Sky Pirates! or the Eyes of the Schirron (Doctor Who the New Adventures)
Author:
Genre: Science Fiction & Fantasy
Book Type: Paperback
Author:
Genre: Science Fiction & Fantasy
Book Type: Paperback
Andrew P. (Ununnilium) reviewed on
One of the most frustrating things in the world is a writer with good ideas who can't do them justice - not because of lack of skill, but because they don't understand that they're taking the wrong approach, too wedded to a specific idea of How It's Done.
Sky Pirates! (full title: Sky Pirates! or, The Eyes of the Schirron) is trying for a very specific tonal thing. It's trying to create a rather silly, funny, colorful world, pulp adventure fiction by way of Douglas Adams, and then have cosmic horror pop up in the middle of it, creating a powerful frisson of dissonance. This paradoxical pairing of humor and horror is then used towards a bigger point about peaceful coexistence between beings who are deeply alien to one another. It's a brilliant idea, to be honest, very Doctor Who, and if it had come off I'd be praising this book to the heavens.
The problem is, it doesn't come off, because that tonal dissonance never has a chance to form - there's just too much horror. The pulpy adventure has disgusting visceral gore, grinding misery, and generalized suffering, described in detail, constantly popping up. The stuff that's supposed to be silly and fun is still often gross and painful; at one point, a character looks back and notes how silly the experiences she had been going through were, and my response was "...mostly it seems as violent and dark as most of the New Adventures books from this era" (1995). Which is really the problem - something like this needed to pull sharply from the house style, and it didn't. It's marketed as something that does, it treats itself like something that does, but it doesn't.
It's a shame, too, because the parts that *are* funny and silly, that *do* make interesting and evocative points, are really fun. The last section of the book is actually the best for this - once it starts really focusing on its themes, a lot of the gratuitous suffering goes away. (Admittedly, that's partially because a lot of people are dead already, but.) It could have worked so well, and it's frustrating.
Sky Pirates! (full title: Sky Pirates! or, The Eyes of the Schirron) is trying for a very specific tonal thing. It's trying to create a rather silly, funny, colorful world, pulp adventure fiction by way of Douglas Adams, and then have cosmic horror pop up in the middle of it, creating a powerful frisson of dissonance. This paradoxical pairing of humor and horror is then used towards a bigger point about peaceful coexistence between beings who are deeply alien to one another. It's a brilliant idea, to be honest, very Doctor Who, and if it had come off I'd be praising this book to the heavens.
The problem is, it doesn't come off, because that tonal dissonance never has a chance to form - there's just too much horror. The pulpy adventure has disgusting visceral gore, grinding misery, and generalized suffering, described in detail, constantly popping up. The stuff that's supposed to be silly and fun is still often gross and painful; at one point, a character looks back and notes how silly the experiences she had been going through were, and my response was "...mostly it seems as violent and dark as most of the New Adventures books from this era" (1995). Which is really the problem - something like this needed to pull sharply from the house style, and it didn't. It's marketed as something that does, it treats itself like something that does, but it doesn't.
It's a shame, too, because the parts that *are* funny and silly, that *do* make interesting and evocative points, are really fun. The last section of the book is actually the best for this - once it starts really focusing on its themes, a lot of the gratuitous suffering goes away. (Admittedly, that's partially because a lot of people are dead already, but.) It could have worked so well, and it's frustrating.
