REVIEW: DOCTOR WHO: THE BOG WARRIOR

Cover by Two Associates/Woodlands Books

DOCTOR WHO:

THE BOG WARRIOR

TIME TRIPS BOOK 6

BY

CECELIA AHERN

ISBN: 978-1-44814-237-8

 Pages: 33

Publisher: BBC Books/Ebury Publishing

Published: 8 May 2014

On the cover:

(From the publisher's website.)

Arriving on the planet Cashel, the Tenth Doctor witnesses a strange masked ball. To guarantee peace, Prince Zircon has to choose a bride from the Bog People – dead men and women who have been resurrected as slaves. Or as warriors. But Zircon is in love with the enslaved Princess Ash, whose parents were deposed and executed by the current Queen. As usual, the Doctor has walked right into trouble, and it's up to him to sort it out.

   I am a big fan of Doctor Who. I am also a big fan of Fairy Tales, both traditional and modern. This story satisfies my enjoyment of both of those things.
   No attempt is made here to hide that this is inspired by Fairy Tales. There are lots of small details, and some larger plotpoints, that are clearly taken straight out of the Fairy Tales that have been adapted by Disney. If you have read a bit of Fairy Tales, you can have fun spotting where the influence comes from.
   That is not meant to suggest that this is unoriginal, or just a straight retelling, it is far from either of those. There are some delicious twists on what you'd expect from a Fairy Tale, and this story definitely takes its own paths.

   This is not a long story by any means, but Ahern has still managed to get some complexity into it. She is showing she is very good at tight plotting, there is nothing here that is wasted. What is here though is a story that feels like it should take up more pages than it actually does. It is actually bigger on the inside. (Sorry for the pun...)
   The structure is pretty classic Doctor Who. The Doctor arrives at a planet, notices something strange, and meddles. But it doesn't feel like this is something that have been done many times before.
   The way Ahern draws us into the events at the same time as The Doctor works very well. We get to discover what is going on with The Doctor. There is a feeling that we are there with him, even though we don't have a companion that can take our place in the story. Some of this is because the Fairy Tale setting is so familiar. I think everyone will be aware of at least some of the references made. But the most important element that pulls the reader in is Ahern's writing. She gets us on an intimate footing with the characters, and that she does it by playing on familiar emotional tropes does not detract from how well she does it.

   As mentioned above there is some interesting twists to the familiar in this story. A big one has to do with the nature of some of the characters. I really liked that, it is an excellent twist and it makes for a much more complex world than the black & white that some Fairy Tale retellings descend into.
   There is plenty of tension here, it's not a given that the story turns out the way it does. The pacing is also on the faster side of things, which is good when the story is this short. There are no unnecessary breaks here, and this is definitely something to read in one go. It would be hard not to.

   I found this to be really enjoyable. It has absolutely everything you could want from a Fairy Tale, and it is a great Doctor Who story. Ahern is without doubt a very good writer, and she tells a tale that I don't hesitate to call essential for anyone who enjoys a good Fairy Tale retelling. There is also plenty to enjoy here for the Doctor Who fan who wants a strong standalone story with the Tenth Doctor.
   This is simply an excellent Fairy Tale and Doctor Who crossover.

NOTE: I got an e-ARC of this from the publisher/NetGalley.

REVIEWS: You can find a full list of my Doctor Who reviews here. (Including the first five Time Trips stories.)

LINKS: Cecelia Ahern   Ebury Publishing

REVIEW: 11.22.63

Cover photo: Press Association Images

11.22.63

BY

STEPHEN KING

ISBN: 978-1-444-72729-6

Pages: 740

Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton

Published:  8 November 2011

On the cover:

Jake Epping is an English teacher in Lisbon Falls, Maine, who makes extra money teaching in an adult education programme. One day, he receives an essay from one of his students - a harrowing first person story about the night, fifty years earlier, when Harry Dunning's father came home and killed Harry's mother, his sister, and his brother with a sledgehammer.

Later, Jake's friend Al, who runs the local diner, divulges an extraordinary secret: his storeroom is a portal to 1958. He enlists Jake on an insane - and insanely possible - mission to try to prevent the Kennedy assassination.

Inspired by his desire to put things right for Harry Dunning, Jake leaves a world if iPods and mobile phones for a new world of Elvis and JFK, of big American cars, root beers and Lindy Hopping. It is a haunting world of a troubled loner named Lee Harvey Oswald and a beautiful high school librarian named Sadie Dunhill, who becomes the love of Jake's life - a life that transgresses all the normal rules of time.

   A new Stephen King novel is always a treat for me, and I had been looking forward to this one since I first heard about it. King tackling time-travel sounded especially interesting. 
   King manages to tackle the time travel very well, he's not exactly doing it in a Hard SF way and this may disappoint science fiction fans. But I thought the idea of how the world was affected by it in the small scale was very well done. I also liked what happened when a subsequent travel takes place. (Sorry for being vague, but I feel it is too much a spoiler to be more specific.)


   The book starts out as a pretty traditional style time travel novel. And it continues in that way for a while, but then King changes tracks. Jake Epping is staying for a long time in the past, and the book becomes much more about how America was in the late fifties and early sixties. Something King has written about before, and something he is very good at. There's even room for an excursion to post-IT, something I, and I'm sure any other fan of IT will enjoy. From there the novel moves from King's "comfort zone" in New England and into the south, and it is here that the main part of the story takes place.


   The historical part of this novel centres around Lee Harvey Oswald, and we really learn a lot about the man. I found this part of the novel fascinating, although at times it seems that King is using a lot of space to paint Oswald as a villain. The events he describes may be historically correct, but I didn't really feel they added enough to the story that so much of it had to be included.
   The most interesting part to me, is the part of the story were we see Jake Epping settling into his new life in the past. King handles this expertly, even the romance he has found place for is very well done and feels realistic.


   This is by no means King's best novel, and I doubt it will make it into many peoples top five King novels, but that doesn't mean it is a weak novel. I thoroughly enjoyed following Jake Epping on his journey in the past, and there is enough action and suspense here to make it a book that seems a quicker read than its page count suggests it is. 
   You don't have to be a King completist to enjoy this, it is a great novel for anyone who likes King. And for anyone with an interest in the JFK assassination and Lee Harvey Oswald this is a must. It's not a bad starting point for anyone who hasn't read King either, there's not any SFF here except for the time travel, so anyone not familiar with SFF should be able to get into it easily.
   With the holidays coming up, this is a great book to put on your wish list and read while you wait for the New Year to come around.


Reviews: The Shining, Bag of Bones, Four Past Midnight

Links: Stephen King, Hodder & Stoughton