Books Back to the special collections and archive this morning to read another of the ultra rare TELOS Publishing novellas, hard-sf author Paul McAuley's single contribution to Doctor Who. A strange mix of Survival, TNG's Identity Crisis and Gungha-Din, it offers us the first person testimony of Fyne, a colonial police officer infected by nanites which are slowly turning him into a chimera of the predator at the centre of William Blake's The Tyger. After a atmospherically drawn opening, set via flashbacks in post-Great War British Empire India, the Doctor attempts a jump from Earth to find an intergalactic hospital which might find a cure. Instead he and Fyne land on a generational colony ship at war with itself, trapped in the orbit of a black hole, prefiguring the BDO in Twice Upon a Time, including the slippery timestreams within. From there we have a straight down the line accessible but cliched piece of spin-off fiction which would make just as much sense as a minor Big Finish Short Trip reading, assuming they're ok with the erotic subtext of Survival becoming text and the Eighth Doctor acting a bit out of character in places, saying things like "my dear fellow ..." and using his TARDIS as an ambulance (if only his Eleventh incarnation had been that liberal, perhaps Abigail might have survived). Not awful, but suggests the author doesn't quite understand Doctor Who's unique chemical formula. Placement: Early. I'll slot in after Spore because they feel of a piece.
The Eye of the Tyger.
Books Back to the special collections and archive this morning to read another of the ultra rare TELOS Publishing novellas, hard-sf author Paul McAuley's single contribution to Doctor Who. A strange mix of Survival, TNG's Identity Crisis and Gungha-Din, it offers us the first person testimony of Fyne, a colonial police officer infected by nanites which are slowly turning him into a chimera of the predator at the centre of William Blake's The Tyger. After a atmospherically drawn opening, set via flashbacks in post-Great War British Empire India, the Doctor attempts a jump from Earth to find an intergalactic hospital which might find a cure. Instead he and Fyne land on a generational colony ship at war with itself, trapped in the orbit of a black hole, prefiguring the BDO in Twice Upon a Time, including the slippery timestreams within. From there we have a straight down the line accessible but cliched piece of spin-off fiction which would make just as much sense as a minor Big Finish Short Trip reading, assuming they're ok with the erotic subtext of Survival becoming text and the Eighth Doctor acting a bit out of character in places, saying things like "my dear fellow ..." and using his TARDIS as an ambulance (if only his Eleventh incarnation had been that liberal, perhaps Abigail might have survived). Not awful, but suggests the author doesn't quite understand Doctor Who's unique chemical formula. Placement: Early. I'll slot in after Spore because they feel of a piece.