Ahhh...finished.  Time for the review.  Thanks for listening to my
pointless comments about it through the week.  All I can think is,
"Gee, I'm glad I'm not reading INVASION OF THE CAT-PEOPLE!"

Summary:  Lance has nothing to worry about.  Get this book.

SPOILERS!!!
























Well, that was fun.  In a twisted, depraved sort of way.  A number of
things struck me about JUST WAR while I was reading it.  I'll try to 
delve into them as I review.

Plot:  Very good.  An example of the Doctor invariably having to go 
round half the time fixing stuff he broke himself.  All the Nazis are 
evil while remaining three-dimensional, and all the British are grey as 
well.  The plot could have happened (history isn't my strong suit...that 
would be my wool suit).  And it's not 500 pages long.

Chris:  Still the weakest companion, but getting better.  Very well done
considering his handicaps, that he's got to remain naive and 
puppydogish.  He seems to have very definite moral codes.  That could 
get him in trouble later.

Roz:  Fabulous, one of the best to feature her.  A believable romance,
which is actually left open. (I wonder if Ben will write her out with 
George?)  Also, the scene with her sitting on the bench, thinking "Thank 
God that I'm racially pure" was incredibly disturbing.  She is still a 
bit of an Alienist/racist character.

Benny:  Hoo boy.  Remember what Benny went through in FALLS THE SHADOW?  
Even worse.  Torture, sleep dep, bones broken, she breaks and tells 
everything, and on top of everything else, leaves her diary behind.  The 
scene at the end with the Doctor was much needed, to remind him how 
vulnerable they actually are.  Bernice is the only one of his companions 
who's similar to him - in other words, unable to fight her way out. 
Plus, she gets a very disturbing scene with a German nurse, which shows 
a nasty side to her.  Hope she finds time to recover.

The Doctor:  Wow!  A major part of the book!  We see him fooled - a lot!
He's still playing games, but half the time they don't come off.  This 
is hopefully the way that the NA Doctor will be done in future - well, 
WARCHILD will be different, but what do you expect?

Other:  For the four pages she figures into, Mel is written well.  (Hey, 
I said spoilers!)

Comparisons:  I couldn't help but think that this was TOY SOLDIERS 
written properly.  TS, in its effort to show us how faceless and unkind 
war can be, made itself a faceless and unkind book.  JUST WAR knows that 
individuals don't think a war is faceless, and so tells a very human 
story, one which gets its message across, on both sides, without being
callous.  

Overall:  Hope Lance writes more, this is excellent.  Well done on all
counts, and so it gets my rare - well, not rare at all, really - 10/10.  
More!

Next:  Yetis, UNIT, and no Doctor, and I haven't seen it:  DOWNTIME.

--Sean Gaffney
--"You git!  I thought you were dead!  Git git git!" - Benny, No Future