Review: Doctor Who: The Wheel of Ice

Doctor Who: The Wheel of Ice
by Stephen Baxter

Plot Summary:

She had no name. She had only her mission - she would return Home. And bathe in the light of a long-dead sun... Even if it meant the sacrifice of this pointless little moon to do it.

The Wheel of Ice: a ring of ice and steel turning around a moon of Saturn, home to a colony mining minerals for a resource-hungry future Earth. A bad place to grow up.

The Wheel has been plagued by problems. Maybe it's just gremlins, just bad luck. But what's the truth of the children's stories of 'Blue Dolls' glimpsed aboard the gigantic facility? And why won't the children go down the warren-like mines? And then sixteen-year-old Phee Laws, surfing Saturn's rings, saves an enigmatic blue box from destruction.

Aboard the Wheel, The Doctor, Jamie and Zoe find a critical situation - and three strangers who have just turned up out of nowhere look like prime candidates to be accused of sabotage ... The Doctor finds himself caught up in a mystery that goes right back to the creation of the solar system. But it's a mystery that could have dire repercussions for the people on the Wheel. It's a mystery that could kill them all.

Review:

This novel presents a highly sophisticated and intelligent Doctor Who adventure.  The author does a wonderful job of making a colony built around a moon of Saturn believable because there are so many little details in how and why such a colony can exist.  And with those details, the author drives home the awe and danger of traveling in space which I relished.  I think it added a very complex dimension to the wonder of what the Doctor is capable of in his TARDIS, and the very tenuous hold humanity has on controlling their environment in this story made the danger they are in very immediate.

When it came to the characterizations of the Doctor and his companions, I think the author did a great job - his characterization of Jamie was especially fun and brought out all that is likable and irascible in him.  Zoe was also well rounded - she had fears that she tried to hide and which made her more sympathetic.  The author brought in her past as well which gave her more depth of character.  I did not feel very attached to any of the other characters though - the mayor and her kids and the council.  For some reason I didn't connect with them and that brings me to some odd feelings about this book.  Because while I really admire the way the author crafted this story, I didn't feel very involved with the characters.  I felt like it was lacking somehow in heart, as if there was so much technical skill in the writing and in the details, that the human connection was left out.  It's hard to describe, and I'm probably in a minority to feel this way because this is a really good story.   I just would not call it a page-turner - I was not driven to find out what happens in the end because I didn't really feel invested in the fate of this colony.

And the ending was a bit predicable I have to say.  The bad guy was not very convincing, and I didn't see why the bad guy who was clearly unfit for the job, was allowed to continue with it.  But with such an intelligent, and thought-provoking look at the potential humans have at conquering their solar system, I thought this was a very enlightening story and I think Doctor Who fans should check it out.

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Review: The Time Ships

The Time Ships
by Stephen Baxter

Plot Summary:

There is a secret passage through time ...

and it leads all the way to the end of Eternity. But the journey has a terrible cost. It alters not only the future but the "present" in which we live.

A century after the publication of H. G. Wells' immortal The Time Machine, Stephen Baxter, today's most acclaimed new "hard SF" author, and the acknowledged Clarke, returns to the distant conflict between the Eloi and the Morlocks in a story that is at once an exciting expansion, and a radical departure based on the astonishing new understandings of quantum physics.

Review:

When I first started this book, the insightful intellectual way the author approached time travel really impressed me.  There's so much more to the idea of traveling through time, that thinking about time linearly can not encompass, and the author really opens up your thinking through this story.  I can't pretend that I really understood all of it, especially towards the end, despite the very lucid way the author describes this exploration of time travel.  I think all that scientific information woven into this constantly evolving tale of new futures and new pasts is the highlight of this book.

The author also captures the time traveler's forthright voice in relating his adventures, and because this book is much longer than the original by H.G. Wells, we get a better sense of his character and a better persepective on his actions especially when contrasted with the new, more enlightened Morlock, Nebogipfel.  I think while it was sometimes difficult to sympathize with the time traveler because of his prejudices and his irrational instincts, it was very easy to sympathize with patient and understanding Nebogipfel who seemed to be the best of humanity in an odd inhuman way because he was so rational and his only goal was to obtain information. Which was an interesting idea in the book.  That that is the highest achievement mankind should strive for - trying to learn about everything.  There are a variety of other characters the time traveler encounters on his journeys through time, but these two were the main protagonists, and the other characters, while well drawn, did not stand out as much.  The main focus is on the way the different experiences changes the time traveler.

What really disappointed me about this book was the extreme length.  I felt it started off strong and there were so many ideas and theories to touch on that it was a very interesting read.  But it began to be too much for me after awhile, when every chapter seemed to highlight some new idea or some new world and I really wished the time traveler would settle someplace already.  It's difficult for me to say this because I felt that all the pieces of the story worked together as a whole and probably everything was needed to really explain all the aspects of time travel the author wanted to get across, but the pace became ridiculously slow, and by the last third of the book, I just wanted it to be over.  The ultimate conclusion the time traveler came to, was a little less satisfying as well.  I don't want to give any spoilers, so I won't say much on that except it didn't really seem that it was the best situation for him.

As a thought-provoking and illuminating story, I'd recommend science fiction fans to check this book out.  I personally find time travel fascinating and although the story really grinds to a halt many times, the different scenarios and theories were really very interesting.  It's not a light read, and it's a story that might appeal to a very select group.

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