's padding, and it's not even interesting padding. The solution to the Sontaran's problem is blindingly obvious, yet they never solve it, because the story can't let them solve it. It's formulaic and boring; it utterly fails to fill me with the desire to see the original straight-to-video production. There are also two strange places where the middle section makes an oblique and Benny Adventures-like reference to the Doctor. Possibly this came from the original screenplay that had to sidestep various copyrights, but the jokes seem very much out of place inside what is now a genuine Doctor Who story.

It's always easy to tell when Dicks is getting bored by certain parts of the story. He seems to have enjoyed writing the Mega City portions (very similar to the Chicago sequences in BLOOD HARVEST). The Shakedown novelisation parts aren't given nearly the same amount of care, and, as a result, they tend to fall rather on the flat side. A few other portions are also breezed over, as if Dicks knew they were needed in order for the plot to advance, but simply couldn't be bothered fleshing them out. I can easily imagine the following occurring during a typical novel writing session: "Ah, yes, now for chapter seven. Hmmmmm, this part of the outline isn't going to be any fun to write. Really dull, in fact. Oh, I know. I'll just highlight these bits of the outline. Yeah, click on 'cut'. Now to open the novel document. Yes, I click on 'paste' now. Yes. Excellent. Well, that was an easy chapter to write. Now, what have I got cooked up in eight?"

The above paragraph may sound like a criticism, but it isn't. Terrance Dicks knows what makes a boring section, and (in SHAKEDOWN at least) he's quite skillful at happily skipping over the boring (but necessary) sections in order to get back to the fun and games. Hooray!

From a technical standpoint, the book seems lazy and almost amateurish. There are pieces that are sloppy and not having been fully thought through. Benny disappears for just about a hundred pages (the book is only two hundred thirty three pages long) because Dicks can't figure out what to do with her. But, hey, it's a hell of a lot of fun, so who cares about those minor details? I wouldn't want to read a hundred of these books, but once in a while this sort of adventure is very appealing.

Rating:
Summary: Shake it, Uncle Terry!
Review: I like Terrance Dicks' prose. I can't help it; I grew up reading Terrance Dicks novelisations. My Target collection and I were inseparable. I took those books to school; I took them on holiday with me; if I had been a member of the child slave trade, you can be sure that I would have brought a grubby copy of INFERNO down the salt mines with me.

Good heavens, I don't think I meant to say exactly all that. Yet, I must point out that I am predisposed towards liking Terrance Dicks books. It can't be helped; it's now hardwired into my brain. But it's not something I'm ashamed about, even now, as the world of original Doctor Who novels has moved beyond Uncle Terry's monthly churn-out. For every Terry failure, there's a wonderful Terry success. For every regurgitated ENDGAME, there's a fantastic TIMEWYRM: EXODUS. For every boring Benny chapter in BLOOD HARVEST, there's a fun Chicago chapter in, er, BLOOD HARVEST. Well, you get the idea. In any case, I found SHAKEDOWN to be very much in the style of previous Terrance Dicks books (which is what everyone said about every Terrance Dicks book, except, of course, for the first one). And what I mean by that is that it combines the fun and adventure of a solid, uncomplicated story with a breezy, entertaining style.

Well, before I get utterly carried away (quiet, you), I should at least make an attempt at describing this novel. It's a Sontaran/Rutan story. It separates the Doctor and companions in true Terry-style, and places them each in their own subplot. Chris and Roz are on the trail of a Rutan spy, tracking it from planet to planet, as it endeavors to stay one step ahead while on a secret mission of its own. Benny is dropped off on a university world, where her task is to study the history of the Sontaran/Rutan War. The Doctor's subplot involves him not being in the story very much, but don't mind about that because this is a Dicks novel and it moves too fast for anyone to notice or care about that.

As the introduction, back cover, inside pages, back page advertisement and photo inserts (including a wonderful shot right up Michael Wisher's nose -- thanks, lads) tell us, this is partially the novelisation of a direct-to-video story written by (who else?) Terrance Dicks. So, Terrance Dicks is novelizing a script by Terrance Dicks; did the 70s never end? Truthfully, the novelisation only takes up about sixty pages in the middle, and doesn't have a huge impact on the rest of the book (although a handful of characters do filter through). The sections before and after the novelisation are quite entertaining -- much more so than the novelisation itself.

Terrance Dicks has written so many adaptations of Doctor Who and related stories that I imagine that he must be able to do them in his sleep by now (and he probably does -- poor Mrs. Uncle Terry). But strangely enough, it's the novelisation portion of this book that drags the most. The middle sixty or so pages add absolutely nothing to the rest. Nothing, zilch, nada. It's padding, and it's not even interesting padding. The solution to the Sontaran's problem is blindingly obvious, yet they never solve it, because the story can't let them solve it. It's formulaic and boring; it utterly fails to fill me with the desire to see the original straight-to-video production. There are also two strange places where the middle section makes an oblique and Benny Adventures-like reference to the Doctor. Possibly this came from the original screenplay that had to sidestep various copyrights, but the jokes seem very much out of place inside what is now a genuine Doctor Who story.

It's always easy to tell when Dicks is getting bored by certain parts of the story. He seems to have enjoyed writing the Mega City portions (very similar to the Chicago sequences in BLOOD HARVEST). The Shakedown novelisation parts aren't given nearly the same amount of care, and, as a result, they tend to fall rather on the flat side. A few other portions are also breezed over, as if Dicks knew they were needed in order for the plot to advance, but simply couldn't be bothered fleshing them out. I can easily imagine the following occurring during a typical novel writing session: "Ah, yes, now for chapter seven. Hmmmmm, this part of the outline isn't going to be any fun to write. Really dull, in fact. Oh, I know. I'll just highlight these bits of the outline. Yeah, click on 'cut'. Now to open the novel document. Yes, I click on 'paste' now. Yes. Excellent. Well, that was an easy chapter to write. Now, what have I got cooked up in eight?"

The above paragraph may sound like a criticism, but it isn't. Terrance Dicks knows what makes a boring section, and (in SHAKEDOWN at least) he's quite skillful at happily skipping over the boring (but necessary) sections in order to get back to the fun and games. Hooray!

From a technical standpoint, the book seems lazy and almost amateurish. There are pieces that are sloppy and not having been fully thought through. Benny disappears for just about a hundred pages (the book is only two hundred thirty three pages long) because Dicks can't figure out what to do with her. But, hey, it's a hell of a lot of fun, so who cares about those minor details? I wouldn't want to read a hundred of these books, but once in a while this sort of adventure is very appealing.