From: Sean Gaffney Subject: Frontier Worlds: Review by the Happy Guy Date: 26 Jan 2000 00:00:00 GMT Message-ID: <86le6j$7pr$1@nnrp1.deja.com> X-Http-Proxy: 1.0 x21.deja.com:80 (Squid/1.1.22) for client 207.171.147.45 Organization: Deja.com - Before you buy. X-Article-Creation-Date: Wed Jan 26 00:13:10 2000 GMT X-MyDeja-Info: XMYDJUIDhotaru_chan Newsgroups: rec.arts.drwho X-Http-User-Agent: Mozilla/4.7 [en] (Win95; I) After a short mid-book break to take in Perfect Timing 2, I was able to return to Frontier Worlds. It wasn't easy to break away from. This book doesn't start off slow and build to an electric climax, it's starts with the electric climax and then gives you about eleven more. There's a reason so many people suggest this book should be the Doctor Who movie... SPOILERS!!!! The most compelling, of course, being the dialogue. This book has so many GREAT lines that it needs an appendix to list them all. Don't do what I did and secretly read it at work, or else Fitz will say, 'Oops, there goes another rubber tree plant' and you'll laugh so hard you'll get caught and reprimanded. I know this should go in the 'style' section, but I wanted to mention it right away, as it's the major reason this book works so well. Other reasons follow: THE DOCTOR: For several reviews I said that the Doctor worked well enough but I never really got a handle on him well enough to see if he was McGann or not. This is not a problem here. Besides the callbacks to the TV-movie helping, the entire attitude is so 8th Doctor it sings. The man is so energetically emotional about everything you want him to pick you up and spin you around. And he also gets to be glib and clever, too. FITZ: Fitz gets all the best lines, of course, and gets to take half of the Turlough characterization (Compassion getting the other half). He also gets the angsty bit of the book, but that's the one bit that didn't work as well. Still, I sympathized with him, and it's good to see Interference's shadow hasn't left him entirely. COMPASSION: She's STILL the main reason I've gotten back into these books. Wonderfully, droll, dry, angry, irritable, being sweet and nice to Fitz in a moment that's so jarringly out of character it's as if she's writing 'I AM A FISH' on Fitz's forehead (Fitz, of course, is the ONLY person in the universe who believes she means what she says), defying the Doctor's attempts to make her into his own personal science experiment... I DON'T WANT HER TO GOOOOOO!!! SPIN-OFF!!!!! OTHERS: The book's one weak point is Alura, who comes across as rather flat, so her fate and Fitz's reaction don't resonate as they should. Ellis and Sempiter, by contrast, are wonderfully done (anyone else thinking Peter Miles as Sempiter?), and the robot is someone I'd like to see more of. VILLAIN: That'd be Sempiter, above, who's a nice snarling Doctor Who psychopath. The Raab, oddly enough, barely register, not even getting the chance to speak through Sempiter in their own voice. STYLE: Gorgeous. James Bond Meets The Avengers in a Doctor Who Back Alley, with a Fred and Ginger movie thrown in as buffet. THIS, unlike Kursaal, is where Peter flexes his muscles as rec.arts.drwho quotefile champion. This is a fun book, hilarious, yet still gripping. OVERALL: Not much more to say. Aside from Alura, which is really a minor quibble, I loved this. Audio, video, big-budget blockbuster, anything would do, I just want this dialogue converted to sound so it can melt in my ears. Now, please. 10/10. --SG --next, Divided Loyalties. I'm damn curious... and a tad insane, yes Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ Before you buy.