Based on Jean's recent review, my enjoyment of Shada, and a need for something funny and light during this more and more depressing time in America, I picked up City of Death by James Goss, based on Douglas Adams' screenplay and David Fisher's original ideas. It's another Doctor Who episode from the Tom Baker era with the addition of some of Adams' original ideas that didn't make it into the episode. It has a super evil alien villain, a dude who is trying to build a device for time travel and, consequently, Earth annihilation. He's also an art collector and a husband and, well, he isn't quite as one-dimensional as you would expect. The story wasn't quite as funny or as light as I thought it would be but it was still a really fun read. The majority of the story takes place in Paris and it was a wonderful escape as well. I wouldn't actually mind hopping a plane there right now. If you would like some peril this season (RIP *or* election) that isn't too horrific or dark, this is a great choice!
Also, in related news, I really miss Douglas Adams. I really miss Terry Pratchett as well. I got an email from Amazon the other day announcing a new release of short stories of his (The Witch's Vacuum Cleaner and Other Stories - out on January 3rd) and I almost started crying because there's a good chance this is the last "new" book. Why are there so many crap people in this world who live nice, long lives when there are outstanding ones who don't? And yes, I'm feeling a bit awful about our world right now. How did you know? Maybe I should just go into hiding for the next couple of weeks. But then I would miss Readathon on Saturday and that would be a real tragedy.
Escaping to the City of Light,
K
Right there with you on that! I miss them too. But I'm glad you enjoyed this book! We recently watched the episodes and they were better than I expected--a lot of fun. And a whole lot of Paris scenery.
ReplyDeleteI need to find the episodes somewhere. It sounds like they really built the story around the potential scenery!
DeleteOh, excellent, I'll recommend this to my coworker -- he was asking me for recommendations of Doctor Who books to read, and I didn't have a hugely long list of things to tell him.
ReplyDeleteRemind me, are you a Hamilton fan? There's a song that says "death doesn't discriminate between the sinners of the saints, it takes and it takes and it takes" and I HAVE HAD OCCASION to sing it myself a LOT this year.
This one and Shada are great! And I am not a Ham fan because I'm not really a fan of any musicals but that song speaks the truth.
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