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Article 114 of 137

Subject:      A serious look at Sky Pirates!
From:         gaffney@pcnet.com (Sean Gaffney)
Date:         1995/08/26
Message-Id:   <41m0tk$4r5@pcnet2.pcnet.net>
Newsgroups:   rec.arts.drwho
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You know, it occured to me about 150 pages into Sky Pirates! that this
book is not what it seems.....

SPOILERS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

You see, that master of manipulation, that treacherous, two-faced, you never know
what he's thinking guy, he's tricked us again.

No, not The Doctor.  Dave Stone.

Sky Pirates!, deep down, is a serious book.

Now I know that a great deal of it is funny, and that Terry and Douglas have both had
serious themes in their humour books.  But Dave Stone addresses a constant question
that will set NA readers on their ears and ensure debate, namely:  How powerful is the
Doctor, anyway?

A number of times in this book, various people, especially Bernice, think about the Doctor
and his capabilities, and then their minds appear to shift away from the topic.  Indeed, Bernice
mentions at one point that things must be serious because she is able to dwell on the
Doctor's thought processes.  Plus, there's the matter of the Doctor being a God, _again_.

Plus there is the denoument, with the Doctor's other self, _other_ other self, and apparent
immunity to being vaporised, despite having a problem with falling off towers.

This book disguises itself as a comedy.  But it ain't.  Wow, fooled ya, huh?

The rest:  this is excellently written, if a little florid.  The humour is locigal, for a change.
(Hey, maybe the disworld can be explined the same way.)  All the characters are well
written, and it's jam-packed - another megalong NA.

So, altogether - 9/10.  But it's not what you think.

--Sean Gaffney
--"You git!  I thought you were dead!  Git git git!" - Benny, No Future
--"Gaffney, you really are someone worth knowing." - Dave the Dave, rec.arts.drwho

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