Well now, this is a tricky one to rate. The opening is beautiful, almost
poetic, and gives a great sense of what the book is going to be like -
for the first two-fifths, at least. Because this book, like some of the
six- and seven-part stories of the 1970s, seems to be stretched out
beyond the length it wants to be, and has both a midstory change of
direction and an awful lot of padding.
Let's begin at the beginning, then. The novel is divided into five
books, roughly corresponding to TV episodes and with each ending on a
cliffhanger (with varying degrees of cliffhangerishness). It starts out
slowly, almost languidly, taking time to introduce us to the Venusians.
These are really alien aliens. I'd go so far as to say that Paul
Leonard has pushed them about as far away from human modes of thought as
he can without making it impossible for readers to empathise with them.
I loved this aspect of the book, and the idea of using Barbara as a
bridge of understanding (through a technique which is itself a
demonstration of the Venusians' alienness) is just enough to keep a
strong connection.
The three members of the TARDIS crew are well-characterised, and the
writer makes very good use of the story's placement just after Susan's
departure. The fact that the Doctor is attending the funeral of an old
friend is thematically appropriate, and the era-standard separation from
the ship (and each other) flows quite naturally out of the events here.
At this point the novel would be on for at least a 9.5 were it not for
two things. First, Leonard gives us a lot of names in the original
Venusian - names like Midharkhij and Barjibuhi (people), Rimikugih (a
clan), Cracdhalltar (a place), ghifghoni (an animal). A few would be OK,
but there's a large Venusian cast and plenty of other things given this
treatment, so that the alphabetti spaghetti seems to litter the pages.
It reminds me of the reams of generic fantasy novels based (oh so
superficially) on Tolkien's Middle-Earth stories. I might have coped
when I was young, but now I can't keep track of who's who and what's
what - and I don't see why I should have to. The poetic style helps a
little, but even reading it for the sound of the words rather than their
meaning hits a stumbling block when so much is hard to pronounce.
The second thing is a complaint you'll recognise from previous reviews:
the Doctor gets to be in control the TARDIS again. The reason given this
time is that the closer they get to the beginning of the universe, the
easier it is to home in on a particular point. Yeah, right, like that's gonna hold up in court.
Anyway, despite these flaws, it was still heading for a high mark. The
idea of setting it on Venus three billion years in the past - when our
sister planet might plausibly have supported life - works well, and
there are a lot of neat touches (including an English translation of the
titular lullaby, in a nod to Jon Pertwee's time). Then, two books in,
we get to the arrival of the unpronounceable Sou(ou)shi. At this point
the scale of the story explodes, and rather than being about the
problems of the Doctor, his companions and friends, it turns into a
fight for the survival of the entire population of Venus.
Now, this isn't necessarily a problem; but I was enjoying the
smaller-scale plot, so I wasn't best pleased. And Leonard doesn't seem
to have enough to say about the new version, because it all turns into a
bit of a runaround for the next two books, with Ian, Barbara and their
allies going back and forth across the landscape outside the city of
Bikugih. Maybe it's another nod to the Pertwee era, this time a tribute
to the escape-recapture cycles of Frontier in Space? The story
also gets a lot more violent (hey, it was written in the 1990s) with
various characters being tortured, sliced 'n' diced, eaten or turned
into literal bloodbaths. Regular readers will know that doesn't suit me,
either. There were some good aspects, but I can't say I enjoyed this
part of the novel.
Things improve when we get to the final book, 'The Burning Sky Hour',
and everything is resolved well. It remains pretty grim and gory, but
the ending is satisfying. There are two loose threads deliberately left
hanging: the Doctor is given a means of controlling the TARDIS which
actually makes sense, though he can only use it for a few specific
journeys; and, in terms of the villains of the piece, the seeds of a
sequel are planted.
Did anything happen with these threads? At least I can give a definite
'yes' answer to the first - and soon I will be reviewing the story that
follows on immediately from this one...
Published:
Date: October 1994
ISBN: 0-426-20424-7
Rating:
4.5/10. Much higher for books 1-2 and lower for books 3-4.
Next Time:
Let's just plough straight on with The Book of Shadows.
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