According to Wikipedia Craig Hinton taught mathematics and was an all-around sci-fi fan. He held the post of Coordinator for the Doctor Who Appreciation Society before becoming an author of Doctor Who novels. His general geekiness and fandom shone through well in Synthespians™ as the world of Doctor Who had a little bit of Cthulhu injected into it. More on that later.
Synthespians™ is again a Sixth Doctor book. After a bit of trouble traversing the Time Vortex, the TARDIS lands in what is ostensibly 1960s London. But the sky is wrong meaning that it is most definitely not Earth. The Doctor and Peri find a large wall separating the area in which they landed from the adjacent one. A section opens and a car comes buzzing through. Peri manages to slip through but The Doctor is too late. A very early separation of our heroes. The Doctor decides that a pub would be the best way to reconnoiter while Peri finds herself in 1980s Los Angeles.
The world is Reef Station One and it houses the television production facilities for the New Earth Republic. The NER is cutoff from the rest of the galaxy. Its inhabitants lead nice lives, never struggling to get by. With all needs taken care of people fill their lives with TV with 8,000-year old transmissions from Earth being hyper-trendy. The Doctor runs into Marcus Brooks, an actor who was written out of the newly-revived soap opera Executive Desires at the behest of Dominique Delacroix, a fellow star of the show who was highly unamused when Brooks was unresponsive to her moves on him. Peri meets up with Claudia Bruderbakker, daughter of wealthy industrialist Charles Bruderbakker and stepdaughter to Joan. Joan is simply a trophy wife concerned with nothing but her looks and material well-being. Needless to say, she and Claudia do not get along well at all.
At the center of Reef Station One is Walter J. Matheson III, another mega-rich businessman. He is out to take over Republica Communications and so makes its owner, August deValle, an offer he can't refuse. Aside from being the T. Boone Pickens of his time, Matheson is up to something else and that something else comes in the form of a purple sphere.
It eventually comes to light that Matheson is working with the Nestene Consciousness and that means Autons. There are some great chase sequences here where Peri, Claudia, and The Doctor do any and everything to avoid them. However, many on Reef Station One aren't so lucky and, in passages that would probably never make it to TV, the slaughter of people at the (ahem) hands of the Autons is pretty gruesome. Hinton adds a bit to Doctor Who lore by having the Nestene Consciousness be the offspring of Shub-Niggurath, a Lovecraftian Great Old One from the Cthulhu mythos. It's a subtle but fun reference that could only come from an übergeeky fan.
The social commentary is right up front here with the denizens of NER having little else to do but watch TV and mindlessly purchase all the material goods they can. This leads to the demise of many as there's little to be done to an electric toothbrush that is actually an Auton. Actually, the revolt of the household appliances bit was rather funny. Also funny was the scene where The Doctor meets Brooks. The actor describes his fate as handed to him by Ms. Delacroix as "Actually, that's not quite true. She just wanted me back for one act just so that I could die." The Doctor's reply was, "That sounds terribly unfair. I don't think I'd stand for that either." which is a reference to Colin Baker's circumstances after he was booted from the role.
Synthespians™ was a fun read even if it wallowed in the parody of soap opera conventions just a little bit too much. By far the biggest disappointment was the neither Brooks nor Claudia moved much beyond the realm of cardboard cut-outs. I wish that Hinton had developed them more. Claudia was basically and extra pair of hands and someone to keep Peri company while separated from The Doctor. Brooks has a much larger role to play in the grand scheme of things but he spends much of his time wandering or just hovering in the background.
On the other hand, Matheson is a pretty good villain. He's diabolical, crafty, likes to tell The Doctor what his plans are before doing away with the Time Lord, etc. In other words, he's all that we expect from a bad guy. While I wouldn't argue that his character is fully developed, I did appreciate that his motivations were not all that they appeared at first.
No comments:
Post a Comment