Genius Loci
I just finished reading Genius Loci by Ben Aaronovitch. This has taken me over six weeks to do which sounds a bit like an appalling comment on the book, but has more to do with Gwendolen's occupation of our bedroom during the whole electrician thing. However it does tell you that the book was not sufficiently gripping to make it out of bedside reading and get taken downstairs.
Ben Aaronovitch was, in my opinion, always the best of the Doctor Who New Adventures writers. His first two novels, "Transit" and "The Also People", are among the best in the range and are marred only by the fact that the first is "Ben Aaronovitch pretends to be William Gibson" and the second is "Ben Aaronovitch pretends to be Iain Banks". His target novelisation of "Remembrance of the Daleks" is also one of the best in its range. Moreover "Remembrance of the Daleks" was, itself, one of the best, and certainly most startling, pieces of Old Style Who. People talk a lot about the dramatic difference between Graham Williams' last and John Nathan-Turner's first Who Stories, but I would contend that the difference between Remembrance and the stories that followed it and those that came before was equally dramatic. My only disappointment with Aaronvitch's output was with "So Vile a Sin" co-written with Kate Orman which, despite being highly praised by many, read to me like a rather generic and rambling piece of Space Opera (of which the New Adventures had several examples). It isn't Kate's best book by a long shot either. It made me concerned that Aaronvitch's own fully novelistic voice was rather inferior and that his talent lay, in fact, in aping the style of others.
"Genius Loci" is, as far as I'm aware, his first solo full length novel written in his own style and not that of someone else. It is a Benny book (Benny being a companion invented for the Virgin New Adventures who subsequently went on to have a book range of her own - think time-travelling, space-faring, archeologist) Fortunately it is a very good read. His style and ideas, it has to be said, are not on the Gibson/Banks level but then whose are? But he has brisk and pleasant prose style, a nice grasp of character and the bravery to spend most of the book simply describing an acheological dig (albeit on a different planet) rather than needing to pile on action and explosions. There is plenty of action and lots of explosions later on but you do get the impression that Aaronovitch is not, actually, terribly interested in them. The most fascinating bit of the book is easily Aaronovitch's imagining of how the first archeological dig on a planet might progress, what the archeologists might look for and how their theories might develop. He retains the stylistic device from both "Remembrance" and "Transit" of quoting sections of imaginary literature within his text and this is particularly successful in this context; conveying the theory of extra-terrestrial archeology as he imagines it in an entertaining fashion. He handles the character of Benny Summerfield with consumate ease, making her instantly identifiable without falling into many of the traps that so easily reduce the character to an idiotic and irresponsible incompetent. He is helped in this, as others have observed*, by being able to locate the story early in her career before she has gained all the trappings of comic academic colleagues and an irritating husband/boyfriend which so often seem to drag down other Benny books. The ending is perhaps a little abrupt and the reader is left to piece together the aftermath. Furthermore the climax rests on a number of rather diverse factions all suddenly joining forces (including an ill-motivated traitor-unmasking) in a rather unconvincing fashion. There is an explanation but you do slightly get the sense that, having set up a rich(ish) political landscape, Aaronovitch got bored with it and decided to have everyone gang up into one faction which could be defeated by a bit of running around and few explosions.
So in summary. Once again this is one of the best books in its range (although the quality of the Benny books is often not great). If you think that Bernice Summerfield is a character with a lot of potential that is often squandered, then it is well worth checking out. It has an interesting premise and engaging characters but there is a sense that the author ran out of interest (or possibly time, this being Aaronvitch) towards the end. If you've never heard of Benny Summerfield, then there is still lots here to like and, as an origin novel, it doesn't overly rely on familiarity with the character. That said it's probably only for those who think the premise (how to start doing archeology on a new planet) holds interest.
*Henry Potts, IIRC, on the sadly now largely moribund JadePagoda.
Ben Aaronovitch was, in my opinion, always the best of the Doctor Who New Adventures writers. His first two novels, "Transit" and "The Also People", are among the best in the range and are marred only by the fact that the first is "Ben Aaronovitch pretends to be William Gibson" and the second is "Ben Aaronovitch pretends to be Iain Banks". His target novelisation of "Remembrance of the Daleks" is also one of the best in its range. Moreover "Remembrance of the Daleks" was, itself, one of the best, and certainly most startling, pieces of Old Style Who. People talk a lot about the dramatic difference between Graham Williams' last and John Nathan-Turner's first Who Stories, but I would contend that the difference between Remembrance and the stories that followed it and those that came before was equally dramatic. My only disappointment with Aaronvitch's output was with "So Vile a Sin" co-written with Kate Orman which, despite being highly praised by many, read to me like a rather generic and rambling piece of Space Opera (of which the New Adventures had several examples). It isn't Kate's best book by a long shot either. It made me concerned that Aaronvitch's own fully novelistic voice was rather inferior and that his talent lay, in fact, in aping the style of others.
"Genius Loci" is, as far as I'm aware, his first solo full length novel written in his own style and not that of someone else. It is a Benny book (Benny being a companion invented for the Virgin New Adventures who subsequently went on to have a book range of her own - think time-travelling, space-faring, archeologist) Fortunately it is a very good read. His style and ideas, it has to be said, are not on the Gibson/Banks level but then whose are? But he has brisk and pleasant prose style, a nice grasp of character and the bravery to spend most of the book simply describing an acheological dig (albeit on a different planet) rather than needing to pile on action and explosions. There is plenty of action and lots of explosions later on but you do get the impression that Aaronovitch is not, actually, terribly interested in them. The most fascinating bit of the book is easily Aaronovitch's imagining of how the first archeological dig on a planet might progress, what the archeologists might look for and how their theories might develop. He retains the stylistic device from both "Remembrance" and "Transit" of quoting sections of imaginary literature within his text and this is particularly successful in this context; conveying the theory of extra-terrestrial archeology as he imagines it in an entertaining fashion. He handles the character of Benny Summerfield with consumate ease, making her instantly identifiable without falling into many of the traps that so easily reduce the character to an idiotic and irresponsible incompetent. He is helped in this, as others have observed*, by being able to locate the story early in her career before she has gained all the trappings of comic academic colleagues and an irritating husband/boyfriend which so often seem to drag down other Benny books. The ending is perhaps a little abrupt and the reader is left to piece together the aftermath. Furthermore the climax rests on a number of rather diverse factions all suddenly joining forces (including an ill-motivated traitor-unmasking) in a rather unconvincing fashion. There is an explanation but you do slightly get the sense that, having set up a rich(ish) political landscape, Aaronovitch got bored with it and decided to have everyone gang up into one faction which could be defeated by a bit of running around and few explosions.
So in summary. Once again this is one of the best books in its range (although the quality of the Benny books is often not great). If you think that Bernice Summerfield is a character with a lot of potential that is often squandered, then it is well worth checking out. It has an interesting premise and engaging characters but there is a sense that the author ran out of interest (or possibly time, this being Aaronvitch) towards the end. If you've never heard of Benny Summerfield, then there is still lots here to like and, as an origin novel, it doesn't overly rely on familiarity with the character. That said it's probably only for those who think the premise (how to start doing archeology on a new planet) holds interest.
*Henry Potts, IIRC, on the sadly now largely moribund JadePagoda.