A Look at So Vile A Sin and The Eight Doctors
By Rob Langenderfer
Well, So Vile A Sin by Ben Aaronovitch and Kate Orman is the book that ends the Psi Powers saga and also serves as a conclusion to the life of Roz Forrester. It is very complex, like Ben Aaronovitch’s and Kate Orman’s previous works. It is a book, like The Death of Art, which features the mysterious Brotherhood in a central way. It explains something of the group’s motivation, but it includes too many elements for the book to ever be considered much of a straightforward or clear read. I certainly am glad the psi powers saga is finished because all of those books, with a single exception, had lost the interest by this reader by their conclusions. Roz was never a character I cared for all that much and with the exception of Return of the Living Dad, Chris and Roz’s relationship was old hat, almost from the start. This book has some potentially interesting political intrigue, but sometimes a writer with a more simplistic prose style is required for a book’s meaning and concepts to come across. At least Bad Therapy, the next New Adventure, is a tale set in 1950's London so it should at least be historically interesting. From what I’ve read about this book in reviews (IIRC), Chris and the Doctor both deal with their grief over Roz’s passing in this book so it at least has the potential for some interesting character development. In the meantime, it’s nice to be able to read a Doctor Who novel that has a fairly simple plot but one that is also truly enjoyable and fun. The editors at BBC Books probably made a very wise choice in beginning their series of Eighth Doctor novels with Terrance Dicks’s The Eight Doctors.
The Eight Doctors is a story that truly reflects the TV series that we knew and loved so much. The book introduces us to Samantha Jones, the Eighth Doctor’s new companion, and it shows her to be a courageous young woman, standing up to drug dealers, although she does not play a central role in the story. This book really holds your interest, and it is easy to follow. Terrance Dicks has the Eighth Doctor meet each of his other incarnations at various points in each of their lives. The point at which the Eighth Doctor and his first incarnation meet is especially well-chosen. The part of the story that is set on Gallifrey holds your interest, but in some ways, it is too closely tied to Blood Harvest and Goth Opera for the reader to understand everything that is going on unless you read those two books recently. I have read both of those books, and I could
not remember why Ryoth hated the Doctor. If it is not explained in those books, then the author
screwed up on this point even worse than I thought. However, overall, this book is excellent, and it rates as the best Doctor Who novel I’ve read since Return of the Living Dad. Go out and have the bookstores order this for you (which is the only way you’ll see this, since when the BBC Books start appearing in U.S. bookstores, they will apparently begin with the books from January of 1998 according to Shannon Sullivan’s Doctor Who News Page). This truly gives the novels a fresh start, and with the little exception which I already mentioned, you won’t need a working knowledge of the New or Missing Adventures to understand this book. It’s as if the TV series and TV movie moved on straight to this book. This book isn’t filled with an extraordinary theme or some special meaning, but it will remind you of why you were so attracted to the program in the first place.