Made of Steel
The Quick Reads books are designed to appeal to adults who, for one reason or another, are anxious about reading. As such they are intended to be short with a limited vocabulary. I can't quite decide whether Terrance Dicks was an inspired choice to author one of these or a result of a misguided identification of "short with a simple vocabulary" with "suitable for children".
His prose is as effortlessly simple as usual. In fact, it was only in reading this novel, that I actually recognised how distinctive his style is. It wasn't so much his reuse of phrases (and there is some of this including (but not limited to) the infamous "strange wheezing and groaning sound" - although Dicks' use of the phrase probably counts as post-modern by now) but the style itself made me feel powerfully nostalgic: it opens with a viewpoint bit part who you just know is going to die before the end of chapter one, and then he actually stops the narrative to introduce Martha Jones. Obviously there is nothing wrong with this, any author worth their salt makes time to introduce their characters even when they are currently appearing in a hugely popular TV show but somehow the paragraph
"Martha Jones was the Doctor's current companion. A medical student, she had met the Doctor when terrifying alien forces had invaded the hospital where she was training. When it was all over, she had accepted his offer of 'just one trip'. Somehow that one trip had become the first of many."
seemed incredibly typically Dicksian - and tells us pretty much everything we need to know about Martha for the purposes of the story in four sentences. I suspect his ability to write this sort of prose was one of the reasons he was asked to write a Quick Read.
Where the book disappointed was in the actual story which was mostly a traditional Who story in fewer pages, so with no plot twists, few characters and a swift resolution (typical New Who in fact). It was certainly a "quick read" I finished it in a little over an hour. But where last year Gareth Roberts delivered a short, simply written Quick Read in which he nevertheless manage to compare human and Dalek nature, Dicks delivers something that could easily appear in the Children's section and which I would consider reading to Gwendolen if she were a little more interested in Dr Who. This seems a bit of a missed opportunity in a book aimed specifically at adults
His prose is as effortlessly simple as usual. In fact, it was only in reading this novel, that I actually recognised how distinctive his style is. It wasn't so much his reuse of phrases (and there is some of this including (but not limited to) the infamous "strange wheezing and groaning sound" - although Dicks' use of the phrase probably counts as post-modern by now) but the style itself made me feel powerfully nostalgic: it opens with a viewpoint bit part who you just know is going to die before the end of chapter one, and then he actually stops the narrative to introduce Martha Jones. Obviously there is nothing wrong with this, any author worth their salt makes time to introduce their characters even when they are currently appearing in a hugely popular TV show but somehow the paragraph
"Martha Jones was the Doctor's current companion. A medical student, she had met the Doctor when terrifying alien forces had invaded the hospital where she was training. When it was all over, she had accepted his offer of 'just one trip'. Somehow that one trip had become the first of many."
seemed incredibly typically Dicksian - and tells us pretty much everything we need to know about Martha for the purposes of the story in four sentences. I suspect his ability to write this sort of prose was one of the reasons he was asked to write a Quick Read.
Where the book disappointed was in the actual story which was mostly a traditional Who story in fewer pages, so with no plot twists, few characters and a swift resolution (typical New Who in fact). It was certainly a "quick read" I finished it in a little over an hour. But where last year Gareth Roberts delivered a short, simply written Quick Read in which he nevertheless manage to compare human and Dalek nature, Dicks delivers something that could easily appear in the Children's section and which I would consider reading to Gwendolen if she were a little more interested in Dr Who. This seems a bit of a missed opportunity in a book aimed specifically at adults