Subject: Kursaal: Review by the Happy Guy From: "Sean Gaffney" Date: 1998/04/06 Message-ID: <01bd6185$64122fa0$ba80abcf@default> Newsgroups: rec.arts.drwho [More Headers] [Subscribe to rec.arts.drwho] Hi! Remember me? No? I used to review these things before I learned the art of procrastination. Anyway, I had no luck getting hold of Eight Doctors, but I DID find Kursaal, so, like many others, my first Eighth Doctor and Sam book is by Peter Anghelides. SPOILERS!!!! Peter is one of the few Who authors who I think of first as an online personality, then as an author. (Is Peter still #1 in most quotefiled, or has Smith? passed him?) However, Kursaal does not, thankfully, read like an argument on RADW. Plot: As countless reviewers have already mentioned, it's rather surprising that Who hasn't done a werewolf story yet, and this one just clips along. The whole pace of the book reminded me of the TV Movie - rather quick and more action- oriented than the NAs. The Doctor: Excellent. He seemed very lively throughout the book, and had the Paul McGann attitude towards guns. Best of all, at times, he was refreshingly stupid. It's rare, especially these days, to see a book where the Doctor is just occasionally flat-out unthinking. Rather cool, IMHO. Sam: I wasn't as annoyed by her as I thought I'd be. I'd been geared up to find an Ace wannabe whiner wandering through the book. Instead, Sam was refreshingly normal. She acted like a teenager, which was nice. I'll admit that I didn't really buy into her 'evil' persona, but I did like the idea of the Jax preying on her buried feelings for the Doctor (the whole consort thing). Others: Well, lessee. Gray, Amy, Kadijk, and Cockaigne were done very well, especially Kadijk, who strode that line between nice cop and annoying cop nicely. The other characters pretty much existed to get et. As such, they were admirable at bleeding all over and such, but...a minor point, admittedly. Given the style of the book, you knew not to get too attached to anyone. Style: Speaking of which...this book was REALLY well-written. One of the things I especially liked was the shock symptoms that Sam felt upon seeing the body. It wasn't the usual Who scream and try to forget it happened. Sam's state of mind carried through all the way to the hospital, and I really liked the way that was shown. Elsewhere...well, it's not a groundbreakingly original novel, but it doens't need to be. It's just very good. Overall: Excellent intro to the 8th Doctor and Sam. Nice major supporting characters, and I liked the way the book was written. 8/10. Next: Yaright. I've given up predicting what's next. I'm seventy pages into Tempest, but I also have Face of the Enemy, Option Lock, Eye of Heaven, Walking to Babylon, and Oblivion staring back at me. Plus Dying Days, So Vile a Sin, and Dark Path from LAST year. And I still need to figure out a way to crucify Asuka Langley using only office supplies. So who knows? --Sean Gaffney --yes, a bit twisted, why do you ask?