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purplecatI've read very little Morcock, Elric of Melnibone when I was a teenager (about which I remember virtually nothing) and his Dancers at the End of Time sequence more recently which I thought was interesting but flawed, particularly when it was trying to evoke early 20th century comedies of manners. However he is, by some margin, the most famous novelist to turn his hand to a full-length Doctor Who novel (though I have no doubt that Neil Gaiman will get around to it eventually). So it was with interest and anticipation that I picked up The Coming of the Terraphiles.
To be fair, I really enjoyed the first five pages, a gloriously over-the-top piece of purple world-building written in the voice of an omniscient narrator which is a refreshing change in any modern fiction, let alone TV tie-in fare.
After that it all comes crashing down rather. The prose is occasionally lovely, but more often it is clunky and distressingly prone to the long info-dump. There are some interesting ideas about linked multiverses but the story seems far more interested in the Terraphiles, a bunch of (ill-informed) enthusiasts for Earth's history (with names like Bingo Locksley and Flapper Banning-Cannon) engaged in a complex tournament that might as well be cricket which becomes entwined with the activities of a mysterious hat thief. As such it is retreading a lot of the ground from Dancers at the End of Time - the imperfect recall of history married with pastiche of a certain kind of Englishness associated with the early 20th century. The problem is this particular kind of Englishness has been well-pastiched already by the likes of Wodehouse and Wilde who were both (arguably) better writers than Moorcock and contemporaries of the culture they are pastiching. In the hands of a 21st century novelist the exercise seems a little pointless. I also, for whatever reason, don't find Moorcock's style of pastiche particularly amusing - all these segments just felt laboured and wooden to me, though I'll allow that may be a matter of taste.
Dancers at the End of Time, was playing with a range of ideas such as the contrast between repression and hedonism and the extent to which imperfect recall of history is self-imposed. I still felt the early 20th century bits were laboured and flat but it was at least possible to see the role they were playing in the wider story and themes. Here the pastiche seems to serve no purpose beyond providing a backdrop for the universe threatening activities of General Frank/Freddie Force and his Antimatter Men which draws on the opposition between order and chaos (a favourite theme of Moorcock's). Or rather the heavy-handed pastiche is the story and the plot line dealing with order and chaos is a backdrop. General Frank/Freddie Force and the Antimatter Men only appear once in person and are eventually defeated off-screen by characters playing little other part in the story, one can't help feeling that Moorcock wasn't really all that interested in them, or their threat.
The characterisation of Amy Pond is also pretty dire. Here she's a plucky but largely passive companion, occasionally teasing but never challenging the Doctor, let alone anyone else. However given the book's publication date is 2010 (the year of Amy's debut), I'm going to assume that Moorcock had very little information to go on. The Doctor's characterisation is better, but I think there is enough similarly between Matt Smith and David Tennant's portrayals to make him seem more distinctive. While understandable, a Tardis crew consisting of a generic fast-talking Doctor and an unrecognisable companion, didn't exactly help matters.
A massive disappointment.
To be fair, I really enjoyed the first five pages, a gloriously over-the-top piece of purple world-building written in the voice of an omniscient narrator which is a refreshing change in any modern fiction, let alone TV tie-in fare.
After that it all comes crashing down rather. The prose is occasionally lovely, but more often it is clunky and distressingly prone to the long info-dump. There are some interesting ideas about linked multiverses but the story seems far more interested in the Terraphiles, a bunch of (ill-informed) enthusiasts for Earth's history (with names like Bingo Locksley and Flapper Banning-Cannon) engaged in a complex tournament that might as well be cricket which becomes entwined with the activities of a mysterious hat thief. As such it is retreading a lot of the ground from Dancers at the End of Time - the imperfect recall of history married with pastiche of a certain kind of Englishness associated with the early 20th century. The problem is this particular kind of Englishness has been well-pastiched already by the likes of Wodehouse and Wilde who were both (arguably) better writers than Moorcock and contemporaries of the culture they are pastiching. In the hands of a 21st century novelist the exercise seems a little pointless. I also, for whatever reason, don't find Moorcock's style of pastiche particularly amusing - all these segments just felt laboured and wooden to me, though I'll allow that may be a matter of taste.
Dancers at the End of Time, was playing with a range of ideas such as the contrast between repression and hedonism and the extent to which imperfect recall of history is self-imposed. I still felt the early 20th century bits were laboured and flat but it was at least possible to see the role they were playing in the wider story and themes. Here the pastiche seems to serve no purpose beyond providing a backdrop for the universe threatening activities of General Frank/Freddie Force and his Antimatter Men which draws on the opposition between order and chaos (a favourite theme of Moorcock's). Or rather the heavy-handed pastiche is the story and the plot line dealing with order and chaos is a backdrop. General Frank/Freddie Force and the Antimatter Men only appear once in person and are eventually defeated off-screen by characters playing little other part in the story, one can't help feeling that Moorcock wasn't really all that interested in them, or their threat.
The characterisation of Amy Pond is also pretty dire. Here she's a plucky but largely passive companion, occasionally teasing but never challenging the Doctor, let alone anyone else. However given the book's publication date is 2010 (the year of Amy's debut), I'm going to assume that Moorcock had very little information to go on. The Doctor's characterisation is better, but I think there is enough similarly between Matt Smith and David Tennant's portrayals to make him seem more distinctive. While understandable, a Tardis crew consisting of a generic fast-talking Doctor and an unrecognisable companion, didn't exactly help matters.
A massive disappointment.
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Date: 2015-11-12 08:32 am (UTC)