Old Friends
Jun. 8th, 2007 04:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
purplecatI can't quite decide if there is any point in reviewing a run of the mill Bernice Summerfield book here. One of you might decide to pick up a good one if I recommended it but I don't suppose any of you would be disposed to read one otherwise so there seems little point in informing you that "this one's a bit naff" but here goes anyway.
To recap Benny Summerfield is a space faring, archelogist, former companion of the Doctor who proved sufficiently popular to generate her own series of spin off novels.
It's always handy when a book signals the theme in the title. It saves you the intellectual exercise of trying to decipher it for yourself. Old friends is, in fact, three novellas the first and third of which "Cheating the Reaper" and "The Soul's Prism" by Jonathan Clements and Pete Kempshall stick firmly on topic exploring the nature of old friends, how we lose track of them, how they change, how we may have misjudged them and what we owe to them. The middle novella "The Ship of Painted Shadows" by Marc Platt jumps back in time into the "Young Benny" world of Genius Loci and describes the first meeting with one old friend.
Taking the three novellas in turn "Chasing the Reaper" is nearly good. I think it might have worked as a stand-alone novella about a friend's funeral and Benny's reaction to the same. Unfortunately it has to carry the load of providing the set up for the next two novellas and, as such, hardly stands on its own at all since it leaves a number of questions and mysteries all to be solved in "The Soul's Prism". Furthermore I hate Jason Kane (Benny's erstwhile husband and current lover). One of the features of Jason I particular hate (beyond the fact that the Benny/Jason dynamic displays a style of long-term relationship I've only ever witnessed on TV and never in real life) is that Jason and Benny get along (or otherwise) almost entirely based on the dictates of the plot. It is necesssary for a revelation in book three to have appropriate impact that Benny and Jason fail to get along and so, in Chasing the Reaper their relationship once again hits a low (for no good reason plotwise or thematically). Benny and Jason are, frankly, even more irritating as a couple when they are not getting along than when they are. Strip out all the set-up and the irritating Jason stuff and you probably have a rather nice and moving short story, put it all back in and you have a mess.
"The Ship of Painted Shadows" then takes us back in time. I was looking forward to this novella most of the three partly because it was written by Marc Platt who has a talent for evocative prose, striking imagery and big ideas (judging by his two New Adventures novels "Cat's Cradle: Time's Crucible" and "Lungbarrow" * and his Classic Doctor Who episode "Ghostlight"). His major fault, in all three cases, being its sometimes a little tricky to work out exactly what is supposed to be going on. However he has never, in the past been, predictable or dull. The other reason I looked forward to it was because Genius Loci has partly convinced me that, stripped of her husband/colleagues trappings Benny was still a viable and interesting character. Sadly "the Ship of Painted Shadows" is rather depressingly Benny by the numbers. An awful lot of Benny books read a bit like a certain type of 20th century fiction typified, in my mind, by Agatha Christie, only with funny looking aliens taking the parts and a more open attitude to sex. "The Ship of Painted Shadows" largely fits into this, Benny meets a variety of funny looking eccentrics on an intergalactic liner, mysterious shenaningans occur, Benny investigates. Occasionally moments of Marc Platt's old form shine through with a Japanese Nobuki inspired central menace, but mostly this is a space murder mystery runaround and desperately disappointing.
"The Soul's Prism" then picks up again where "Cheating the Reaper" left off with another murder mystery and ties up all the lose ends in the first novella (except for those that link through into, presumably, Big Finish's next Benny audio offering). The centre of this novel is a twist/revelation about one of the key points in Benny's back story (established way back when she was first introduced as a new companion for the Doctor). I won't go into details here in case someone does decide to read the book but I was disatisfied by the revelation. It made Benny appear a lesser person and served, in character terms, only to trigger a further re-asssessment of her relationship with Jason. I'm bored of these. We've been here before. Move along, move along. The murder mystery itself is pretty dull too.
In short, avoid unless you are a big fan of Benny or a hopeless completeist.
* acknowledging here, nevertheless, Lungbarrow's debt to Mervyn Peake.
To recap Benny Summerfield is a space faring, archelogist, former companion of the Doctor who proved sufficiently popular to generate her own series of spin off novels.
It's always handy when a book signals the theme in the title. It saves you the intellectual exercise of trying to decipher it for yourself. Old friends is, in fact, three novellas the first and third of which "Cheating the Reaper" and "The Soul's Prism" by Jonathan Clements and Pete Kempshall stick firmly on topic exploring the nature of old friends, how we lose track of them, how they change, how we may have misjudged them and what we owe to them. The middle novella "The Ship of Painted Shadows" by Marc Platt jumps back in time into the "Young Benny" world of Genius Loci and describes the first meeting with one old friend.
Taking the three novellas in turn "Chasing the Reaper" is nearly good. I think it might have worked as a stand-alone novella about a friend's funeral and Benny's reaction to the same. Unfortunately it has to carry the load of providing the set up for the next two novellas and, as such, hardly stands on its own at all since it leaves a number of questions and mysteries all to be solved in "The Soul's Prism". Furthermore I hate Jason Kane (Benny's erstwhile husband and current lover). One of the features of Jason I particular hate (beyond the fact that the Benny/Jason dynamic displays a style of long-term relationship I've only ever witnessed on TV and never in real life) is that Jason and Benny get along (or otherwise) almost entirely based on the dictates of the plot. It is necesssary for a revelation in book three to have appropriate impact that Benny and Jason fail to get along and so, in Chasing the Reaper their relationship once again hits a low (for no good reason plotwise or thematically). Benny and Jason are, frankly, even more irritating as a couple when they are not getting along than when they are. Strip out all the set-up and the irritating Jason stuff and you probably have a rather nice and moving short story, put it all back in and you have a mess.
"The Ship of Painted Shadows" then takes us back in time. I was looking forward to this novella most of the three partly because it was written by Marc Platt who has a talent for evocative prose, striking imagery and big ideas (judging by his two New Adventures novels "Cat's Cradle: Time's Crucible" and "Lungbarrow" * and his Classic Doctor Who episode "Ghostlight"). His major fault, in all three cases, being its sometimes a little tricky to work out exactly what is supposed to be going on. However he has never, in the past been, predictable or dull. The other reason I looked forward to it was because Genius Loci has partly convinced me that, stripped of her husband/colleagues trappings Benny was still a viable and interesting character. Sadly "the Ship of Painted Shadows" is rather depressingly Benny by the numbers. An awful lot of Benny books read a bit like a certain type of 20th century fiction typified, in my mind, by Agatha Christie, only with funny looking aliens taking the parts and a more open attitude to sex. "The Ship of Painted Shadows" largely fits into this, Benny meets a variety of funny looking eccentrics on an intergalactic liner, mysterious shenaningans occur, Benny investigates. Occasionally moments of Marc Platt's old form shine through with a Japanese Nobuki inspired central menace, but mostly this is a space murder mystery runaround and desperately disappointing.
"The Soul's Prism" then picks up again where "Cheating the Reaper" left off with another murder mystery and ties up all the lose ends in the first novella (except for those that link through into, presumably, Big Finish's next Benny audio offering). The centre of this novel is a twist/revelation about one of the key points in Benny's back story (established way back when she was first introduced as a new companion for the Doctor). I won't go into details here in case someone does decide to read the book but I was disatisfied by the revelation. It made Benny appear a lesser person and served, in character terms, only to trigger a further re-asssessment of her relationship with Jason. I'm bored of these. We've been here before. Move along, move along. The murder mystery itself is pretty dull too.
In short, avoid unless you are a big fan of Benny or a hopeless completeist.
* acknowledging here, nevertheless, Lungbarrow's debt to Mervyn Peake.