Festival of Death
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BBC Books Festival of Death |
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| Author | Jonathan Morris |  |
| ISBN# | 0 563 53803 1 | |
| Published | 2000 | |
| Continuity | Between Shada and The Leisure Hive |
| Synopsis: The Doctor, Romana and K-9 find themselves aboard the G-Lock, a connection of old spaceships locked together long ago and now host to a tourist attraction. |
A Review by Finn Clark 24/9/00
Not only are there no spoilers in this review, but I don't even mention the ones on the back cover. Take my advice; don't read that blurb. I can't remember this happening before with a Doctor Who book, but for once significant surprises are given away on the back. I think it hurt the book, though that's just my opinion. But on with the review!
Festival of Death struck me as a clever novel rather than a brilliant one. Its plot is fabulously intricate, so complex that one can only gape in admiration as the convolutions pile up. At one point even the plot's twistiness is mined for comedy. It eventually fits together like a beautifully crafted jigsaw, or at least I presume it does. Jonathan Morris could have been pulling all kinds of fast ones and I don't think I'd have realised. This is a mind-boggling plot. This is the engine of the book, pulling us through smoothly and pleasantly.
This is a good thing, because I don't think the characters are up to snuff. The regulars come off best, though they're not perfect; we've seen better from Gareth Roberts and Simon Messingham. However we've also seen a lot worse. Jonny's TARDIS crew is always fun to read about and often very amusing indeed, with K9 stealing the show whenever he appears. This book would fit quite well into Season Seventeen... but I think it might have worked even better elsewhere.
This isn't a comment on Festival of Death, but more on Tom Baker. The man was a mad genius, infinitely watchable but not particularly good at giving a human dimension to his performance. In Face of Evil, Tom treats the Sevateem like any other alien tribe and Xoanon like any other ranting megalomaniac. He doesn't connect with it on a personal level, as Troughton or Davison would certainly have done. Festival of Death contains something that hits him on a similar level and I have to say that another Doctor might have brought more humanity to the dilemma. Jonathan Morris does damn well, giving us Moody Tom and some great comedy moments, but I still got the sense that the author was swimming against the stream rather than with it.
But I liked the fact that this is a fourth Doctor who drops quotations. Tom Baker was better read than almost all the writers to have portrayed his Doctor and normally that side of the character gets neglected. I enjoyed that.
The original characters are okay. Not bad, not blow-you-away amazing. Evadne is almost faceless and Harken Batt is defined more by his job than anything else. Hoopy is vaguely annoying, especially when we learn he's from the planet Gonzo. I could have lived without that, thank you very much. Even more confusingly, as soon as we've had this unsubtle Hunter S. Thompson reference, one of these acid heads goes and quotes J.M. Barrie! Now there's a combination you don't see every day. After I'd finished imagining Fear and Loathing in the Neverland, my splattered brain had to crawl back through my ears before I could go on reading the book.
Dunkal and Rige are complete stereotypes, but actually quite funny. I didn't get Douglas Adams flashbacks during their scenes, but Adams-wannabe flashbacks... to be precise, Slipback. ERIC was okay, but I think I should have felt for him more than I did. Paddox again worked quite well without quite making the reader connect emotionally with where he's coming from.
The most vivid characters were the unstable and incompetent leaders, getting lots of reader hatred and earning hearty cheers when they met their richly deserved downfalls. Of course I didn't believe in them for a second. It's the same problem I had with The Face-Eater. Is there some law in the Whoniverse that inevitably promotes mad and dangerous people to positions of responsibility? How the dickens did Rochfort become an officer, rather than a garbage collector or something equally suited to his level of emotional maturity? Similarly, what's the story with Metcalf? I mean, it's great to see him slithering towards his inevitable come-uppance. That was fun. But I'd have preferred some kind of explanation of how he won a command position in the first place. Once in a book I could have forgiven, but having two of the dumb buggers got under my skin.
But this book isn't about its characters. It's about the plot twists, which come thick and fast - sometimes too much so. Towards the beginning I could have done with time to breathe and react to each revelation. Either the pacing improved later in the book or I managed to change mental gear.
But it is funny. There are even a couple of slightly adult gags, innocent on the surface but slightly eyebrow-raising if you think for a moment. This book is great fun, not to mention whole orders of magnitude more ambitious plotwise than anything else with this twist in Who to date. In the Virgin era the NAs were supposedly the innovative and current line, but with the BBC it seems pretty clear that the PDAs have taken over that role. This isn't a perfect book, but for a debut novel I think it's very impressive indeed.
A Review by Sean Gaffney 28/9/00
No book in the PDAs has had quite as much hype as this one. Authors praising it to the skies, prereaders marveling over its intricacies, and over all that, the clarion cry:
"Worthy successor to Gareth Roberts!"
Now, I'm no fan of Gareth's. I may have mentioned this once or twice. So I came to this book thinking two things: a) can it live up to its overhyped status? and b) can it take the strengths of Gareth's 4Doc adventures and not use all the annoying things that made me want to burn them?
Well, to answer briefly: a) mostly, and b) definitely.
Festival of Death marks a lovely return to form for the PDAs, who had a marvelous first 6 months of 2000 and then ran aground with Prime Time and Imperial Moon. Luckily, they've hit a winner here, and from another debut Who author.
PLOT: Well, this is pretty much the book. The entire book hinges around its plot, and barely a paragraph goes by when you aren't trying to work out what happened, what's happening, and what will be about to be have happened. Or something. Luckily the author has done a superlative job of not only keeping everything straight, but making it simple enough so that we get it, AND making it look like good writing, rather than a guy with charts and graphs by his desk. The hype wins here, this is the major reason to read the book.
THE DOCTOR: For the most part, well done, except for one thing. The Doctor's serious angst over his impending demise (it's not a spoiler, c'mon, it was on the cover) didn't come across very well for me. The Douglas Adams era Doc just didn't seem to have the gravitas I would have liked. That being said, when the Doctor isn't angsting, which is a good 95% of the book, he's absolutely marvelous.
ROMANA: Pretty much the same comments as the Doctor above. OTHERS: This is the other weakness of the book, in that, being a plot-
driven book, the characters (with the exception of our villain) don't
really get looked into all that closely. Evadne, Metcalf, Hoopy and the
others have their one or two character traits, they use them, and then
they go off to fulfill plot. One exception is Tarie, the little girl, who
was a lovely character.
VILLAIN: Paddox gets looked into a bit closer... in the last 20 pages,
before which any motivation he may have is the big mystery. This also
didn't sit that well with me. But his fate was fairly chilling, leaving a
cold aftertaste to the book.
STYLE: Another big plus of the book, for the most part. In my
opinion, this era of Doctor Who is best written, and best served,
by a book where the pages simply fly by. Any slow, dragging explanatory
scenes and the whole house of cards collapses. Jonathan Morris seems to
understand this as well, as the pacing is quick, snappy, and well done.
In addition, did I mention this book is funny? Morris mentioned in his
interview how he tried to rewrite the book as if Douglas was editing it
for TV adding lines, and then as if Tom was ad-libbing throughout. This
comes across especially well in any scene with ERIC (who might as well
have had PROPERTY OF D. ADAMS stamped on him) and in the Doctor's "dying
words", which had me laughing the loudest of any scene in the book. Keep
Australia Beautiful!
OVERALL: This book is not, sadly, the Second Coming of Tom Baker.
The characterization flaws abound, the villain's motivation is mostly
nonexistent, and the attempts at gravitas weren't really that successful.
But for the most part, this isn't really relevant. Festival of
Death is a nicely written, gorgeously plotted story, with very
well-characterized regulars. Read it, it will make you happy.
8/10.
Festival, Best of all by Robert Smith?
10/10/00
[Note: Finn is right. Don't read the back cover until page 108, if
you want the fullest experience from this wonderful book. I didn't and
believe me, it's worth it.]
In quick succession we've had a new editor, The
Burning and now Festival of Death. And all three appear to have
broken the curse of the BBC Books: yes, this time the advance hype is
actually true.
Festival of Death is very good indeed. It's good in a great many
ways, from plot, characterisation, humour and a straightforward style that
saves the book from the disaster it might otherwise have been.
First and foremost is the plot, of course. This book positively powers
along and you can see at once why Justin Richards picked this one up off
the slushpile (and, on a broader note, if novels of this quality have been
sitting on the slushpile, it's a crime that we haven't gotten more of them
before). I thought I had this book pegged at the end of the first segment.
At first I thought that Jonathan had merely reversed cause and effect,
with the rest of the book being a fairly straightforward telling of events
whose conclusion we already know. And I think I would have found that book
quite enjoyable.
However, the book that we did get merely uses that as a starting point
and just keeps cranking up the enjoyment factor from there on. This is a
book which mixes cause and effect magnificently, producing a tangled web
that's sheer joy to behold. Throughout the entire book I was actively
paying attention, just waiting for the author to slip up. And a couple of
times I thought I had him, too. But no, everything is dealt with.
Make no mistake, this is a magnificent achievement. I turned my
nitpicking facilities up to maximum and the book still impressed
me. What's more, the style adds greatly to this, actually inviting the
attentive reader to follow along, rather than trying to hide any joins
through obfuscation. I'm seriously impressed.
However, as even Justin Richards knows, a book doesn't run on plot
alone. It's been said that this book suffers because its incidental
characters aren't particularly deep. I disagree. It's true that most of
them aren't, but not once did I find that to be a problem. With a plot
steamrolling over everything, I found the incidental characters to be
appropriate in their less-than-three-dimensionality. Metcalf is probably
the most extreme example, but he's sheer comic relief and so the
characterisation doesn't need to be particularly deep. Compare him to
Helen Percival in The Face-Eater. She was similarly
incompetent, but was also an important character who drove a great deal of
the novel. There, you can't help but wonder about her competency because
she's such an important character. Not so with Metcalf -- or Rochfort, for
that matter.
Paddox gets the most development of the incidental characters, which is
unusual in DW fiction, since he's also the villain. It's true that
this appears to come only in the last 20 pages or so, but that's not
actually the case if you're paying enough attention. In fact, I'd argue
that the book's twistiness works to help the characterisation: if you're
paying attention because of the former, then the various hints about
Paddox's motivation make the latter far more clear than they would be
otherwise.
Other than Paddox, the human character who seems to get the most
development is Liesa. This only makes it more heartbreaking when you stop
to think about why she wasn't in the first segment. Her inevitable demise
really touched me (as it does the Doctor) and seeing her again later just
made this more depressing.
Evadne and Hoopy have some effort put into them, but no more than is
necessary. They work well enough and both get some amusing lines, but
aren't standout otherwise. I don't mind this so much here, but I have to
say that if Morris's second novel (which I dearly hope happens) contains
characterisation like this, it could be in real trouble. I think this is
the only place where the first-time author status shows through. Hopefully
we'll see an improvement next time around. That said, ERIC is fabulous. He
starts off annoying, but by the end of the novel he's amazing.
However, I thought the characterisation of the regulars was superb,
possibly the highlight of the book. All three come across marvellously. I
really like a strong focus on the regulars and Festival delivers
magnificently. Too many of the books focus on the incidental characters,
who are rarely written with the verve of the regular cast anyway. Here,
it's the Doctor, Romana and K9 who have the limelight and they make use of
it magnificently.
All three have great lines and compete with each other to steal the
show. It's a pity K9 gets sidelined for a great deal of it, because
otherwise I think he'd be the unqualified winner in this competition. He's
great! It's interesting that there are two approaches to using K9, both in
the TV series or the books: either he gets a lot to do and is continual
fun (here, the Gareth Roberts MAs), or he gets a brief scene and is out of
the picture for the rest of the novel (Tomb of
Valdemar, Heart of TARDIS).
Incidentally, within the last twelve months we've had no less than four
fourth Doctor PDAs, three of which also contained Romana and K9. The
styles of all four are so different, that my neck actually snapped in half
from the whiplash. Then again, if the range were full of books as good as
Tomb of Valdemar, Heart of
TARDIS and Festival of Death, I'd be a very happy camper.
I like the Doctor and Romana's fears about their upcoming deaths. Tom
Baker's Doctor could be quite moody at times, so this comes over well with
me. There are also amusing touches galore: the quoting of things at
inopportune moments, the corrections of the laws of time (plus the fact
that this is drawn attention to by the end), the "of course" exchange, K9
shooting a ceiling with an obvious crack in it. The latter walks the fine
line of the meta-Who in-joke [copyright Virgin Publishing,
1991-1999], but for once this is actually funny. Indeed, this is a very
amusing book on occasions, although it's interested in doing other things,
so the humour isn't quite as prominent as it might have been.
The Arachnopods are hilarious, even if their catchphrase leaves a
little to be desired (but only a little). They feel a bit more like comedy
Vervoids than season 17 monsters, but they're lots of fun (and a bit scary
too). I really like their method of dispatch.
Gallura's secret is an intriguing one, because I'd been expecting
something far more cliched. Paddox's aims suddenly snap into place and it
feels like the whole book comes together at the instant we find out the
secret of the Arboretans. And Gallura's last line is sublime. I can
understand why the epilogue follows this, but I really think the birth
scene should have ended the book.
I'm amazed at how complete this novel feels. At first I thought
comparisons with Eye of Heaven would be inevitable,
but they're not. The first section also shows just how unfulfilling the
ending of most DW novels tend to be, whereas the real ending here
is haunting and touching. Real thought has gone into this book and I
appreciate it enormously.
In summary, Festival of Death is just about perfect. It's a
complex and involving book, and not just because of its plot. There are
little touches all over the place that provide great reward for the reader
and the characterisation of the regulars is fantastic. It's a book that
really wants you to like it and tries to do everything it can to help you
with that. And it succeeds wholeheartedly, in my opinion. It's not a book
that should be skimmed through, but rather savoured and sipped like a rich
wine. I loved it.
Ripping It To Shreds by Robert Thomas
27/10/00
Be warned, I have just been through a bloody awful few weeks and am in
one hell of a bad mood. After just finishing this debut offering from
Jonathan Morris, to cheer myself up I have decided to verbally rip this
book to pieces. Be warned I am going to be cruel.
Let's start with the plot. The Doctor, appearing at the end of the
story and having him revisit the scene of events over and over as he
attempts to get things right. Ha Ha, a beginner with a plot like this
bound to fail. Er, actually it's quite good, no make that very good, no
make that very very good. As I went through the book I expected my mind to
buckle under the pressure to understand what was happening. But it is kept
very uncomplicated and is made to be fun.
Characterisation of the regulars? Bound to botch this up! Actually this
is my favourite aspect of the book. He has captured Tom perfectly,
apparently he copied Tom in going over the book when finished and
inserting daft, but funny lines. Romana is captured perfectly as well. The
bit when she is criticising her posture and characteristics is pure
humour. K9, as said he does not appear much but for me he was in danger
of stealing the show. The scene on page 272 bearing in mind what happens
earlier is hysterical.
The original characters are not as shallow as we have been led to
believe. They are all near perfect:-
Harken Batt - Gets some great lines and is a pure comedy character. I
have only just noticed how the books still mirror British culture.
Peladon and the miners strikes, the current influx of fly on the wall
documentaries. Expect some fuel crisis plot lines very soon.
Evadne - Typical student who gets stuck with a c**p job to pay the
bills.
Hoopy - He worked for me. An excellent character caught up in the
events
that have nothing to do with him.
ERIC - HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. We felt his pain.
Paddox - Genuinely tragic. Again we felt his pain.
Metcalf - I like this guy, what a complete idiot.
Nyanna and Gallura - A fantastic alien race and a great last line.
All the others were fun. Including the reappearance of a comedy double
act in all but name.
Aha but the blurb and all the controversy involved, I have to be able
to
fault him here. Actually do not believe the hype there is no spoiler
whatsoever. All the information on the back is in the opening pages anyway
and actually add a depth to the book through the blurb.
To sum up this is an amazing book. I can't believe this is his
first. He
deserves to get recommissioned on the strength of this alone. I will
definitely be getting his Big Finish story next year.
In a Word, Marvellous by Tammy Potash
6/11/00
I have not been a happy Whovian lately. Between the Fatal Five
situation,
Dr. Who: From A to Z, and Imperial
Moon, it's enough to devastate the most
devoted anorak. I'm even wondering if Casualties of
War
impressed me only
by having an eighth Doctor who was less awful than usual.
But then along came Festival of Death.
Jonathan Morris takes the mantle of Gareth Roberts and wears it with
distinction. Some of my fellow reviewers are not Roberts' fans, but for me
the man could do no wrong. Morris even surpasses Roberts by attempting, in
a first novel no less, a plot truly-mindboggling in its twists and
turns. And he succeds brilliantly! Since I get my upcoming release news
from Outpost Gallifrey, I had read the back cover blurb long before the
book came out, but I don't agree with some reviewers that it detracts in
any way from the enjoyment of the book or that it spoils anything. If
anything, it does what the back cover should do, give a basic idea of what
to expect, but not any of the details.
Nonetheless, I will not mention what it divulges. But I haven't seen a
plot this complex since The Crystal
Bucephalus. Whovians who have watched Star Trek: The Next Generation
will no doubt find paraells with one of their
episodes, *not* Cause and Effect. (Data and K9 get a very similar
scene. You'll know it when you see it.) Festival of Death is
Vanderdeken's
Children done right.
The regulars. Oh god, how they sparkle. Morris must have watched his
Pirate Planet and City of Death
videos till they snapped. Tom Baker booms
each line of dialogue on the page, and Morris has captured Romana II's
fondness of and exasperation with, the Doctor to perfection. Romana is the
only companion who was truly the Doctor's equal (and maybe something else,
too) and Morris knows it.
And the original characters are great, too! They don't have depth,
other
than Paddox, but they never really had depth on the show either. To quote
Stephen King, "people are sketched briefly and broadly, but never
caricatured." The brush of Douglas Adams is all over them, especially ERIC
the computer, who is Marvin taken to the next level. (Though I have a
feeling Hoopy the lizard (!) would never have made it past the censors in
the old days). Paddox is that rarest of villains in Who, someone
who's
doing the wrong thing for the right reasons. This is a refreshing change
from your usual megalomaniac of the week.
Humorous and creepy by turns (perfect for halloween night, which is
when I
finished it), this book should be picked up immediately! For a BBC book,
it even has a nice cover. It will probably make my best novels top ten
list. I know we've had a lot of 4th Doctor books in the recent past, but
this one surpasses both Eye of Heaven and Tomb of Valedemar. It positively
screams to be made (have been made) as an episode. If only there was a
way... maybe Big Finish can coax the cast to do an audio version? I'd buy
it, and I have yet to touch a Big Finish product. If you don't buy it, you
WILL regret it. 10/10
Vestibule of Stress by Richard Salter
19/11/00
What's going on? I'm enjoying Doctor Who books again!
Festival Of Death is marvellous. It's well crafted,
it's funny, it's devious, it's clever, it's inventive,
I could go on. Oh what the hell, I will go on.
Jonathon Morris must have sat down and planned this
one out for months. The intricacies of the plot
started to give me a headache after a while, but they
were no less fascinating and, despite all the
complicated events unfolding, it is possible to follow
what's going on, thanks to clear writing and recaps
occuring often enough to make things fit, but not so
often as to be annoying.
Never mind if the regulars aren't quite up to Gareth
Roberts' standard (they're close), and never mind if
the incidental characters are there to fill functions,
and never mind if the utlimate villain of the piece is
pretty one-dimensional and old-hat. This is a book
that makes you want to concentrate on what's going
on, and try and piece things together yourself. And
even then, even while concentrating hard on everything
that's going on and thinking you've worked it out
ahead of time, Morris still has one or two surprises
kept in reserve.
What impresses me so much is that everything fits like
a jigsaw with no pieces missing or chewed out of shape
by the cat. This plot isn't just water-tight, it's
air-tight! And yet there's no danger of suffocation.
The path Morris takes us through this tangled web is
thankfully linear, so there's a story to follow and
discover as the Doctor, Romana and K-9 discover it,
while the universe does backflips around them.
I never got bored, I never got lost, and my enthusiasm
for the story never waned. That's an astonishing
achievement for a first time writer.
The novel doesn't have the emotional depth of, say,
Damaged Goods (an easy 10/10 novel for me) - it's not
trying to be that kind of book - but it is a blast
to read, so I think it well deserves a 9 and a
recommendation for all Doctor Who fans, whatever you
think of the books, to go out and buy this.
Justin, please commission more Morris now!
9/10
A Review by Terrence Keenan
24/2/02
I want to start by personally thanking Justin Richards for releasing
this book to the public.
It is that good. I'll go out on a limb and say it is the best PDA of
the line -- edging out Tomb of Valdemar by a nose.
The plot is the thing with this book. It's a wonderful combining of
cause and effect. It uses a premise that is obvious, yet surprising
because no one before in DW had the Chutzpah to attempt it.
And Jonathan Morris, in his first Doctor Who book, does that.
There is a complex plot, made more so by the jumping time lines.
However, you can follow along easily. Even nitpickers, ready to jump on
any little misfire, will be pleasantly surprised how everything is not
only dealt with, but done without cheating. The internal logic of the book
is never subverted or shunted.
There are a lot of characters, some purely functional, others are
standouts. Toss in a great complex villain who feels his actions are
justified (Paddox) a dark force from another dimension (the Repulsion) and
good, old school nasty monsters (Arachnopods), a suicidal computer (ERIC),
another alien race (The Arboretans) and a drug addict lizard from the
planet Gonzo (Hoopy, I thoroughly enjoyed him) and you have touched on
many of the great elemets from season 17.
And the regulars? Suffice to say, they are completely spot on. The
voices of Tom and Lalla spring off the page. Even though K9 isn't in
Festival too much, when he's on the page, he nearly steals the
show. Morris has stated in interviews that he did rewrites first as
Douglas Adams, then as an ad-libing Tom Baker. I'm glad he did, because
this is the best Tom Baker I've seen in any novel.
I'll stop here. Just go out and read Festival of Death. You
won't be disappointed.
10 out of 10
A Review by Scott Clarke
25/5/02
I finally finished Festival of Death over the holidays, and what
can I say -- I loved it. I wish I had had the time to read it straight
through in one or two sittings, but alas it wasn't to be. Surprising
though, I was able to keep track of all the various plot pieces and
looping of events throughout the different time periods, etc.
In many ways Jonathon Morris has created a season 17 story which is
more *Season 17* than the stories that actually aired. There is the
Douglas Adams feel of stuffing the story full of Sci-fi ideas, the
whimsy, and much of the humor as well -- but there is more space to go
with some more outrageous ideas like the hippy lizards, etc. Harken
even reminded me of a Duggan-esque sort of character. K-9 is even
dispached for the middle of the book which humorously evokes the
sense of season 17 where K-9 was way-laid half the time. He even
manages to bring a consistancy to Romana which is very interesting--
taking some of her season 16 persona elements (the annoying psycho-
babble and haughtiness)and weaving them seamlessly into the character.
The plot structure gave rise to some very poignant moments like when
the Doctor realizes that Paddox's repentant assistant will shortly
die, and there's nothing he can do about it.
There were some wonderful little pokes at Season 17 (as well as past
Doctor books) when the Doctor sees himself on holocam and realizes
some of his idiosyncracies. I marvelled at the way Morris threaded
all the plot bits together and reworked previously read scenes in a
way that kept them from being boring.
The ending was quite haunting with Paddox condemned to reliving his
fate over and over again without the ability of changing it (reminded
me of an old Space:1999 episode where Ray Doltrice discovers that it
will take 75 years to get to Earth and he's trapped in a glass case).
While the Repulsion didn't overly excite me, it did it's job and
Paddox was the more interesting antagonist. I only wish that we
could have had a bit more of him to chew on. I also thought that
the captain of the Cerebrus (sic) and his navigator were very well
realized. The arachnopods were also a nice touch for a monster.
Create A Puzzle You Can Never Solve by Matthew Harris
12/7/02
In 2000, British director Christopher Nolan made a film backwards.
Entitled Memento, it dealt with a man with no short-term memory,
attempting to exact revenge for his wife's rape and murder. It opened with
a murder and took the viewer backwards throughout the events leading up to
it, never quite letting on who out of the characters could be trusted...
if any of them. Cruelly overlooked by Oscar, it's an absolute must see for
anyone with a high attention span and a predilection toward mystery.
Jonathan Morris must have been taking notes.
Never since I finished Manon des Sources (everyone go "nyerr" at the
poncy intellectual) have I found myself actively shouting at a book so
loud as I did when I read Festival Of Death. It's a sort of bastard
love-child of Douglas Adams and Christopher H Bidmead, in that it's damned
complex and scientific-y, but it's also hillariously funny, in places. Oh,
and scary. And complex. I said "complex", didn't I? Well, it's very very
complex. Indeed. How many times do they materialise there and then realise
they've got to come back earlier? I made it four. Or five. Anyway, as a
means of keeping your readership gripped, it's original (Memento
notwithstanding). Not to say exhausting.
If it sounds like I don't like Festival very much, then it
sounds wrong. The previous reviewers speak the truth. Festival is a
Good and Just Thing. For example? The first four pages, the "Prologue" if
you will, are fabulously dark, disturbing, and, perhaps most importantly,
fail to be pertinent to anything else in the book until damn near the end,
if you're concentrating. It's the same with the Aboretan chaps you meet a
little later. In black and white like that it seems like Morris is
throwing all these things into the mix and forgetting about them. Not at
all. He's throwing them all into the mix with the intention that you -
yes, you - forget about them. What I mean is that it looks scattershot and
random, but it's all perfectly structured in what is really a neat line.
It's just that it moves in funny directions.
Which is a good way of summing up the plot. By the way, I also believe
that the blurb does not in any way constitute spoilers. There is so much,
so very much, in this book, and it comes in such a strange order,
chronologically, that no mere blurb can sum it up properly. And everything
that it mentions is given away in the first fifty pages. And anyway, the
whole Doctor-dies thing (oops) is exactly what makes me want to read the
thing, and that's the point of blurbs.
Well, not just that. The blurb also mentioned characters: a hippy
lizard, a suicidal computer and a hard-hitting investigative reporter.
Sounds like... well, like Douglas Adams to me. And it is. The spirit of
the late, great DNA lives in people like Hoopy (A short orange lizard from
the planet Gonzos - if you think it's silly, it is. That's why it's
great), Harken Batt (who wouldn't seem out of place on The Day Today.
People from Britain will know what I mean), Metcalf (a seterotype, but
then they all are, and they're all great) and ERIC (who, instead of
booting up with the customary pointless "beep", says, "Oh no, I am still
alive"). ERIC in particular is quite interesting. When you find out why
he's suicidal, it actually stops being funny and becomes quite tragic.
There's monsters, as well. The zombies, for a start. Then there are the
arachnopods, who, by the time they were introduced, were feeling like a
detail too far. It passes, more or less when you realise how scary they
are. They scuttle around attempting to eat you, gurgling "Eats!" over and
over again (first glance it's ridiculous, second quite chilling, third
really quite scary). Then they catch you, kill you in the face and eat
you. Then they look for more eats. If you blow any part of them up, it'll
just eat it and regrow. And then kill you in the face and eat you. It's
interesting how many Doctor Who villains and monsters have been
sustained by sheer bloody-mindedness. About... all of them, in fact.
Talking of villains. The Repulsion (which is alive, apparently) is par
for the course as far as enemies go, but a very scary and, for most of the
book, mysterious par. Paddox is also mysterious, not because we don't know
what he is (we do) but because we don't know what the bloody hell on a
stick he's doing. Until the end. Ooh, the end. That's just... that's a bit
of a crap situation for anyone to be in. Not that he didn't deserve it, of
course... but I've not seen such a chilling conclusion to anything since
Inferno part six.
Any other business? Well, the main characters are (I mean ARE) Tom,
Lady Sarah and John Leeson (I'm assuming this is after his voice has
changed back after Season 17... or am I being a sad git? Oh). It's so
uncanny I'm tempted to believe that Morris nipped back in time and stole
the story - or, more likely, several - from Adams, or Fisher or someone.
It's not outside the realms of possibility. Alright, it probably is. But
it does read like an actual TV episode, with three bits that I think would
make great cliffhangers (the ends of Chapters Two, Nine and Seventeen, for
those of you counting at home). And there are bits and pieces, if you look
carefully, where characters refer to the Doctor and Romana... only you
don't realise it until much, much later in the book. Future-referential
prose? Jonathan Morris must have a cerebellum like a spiral staircase.
Anyway. You need just three things to read this book: an interest in
Doctor Who, the ability to concentrate, and any sense at all. If
you have these, read it. Read it now.
A Review by Brett Walther
6/7/03
Somehow, novels taking place in Season Seventeen have consistently the
most brilliant, entertaining, and representative of that particular era,
than most others in either Virgin or BBC's run of Past Doctor Adventures.
Gareth Roberts' unbeatable run of The Romance of
Crime, The English Way of Death and The Well-Mannered War are simply magical: largely a
result of his flawlessly capturing the dynamic chemistry of the Doctor and
Romana.
Jonathan Morris achieves the unthinkable in The Festival of
Death, by living up to the high standard set by Roberts. Like each of
Roberts' Season Seventeen entries, this novel will have you wishing that
it had made it to the small screen. Perhaps even more than in the case of
Roberts' stories, one can easily imagine Festival of Death being
produced for television under the constraints of the Williams-era budget
for the programme.
The Festival of Death makes wonderful use of time travel as a
concept. It's incredibly refreshing to have a story unfold in reverse
order, with the TARDIS travelling further into the past as the Doctor and
Romana seek to uncover how they've actually saved the day, with the fear
of unravelling the web of time constantly looming over their shoulders.
It's actually surprising that Morris pulls off this twist as well as he
does, and things move along at a brisk pace, with the Doctor and Romana
hopping into the TARDIS for yet another jump backwards in time as soon as
they've learned as much as they can from their present surroundings. The
humourous sequences in which the Doctor and Romana nearly bump into their
past and present selves are great rewards for any confusion that the time
hopping narrative might create.
Equally as impressive is the way Morris pulls off his magnificent
counterpointing of humour and terror. It's almost shocking to find
yourself laughing out loud in the midst of a genuinely terrifying bit
involving zombies drooling black goo while throttling their hapless
victims.
The plot element that works the best is the "ghost ship" premise: the
spaceship Cerberus is recovered a month after having been lost in a freak
hyperspace accident, albeit without any trace of its passengers or crew.
This horrific mystery is at the heart of The Festival of Death, and
results in some truly creepy flashbacks as time distortions wreak havoc on
board the ship two hundred years later.
If there's a weakness here, it's in the main villain of the piece.
The Repulsion is sadly underexploited, despite a promising build-up as an
extra-dimensional being that purports to rule the afterlife. Although
shapeless by nature, the form that it eventually takes is nowhere near as
frightening as when it communicates through its zombie minions.
ERIC, the spaceship's particularly unhelpful computer, at first
resembles Holly from Red Dwarf, but becomes so much more when the Doctor
and Romana uncover the root of his personality breakdown. The fact that
Morris can make a computer the most sympathetic creation in the book is a
testament to his extraordinary skill at bringing these characters to life.
The Doctor and Romana, in particular, are brilliant. I could actually
hear Lalla Ward delivering these lines, and the subtle suggestions of a
relationship between the Doctor and Romana mirroring that of Ward and
Baker off-screen are magnificent. Hands down as the best bit, however,
has to be the part in which Romana must actually kill the Doctor: rivaling
the Doctor's first meeting with Scarlioni in City of
Death as the funniest moment of the season.
9/10
A Review by Richard Radcliffe
12/1/04
It is a brave man who takes on the 4th Doctor, 2nd Romana and 2nd K9
after the success of Gareth Roberts' three books. Jonathan Morris is that
brave man - and good luck to him. He succeeds!
Space stations are rich pickings for the Doctor Who author. The
TV show spent many a long hour there roaming through featureless
corridors. Festival gives us such a space station, yet its drab
corridors and sparse rooms are integral to the story. This is a space
station that is more than it seems. A marvelous graveyard of spaceships
stuck together. Lots of drab crafts glued together to produce a marvelous
monstrosity of chaos.
The story is complicated. It's a flipback book - flip back a page or
two to see the comparisons between the different, but same, Doctors and
how they gel together. At times it was quite difficult to follow, but such
was the cleverness in the structure, you wanted to flip back and see how
all the pieces of the jigsaw fitted together.
The 4th Doctor is given some memorable dialogue, succeeding where many
have failed with this particular Doctor. Romana and K9 are vital
ingredients in the mix, and are always engaging.
Complex? Yes. Interesting? Yes. Memorable? Yes. Readable? Yes. Worth a
re-read? Most definitely. 7/10
"Kismet!" by Joe Ford
22/5/04
Bloody brilliant! Not just a Past Doctor Adventure but THE Past Doctor
Adventure. The only PDA to rival the best of the EDAs and a million,
trillion, quadrillion times better than ANYTHING the sister book range
coughed up for the next two years. It is astonishing to think that many
new talents such as Jonathon Morris are regularly skipped over in favour
of golden oldies (such as Chris Bulis and Terrance Dicks) that are
guaranteed another book. Makes you weep to wonder what other treasures are
on the Doctor Who slush pile that are being ignored when Warmonger and Byzantium!
were being edited.
I actually put off reading this for a while, I tried it when I first
got into reading Doctor Who books and found it very confusing. Now
reading Doctor Who is twoapenny for me and this time the book
breezed by. It had moments of insane logic, when the timelines started
crossing each other but after reading (and understanding) The Last Resort any Doctor Who book that
bibblybobblyboos about with the narrative seems like an easy ride.
Why has nobody ever played about with this idea before? It's ingenious
and ripe for comedy... the Doctor arrives at the aftermath to an adventure
and finds out he has already saved the day! Genius! So now he has to go
back in time and do it all over again, laws of time and all that only to
find that when he does he hasn't gone back far enough and people still
already know who he is. He has to keep going back until he has met every
person in the story for the first time. Of course while he is doing this
he has to prevent himself meeting... well himself and uncover the plot at
the same time. Argh! Madness! But total fun and only a truly professional
writer could manage to construct this insanity and pull it off so it is
rewarding and leaves no hanging threads.
I am now going to laugh my head silly at the Cult of Gareth Roberts.
AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Excellent, now I have that out of system I
will explain my apparent madness. Lars Pearson of the (admittedly
excellent) I Who series accuses Jonny Morris of copycatting Gareth Roberts
styles as though the guy has some copyright on writing season seventeen
stories. This is untrue, in a book of audacious cleverness Mr Morris has
managed to capture the flavour of the 'holiday season' far better than
Roberts ever did. Because whilst both writers get the humour perfect, only
Morris remembers that season seventeen was ingeniously plotted and full of
clever, mind-bending ideas. Only Morris bothers to make the book some
effort to read and therefore rewarding an intelligent reader. Roberts'
books are superficially entertaining, but arse-achingly boringly plotted.
Festival of Death could have been televised it is so S 17, it takes
a big mixing bowl and shoves in comedy, drama, science and whacko ideas,
peppers them with rib tickling dialogue, throws in some delightful
characters for taste and pops them in the oven for two hundred years and
uses that timeframe to tell the story in. The result, a cake so delicious
I could gorge myself on it for eternity. Bringing things back to Earth for
a second, this book reminds me of the BEST of Douglas Adams and that is a
compliment and a half.
There are few Doctor Who books that feel as though this much
effort has been put into them. The last third is perhaps the most
rewarding, the way the Doctor and Romana keep stepping on their own toes,
the answers to what Paddox is up to, why certain scenes earlier did not
make sense when characters could not have been where they were, why Hoopy
is not zombified, how certain characters know what they know... it must
have taken an age to plot this story so that all the jigsaw pieces fitted
in place. The skill in which he makes it seem so effortless, keeping the
story infectious fun, is a marvel.
What is this barrel of laughs he keeps going on about? Well for a start
you have the hipster Gonzies, Biscuit, Xab and Hoopy, three lizards who
are as high as a kite and speak in the most hysterical of languages. "This
is agony! No, it's agony two the sequel!" Hoopy cries. "Aargh! I am
alight! I am chargrilled! I am a sizzled freakster!" he screams when later
he accidentally catches alight. You might think this would get quite
tiresome and it would, so they are used sparingly, popping up with their
unusual tongue just when a giggle is needed.
Then you have Executive Metcalf. There is always a guy like him popping
up every now and again in Doctor Who, someone so utterly pathetic
you have nothing but total sympathy for him. Dupre from City of the Dead and Marius in The
Infinity Race are two good examples, men in power who are so
inefficient at their jobs you have to wonder how they secured them.
Metcalf is one of the best though, entirely self centred and desperate to
salvage his reputation. It is so ironic that he should be caught under his
desk cowering and screaming he doesn't care who dies. His short history,
in which his wife ran off with a holocameraman climaxes on a superb joke
when he rushes to the safety of the escape pod and activates the door to
discover a holocameraman sitting inside. Well I laughed.
And captured to perfection are the TARDIS crew of this barmy year, the
loop head fourth Doctor, the vivacious Romana and the K.9. the loyal robot
dog. As Robert Smith? observed this is a story that
concentrates on its regulars and that is such a good thing when they are
as entertaining as this bunch. There is much humour to be derived from the
Doctor having a companion who is outwardly smarter than he is and here the
Doctor is stuck with two. Romana appears as she always did, to be the
Doctor's minder, watching his back whilst he goofs around and saves the
day.
Every line the Doctor utters in this book reminds me of Tom Baker's
definitive portrayal. I loved his continual slip with the first law of
time and his morbid obsession with his death. He seems to duck and dive
through the story making lots of friends and improvising, getting off on
the sheer adventure of it. How funny is it when he thinks he's going to
die so he rushes over to the nearest technician and says, "It was nice
knowing you, sorry I didn't catch the name." Or when he spots himself and
gets annoyed because he keeps rubbing his ear but then admits what a
handsome devil he is anyway! There are moments when his considerable anger
bubbles out into the open and this seems entirely in character: when he
witnesses ERIC being tortured by Rochfort, it seems entirely justified.
And most brilliant of all is his 'death' scene where he continually
mis-quotes Shakespeare to postpone the moment and ends up embarrassing
Romana so much she has no hesitation in throwing the switch.
Being such fun it is easy to forget how intelligent the book is and
there are some rather wonderful piss takes of Doctor Who itself,
Paul Margs style. Or postmodern parody, as Matt would say with a growl.
There is a guard in the story who the Doctor admits is the most inept
guard he has ever met but then what do you expect when he is reading
Guards and Guarding magazine! And the villain has a bloody big lever to
set his plans in motion and the Doctor observes that perhaps he (and all
the others he has encountered) is compensating for something. Best of all
is Rochfort's reaction to K.9., pure laughter. Well, he is ridiculous
isn't he? In a story this layered I can accept this little digs, Doctor
Who was always a show that could laugh at itself and small moments of
humility help make it the best show on television.
The prologue might seem superfluous at first but I was blinded by the
time travel jigger-pokery and was shocked when it was integrated obviously
and creatively into the story. It makes the epilogue much more potent, a
cherishable ending to a nasty piece of work.
The book is written in a simple style, there is so much to take in that
Lloyd Rose-style prose would overwhelm the reader. But Morris sets the
scene as vividly as the next man, managing to pull of a fair share of
powerful scenes amongst all the smiles. The book will primarily be
remembered for its laughs though and I don't think anybody will disagree
with the diagnosis of funniest Doctor Who book for the BBC line.
Just for the 'Nova Bright makes your Pants White' sequence, surely?
Everybody has one and this is mine, this is the Doctor Who book
I wish I had written. 280 pages of pure enjoyment.
"Pah! Not everybody needs fancy certificates, you know"
by Lance Bayliss
31/10/05
There are two types of Doctor Who authors. The first are those
who think that they are "proper" novelists, and that their works are going
to be elevated to a high form of art. To that effect they spend useless
ammounts of time describing things to us in prose, rather than actually
moving the dialogue or storyline along. For example, they will describe a
corridor in exacting detail. The carpets, the light fixtures, the grain in
the wood walls. By the time you've finished reading about how a corridor
looks, you're bored to death of it. All this seemingly in an attempt to
reach the editor's prefered word count. Perhaps more criminally, they tend
to sideline the Doctor and his companions in favour of weak, cipher
characters who the authors think are brilliance personified. The title on
the cover is "Doctor Who", gents. The clue is in the title. We want
to see the lead character, not "Joe Average" and his petty love life.
The second type of Jonathan Morris is, thankfully, the second type of author. And his
novel Festival of Death (published way back in 2000 - blimey, was
it really that long ago?) is one of the very few Doctor Who novels
that I've revisited again and again. What makes it work is the attention
to character detail: Every single person is equally defined, with the
Doctor central to events. It's also one of the few perfectly-captured
characterisations of the Doctor around. Every single utterance, every
single expression, reminds you that this is Tom Baker and Lalla Ward circa
Season 17. The author's chosen method of writing the dialogue, and then
going back and writing over it again as though he were Tom looking over a
script and mucking about with it, manages to capture the character to a
tea. Reading it, one is almost compelled to look at one's DVD shelf and
see if Festival of Death is in fact a novelisation. It really is
that good.
The plot is the kind of story that we all felt the original series did
all the time, but which was in fact very rarely attempted. A
time-travel-science-fiction-comedy-adventure, it meets the requirements of
every genre. Having the Doctor arrive somewhere, only to be congratulated
for saving the day (meaning that he has to keep jumping back in time again
and again to actually save the day) is brilliant. What we get here is a
story in reverse - the Doctor first meets people who already know who he
is, and who have already dealt with him before, and then goes back to
before he met them, meets them the first time, and already knows all about
them and what they're going to do in the past/future. A typical time
travel device, it's surprising that the original series itself didn't do
something like this.
Although it sounds very complex, the way in which it is handled is in
as light and humorous a manner as possible. A throwaway comment by a
character early in the book transpires to describe something which the
Doctor will later do. Some characters which are important early in the
novel vanish as the Doctor travels back to before they even arrived. No
matter how many times I read it, I always discover something I missed
before. Yet it's an easy read. Unlike most other Doctor Who books
(including Jonathan Morris' other two subsequent books, which were both
'Eighth Doctor Adventures') it doesn't weigh itself down with unnecessary
'purple prose'. Every single word is there to move things along. The novel
never drags.
All in all, highly recommended. I admit that it isn't for everybody.
Certainly, if you're one of those truly incomprehensible fans who has a
hatred for Season 17 (why?!?) then you'll be tearing your hair out. But
Festival of Death is one of only a dozen Doctor Who books -
out of more than 200 that have been printed in the last ten years - which
I would risk saving from a fire.
I give it 5 out of 5.
A Review by Craig Lambert
17/1/08
The Festival of Death is a fantastic read. This was the first
Doctor Who novel I ever read, and after reading over two dozen
others, this is still one of the best, far exceeding some of the other
books out there. It is a traditional Who story told extremely well!
The story is very well written, true to the TV show style, dialogue and
characters. The plot is very interesting and exciting. The action moves
quickly and there are wonderful plot twists and subplots to follow. The
dialogue and supporting characters are marvelously written. I enjoyed
every minute reading it, and enjoyed it perhaps even more on the second
and third reading.
Tom Baker's Doctor and Lalla Ward's Romana are written so well. The
characters are so true to what the show revealed. In fact, Morris takes it
one step further: he writes the characters so they shine as brilliantly as
possible. Even K9 is written with character in mind. There is one short
scene told from K9's perspective when he is sent off to follow someone.
When the story is told from K9's point of view, the writing itself changes
to reflect how K9 would see things, and perceive things.
In addition, the "supporting cast" is fantastic. The villains, allies,
and those people in between who present stumbling blocks are all a joy to
read. Each character is amusing, interesting, believable, and very
entertaining. Morris pays tribute to one of his favorite authors, Douglas
Adams, by writing the shipboard computer as being a depressed and suicidal
personality. What make Morris's computer even better that Marvin is that
Morris shows how and why the shipboard computer got depressed and suicidal
in the first place. So there is character development even with the AI.
Reading The Festival of Death is like watching one of the best
Tom Baker stories because in so many ways it feels like a Tom Baker story
and script. The scenery, characters, and plot are all very evocative of
the seventies and early eighties. Yet, Morris adds elements and "sets" and
aliens and creatures that the Tom Baker stories never could have produced.
It's what I always wish a Tom Baker televised story could have been.
The dialogue is simply brilliant. Romana and The Doctor banter so
well it puts Han Solo and Princess Leia to shame. Their one-liners,
repartee, and correcting of each other's knowledge is hilarious.
Some of the best scenes are when Romana or the Doctor sees a
"previous" version of himself or herself, a la Back to the
Future. For example:
The action moved along at a quick pace. There is no filler in this one.
The plot twisted and turned so that I never lost interest. One of the best
twists employed by Morris in this one is his use of the TARDIS as a kind
of Back to the Future Delorean, where the heroes keep having to go back in
the past to a time before they previously arrived.
Rating: 10/10
A Review by Brian May
3/7/08
Festival of Death is a most impressive book, magnificently
plotted and ingeniously crafted. It's the time paradox story to end them
all, the narrative flitting from time zone to time zone with a structure
that's amazing in its labyrinthine elegance. It's a pity such stories were
so few and far between during the classic series. Post-1989 fiction put
that to rights, but this is the most complex of the lot. Jonathan Morris
obviously has a lot of patience and skill. It's hard to imagine what his
workspace must have looked like as he was writing this. The reader is made
to pay attention, and there was much backtracking of the pages every time
I picked up the book.
But that's not all to commend about it. The setting is clearly season
17 - the Doctor's oatmeal coat makes this plain - and the realisation of
the TARDIS crew is astounding. Tom Baker overacting as the Doctor, Lalla
Ward playing it straight as Romana II and the precise, clipped tones of
David Brierley as K9 are authentically captured on the page. Indeed,
Morris outshines Gareth Roberts in this department! He makes a brave move
at the end of chapter 4 (p.68) when the Doctor snaps as he comes to terms
with his fate. On the surface, it's out of character, but such an event
has never happened to him before. It's uncharted territory, but convincing
enough to let us surmise the Doctor could indeed act this way.
It's very funny in lots of places. As you'd expect in a season 17
runaround there's a strong Douglas Adams influence; at first it seems ERIC
is just a rip-off of Marvin the Paranoid Android, but when you read
further and discover what makes him this way, the end result is very
understandable and sympathetic (and, continuing the Hitch-Hikers' theme,
he starts out exactly like Eddie). Evadne rescuing the Doctor and Romana
on p.42 is very much in tune with the overall time paradox theme, but its
execution is very much from Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure. The
magazines "Guards and Guarding" and "Holding Captive" are absolutely
hilarious, as are the reactions of the Doctor and Romana as they view
their alternate timeline selves, especially as their self-perceptions -
and vanity! - are challenged.
It's not all fun and games; the novel has a gloomy premise and the
motif of mortality is all pervading. There's a strong horror element; the
death count, Romana's visions of Tarie, and Paddox's fate are among the
most notable examples. The Arachnoids are a bit unnecessary, possibly
added under an instruction to include a token monster - and given season
17's monster pantheon included Erato, the Mandrels and the Nimon, this is
well appropriate (in the most negative sense of the word).
The climax is also a disappointment. There's too much retreading of The Deadly Assassin and Trial of a Time
Lord in the ersatz-Matrix showdown; for a book, it's even worse given
the similar way the early NAs did the same thing. Some of the characters
are horribly caricatured: Hoopy is a walking cliche of a hippy and,
despite attempts to give him motivation, Paddox is still nothing more than
a mad scientist. I must admit I liked Harken; his depiction of a cowardly,
glory-seeking celebrity journalist is sometimes too accurate!
But, because the novel is so good, most of the complaints can recede
into minor quibble country. Festival of Death is an intricate,
well-executed book that explores the complexities of time travel, arguably
more so than any other Doctor Who work to date. It's well balanced
between the humorous and the macabre, with some nice film tributes: the
aforementioned Bill & Ted, along with Back to the Future and 12 Monkeys.
Well recommended. 8.5/10
"The previous Doctor shambled across the hall, gazing
appreciatively at his surroundings. The Doctor was disconcerted by how
often this chap was ruffling his hair, and rubbing his chin. He hadn't
realized how mannered he was; he wished he could shout out, 'Stop fiddling
with your ear!' And as for that body posture... well, he would have to do
something about that. But, overall, he was impressed with what he saw.
Those clothes made him look rather striking. You handsome devil,
Doctor."
And Romana gets to see her previous self as well at another point and gets
embarrassed by how arrogant she comes off.