Jon de Burgh Miller

http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/2766518.html

This is the very last of the Bernice Summerfield Virgin New Adventures, closing a series of 23 novels which I think is the longest sequence for any one companion (there are only 19 Torchwood books). It's decent enough but not great; it winds up the Gods storyline established earlier in the sequence, without really tying much into the books in between. Benny, Jason and Irving Braxiatel get some good moments, and there is a crazed cult bent on human sacrifice. The series doesn't really end with a bang, but it's not a whimper either.… (más)

What a way to go out! And what I mean by that, is that the New Adventures have gone out with a total whimper: the last three novels have just been boring and dull, the narrative potential of the Gods arc totally squandered. Here, basically Benny just got to do some technobabble and the allegedly universe-shattering problem that she's been up against is solved so easily. Add in yet another previously-unseen-but-supposedly-very-well-known-colleague-of-Benny's-from-St.-Oscar's, and you have a banal action-adventure plot that delivers on none of the neat stuff about faith set up by Rebecca Levene and Simon Winstone in Where Angels Fear.

(As a side note, it was amusing to note that I don't think Dave Stone ever read this book, as nothing he says about the hell dimension Jason was in in The Dead Man Diaries and The Infernal Nexus really relates to the one he ends up in here; probably someone just told him, "Jason's in a hell dimension," and he just went and did his own thing, as he so often does.)

I've been reading the Bernice Summerfield New Adventures on-and-off for ten years now, and since April 2012, I've read one of them every three months (more or less) in an effort to finally finish the series off-- which now I've done at last. To be honest, I don't think it ever really delivered on its potential. The narrative arcs were either halting or uninteresting, the early insistence on providing frothy sci-fi standalones meant Bernice never really grew or developed as a character, and the writers/editors obviously never really committed to a recurring cast of characters-- the only characters who were carried from book to book were the ones already introduced in Doctor Who (Jason, Braxiatel, and Chris). There's a lot of potential in Benny as a character, as Big Finish's later work would show, but these twenty-three books have a surprisingly few number of highlights.… (más)

http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/1956469.html

Another Second Doctor novel featuring Ben and Polly (no less than five spinoff books are set between The Power of the Daleks and The Highlanders, if you count a Telos novella and an annual). Although there is an interesting idea here of alien intelligences infesting the movie industry (done better than in Pratchett's Moving Pictures, though this really isn't saying much), it is let down badly by the writer's failure to get American idiom at all accurately and by some ludicrous plot points - at one point a murder suspect outwits two policemen guarding his home to smuggle a corpse inside, for instance. And poor Polly gets possessed / hypnotised yet again.… (más)

"Whatever's going on, I can sense that it's evil." His voice dropped to a cold whisper. "And evil must be fought."

The Doctor, Ben, and Polly get involved with a murder mystery, a quasi-religious cult, a slimy movie director, a crooked police chief, and a sinister propaganda film that is certainly more than it seems. Welcome to the City of Angels, Doc!

Many have claimed that Dying in the Sun is just Doctor Who meets L.A. Confidential. Good thing L.A. Confidential is one of my favorite films. To be fair, the novel only starts out like a typical noir-ish crime story. By the second half, the novel reads more like the usual science-fiction adventure you would expect.

The regulars are well-portrayed, even if Ben doesn't have much to do in this one besides hanging around with the Doctor and shouting "Oi!" at people if they threaten his Time Lord pal. Polly, although under the psychic influence of the baddies in the second half, also comes across like she did on-screen. Then there's the Doctor, who is portrayed magnificently in this novel. I could hear Pat Troughton's voice every time the Doctor had a line of dialogue, and Jon de Burgh Miller gets all the mannerisms correct too -- gleefully rubbing his hands together, pulling silly frowny faces, sneaking about and popping out directly in front of someone (usually scaring the living daylights out of them). Much like he did on-screen, the Doctor is not afraid to play the fool, not afraid to appear weak or make the baddies think he's on their side. Suffice to say, there's no 'bland' 2nd Doctor curse in this particular book.

As for the main plot, it's fun and would've probably fit in well with some of the more mind-bending Troughton era stories. A new film, Dying in the Sun, is soon to be released. Through a typically haphazard turn of events, the Doctor and friends are invited to the pre-release screening party. They soon discover that the film has a seriously potent amount of psychic power over those who watch it, and the special effects are just too ahead of their time to be in a film from 1947. Mayhem ensues as the Doctor tries to get the film shut down before it's public release.

The author could've hit everyone over the head with the underlying themes here: the powers of propaganda and Hollywood influence, but he just leaves it be and tells the story, and the novel is all the better for it. Later in the story, the Doctor encounters the aforementioned cult, and it's quite obviously a send-up of the current Scientology craze in Hollywood, but Miller again restrains himself and doesn't go for any real low blows or cheap shots.

The only serious complaint I have about Dying in the Sun is how the era the novel was set in wasn't tapped into very much at all. It didn't exactly scream '1947' to me. The descriptions of the setting, Hollywood, are perfectly fine, but it could've been set in modern times without altering much of the story at all. Where are all the cars from 1947? The clothes? The headline stories? There's not even that many movie-related references from the time period, which is strange given the subject matter of the novel. There's just a lone reference to King Kong (which was out decades before this is set), and a couple of Disney films from that period.

However, flaws aside, Dying in the Sun is still an enjoyable page-turner, especially for long-suffering Troughton fans looking for another good 2nd Doc tale to sink their teeth into. Highly recommended.… (más)