Put me down for mostly agreeing. The first few dozen pages are excellent with a wonderful build up - then it tries far too hard to be stylistic at the expense of comprehension and simply becomes tediously self-indulgent.
'Kate and Jon's Doctor Who novella Fallen Gods won the prestigious Aurealis Award (given to the best Australian SF writers) for Best Science Fiction Novel in 2003. It is the only piece of Doctor Who tie-in fiction to ever win a major SF award' - Chicks Dig Time Lords.
Ouch. Either there were no good Australian SF writers out there in 2003...or the judges actually UNDERSTOOD this book (or wanted us to THINK they did). But what really hurts is...the ONLY award. Those HUNDREDS of books and audios, some of which (well, Dead Romance of which anyway) actually ARE all-time classics...and not a word of recognition. And now Who's back in fashion and the books WOULD be in with a fair chance - they're all second-rate kiddie-drivel.
'The story was very much shaped by Justin Richards' Eighth Doctor - a man who has done a huge, necessary, but appalling thing, and who grapples with the consequences every day' - Jon Blum in DWM. Well, I didn't notice much grappling in the post-Ancestor Cell EDAs. Though I may be unduly influenced by The Gallifrey Chronicles, in which the Doctor casually announces that he really doesn't have a PROBLEM with having blown up his homeworld.
OK. THAT'S embarrassing. Usually when I heartily loathe a book it STAYS heartily loathed but this time round I...almost...GOT Fallen Gods. (And even when I DID loathe it there was obviously SOMETHING special struggling to get out. It just didn't succeed, first time round.)
'Pale and cool as ivory in the heat' 'cool and composed in the heat' - this is obviously a trick the Doctor picked up SINCE Vengeance on Varos.
'-I play the liar very well, he whispers to Alcestis after one such session, and once again she sense a joke that has failed to translate' - why shouldn't it translate? It did in The Romans!
Since when has the Doctor been a brilliant liar, anyway?
A volcano erupting causes vermilion at sunset for YEARS afterwards?
'-Now, if you can get by on raw talent and plenty of enthusiasm...Well, look at me. That made me the perennial disappointment to my betters I am today' - as former President, Key-to-Time-compiler and regular Gallifrey-saver, I don't think Theta Sigma IS a disappointment to his supposed 'betters' any longer. Also...this kinda gives this impression it's set AFTER the Eighth Doctor blew Gallifrey to smithereens. And became amnesiac. In which case who the hell does he think of as his 'betters'?
How much of this book does the Doctor spend naked, exactly?
'-My journeys are not my own' - hasn't he learnt ANY control over the TARDIS by now? He's always implying to Anji that he CAN get her home...
The Doctor just assumes that the unleasher of the magic bulls is a 'he'?
THE DOCTOR starts talking about CONSTIPATION?
The Doctor presses on the TOP of Alcestis's left breast to indicate the heart?
The Doctor has outsized hands?
The Doctor can't feel the time currents?
'-Edgar Cayce would have been delighted: Atlantis's crystals of power, just as his psychic readings said' - what the hell is an Edgar Cayce? And why is the Doctor SURPRISED to see Atlantis's crystals of power, post-Time Monster?
'All his brothers walk behind them' - what, even the missing ones and the dead ones and the carefully-segregated-so-he-never-sees-them ones?
Glaucus's death actually manages to be quite moving and shocking. Notwithstanding the slight unoriginality of someone ageing to dust.
'-Time is fire, when I stop it burning in one place it spreads to another. A decision I make tonight could affect whole civilisations thousands of years hence....Empires live and cities die in the spaces between my thoughts, all unseen. I've killed far more people than I could ever know about. -How can you deal with it? -I can't, he says, almost gently.' - since when has THAT been how the Doctor feels? (And when exactly DOES he pick up his New Who trick of seeing Fixed Points and having the entire universe streaming through his head and suchlike?)
'A man who treats being told to face the music as an invitation to dance' - lovely description of the Doctor, but quite an odd statement for someone from a civilisation where music and dance are SACRED and the expression 'face the music' is unlikely to have been invented.
'-I didn't want the last angel either...She came to me as I lay wounded and fallen. All my plans and hopes laid low by one inescapable act. She looked down on me, a creature of infinite compassion and unwanted mercy. And she stopped my heart...But then she started it again. She picked me up from the ashes I'd left and gave me a clean slate, another chance' - unless I'm REALLY missing something, this is referring to the Eighth Doctor destroying Gallifrey in The Ancestor Cell. But who is the angel? COMPASSION? SHE stopped his heart? How would he even REMEMBER this? Since when has he been aware he did anything unforgivable that day? Oh, and by the way, he has TWO hearts...
'They find their first shaky footsteps settling into rhythm' - the music-is-sacred priestesses can't even DANCE properly at first at their big sacred shindig?
'A hand fumbles at her throat for the pressure point, but...he must know by now - put her to sleep and when she wakes she will be undaunted; any cage he puts her in, she can escape' - er...she's flying him over a sea of fire. If he DID manage to render her unconscious they'd both be BURNT TO DEATH.
The gods cure Alcestis WHY, exactly? She's failed to free them. She's useless.
'They gave him a new kingly name...' - omigawd, is DEUCALION - with his hundreds of years of kingship ahead of him before the great disaster - King Dalios from The Time Monster, by any chance...?? (And if this IS then why just do a Time Monster prequel? Where's Azal and Amdo...?)
Deucalion didn't notice that the Doctor had some bloody great wings strapped on under his cloak BEFORE he removed said garment...?
'She raises her talons to her eyes, trying to drown out the pain. Her claws slicing in, the jab of her nails against the bone at the back -' - ah yes, six pages to go and OF COURSE the inevitable Who-novel-eye-gouging JUST HAS to occur. (In fairness, I don't think it's usually someone gouging out their OWN eyes...)
why shouldn't it translate? It did in The Romans!
Because the Tardis didn't feel like it, perhaps? She can be quite temperamental.
A volcano erupting causes vermilion at sunset for YEARS afterwards?
Possibly. After a sufficiently large eruption it can take years for all the dust to settle out.
what the hell is an Edgar Cayce?
An early 20th century self-proclaimed psychic - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edgar_Cayce
From that article, "Cayce said the destruction of Atlantis was the result of the central power crystal being tuned too high. It was too unstable to safely power the remote crafts under the sea, on the land and in the air. The strong vibrations of the crystal resonated the earth in a way that eventually caused earthquakes and this was hidden from the population."
That's not what happened in Time Monster, but Cayce was right about a crystal being involved. That was probably a lucky guess though.
And why is the Doctor SURPRISED to see Atlantis's crystals of power, post-Time Monster?
Another bout of amnesia? Eight's memory wasn't exactly reliable.
Deucalion didn't notice that the Doctor had some bloody great wings strapped on under his cloak BEFORE he removed said garment...?
Hasn't the Master sometimes disguised himself as someone noticeably shorter? That's essentially the same problem.
This cloak and the Master's disguises might be like the Doctor's pockets, bigger on the inside.
Because the Tardis didn't feel like it, perhaps? She can be quite temperamental.
Yeah, I suppose she WAS stuck up in the sky due to the time-currents, and she WOULD have resented the Doctor's attempts to force her to go closer, but still...she translated all non-jokes for the Doctor alright. And come to think of it she should have been pissed-off in The Romans too, what with toppling off a cliff then being abandoned for a month. In favour of a stupid villa with NO FRIDGE.
Cayce said the destruction of Atlantis was the result of the central power crystal being tuned too high. It was too unstable to safely power the remote crafts under the sea, on the land and in the air. The strong vibrations of the crystal resonated the earth in a way that eventually caused earthquakes and this was hidden from the population.
Is that his explanation for ALL earthquakes or just Atlantis's...
Another bout of amnesia? Eight's memory wasn't exactly reliable.
Good point, I keep forgetting he's (probably) supposed to be amnesiac at this point, so where the hell does his in-depth knowledge about the future of Atlantis come from...?
(Or, if this isn't set in Eight's amnesiac period (I should I say, one of Eight's MANY amnesiac periods), what's his 'one inescapable act' then?)
Hasn't the Master sometimes disguised himself as someone noticeably shorter?
Just the once.
Admittedly once was enough.
But the Master had a whole TARDIS full of cunning disguises/perception filters/whatever at his disposal when he infiltrated UNIT HQ, whereas the Doctor crash-landed in the Bronze Age with nothing but his wings. And he DEFINITELY didn't take the time to sew himself a dimensionally transcendental cloak.
'Kate and Jon's Doctor Who novella Fallen Gods won the prestigious Aurealis Award (given to the best Australian SF writers) for Best Science Fiction Novel in 2003. It is the only piece of Doctor Who tie-in fiction to ever win a major SF award' - Chicks Dig Time Lords.
Ouch. Either there were no good Australian SF writers out there in 2003...or the judges actually UNDERSTOOD this book (or wanted us to THINK they did). But what really hurts is...the ONLY award. Those HUNDREDS of books and audios, some of which (well, Dead Romance of which anyway) actually ARE all-time classics...and not a word of recognition.
Ironically enough, a Hugo was subsequently won by...Chicks Dig Time Lords.
'A mystic ritual to summon a Time Lord, involving the sacrifice of an innocent on the altar of history. Four-dimensional voodoo. The same method the Hellenic Atlanteans used to summon the Chronovores' - Christmas on a Rational Planet. Don't remember THAT happening here (or indeed in Time Monster) but just a reminder to self to keep an eye open if I ever tragically have to re-re-read Fallen Gods...