Thursday 28 November 2013

DW: Harvest of Time

Okay, this should be my last DW post for a while. And this one is about Harvest of Time by Alistair Reynolds.

Near the end of time, there's an alien menace that's reaching back through time to present day Earth and invading them. It's up to the Doctor and Jo to save the day, and also work out how the Master is involved. And, of course, there's a visit to the future, which ties into events... and, okay, I'll admit, does tie in rather nicely.

Which is one of the better things I can say about this book, because the most otherwise I have to say about this book is that it is boring. Dull. And very slow paced. It took me nearly 200 pages to actually want to continue reading it, and by then the thing is nearly over! I was often putting the book down in the middle of my bus trip because it completely failed to engage me. The Doctor, Jo and the Master are very basically written, and as for the enemy... for a long time, I kept reading their name as Slid, and it was a while before I realised it was Sild. And I still kept reading it as Slid! Ooh, beware the horrifying Slid! Not likely. There comes a point when randomly putting letters together to form a name comes up with something you should reconsider.

Despite this supposedly adding a lot to the Master's story, with several winks to later events, the whole book can easily be skipped without missing out on anything. Is this guy a well known author? Can't say I want to read any of his other stuff...

[END]

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