Just read this one. Well written, but, uh, all of a sudden it ended around about 2 thirds in and the rest of the novel just involved running away from Skarasens.
There didn't seem to be much of a plot at all actually, just lots of loose ends being tied up one after the other. I mean, what was the point of having Balaak escape if he was just going to die as soon as he walked out of the TARDIS?
And why were there so many Zygons in this group and only four in 'Terror of the Zygons'? Of course, this could have been easily reconciled by pointing out that the Zygons in 'Terror' were only a scout force or something, but, uh, Morris didn't do anything of the sort.
I liked the fleshing out of the Zygon culture though, with the Zygons we've only seen before essentially being eunuchs, and their natural appearance actually being a lot more feminine, smaller and white.
I commend you Luke! I once tried reading this one - twice, in fact - and could only get some fifty pages in before my brain told me to stop. The problem with it for me was that is was sooo cliched, and mixed Talons of Weng-Chiang with Terror of the Zygons, (with just a splash of Mark of the Rani), and wasted it somehow. I mean, you have Paul McGann, heaps of Zygons, Victorian London, a ready-made character in the form of Litefoot, and STILL manage to arse it up!
Yeah, and it wasn't really Paul McGann though, was it? For the most part it felt like the 4th Doctor. I don't know why Morris just didn't write it as a 4th Doc PDA, would have worked a bit better (And I probably wouldn't have read it then!)
So yeah, how about that book 'The Bodysnatchers'.
How ABOUT it? I mean, it's too boring to talk about, but it's not up to the Vanderdecken's Children level of tedium that justifies one spending several hours slagging it off.
*Ponders Bodysnatchers carefully for a while to make Luke happy* OK, it has the Doctor demonstrating those super-duper powers of his - the ones that popped up all of a sudden in the telemovie, where he looks at someone and knows their past, future, innermost thoughts, etc etc. I think every other author has had the sense to steer well clear of it - maybe chalking it up to post-regenerative stress like, er, everything else Paul McGann did in the telemovie. Oh, except it came up in Demontage, only the Doctor got the future of someone wrong - I seem to remember them going splat sooner than expected.
Why did this bunch of Zygons never consider teaming up with Broton's bunch at Loch Ness? It would have made sense and probably boosted their ranks into double figures.
In fact Victorian London seems to be a haunt for Zygons, what with this, the Radio Times comic strip 'Perceptions' and the BBV audio 'The Barnacled Baby'. Curious that.
When Sam first sees the Zygons she instinctively separates them into 'male' and 'female' without any evidence. Is this meant to be ironic or just bad writing?
It could just be a naive Sam making incorrect cultural/gender distinctions. Just her luck she got it right.
I think I meant Dominion when I said Demontage. An understandable mistake even for a nitpicker to make, I'm sure everyone agrees *glares around menacingly*
Sam didn't get it right though - the Zygons are asexual. According to this - though I do think the Doctor's "I hadn't heard from them before I met them on TV but I've since done a lot of reading up about them and I'll fill you in about their background and abilities over the next couple of pages" should go down as one of the most blatantly awful bits of infodump in the series history!
There's a few other places where there's a lot of exposition as well. The book is not as bad as I originally remembered it being although the glassing incident in the pub is completely gratuitous. If it had been on Sam it would have been acceptable, though
"I hadn't heard from them before I met them on TV but I've since done a lot of reading up about them and I'll fill you in about their background and abilities over the next couple of pages" should go down as one of the most blatantly awful bits of infodump in the series history!
Though of course nothing, but NOTHING, beats Jo's 'Weren't they that race of superintelligent reptiles hibernating for millions of years in those caves in Derbyshire...'
the glassing incident in the pub is completely gratuitous. If it had been on Sam it would have been acceptable, though
Tut tut. Sam Jones is a bit of a moron but of all the Companions she's the one most like me. And of course *adopts air of sickening piety* we all know that shoving broken glass into Companions' faces is WRONG, don't we? *Carefully suppresses mental list of exceptions to that rule*
"Though of course nothing, but NOTHING, beats Jo's 'Weren't they that race of superintelligent reptiles hibernating for millions of years in those caves in Derbyshire...'"
Ah, but that was on TV when there was a danger that thick people might be watching.
Sam Jones is a bit of a moron but of all the Companions she's the one most like me
I certainly hope that isn't the case or I'm going to have to revise my opinion of her upwards.
we all know that shoving broken glass into Companions' faces is WRONG, don't we?
'Have some carrot juice, Doctor"
The blurb on the back of the book tells us that it involves "alien beings the Doctor has encountered before". What are they I wonder? This question will surely entice me to read the book to discover the identity of these aliens. So I open the cover *which has a picture of a Zygon on it*. D'oh!
Ah, but that was on TV when there was a danger that thick people might be watching.
Whereas, of course, only intelligent people would possibly read the likes of The Bodysnatchers. Intelligent people who'd momentarily taken leave of their senses, anyway.
Sam Jones is a bit of a moron but of all the Companions she's the one most like me
I certainly hope that isn't the case or I'm going to have to revise my opinion of her upwards.
She's the idealistic schoolgirl with Greenpeace posters all over her room. I was exactly the same. Except that, unlike me, she got to live her principles - seting up that political movement on Earth, that environmental movement on...um...whatever that Seeing I planet was. Etc.
So *suspiciously* who WOULD you say I was most like, then? And has anyone else ever felt tempted to identify with a Companion, or is it just me?
'Have some carrot juice, Doctor"
No comment
So I open the cover *which has a picture of a Zygon on it*. D'oh!
Oh, that's nothing, look at Illegal Alien, which keeps the secret of WHICH recurring alien makes an appearance for an entire quarter of the book. When there's a Cyberman on the cover. Or Players where poor old Terrance Dicks has to type 'the war correspondent' instead of 'Churchill' a tedious number of times in the opening chapters, only to find his efforts betrayed by the blurb. Maybe authors, editors, blurb writers and cover illustrators ought to actually...y'know...TALK to each other occasionally.
So *suspiciously* who WOULD you say I was most like, then?
Answering that could get me in a lot of trouble. Perhaps I should say Peri to get some on here salivating
Actually, I think Hermione from Harry Potter is a very close match for you.
Not Peri. Definitely Liz Shaw. Or Maaga.
If anyone mentions a Mick Lewis book she's more like Mags during a full moon
Perhaps I should say Peri to get some on here salivating
You forget, there used to be pics of us all up, so most people will not be salivating so much as shaking their heads sadly and ringing the men in white coats to have you hauled away.
Actually, I think Hermione from Harry Potter is a very close match for you.
OK, so I WAS the class swot. Not as bossy, though.
Definitely Liz Shaw.
No way! We're both Cambridgers who enjoy a good row with the Brig (or, in my case, WOULD enjoy a good row with the Brig were I to have the privilege of meeting him), but that's as far as it goes. She's a SCIENTIST for god's sake. The closest _I_ ever came to that was a B in Physics GCSE. AND she wears mini-skirts! AND she abandoned the Doctor!! It would take a chain-saw to prise ME away from him, even minus a working TARDIS.
But Maaga and Mags I can live with, no problem. It's a tragedy neither of them became Companions.
In fact Victorian London seems to be a haunt for Zygons, what with this, the Radio Times comic strip 'Perceptions' and the BBV audio 'The Barnacled Baby'. Curious that.
On the other hand, the trillions (OK...handful) of other invading Zygons from Terror of the Zygons (TV story), Sting of the Zygons (Tenth Doctor book), The Zygon Who Fell To Earth and Death in Blackpool (Eighth Doctor audios), The Pandorica Opens (TV story in which they were mentioned but tragically the budget couldn't stretch to them being on-screen), oh and the notorious BBV Zygon sex-video went nowhere near Victorian London. Basically they just really, really, really like the UK.
Blimey, I've just cheated and looked up Zygons in TARDIS Wiki and apparently they're in King of Terror and Destiny of the Doctors and Original Sin and Genocide and for heaven's sake, Human Nature claims the Doctor makes clay Zygons to CHEER HIMSELF UP?
And they're also in some obscure episode shown in November 2013.
When the Doctor is in the mortuary he makes a comment to Sam. Which is interesting because she's back asleep at Litefoot's house. So it seems was the editor...
I did get the feeling Morris deliberately left Sam unconscious in the Zygon ship for as long as possible in an attempt to avoid writing for her.
And they're also in some obscure episode shown in November 2013.
And I've never quite understood WHY. Weren't Daleks and Time Lords and three/thirteen Doctors and Time Wars ENOUGH? What was the POINT of the bloody Zygons invading Earth for the umpteenth time?
Oh, and they were in Power of Three as well. Allegedly. Was THAT Victorian London?
When the Doctor is in the mortuary he makes a comment to Sam. Which is interesting because she's back asleep at Litefoot's house. So it seems was the editor...
Ah.
I did get the feeling Morris deliberately left Sam unconscious in the Zygon ship for as long as possible in an attempt to avoid writing for her.
And who could blame him?
You'll note that none of the MILLIONS of Zygons who STOLE OUR LIVES and then tried to SLAUGHTER US ALL actually required Skarasen milk to survive, as this claimed...
They may have developped a synthetic substitute.
It would have been mentioned in Invasion/Inversion surely, as an easy way of spotting who's a filthy orange mass-murdering alien INVADER.
OK, it has the Doctor demonstrating those super-duper powers of his - the ones that popped up all of a sudden in the telemovie, where he looks at someone and knows their past, future, innermost thoughts, etc etc. I think every other author has had the sense to steer well clear of it
Just for the record, this 'party trick' pops up in Timeless as well as Dominion.
As opposed to the 'half-human' thing which is never, EVER, to be mentioned again. We obviously all hallucinated it.
This has the Doctor reuniting with Professor George Litefoot whom he previously met in the Fourth Doctor TV story Talons of Weng-Chiang.
Due to him having looked different back in Talons of Weng-Chiang, the Eighth Doctor explains to Litefoot that the other Doctor is an associate of his. This was way before Big Finish which establish that Litefoot and Jago finds out that the Doctor can change his appearance.
This time around they encounter the Zygons the said bodysnatchers.
The Bodysnatchers is an enjoyable story setting the Zygons in 1894 London.
Quite creepy on the individuals that the Zygons impersonated.
Not bad resolution to the main plot which then leads into the coda which intriguingly does not seem all that related to what just went on.
Due to him having looked different back in Talons of Weng-Chiang, the Eighth Doctor explains to Litefoot that the other Doctor is an associate of his. This was way before Big Finish which establish that Litefoot and Jago finds out that the Doctor can change his appearance.
Bloody good point, if Jago n'Litefoot can cope with our darling Tom being replaced with COLIN (which is more than I've ever managed) they can certainly cope with him being McGann.
The J&L audios are usually wisely vague on what year they're set in, but whether they're before or after Bodysnatchers, the Eighth Doctor ought to have remembered that they coped with his Sixth self just fine.
This would have been a good title for a Burke and Hare story, IMO.
Bookwyrm on All-Consuming Fire: 'The TARDIS remained in Litefoot's possession between 1887 and 1906, during which time it was singularly unnoticed during the events of The Bodysnatchers, set in 1894, which claimed that Litefoot hadn't had any contact with the Doctor since Talons' - *sigh* At least the numerous Jago-and-Litefoot-meet-various-Doctors audios had the decency to be written AFTER The Bodysnatchers...