Lay Away Book Special: A good end, but troubled by Zoe

The Wheel of Ice recovers in its final fifty pages. Everything gets resolved, there's that familiar pang of regret felt by the Doctor, Zoe, and Jamie as they once more must leave on the cusp of celebrations, and there's the characteristic cliffhanger, which, more often than not, involves something going wrong in the TARDIS.

I've seen and heard enough Doctor Who to be aware of all of that, but I'm not sure that I've seen enough of the show while Zoe is an active companion. I understand that she's supposed to be from the future, and the product of an educational system (not to mention a culture) that prizes logic and calculation above creativity and emotion. But the reason that she went with the Doctor in the first place (which reason is specifically referenced in The Wheel of Ice) is to broaden her horizons and to see what, aside from logic, is out there.

For the most part, Baxter shows Zoe doing just that, and any sort of apprehension on her part is explained away by it being so close to her own time. What she sees around her, the drudgery, the poverty, the strife, it all makes her uncomfortable since it's so unlike her own time despite much of the tech and ambitions being similar.

This discomfort is fine in most events and cases, but she seems oddly stiff in the final chapters of the book where she's responsible for babysitting Casey, Phee's younger sister. Not just stiff in the way that someone who's not fond of or used to children would be, but almost to the point of her seeming to be some sort of logic-only robot. As this part of Zoe's arc moves forward she loosens up and becomes more comfortably supportive, but the way there felt forced.

It makes sense within the story that Zoe would be put on babysitting duty, as she had been before, but placing this part of her development parallel to Jamie's running about with kids from the Wheel to disarm a bomb, and the Doctor and Phee's trip to Mnemosyne's core make it seem like she's being shuffled off to the side. It just doesn't sit well with me.

Aside from that smudge, Baxter keeps well to Doctor Who's internal logic throughout the book's ending. In fact, making the beginning and the ending bookend the story as they do completes the sense that this story isn't something just recently created, but that it's a novelization of some lost Second Doctor serial.

Lay away book special: The Wheel starts wobbling

Baxter makes a bold move in the penultimate fifty pages of The Wheel of Ice. Where before chapter followed chapter rather closely and major events weren't skipped over, he breaks both precedents here.

Apparently there was quite the kerfuffle around Phee's going back to Mnemosyne after the previous party had to flee a more war-prone make of the Blue Dolls. But we're not privy to that forum's details and Baxter leaves little about it in the scenes following. I had to make sure I hadn't missed a chapter, since the references to the debate sound like previous instances of references to other events that happened earlier in the story.in the narrative 

Similarly, we're outright told that the rings of Saturn are the memories of the ship embedded in Mnemosyne. There's no scene or revelation delivered mid-chapter, we're just outright told. Though, strangely, in the chapter after the secret of the rings is told, the Doctor has a bit of dialogue that could easily have been the big revelation of said secret.

This seemingly switched pair of chapters, along with bits like "Jo Laws called a council meeting in her home in Res Three. A meeting of sorts." make this section of the book feel rushed. It's almost as though Baxter had to edit things down in great haste.

Fortunately, the book's ideas and its fantastical elements remain in tact. Now all that's left is to pull off a grand ending.

Everyday future tech

In the dome of Titan that the rebels from the Wheel have set up there's a disturbing machine. It's a waste recycler that changes human waste - human body waste - into food. Or, as Jamie puts it the machine turns human waste into "things like biscuits that weren't biscuits, bowls of stuff like mushroom soup that wasn't mushroom soup" (164).

The strangest part of this though, and the whole book, really, is that Baxter doesn't dwell on explaining the technology that he presents. He gives a quick run down of how it works in scientific terms, and then moves right along. This isn't a detriment. Instead, such a quick treatment makes the technology that he describes seem all the more real. As if it's so everyday and common that readers will already know the ins and outs of it.

What I do wonder, though, is whether or not such a recycler's output would suffer from diminishing returns. If the source of your nutrients is always your own waste, stuff that passes after your body's taken what it can, then wouldn't you eventually be making food that was nutrient neutral?

Lay away book special: An icy wheel of body and soul

It's only given a bit of dialogue, but Stephen Baxter's mention of how artificial intelligences are treated in The Wheel of Ice makes sense. This bit of dialogue is spoken by Luis Reyes, the ambassador from the Planetary Ethics Commission, on page 116 when he's inspecting the destroyed mining machine. Despite the brevity of its expression, the idea that an artificial intelligence could become distressed or feel guilt is something I'd never considered before.

It's a concept that's new to me, and yet something that would be needed to make any artificial intelligence human - particularly if it's an AI designed to carry out the objectives of a company but that finds itself physically unable to do so.

This idea may seem to underscore the notion of a mind/body split, but it does just the opposite. It's the body's failing that throws the mind into distress, suggesting a direct connection. The two parts of the whole (even the machine whole) are out of harmony and so it's not so much a moment that emphasizes the separation of body and mind, but that highlights the importance of one to the other and vice versa.

Interestingly, earlier in the book (on page 107) the Doctor passes a comment about the damage imprisonment will do to the colony's children's souls. This sentiment doesn't get developed any further, but once more prods the issue of how the mind and the body are connected.

Since this concern runs parallel with that of Reyes' concern for the AI in the destroyed mining machine, it's fair to guess that the entity from the book's prologue must be an intelligence of sorts, one who was possibly the bigger body from which the moon called Mnemosyne came. Perhaps it was even the intelligent system of a ship, and the Blue Dolls that the TARDIS crew and heads of the Wheel have now encountered en masse are that ship's security system, or its own crew.

Lay away book special: Looking for the hand that spins the wheel

The Wheel of Ice was maybe a script before it was a novel. That's the sense that I get from an oddity of the book's organization. Every time there's a flashback, it isn't presented as the stuff of a regular chapter, or even given space as its own. Instead they're delivered in multi-sectioned interludes.

These parts of the book let the flashbacks breathe, greatly benefiting the characters within them. But otherwise, unless there's some sort of editorial business at work here, I don't see why they need to be separate from the rest of the story.

Granted, separating them out like this does make them into more than just an embedded reminiscence. I'm not sure that seeing Phee's maternal ancestry as they passed the amulet down to her would have had quite the same impact if we were constantly reminded that she and Jamie were huddled in a shelter on Encephalaus with the rest of those gone skiing.

Speaking of which, the character of Jo, Phee's mom, reminds me of Lucca's mom from Chrono Trigger. They didn't come to be confined to wheelchairs for the same reasons, but it's perfectly within reason to say that Jo's character is a soldier version of Lara's.

Pushing the Chrono Trigger connection further, the amulet that Phee always has with her is now implicated as an object that has travelled through time. Could Stephen Baxter have played the RPG classic and taken a lead from Marle's pendant?

Alternatively, the amulet's origin in a "fossil" could be a nod to the Fourth Doctor story The Hand of Fear.

In this serial, Sarah Jane Smith becomes hypnotized by a ring on the fossilized hand of the Kastrian criminal Eldrad, and brings about his resurrection. The ring is found in 1970s Earth, and though it's been dormant for millions of years rather than having travelled through time, the same sort of idea is at work: A piece of ancient alien technology is on Earth, is discovered by someone and one way or another its true purpose is fulfilled. That's just what seems to be happening with Phee's amulet and the strange blue ceramic-y beings the miners of the Wheel are starting to encounter.

If this pattern is being followed, then all that's left is the why. Given the book's tagline of "Resilience. Remembrance. Restoration. Whatever the cost." and the prologue about the intelligence responsible for these things, the why looks like it'll be because that intelligence failed. Shifting the question to the how.

Lay away book special: A perspective on Baxter's world building

I'm really digging The Wheel of Ice. Not only do you have the second Doctor, Jamie, and Zoe, but even the incidental characters have great potential. Characters like Phee, her older brother Sam, younger sister Casey; their mother Jo; and this Luis Reyes person apparently on the wheel as a kind of moral police. Even aside from the whole mining colony on a fragmented moon in Saturn's ring setting, Baxter has created quite a vivid world in characters alone.

In particular, the different classes ranging from "A" to "D" are downright curious. As far as I can figure they're not related to family - since Phee is an "A", Sam is a "C" and their mother is a "B." There's definitely some sort of merit system involved, but what exactly it's based on hasn't come up yet. The intrigue around the "Blue Dolls" that are apparently sabotaging the wheel also goes a long way to breathing life into this imagined colony. Nothing breathes life into something quite like a potentially imagined crisis, after all.

However, I find Baxter's treatment of perspective to be a little bit jarring. We're given different characters' perspectives throughout the novel, but they're quite entrenched in those characters' own viewpoints. It's not entirely a matter of just reporting things from a set character's perspective because they're there to see them happen (as it often felt was the case in Shada).

Instead, there's a lot more fluid internal monologue going on, though perspectives regularly shift mid-chapter. So, for example, we'll begin a chapter in Zoe's perspective, but then the Doctor will come in and Zoe will leave, and we'll jump into the Doctor's head. Maybe reading A Song of Ice and Fire has made me used to a one character/chapter form, but jumping between characters in the same chapter will definitely take some getting used to.

Lay away book special: The wheel begins to turn

There's a marked difference in the style and voice of Gareth Roberts' Shada and Stephen Baxter's The Wheel of Ice. Both are Doctor Who novels, one being a novelization of a serial that never aired, and the other an original second Doctor story. This difference alone could be enough to explain the difference in styles, but I don't think it goes quite far enough.

Baxter's style is much colder, for starters. Not only does this suit the subject of The Wheel of Ice, it's also closer to the tone of many second Doctor stories. The second Doctor himself (as played by Patrick Troughton), is anything but cold, but more often than not the stories he finds himself embroiled in political intrigue, plots that have huge repercussions and futuristic societies that have a tinge of dystopia about them. The Wheel of Ice is already looking like this sort of story, though I've only read four of the book's 47 chapters. Shada on the other hand, is a story simply immersed in all of the zany science fiction (with a helping of comedy) that is Tom Baker's era as the Doctor.

The difference is very refreshing, particularly because Stephen Baxter's writing style is closer to my own. Also, the book's opening promises many more interesting characters than those found in Shada, which ought to make for a more rapturous read.

Lay away book special: Closing Shada down

Because, in the Doctor Who universe, Rassilon's got a hand in everything, there's even an insult named after him. Well, an insulting gesture, anyway.

This revelation might  be the highest point in the novelized Shada's wrap-up. That's not to say the ending is disappointing,  it's just a little generic.

Clare's role ends up being quite interesting, though. Throughout the novel she's aware of herself taking subservient roles when with the Doctor or the Professor, though she can never really explain why. Ultimately, though, she winds up as a kind of human Romana, a circumstance which undercuts the kind of variety having so many companions about brings. All the more so because Clare gets close to being what Liz Shaw was: as near the Doctor's scientific equal as a human can be.

Jumping to the book's actual ending, once more the afterword would have made a better foreword. In it, Roberts puts his version of Shada into the context of contemporary Doctor Who and Douglas Adams own body of work. This context brings the whole story into perspective, particularly the fact that Adams wasn't pleased with it.

In fact, when asked to do the six episode season seventeen finale, Adams wanted to write a story about the Doctor going into retirement, re-discovering himself, and then going back to planet saving by serial's end. That such a story is almost what we've recently seen play out with the eleventh Doctor shows just how  much of a visionary Adams could be.

As per Gareth Roberts' novelization of Shada, it is a thumping 70s sci-fi read.

Lay away book special: Shada's slang

Being written originally by a Brit and being novelized by a Brit, Gareth Roberts' Shada is full of slang.

For instance there's the Doctor's reference to "bung[ing] in peace across the universe" (on page 261). Translated into North American English, this simply means to casually throw away or give (http://www.peevish.co.uk/slang/b.htm). Though that doesn't fully spell out the Doctor's meaning of casually travelling the cosmos.

Much more curious is the labelling of prisoners' rooms on Shada. Instead of being cells and blocks, the prisoners are in "chambers" and "cabinets" (page 286). These two words carry a lot of political weight in any English, but the second is also associated with storage.

Considering that Shada's a prison locked out of the regular flow of time, such an association seems appropriate. All the more so since the prison was designed to be a holding facility while the death penalty's legality was debated on Gallifrey. Nonetheless, referring to cells as cabinets is eerie.

Doing so implies a strong desire to see those imprisoned within as merely objects. It's a subtextual meaning of "cabinet" that dehumanizes what is within; effectively turning whatever is into "contents."

On the one hand, such dehumanization of Shada's inmates suggests that Gallifrey was truly torn on the matter of the death penalty. Those who were headed for it could only be officially recognized as objects.

On the other hand, the rhetorical flourish implies a dehumanization of the politicians embroiled in the debate (at least from a human perspective). Though their dehimanization would be to a more positive end: the coming together of many to rationally decide the best course of action for the group.

The way that the Doctor and Romana speak of the ancient Time Lords, though, suggests that their politicians were anything but coolly rational. All of which points to the strange pointedness of the two contexts of "cabinet" found here.

Lay away book special: Going swimmingly

The adventures of The Doctor and co. as they struggle with Skagra remain unchanged. Not that I expected them to change, but Shada's written just like any other novelization. If Douglas Adams ever did any novelizations.

That said, Roberts manages the book's pace well, leaving me with one quibble.

Every chapter takes the perspective of a different character (or group of characters). Roberts keeps these perspectives in rotation, but, one has been under-used so far. This is the perspective of Clare Keightley, Chris' colleague.

My sense of this matter is that Claire will play a major role in the story's conclusion. Hopefully though, she doesn't just confess her feelings for Chris or vice versa at the end of her arc.

Lay away book special: Further notes on the reconstruction

The most interesting thing about Gareth Roberts' Shada is its frequently short chapters.

Such two to three page chapters, sometimes referred to as attention span-sized, give a sense of a plot in motion. It's a style choice that makes the novel's TV script origins clear. It also makes the book feel like it has Douglas Adams' own sense of wackiness, the sense that he got across with his breaks for entries from the Hitchhiker's Guide itself.

So far, none of this takes away from the story, or the way it's told. In fact, heading into the book's second third, the novelization continues to be a strong imitation of Adams' style, and a compelling reconstruction of a Doctor Who serial that almost wasn't.

Lay away book special: "Sha! da!"

Gareth Roberts' reconstruction of Douglas Adams' Shada is a mixed bag.

Up to the fifth chapter, Roberts  does a fine impression of Adams' narrative voice. Much of the narrative has the flavour of The Hitchhiker's Guide, and I have no trouble imagining Tom Baker as the story's Doctor. That may be simply because that's who played the Doctor at the time the original script was written, but nonetheless.

Now, I can't say the first chapter is particularly strong. Showing the major villain and his/her plot straight away is fine for television, but presents a challenge in print.

After all, seeing the inner workings of a madman is kind of meaningless if we've no other characters by which to measure him. A book could very easily be populated by sociopaths.

Roberts really only grasped my attention when Chris Parsons (the hapless protagonist) and Prof. Chronotis (an eccentric old man) were introduced. Both of these characters are better reader proxies and, by extension, are easier to care about. After chapter two I wanted to read more.