Ten Little Aliens (Doctor Who)

Rating:
Summary: Bad
Review: A disappointing book.

If you liked Terrance Dicks as a kid, and don't like straining your brain, imagining things that don't exist, and relate really well to stories where "people want to kill one another and are afraid to die" then perhaps you could enjoy "little aliens" for a while.

The book is hollow, and it is about nothing. There are a bunch of soldiers who go out on a survey/mission/thing, and most of them get killed. The people that don't get killed are the uninteresting ones. The Doctor arouses first suspicion, then respect, from the soldiers they encounter. He does this by saying and doing nothing impressive whatsoever. Ben and Polly almost develop feelings for people they encounter, and this almost makes them develop feelings of jealousy. Then everybody leaves. There, I've spoiled it for you.

I'm giving two stars because the author tried to be creative and told a piece of the story in a funny way when the humanoids were connected telepathically.

I am angry because the BBC is clearly disinvesting in the Doctor Who book series, and then when they do publish something they choose an unpassionate, dull, dreary story. It is not with books like "little aliens" that BBC will crank up interest for its series.

Rating:
Summary: Dark Progeny
Review: All right, book, I don't like you, and you don't like me, but ...

This is just another outer-space action runaround. It features a bunch of starship troopers from Earth colonies (inaptly named "Toronto" and "New Jersey") in the unspecified future. There's a very brief continuity link to "The Caves of Androzani", just so we have a TV story cleary set in the same Nth Century as "Ten Little Aliens". Basically, a bunch of instantly forgettable Space Marines (nine humans and a stealth android a la "Alien" and "Aliens") traipse around an asteroid. Many of them die, but until we find out who the killer is, the dead just don't stay dead.

There's a market for this kind of book, hopefully. It's slow and dreary and it's impossible for any of character to generate emotional traction with the audience. In books past, Steve Cole adopted the baffling policy of naming his characters after nouns. In "Vanishing Point" his main character was a detective named Dark; in "Parallel 59", there was a guy named Dam, who burst. Here, we have not just Shade, but Haunt as well. The guy named Roba is clearly named after the two annoying aliens from "The Dominators" (Rago and Toba). There is at least the neat visual trick of introducing all the characters in a chapter with a grey background and numerous fonts, which of course makes it easier to remember who's who. The guy named Creben is the most interesting character in the intro, as he's clearly more enlightened regarding the alien menace than his shipmates. That's why it's a major surprise that he's not the first character killed! Unfortunately, he's never interesting again, and that's indicative of the overall malaise surrounding the secondary cast.

However, just because the book is dull doesn't mean it lacks merit. It gives us a Doctor/companion pairing never before seen in the books: the First Doctor, Ben and Polly. The Doctor, as in "The Man in the Velvet Mask", is dying of old age, and that's the character trait Cole runs with. There are a couple of startling bursts of insight, most notably when Polly peers into the Doctor's mind (with a bit of Nth-century technology) and finds a marvelous bit of prose. Though the Doctor's body is aging graphically, his mind remains useful.

The only time Cole gets the Doctor *wrong* is the climax. In his final speech, Hartnell lectures one of the surviving Earth marines who hasn't learned that diplomacy, not scorched-earth retaliation, is a better solution to war. This, four pages after Hartnell orders the vicious death of one of the terrorists. Cole's message is timely; his delivery, however, is throw-the-book-across-the-room dreadful.

What's done with Ben and Polly is interesting. Those companions were fresh, not only because were they played by two very appealing young actors, but because they were so very 1966 -- going to nightclubs, speaking in the vernacular of the era. It's still fun to watch Ben and Polly work their way through their debut story, "The War Machines". Here, Ben is clearly a part of what we now believe 1966 was like (the author was born at least four years later). Ben is casually racist towards the one crewmember of Chinese descent; however, Polly calls him on it, and Ben backs down, a little. But Polly also runs around in a day-glo yellow spacesuit, and Ben, out of his depth with the taller, stronger soldiers of the Nth Century, gets to survive intact and prove his worth a few times over. This is not the definitive Ben/Polly book (I don't think there can ever be one, since there's so little background to work with) but it's not a bad way to lead you back to their TV episodes.

There are good passages in "Ten Little Aliens", if you read your way through the whole thing. The graphic body horror actually puts it in the tradition of "The Tenth Planet" and "The Faceless Ones", although obviously the gore is ramped up 10,000 times, to match the books' baseline splatter content. However, it's mostly without charm and, apart from new looks at the TV regulars, doesn't have a whole lot else to distinguish it from other "Doctor Who" books.

Rating:
Summary: Dark Progeny
Review: All right, book, I don't like you, and you don't like me, but ...

This is just another outer-space action runaround. It features a bunch of starship troopers from Earth colonies (inaptly named "Toronto" and "New Jersey") in the unspecified future. There's a very brief continuity link to "The Caves of Androzani", just so we have a TV story cleary set in the same Nth Century as "Ten Little Aliens". Basically, a bunch of instantly forgettable Space Marines (nine humans and a stealth android a la "Alien" and "Aliens") traipse around an asteroid. Many of them die, but until we find out who the killer is, the dead just don't stay dead.

There's a market for this kind of book, hopefully. It's slow and dreary and it's impossible for any of character to generate emotional traction with the audience. In books past, Steve Cole adopted the baffling policy of naming his characters after nouns. In "Vanishing Point" his main character was a detective named Dark; in "Parallel 59", there was a guy named Dam, who burst. Here, we have not just Shade, but Haunt as well. The guy named Roba is clearly named after the two annoying aliens from "The Dominators" (Rago and Toba). There is at least the neat visual trick of introducing all the characters in a chapter with a grey background and numerous fonts, which of course makes it easier to remember who's who. The guy named Creben is the most interesting character in the intro, as he's clearly more enlightened regarding the alien menace than his shipmates. That's why it's a major surprise that he's not the first character killed! Unfortunately, he's never interesting again, and that's indicative of the overall malaise surrounding the secondary cast.

However, just because the book is dull doesn't mean it lacks merit. It gives us a Doctor/companion pairing never before seen in the books: the First Doctor, Ben and Polly. The Doctor, as in "The Man in the Velvet Mask", is dying of old age, and that's the character trait Cole runs with. There are a couple of startling bursts of insight, most notably when Polly peers into the Doctor's mind (with a bit of Nth-century technology) and finds a marvelous bit of prose. Though the Doctor's body is aging graphically, his mind remains useful.

The only time Cole gets the Doctor *wrong* is the climax. In his final speech, Hartnell lectures one of the surviving Earth marines who hasn't learned that diplomacy, not scorched-earth retaliation, is a better solution to war. This, four pages after Hartnell orders the vicious death of one of the terrorists. Cole's message is timely; his delivery, however, is throw-the-book-across-the-room dreadful.

What's done with Ben and Polly is interesting. Those companions were fresh, not only because were they played by two very appealing young actors, but because they were so very 1966 -- going to nightclubs, speaking in the vernacular of the era. It's still fun to watch Ben and Polly work their way through their debut story, "The War Machines". Here, Ben is clearly a part of what we now believe 1966 was like (the author was born at least four years later). Ben is casually racist towards the one crewmember of Chinese descent; however, Polly calls him on it, and Ben backs down, a little. But Polly also runs around in a day-glo yellow spacesuit, and Ben, out of his depth with the taller, stronger soldiers of the Nth Century, gets to survive intact and prove his worth a few times over. This is not the definitive Ben/Polly book (I don't think there can ever be one, since there's so little background to work with) but it's not a bad way to lead you back to their TV episodes.

There are good passages in "Ten Little Aliens", if you read your way through the whole thing. The graphic body horror actually puts it in the tradition of "The Tenth Planet" and "The Faceless Ones", although obviously the gore is ramped up 10,000 times, to match the books' baseline splatter content. However, it's mostly without charm and, apart from new looks at the TV regulars, doesn't have a whole lot else to distinguish it from other "Doctor Who" books.

Rating:
Summary: Agatha Christie in Spaaaaaaaaaaaace!!!!
Review: Stephen Cole thanks Agatha Christie's daughter in the acknowledgements of Ten Little Aliens, and well he should. While I have not read Ten Little Indians (or, as it's known now, And Then There Were None), I know enough about it to recognize a pastiche when I see one. The question is, is it a good one? While there is an entire 46 page experimental section that makes the reader work a bit too hard, it is overall an exciting and suspenseful mystery in space and well worth a read.

An elite group of soldiers is on a training mission inside a burned out planetoid when things start to go wrong. They find a control room with ten alien corpses captured at the moment of an extremely violent death, frozen in time. They also find a blue police box, an old man, and two young people who shouldn't be there. Then, people start dying. The Doctor and his companions would like nothing better then to get back in the TARDIS and go somewhere else, but they appear to be blocked by an energy barrier of some sort. The Doctor has to use every wit he has to figure out what is going on. What is the horrifying secret of the planetoid, and will anybody survive to find it? And why does a alien corpse disappear every time a soldier dies? And could one of the soldiers know more then he/she is telling about all of this?

Ten Little Aliens is a classic "we're all trapped and people are starting to die!" suspense romp, and at times it shows too many of the clichés. Each character is given a potential reason for being the traitor and clues point first to one then another of the soldiers. It also has some Doctor Who clichés, as the Doctor and companions are first suspected to be the bad guys, but circumstances (and the Doctor's vastly superior mind getting ahead of everybody else) force them to enlist the Doctor's help in figuring out what is going on. The soldiers start out as stereotypical grunts (though elite ones) and don't usually move much beyond that point with a couple of exceptions.

The book works so well, though, that I didn't mind the clichés. The book started with the soldiers, and I had trouble getting into it, but when they reached the planetoid and things started happening, I forgave Cole a bit. He takes these clichés and turns them into something quite suspenseful and interesting. He gives the soldiers just enough character to make us feel a little bit when one of them dies. Of course, he has to do that or else the traitor part of the plot wouldn't work, as we wouldn't care who it was (or, alternately, we'd pick out the traitor because he/she is the only one *with* a personality). Cole really pours on the atmosphere, so much that you almost feel like you're in a cave, feeling the oppressive waves washing over you. It's almost enough to make you feel uncomfortable.

Cole manages to get the main characters dead-on, with only a quibble or two. The first quibble is that the Doctor doesn't really appear to be that close to his regeneration (this book takes place very close to the time where he regenerates into the Second Doctor, and he has previously shown the signs of this body's age). He certainly acts like an old man, not being able to do a lot physically and getting out of breath, but we don't really see the impending regeneration coming. Previous books set in this time period have hinted at this, which makes this book stand out. It's not a problem with the book itself, however, just a problem with where it is in the series. I loved Polly's canary yellow space suit, though it's convenient that the Doctor would have one that just fits her personality.

There is one aspect of the book that really brings it to a screeching halt, however interesting the concept is. At one point, all of the characters put on visors that hook them into the neural network, so they can keep in contact. The entire chapter becomes similar to a "choose your own adventure," except that it's a "choose whose viewpoint you want to follow." You end up reading all of the sections anyway (which is extremely clever on Cole's part, making sure it all ties together), but you're hopping from page to page, and I'm not sure I did get them all. This goes on for 46 pages, where each short section ends with something like "if you wish to see this from the Doctor's viewpoint, go to page 200." It makes the reader really work, and I found it really dragged the pace of the novel down. It's interesting because they can all get some sense of each other's thoughts, but ultimately I think it detracts from the book.

Other than that, though, Ten Little Aliens is a taut thriller with an exciting climax. The characters grow beyond their clichés to be interesting, and the plot will keep you going until the end. I guess the reason why clichés exist is because they started out really good, and can be good again when done right. Stephen Cole has done it, though he teeters on the edge a little bit. Check it out. Meanwhile, I'm late for my berth on the Orient Express.

David Roy

Rating:
Summary: Agatha Christie in Spaaaaaaaaaaaace!!!!
Review: Stephen Cole thanks Agatha Christie's daughter in the acknowledgements of Ten Little Aliens, and well he should. While I have not read Ten Little Indians (or, as it's known now, And Then There Were None), I know enough about it to recognize a pastiche when I see one. The question is, is it a good one? While there is an entire 46 page experimental section that makes the reader work a bit too hard, it is overall an exciting and suspenseful mystery in space and well worth a read.

An elite group of soldiers is on a training mission inside a burned out planetoid when things start to go wrong. They find a control room with ten alien corpses captured at the moment of an extremely violent death, frozen in time. They also find a blue police box, an old man, and two young people who shouldn't be there. Then, people start dying. The Doctor and his companions would like nothing better then to get back in the TARDIS and go somewhere else, but they appear to be blocked by an energy barrier of some sort. The Doctor has to use every wit he has to figure out what is going on. What is the horrifying secret of the planetoid, and will anybody survive to find it? And why does a alien corpse disappear every time a soldier dies? And could one of the soldiers know more then he/she is telling about all of this?

Ten Little Aliens is a classic "we're all trapped and people are starting to die!" suspense romp, and at times it shows too many of the clichés. Each character is given a potential reason for being the traitor and clues point first to one then another of the soldiers. It also has some Doctor Who clichés, as the Doctor and companions are first suspected to be the bad guys, but circumstances (and the Doctor's vastly superior mind getting ahead of everybody else) force them to enlist the Doctor's help in figuring out what is going on. The soldiers start out as stereotypical grunts (though elite ones) and don't usually move much beyond that point with a couple of exceptions.

The book works so well, though, that I didn't mind the clichés. The book started with the soldiers, and I had trouble getting into it, but when they reached the planetoid and things started happening, I forgave Cole a bit. He takes these clichés and turns them into something quite suspenseful and interesting. He gives the soldiers just enough character to make us feel a little bit when one of them dies. Of course, he has to do that or else the traitor part of the plot wouldn't work, as we wouldn't care who it was (or, alternately, we'd pick out the traitor because he/she is the only one *with* a personality). Cole really pours on the atmosphere, so much that you almost feel like you're in a cave, feeling the oppressive waves washing over you. It's almost enough to make you feel uncomfortable.

Cole manages to get the main characters dead-on, with only a quibble or two. The first quibble is that the Doctor doesn't really appear to be that close to his regeneration (this book takes place very close to the time where he regenerates into the Second Doctor, and he has previously shown the signs of this body's age). He certainly acts like an old man, not being able to do a lot physically and getting out of breath, but we don't really see the impending regeneration coming. Previous books set in this time period have hinted at this, which makes this book stand out. It's not a problem with the book itself, however, just a problem with where it is in the series. I loved Polly's canary yellow space suit, though it's convenient that the Doctor would have one that just fits her personality.

There is one aspect of the book that really brings it to a screeching halt, however interesting the concept is. At one point, all of the characters put on visors that hook them into the neural network, so they can keep in contact. The entire chapter becomes similar to a "choose your own adventure," except that it's a "choose whose viewpoint you want to follow." You end up reading all of the sections anyway (which is extremely clever on Cole's part, making sure it all ties together), but you're hopping from page to page, and I'm not sure I did get them all. This goes on for 46 pages, where each short section ends with something like "if you wish to see this from the Doctor's viewpoint, go to page 200." It makes the reader really work, and I found it really dragged the pace of the novel down. It's interesting because they can all get some sense of each other's thoughts, but ultimately I think it detracts from the book.

Other than that, though, Ten Little Aliens is a taut thriller with an exciting climax. The characters grow beyond their clichés to be interesting, and the plot will keep you going until the end. I guess the reason why clichés exist is because they started out really good, and can be good again when done right. Stephen Cole has done it, though he teeters on the edge a little bit. Check it out. Meanwhile, I'm late for my berth on the Orient Express.

David Roy