The Room With No Doors - Kate Orman
finished this a while ago too, but am just now getting around to reviewing it. *is a slow decrepit Q*
nutshell: loved it. the thing i love about doctor who being in the hands of old-school fans is that it's not afraid to have a little fun at its own expense. and this story strikes just the right balance: gentle, good-natured ribbing rather than blunt post-modern mockery. the scene where chris and the doctor provide an mst3k-like running commentary as a bunch of disembodied floating heads rampage through a feudal japanese village was absolutely delicious. there's also places where the humour hits you out of nowhere with an unexpected left hook, which is one of the things i love the best about orman's writing: 'all those with telekinesis, raise my hand.'
the humour's very well balanced, though, by a nicely thoughtful subplot of chris questioning whether being the doctor's companion is something he still wants to do, or whether it's even good for him anymore (btw, i'm still pronouncing it 'kwedge', dammit. you spell it like that; that's how i'm pronouncing it. that's just how it works). years before new who started asking more mature questions of the series' lead characters, the new adventure books were doing it, and this story is a good reminder of just how insightful the results could be.
the only real problem i had here was the same problem i have with all old-school who, and especially the new adventure novels: caring about the secondary plot/characters. the feuding warlords and samurai all sort of blended together after a while...but thankfully, they were brilliantly overshadowed by the motley crew that join chris and the doctor in the village, any one of whom i would have loved to see in an actual episode. talker - a small-human-sized crow-like creature whose job it is to communicate with outsiders - is a triumph, and is seriously my brand-new hero. the scene where she literally lays an egg in the middle of tense diplomatic negotioations has got the be the best LOL scene i've read in at least the past ten years. the caxtarid's swearing-patter made me lol, as did talker's grumpy disregard for, well, just about everything. and penelope gate would have made one hell of a companion: she's clever, inventive, inquisitive, adventurous, and - perhaps most importantly to me, in light of new who - NOT in love with the doctor. or shy about ripping him a proverbial new one when he's being a jackass, come to that.
on a personal note, i'm very glad a little birdie (ha!) tipped me off to this book's existence, because i stopped reading the new adventure novels about eleven years ago. but my experience with a handful of the characters in rp before opening the book made the whole reading experience indescribably delicious. in fact, i kept finding excuses not to read any further as i got closer to the finish, because i didn't want it to end...it was the most fun i've ever had reading a novel, and likely the most fun i ever will have reading a novel.
sadly the book is out of print now, but it's still available used on sites like amazon, and i highly recommend it. and for further recommendation, here's the blurb from the discontinuity guide.
Q
oh, and in my imagination, talker and psychokinetic went and found themselves a nice little place surrounded by huge gardens where they raised lots of eggs together. the end. :)