Heyo.  I used to review Who books on this group for a while, but a
combination of a new obsession with Japanese anime and the drought in BBC
books getting to these shores back in 1997 led me to stop.  However, if a book
catches my eye and I feel a need to talk about it, I said I would post a review
or two.  Here's one.
 
SUMMARY:  Um... if you've read my reviews, you could almost write this
yourself.  Basically, everything I look for in a Doctor Who book (and don't say it
isn't, cause it *is*).
 
SPOILERS!!!
 
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PLOT:  So torturous I'm amazed Justin Richards isn't a co-author.  We get the
plot we're told, the plot we figure out, the REAL plot we're told later, the REAL
plot we figure out later...I'd take careful notes if I were you.  I must admit, there
were a few times during this book where I got caught totally flat-footed
concentrating on the wrong thing (such as the Horror, which I placed far too
much importance on). 
 
CHRISTINE:  For someone with her basic background (real background, that
is), she's an amazingly well-developed and sympathetic narrator.  It's also a
bonus that she is a real person, no matter how the book defines it.  She feels
real pain, she experiences some nasty surprises and manages to survive, and
at the end of the book she's STILL taking drugs, showing that you can survive
what she has and still not necessarily be a better person for it.  I wonder if we'll
see more of her... the ending seems to imply that we will, but I'm not sure how
she would work in a normal Benny book.
 
CWEJ:  Gee yah.  It's not so much what happens to Cwej over the course of
the book, or what actions he takes that could only be called questionable.  It's
that he's still very much the Cwej we know.  I never doubted for a moment that
this was Chris Cwej, our old friend.  And that is what makes his character arc
truly chilling.  We stand appalled watching him, because we can see how he
must have gotten to this point. I don't know how I'm going to be able to read
Cwej in Tears of the Oracle without thinking back to this one.
 
KHISTE:  I kept thinking he'd been in a previous New Adventure that I just
couldn't quite put my finger on.  In any case, he makes an interesting contrast
to Cwej, and by the end he's shown that he's a lot more human than he'd like
to be.
 
OTHERS:  Really hard to say.  This book lives and dies on Christine and
Cwej.  I didn't notice any hideous problems, but then most of the other
characters weren't around long enough for me to get an opinion.
 
VILLAINS:  Um, who?  The Sphinxes?  As it turns out, they're quite the
sweetie-pies.  The Horror?  Nah, too vague.  The Time Lords?  Probably, yes. 
They're certainly a lot more villainous here than we've been allowed to see them
be in other Who adventures.  And yet, like Cwej, you have no trouble imagining
them falling down this road.  Oh, and then there are the Gods.  Confession
time, I haven't read Where Angels Fear yet.  So a lot of this book's background
might have gone over my head. Still, they made a good scary villain I knew
nothing about. ^_^;; 
 
STYLE:  First-person narrative, and like its predecessor, The Mary-Sue
Extrusion, it handles it by making the events very booklike, very 'fictional'. 
Since Dead Romance is about a universe that isn't quite 'real' itself, this makes
for some interesting metatextual headaches. In addition, the narrative bounces
around in time and place, much like a story started before you know where it's
going to finish.  To give Lawrence credit, though, I had no difficulty keeping up
with him.  Well, style-wise, at least.
 
OVERALL:  This book tends to slap you in the face and call you Susan a lot.  I
think that, in the end, that's a good thing.  There's lots of stuff meant to make
you consider both the Doctor Who universe and the Bernice NA worlds
(including that acknowledgement page, which I suppose might bother me if I
gave a rat's ass about continuity).  There are lots of amusing one-liners, as
well.  Despite its dark core, the book can be quite hilarious when it wants to
be.  I just really enjoyed it a great deal.  Hey, it made me get off my ass and
write a review, didn't it? 
 
10/10.
 
Next:  Whatever. ^_^;;
 
--Sean Gaffney
--"You git!  I thought you were dead!  Git git git!" - Bernice, No Future