Winner Takes All - a review
Winner Takes All, by Jacqueline Rayner
Back of the book: Rose and the Doctor return to present-day Earth, and become intrigued by the latest craze - the video game Death to Mantodeans. Is it as harmless as it seems? And why are so many local people going on holiday and never returning?
Meanwhile, on another world, an alien war is raging. The Quevvils need to find a new means of attacking the ruthless Mantodeans. Searching the galaxy for cunning, warlike but gullible allies, they find the ideal soldiers - on Earth.
Will Rose be able to save her family and friends from the alien threat? And can the Doctor play the game to the end - and win?
Notes:
*Featuring the Ninth Doctor, Rose, Mickey and Jackie
This was a nice read. And although 245 pages seemed quite daunting to my busy life at university (I read this during the autumn semester), it was a startlingly quick read.
This book, I suspect, was written in a god-awful hurry. Its premise is a little cheesey - a video game about killing Mantodeans in which you're actually controlling real humans trapped by the Quevvils. Then again, there are plenty of other Doctor Who stories with a cheesey premise that are pulled off brilliantly, thanks to superb acting, scriptwriting, character development, dialogue, or what have you.
Jacqueline Rayner, unfortunately, does not make the cut. The concept of testing a video game in a local area seems rather strange to me (correct me if I'm wrong and this is actually done in some places), and appears to be a more convenient plot device to keep the issues local. And the manner in which the "game" works, controlling humans and giving them superpowers, no. Science fiction, it is, but at least good science fiction tries to explain things in a somewhat sensible fashion... this does not. Again, it seemed to be more a convenient thing to do so that she could describe (rather accurately) video game action happening to real people, including Rose eventually.
So yeah, the development of Rose being under their control and being played by the Doctor was neat. At least that event was not forced by convenient plot devices, and it certainly forced the Doctor to show how much he cares about his companion. Similarly, Jacqueline gets inside Rose's head for a nicely-done set of thought processes, and how she feels about being helpless at the Doctor's hands. The resenting and the bonding that happens at once is well developed.
Another point of the book that I also appreciated was this little boy, Robert. As usual, there's an innocent bystander trapped by the Quevvils waiting to be 'played' he falls in with the Doctor and/or Rose, and in this book it's Robert. He's your typical young kid who pretends to dislike his mother and has a vivid imagination (though I think it may have been overdone, particularly in his schoolboy crush on Rose). What Jacqueline did with this little character is something I enjoy "big" (involving high-impact characters) stories doing from time to time: give a detailed perspective of the main characters from the eyes of someone small and insignificant. There is a good amount of material where the Doctor's actions are described through Robert's eyes and thoughts, and it is very refreshing. Rather than looking down on the Doctor from above as a tv viewer who knows who he is and what he can do, we got to look way up to him and his amazing endless abilities and talents. It's difficult to explain, but I appreciated it.
Cheesiness and convenient plot events aside, this book still had me a little unsatisfied. It did feel great to have a dose of the ninth doctor again a few months after the season ended, but story-wise it was something of a letdown. It did not take long for me to realize why: there is little to no plot depth to the book. Good stories have more than one plot, more than one level of action. Things are going on with this bunch of people, things are going on with that bunch of people, they interact, complications occur, and both need to be resolved in the end. Only one of them has to be successful, the other can be solved simultaneously or left as a tragedy, etc. Winner Takes All is fairly single-minded. Mickey and Jackie are there, with their own issues, but those issues are related to the main plot. There's a local punk causing trouble, but he gets caught up in the Quevvils' plans and is undone. Some family friends are missing, but that's because they were taken by the Quevvils. There are no two ways about it, and that made for rather a bland story for me. It did make it a quicker read, though - less to think about!
So perhaps my lack of depth issues are just my opinion, but consider it fair warning that this is very simple story, overall. If you're looking for an Eccleston fix, then by all means go for it. If you're looking for fun secondary characters to interact with the Doctor and Rose, then you won't be disappointed either. If you're looking for a good story to read, stay away, though. If there were more 9th Doctor books around to compete, then I would regret having bought this book. But I needed a fix too ;-) Despite that, I'm gonna hafta say 2/5 for this one, sorry.
Back of the book: Rose and the Doctor return to present-day Earth, and become intrigued by the latest craze - the video game Death to Mantodeans. Is it as harmless as it seems? And why are so many local people going on holiday and never returning?
Meanwhile, on another world, an alien war is raging. The Quevvils need to find a new means of attacking the ruthless Mantodeans. Searching the galaxy for cunning, warlike but gullible allies, they find the ideal soldiers - on Earth.
Will Rose be able to save her family and friends from the alien threat? And can the Doctor play the game to the end - and win?
Notes:
*Featuring the Ninth Doctor, Rose, Mickey and Jackie
This was a nice read. And although 245 pages seemed quite daunting to my busy life at university (I read this during the autumn semester), it was a startlingly quick read.
This book, I suspect, was written in a god-awful hurry. Its premise is a little cheesey - a video game about killing Mantodeans in which you're actually controlling real humans trapped by the Quevvils. Then again, there are plenty of other Doctor Who stories with a cheesey premise that are pulled off brilliantly, thanks to superb acting, scriptwriting, character development, dialogue, or what have you.
Jacqueline Rayner, unfortunately, does not make the cut. The concept of testing a video game in a local area seems rather strange to me (correct me if I'm wrong and this is actually done in some places), and appears to be a more convenient plot device to keep the issues local. And the manner in which the "game" works, controlling humans and giving them superpowers, no. Science fiction, it is, but at least good science fiction tries to explain things in a somewhat sensible fashion... this does not. Again, it seemed to be more a convenient thing to do so that she could describe (rather accurately) video game action happening to real people, including Rose eventually.
So yeah, the development of Rose being under their control and being played by the Doctor was neat. At least that event was not forced by convenient plot devices, and it certainly forced the Doctor to show how much he cares about his companion. Similarly, Jacqueline gets inside Rose's head for a nicely-done set of thought processes, and how she feels about being helpless at the Doctor's hands. The resenting and the bonding that happens at once is well developed.
Another point of the book that I also appreciated was this little boy, Robert. As usual, there's an innocent bystander trapped by the Quevvils waiting to be 'played' he falls in with the Doctor and/or Rose, and in this book it's Robert. He's your typical young kid who pretends to dislike his mother and has a vivid imagination (though I think it may have been overdone, particularly in his schoolboy crush on Rose). What Jacqueline did with this little character is something I enjoy "big" (involving high-impact characters) stories doing from time to time: give a detailed perspective of the main characters from the eyes of someone small and insignificant. There is a good amount of material where the Doctor's actions are described through Robert's eyes and thoughts, and it is very refreshing. Rather than looking down on the Doctor from above as a tv viewer who knows who he is and what he can do, we got to look way up to him and his amazing endless abilities and talents. It's difficult to explain, but I appreciated it.
Cheesiness and convenient plot events aside, this book still had me a little unsatisfied. It did feel great to have a dose of the ninth doctor again a few months after the season ended, but story-wise it was something of a letdown. It did not take long for me to realize why: there is little to no plot depth to the book. Good stories have more than one plot, more than one level of action. Things are going on with this bunch of people, things are going on with that bunch of people, they interact, complications occur, and both need to be resolved in the end. Only one of them has to be successful, the other can be solved simultaneously or left as a tragedy, etc. Winner Takes All is fairly single-minded. Mickey and Jackie are there, with their own issues, but those issues are related to the main plot. There's a local punk causing trouble, but he gets caught up in the Quevvils' plans and is undone. Some family friends are missing, but that's because they were taken by the Quevvils. There are no two ways about it, and that made for rather a bland story for me. It did make it a quicker read, though - less to think about!
So perhaps my lack of depth issues are just my opinion, but consider it fair warning that this is very simple story, overall. If you're looking for an Eccleston fix, then by all means go for it. If you're looking for fun secondary characters to interact with the Doctor and Rose, then you won't be disappointed either. If you're looking for a good story to read, stay away, though. If there were more 9th Doctor books around to compete, then I would regret having bought this book. But I needed a fix too ;-) Despite that, I'm gonna hafta say 2/5 for this one, sorry.