Review: The Art of Destruction (Public)
Doctor Who: The Art of Destruction by Stephen Cole. HC, 253 pages, BBC Books, 2006.
The Doctor (Ten) and Rose return to Earth in the 22nd century, landing in Africa where bio-engineered food is a necessity, but what's up with the alien tech signals?
*Warning: SPOILERS* One of the things that I like about the books is that not only can they include aliens or "monsters" who would normally be way beyond the budget (or the special effects techniques available), but they also don't have the setting constraints that the series does, so you have an opportunity for more world-wide Earth stories. Of course some of this story could have been recreated in the studio (caves look pretty similar the world over), but a great deal of it (Doctor and Rose walking into a vista of futuristic plants) would have been so prohibitively expensive as to be impractical.
The whole idea of this was pretty good. As usual, I still have a problem with the near-future stories constantly contradicting themselves, but focusing on this one book alone, I rather enjoyed it. The Wyrm made me think of Dune, although they were somewhat different. Now I want to go re-read Dune, it's been ages. Tying the inter-galactical art mystery into the survival of a dead race and the social/enviromental situation worked surprisingly well, and the ending left me satisfied.
This wasn't one of my very favorites but I liked it pretty well. More plot-driven than character-driven and sure to become humorously obsolete in some odd way within 50 years, but overall recommended as an enjoyable read.
The Doctor (Ten) and Rose return to Earth in the 22nd century, landing in Africa where bio-engineered food is a necessity, but what's up with the alien tech signals?
*Warning: SPOILERS* One of the things that I like about the books is that not only can they include aliens or "monsters" who would normally be way beyond the budget (or the special effects techniques available), but they also don't have the setting constraints that the series does, so you have an opportunity for more world-wide Earth stories. Of course some of this story could have been recreated in the studio (caves look pretty similar the world over), but a great deal of it (Doctor and Rose walking into a vista of futuristic plants) would have been so prohibitively expensive as to be impractical.
The whole idea of this was pretty good. As usual, I still have a problem with the near-future stories constantly contradicting themselves, but focusing on this one book alone, I rather enjoyed it. The Wyrm made me think of Dune, although they were somewhat different. Now I want to go re-read Dune, it's been ages. Tying the inter-galactical art mystery into the survival of a dead race and the social/enviromental situation worked surprisingly well, and the ending left me satisfied.
This wasn't one of my very favorites but I liked it pretty well. More plot-driven than character-driven and sure to become humorously obsolete in some odd way within 50 years, but overall recommended as an enjoyable read.