This was real. This world of monsters and impossibilities. It felt hard, dangerous, solid. Everything else, the soft and safe things she'd grown up with in the worldsphere, suddenly seemed as vague as holograms or old memories. And !X…
!X was the realest thing of all.
This is one of the best novels featuring Bernice Summerfield, in league with even Love and War. Though on the surface, this seems to be a simple story of an expedition into an Inner World but Miles give a lot of postmodernist depth and breadth to the tale. It is by turns comedic, haunting, and fascinating. It has some of the best-written characters and a fascinating plot filled with thought-provoking twists. The worlds of Tyler's Folly is one of the most memorable within Benny's adventures if not within the DW canon. This novel also serves as a good introduction to the People to those who haven't read Aaronovitch's The Also People (which I have not yet).
In conclusion, a very good introduction to Benny's solo adventures and an extremely good novel in general.
My Reviews
ankarstian has submitted 5 reviews
Review of Down by ankarstian
Review of The Place of all Places by ankarstian
Boy listens, the song's ignorant prisoner; he listens but does not understand. The harijans sing of Desert's stories as if they were real. But the stories aren't real, are they? Boy stays among the palm trees and considers this until the sun stands high upon Oasis and the yellow land has turned salt-white, but cannot conceive an answer to the question.
A very poetical prologue and epilogue to the final Decalog, very slim as well.
Review of Poyekhali 3201 by ankarstian
Everywhere, stars were green. The nearby stars, for instance: Alpha Centauri and Sirius and Procyon and Tau Ceti, names from science fiction, the homes of mankind in the ages to come. Green as blades of grass! He tipped his head this way and that. Everywhere he looked it was the same: stars everywhere had turned to chlorophyll green.
A rather decent short story, though I feel that I am missing out on some context from Baxter's other works.
Review of The Judgement of Solomon by ankarstian
But Solomon frowned upon such things, for he knew them to go against the wishes of the One True God, in whose divine name did Solomon rule. With only his Word as his tool, the King proved that carpets could not move; and so they did not move. He proved that horses could not fly, and could not be made from wood; so they did not, and were not. He told his people that dreams were nothing more than fancy and illusion, that they were shallow, trivial things; his people believed him. The King rejected the crafts and sciences of the sorcerers, and so the sorcerers were banished from his kingdom, until there was nothing but the Word of Solomon in the cities of the near west. And Solomon knew the people would thank him for this, for they had no need of flying carpets or enchanted trinkets. Such things, he knew, only bred doubt and fruitless fantasy.
Though it is largely forgotten, this is one of the most intriguing short stories written by Lozza. It has a lot to say - both about the lore that Miles was crafting and society as a whole. Also features one of the better "performaces" of Bernice Summerfield.
Review of The Taking of Planet 5 by ankarstian
Note: I also posted this one onto GoodReads
‘Odd that you mention new words.' The Doctor's face was red now, capillaries swelling under the biomass probes of the stone. 'Gallifreyan's always been a static language, hasn't it? We go out into the universe and talk to everyone, but we don't take loan words back into our own tongue. TARDISes translate everything for us, or time rings, or things like your locket there. We don't have to integrate our experiences into words: they do it for us.' A vein in his neck began to pulsate, and next to it a warm glow spread through the blackness of the stone as if it were pleased.
A quick word of warning about this one. There's not anything too bad in it, but it is a very complex book. It ends with a "cosmobiological" paper. Perhaps you should read Alien Bodies and Interference first, although I didn't read those and understood most of what happened.
This is probably the best portrayal of the War in Heaven within Who. We feel the frenzy of the War-Time Lords, the pure frantic desperation which leads them to literally make deals with the Devil (for what is the Fendahl if not Doctor Who's version of Satan). You can also feel the raw fear and paranoia of the massive and unknown that the main villain of the piece.
I'd say that this is a good introduction to the arcs of the EDAs that come before it, but I was at least aware of most of them. At the very least, it explains Compassion and The Blue Angel pretty well.
If you enjoyed any of SB-J's other novels and/or enjoyed Hope, you'll probably enjoy this one.