The last of these I read, as part of my one-book-per-Doctor 50th Anniversary marathon, was Frontier Worlds.  Set on an alien world with corporate goings-on and dark secrets hidden by those in power, it wasn’t a book I fell in love with.  Parallel 59 is a very similar story and I had a very similar reaction to it.

It sees the Doctor, Fitz and Compassion embroiled in the political machinations of yet another bland planet.  The one interesting aspect, involving Fitz, is ruined somewhat by the twist of where he is, and the Doctor and Compassion’s adventures involve a whole collection of indistinguishable characters who I couldn’t muster any affection for because I spent half of the book not understanding who was who, how they knew each other, what they did on the planet and what their motivations were for their actions.

Let’s be positive for a moment.  The Doctor and Compassion are well-written, although I still find it hard to warm to Compassion as a companion (although that is kind of the point, I am aware – she isn’t supposed to be particularly likeable, sort of like a female version of Turlough).  She resents the fact she is coming to rely on the Doctor and there is some (very subtle) foreshadowing of what will happen to her in the next book, The Shadows of Avalon.  The Doctor feels like Paul McGann/the 8th Doctor and however much I like or dislike any particular EDA I don’t think I’ve ever felt the various authors haven’t captured the essence of the 8th Doctor.

By far my favourite part of the book were the sections involving Fitz.  Fitz is separated from the Doctor and Compassion even before the book has started and awakes to find himself in a place called Mechta.  Here, he begins to establish relationships with a whole range of people – mainly women – and becomes involved in a rebellion.  Mechta is a very closely controlled place with any disturbances quietly dealt with by the Correctioners.  As Fitz’s segments of the story play out, he (and the reader) becomes increasingly uneasy about what exactly is going on in Mechta.  People are awaiting return to their home colony (even though they cannot actually remember it) and when their papers arrive they are taken away in a red car.

It transpires that the whole world of Mechta is a shared illusion and these people, including Fitz, are floating in space, in capsules.  This is actually a bit of an anti-climax as I was rather enjoying the ‘1984-ish’ aspects of this world.  To find out none of it is real undercut the drama somewhat, although the final part where Fitz thinks he is escaping a dying world by hitching a ride behind a red car is quite tense as, by this time, the reader knows that being ‘red-carred’ is actually when the people in the capsules die.

Fitz is easily my favourite 8th Doctor book companion so far, after the rather formless Sam and the currently difficult to love Compassion, and he ranks highly in my ‘expanded universe’ companion rankings along with Benny, Chris Cwej, Evelyn and Charley.  Despite a bit of a damp squib ending to his story in this book, he still gives a lot of value for money.

The rest of the story, though, as I’ve said, is populated with a bunch of characters I was continually confused by.  Working out who was who was very difficult as well as how they were linked to each other.  When one character eventually deposes another in command, or when a different character turns out to sort of be working with the rebels only she isn’t, and when another character who seemed to be in relationships with two other characters, I just spent the book wondering why I should be caring about a rather faceless bunch.

The climax also involves an alien menace suddenly arriving from somewhere else (literally with about 4 short chapters to go in the book).  The characters of Skale, the planet this is set on, had referred to Haltiel (the menace that arrives) throughout the book but the writing had made me assume they were a made up menace which was all part of the political machinations of the characters on the planet.  Consequently, when they did turn up, in a fairly faceless way, I wasn’t that bothered when they started killing people on the planet below (especially as a large chunk of their victims were from an area of the planet that the story had never referenced or visited in the narrative).

The terrible irony of my not enjoying very much of this book is that I have an autographed copy.  I went through a period in my teens and twenties where I attended a lot of signings and conventions.  As a result, I have copious autographs from actors, directors and writers (among many others).  One such writer is Stephen Cole.  He has signed my copy of Parallel 59 with legend ‘Natalie wrote the bits you didn’t like’.  Eek!  By that logic, Stephen wrote the Mechta bits and Natalie wrote everything else (which is easily at least two thirds of the book).  He really was tempting fate with that comment!