Escape Velocity (Doctor Who)
by Colin Brake

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Book Reviews of Escape Velocity (Doctor Who)

Book Review: "Writing is so twentieth-century!"
Summary: 3 Stars

There are a lot of major problems with this book. The motivations of the main villains are not stated until near the end, and even then they are so ill-defined, that it's difficult to grasp what they are doing and why they are doing it. Unfortunately, this fault extends to a lot of the other characters as well. The book spends far far too much time telling us about people rather than showing their actions to us. There are places where it feels as though it is still in outline form, waiting for the author to come over and flesh out these sequences. The prose doesn't do any favours in this department either, as it's workman at best, but occasionally slumps down into incoherence.

The poor pacing is probably one of the main aspects holding this book back. Every time it starts to do things well, the action will start skipping ahead randomly, utterly killing any positive momentum that it had gained. It's not so much a case that the book takes two steps backwards for every one step forward -- rather it takes one step backwards, three steps sideways, a step and a half in a diagonal direction, and spins around on its tiptoes before being gang-tackled at about the 40-yard-line for a minimal gain (and if you like that NFL analogy, wait until you read the ones in the book). This was really a shame, as the bad parts really started to outshine the places that had potential. About half-way through the story I found myself mentally cheering the book on, hoping against hope that it would succeed despite itself. I felt like a soccer mom, bravely shouting encouragement to her skinny, smaller-than-the-other-kids child to defy the odds and not let the team down. And fortunately, despite some moments where it gets really rough, ESCAPE VELOCITY did not score an own goal.

On the plus side, the introduction of the new companion, Anji, is done fairly well. It's obvious that a lot of thought has gone into what makes this character tick. Alas, not as much thought has gone into what makes this character tick inside the context of this story. What everyone has said about her character outline being randomly cut'n'pasted into the text here is completely, one hundred percent correct. It would have been nice to see Anji's thoughts and reactions better integrated into the story.

I also liked the method in which the Doctor arranges to meet Fitz "at St. Louis"; this was quite clever. The reaction to the restored TARDIS was done very well, and the characters of Anji and her boyfriend had a nice chemistry going. The problem is, however, that for everything that I liked, there was something lurking around the next page to annoy me. The aforementioned lack of proper motivations, the pointless inclusion of the UNIT competitors and, worst of all, the sheer silliness of the ending.

ESCAPE VELOCITY was a hard book to dislike. Although it made several major mistakes, it managed to somehow tell an entertaining story that held my interest throughout. It goes from good points to bad in a seemingly random, unpredictable manner, but for all its flaws, it seems to have its heart in the right place. Recommended as a fun romp, as long as you aren't looking for something to take completely seriously.

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