Subject:      The Room with No Doors:  Review by the Happy Guy
From:         gaffney@iconn.net (Sean Gaffney)
Date:         1997/02/02
Message-Id:   <5d2s98$47a@news.iconn.net>
Organization: i-Conn
Newsgroups:   rec.arts.drwho

Boy, is my face red.  Apologies to Jeff Beuck... :-)

SPOILERS! for The Room with No Doors...

Well, I had wanted to have this review be another glowing praise of Kate's
books.  I wanted to talk about the lyrical flow of her writing, the tie-ins with
NAs past and present, the little character moments that made the book what
it was.  I *really* wanted to say that this was one of the best NAs I'd ever
read.

Luckily, it was, so no problems there.

(Face.)

The Room with No Doors is wonderful.  There are so many brilliant little bits
that I won't even begin to catalogue them all, so let's just go to the videotape.

PLOT:  The actual plot was fairly intriguing, though for a moment I'd hoped
that we never found out what the pod was - keep the mystery alive.  But
it was the metaplot that made the book.  Chris losing the zombie-like
behaviour that was so irritating in Eternity Weeps and coming into his own
(I mention this here because it's a *big* plot-point.)  The Doctor fighting
death, then accepting.  Joel's moral dilemmas.  And the flash-forwards to
Lungbarrow and the TV movie.  Cool beans.

THE DOCTOR:  Kate has got Sly's Doctor *down*.  (He's tied to her bed
right now.)  The words just seem to spring from his lips unfettered.  Only
Steve Lyons has put the Doctor through more hell, yet despite this, he can
do a torture scene that is a wonderful parody of all of Kate's other torture
scenes.  Kate's been communicating with Marc and Lance, so let's hope
the Doctor's revelations stay consistent in March and April.  What a
discovery, and let's hope the Seventh Doctor doesn't get the box.

CHRIS:  Bad Therapy never really happened, did it? :-)  Chris comes to
terms with the deaths all around him lately, and comes to realize that
he doesn't have to be the Doctor to be a hero.  This portayal of Chris is
finally matured from the optimistic puppy of early books, and he now
seems ready to move on.  And we get Shvay instead of Cwedge, as
we hear Kate's mocking laughter in our ears.

JOEL:  Well, this was a surprise.  Joel tries to do a Doctor, but gets it
all wrong.  Done with a surprisingly sparing amount of 90's references,
Joel comes across as more real in this book.  Let's hope he gets his act
together.

PENELOPE:  Can she appear in a Benny adventure?  I *really* want to
see more of this woman, who manages to do several 180 degree turns
throughout the book.  Her reaction to the TARDIS had *me* in tears.

THE TENGU/KAPTEYNIANS:  All right, I know Kate's never seen
Urusei Yatsura, but I *really* wanted Kurama to show up looking for
a husband to raise beautiful babies.  But that's just me.  Nice example
of aliens entering into myth again, both before and after the actual
myth itself.  (How much of Kate was in Talker?)

COMIC RELIEF...uh, TE YENE RANA:  Let's get serious. ;-)

STYLE:  As usual, Kate has short bursts of action, followed by interesting
respites and character bits.  Some of these make the book, and I also
find it interesting that the best conversation in the novel is in script
format.  I read the book in one day, which I've only done once before
(Happy Endings), so the style obviously caused no problems.  And being
an anime fan, the Japanese culture was great.

OVERALL:  There are so many cool things in here.  The snowball fight.
The Doctor rising out of the grave.  Kadoguchi-roshi, an excellent monk,
and nothing like Cherry at all.  Just read the book, rather than have me
write them all out.  And best of all, the important people survive!  Wow!
A Mr. Mortimore could take a lesson there!

10/10.

--Sean Gaff...

Oh, right.  I'm already writing a long, toadying thank-you letter to Kate,
but let's face it:  the really exciting thing is that Benny was part of the
incident.  Sure, use of the word incident makes it sound like I'm a
psycho killer, but it's worth it.  I GET TO SEE BERNICE!  WHOOOPEEE!

--Sean Gaffney
--"I was very impressed with your handling of the Gaffney incident." - The Doctor, TRWND