Subject:      Damaged Goods: Review by the Happy Guy
From:         gaffney@iconn.net (Sean Gaffney)
Date:         1996/12/01
Message-Id:   <57t3p3$ps1@news.iconn.net>
Organization: i-Conn
Newsgroups:   rec.arts.drwho

After a long hiatus, a review!  Wai!  For those waiting for Twilight
of the Gods' review...well 1) I've misplaced my copy; and 2) I'm having
trouble getting through it.  I promise that unless things pick up a
lot, it's gonna be 5/10 or lower.

But anyway...

SPOILERS!!  for Damaged Goods
and, offhandedly, *the* SPOILER!! for So Vile a Sin.

Damaged Goods is excellent.  Unpleasant to read at times, but still
excellent.  It reminded me of an episode of Cracker in that regard,
you don't want to watch but you're fascinated.

PLOT:  Brilliant.  I kept expecting the Eviiil, eviiil from the dawn
of time to take over, and it did for a moment.  But in the end, it was
the small, everyday tragedies of the Quadrant that were the real plot
of the book, and the villain ended up being a very real woman, not a
mad creature.

THE DOCTOR:  Despairing at times.  I've never seen him so desperate.
We see him losing his subtleties, something that he said he was
surprised about at first, and he is *totally* foxed until the very
end, leading to the somewhat melancholy postscript.

ROZ:  Very well done, as we see Roz' wish for order once again being
ridiculed by the Doctor.  We see a much softer Roz in this book, and
she's all the better for it.  I'll miss her. (Yes, it's true; I read
the beginning of Bad Therapy.  Alas, poor Roz...)

CHRIS:  An enigma, as usual.  Very few authors have been able to get a
handle on Chris, who only works when his fresh-faced youth approach is
soured by events.  He seems to walk through a cloud in this book.

OTHERS:  There are so many important minor figures, it's hard to count.
Russell gives *all* the minor characters in the Quadrant some character
development, allowing them their moment in the son.  Done especially
well are David and Harry.  Also, despite all the death at the end, I
was relieved to see Monica Jeffries survive, have her baby, live with
her family, and have her son become a Doctor repoting to Harry Sullivan
himself.  Little happy, rewarding things like this.  I love 'em.

VILLAIN:  Well, not really.  Eva is an attempt at the tragic figure;
it's a relief to see a woman so mad that even the Doctor's rhetoric
doesn't get through.  Eva is totally dolally, and the sympathetic way
this is shown is another big plus.

OTHER:  It's interesting that, contrary to the Paul Cornell Doctor,
Russell gives us a Doctor who *isn't* cool, who thinks that wicked is
in style (and Ace was out of date by Remembrance), who doesn't know the
Pet Shop Boys.  It makes him more alien.  Lots of great spot-the-ref
moments, by the way.

OVERALL: Except for Chris, this is a truly cracking book in every way.
If you liked Gareth's NAs, or Mark Gatiss', you might hate it.  But
I loved it.

9/10.

Next:  Well, I'm reading I Am the Doctor now, though I don't know whether
I'll review it, as it's non-fiction.  Then Speed of Flight, hopefully
more like Dancing the Code than Toy Soldiers.

--Sean Gaffney
--fat, forty...um...thin, twenty-three, and back!