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annathepiperI thought it was weird to go back and read about the Seventh Doctor as a fan of Nine and Ten--but it's nothing compared to going back and reading about the First. In The Eleventh Tiger we have First Doctor, along with companions Ian, Barbara, and Vicki, showing up in 19th century China. Since the plot wasn't particularly noteworthy as Doctor Who plots go, the interest for me here was seeing One do his thing, and seeing what his Companions were like. Having just watched some First Doctor episodes as well, it seemed like the author got the characters down fairly well. So it was fun to just see all of that, including One's mannerisms and how he responded to situations, what was different between him and later incarnations, and what was the same. What felt familiar to me was certainly his emphasis on thinking his way out of situations versus using force, and occasional tiny glimmers of the regret at losing Susan that I rather suspect lay the first bits of groundwork for the hardcore loneliness we see the Doctor experiencing in the era of Nine and Ten. What felt different was that One is a much craftier incarnation, and very fond of being inscrutable and mysterious, hardly giving away any hint of what he has in mind. It's quite the switch from the garrulous Ten who frequently technobabbles to distract the opposition from what he's up to.
Plotwise, though... eh. There's spooky extraterrestrial stuff going on, lots of going "grr" between the Chinese characters and the British, and some fairly standard martial-arts-flick treatments of, well, martial arts. It started off kind of interesting, dropping hints about Chinese mythology and how that was tying into the situation at hand, but then the book took a hard turn towards the cheese. I was kind of willing to go along with the idea of old, frail-looking One in an actual fight--because, as a few characters pointed out, there were martial arts masters older than the Doctor--because he used his wits to get through it quickly, and becuase his opponent was an idiot. ;) However, when the story very deliberately set up a few events just so the Doctor, Ian, and Barbara could exchange dialogue quoting the very obvious old song lyrics that come to mind when one thinks of cheesy martial arts... well. I stopped taking the book at all seriously at that point, which let me enjoy it a bit more once my expectations had been properly adjusted. But it wasn't nearly as fun as the more serious Doctor stories I've read or watched, so far.
Though I will give it props for one thing--while time paradoxes are pretty standard in any time travel story and doubly so for a Doctor one, this one nevertheless managed to handle the time paradox subplot in a mildly surprising and at least initially unexpected way. So that part is fun. And I have to admit that I also giggled at the whole idea of Ian being the primary handsome dashing hero in a story, because after seeing the First Doctor episodes and hearing![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
spazzkat joke about Ian and his ACTION SWEATER!, I kept envisioning that every time he was in a scene. Hee. So, overall, two and a half stars.
Plotwise, though... eh. There's spooky extraterrestrial stuff going on, lots of going "grr" between the Chinese characters and the British, and some fairly standard martial-arts-flick treatments of, well, martial arts. It started off kind of interesting, dropping hints about Chinese mythology and how that was tying into the situation at hand, but then the book took a hard turn towards the cheese. I was kind of willing to go along with the idea of old, frail-looking One in an actual fight--because, as a few characters pointed out, there were martial arts masters older than the Doctor--because he used his wits to get through it quickly, and becuase his opponent was an idiot. ;) However, when the story very deliberately set up a few events just so the Doctor, Ian, and Barbara could exchange dialogue quoting the very obvious old song lyrics that come to mind when one thinks of cheesy martial arts... well. I stopped taking the book at all seriously at that point, which let me enjoy it a bit more once my expectations had been properly adjusted. But it wasn't nearly as fun as the more serious Doctor stories I've read or watched, so far.
Though I will give it props for one thing--while time paradoxes are pretty standard in any time travel story and doubly so for a Doctor one, this one nevertheless managed to handle the time paradox subplot in a mildly surprising and at least initially unexpected way. So that part is fun. And I have to admit that I also giggled at the whole idea of Ian being the primary handsome dashing hero in a story, because after seeing the First Doctor episodes and hearing
spazzkat joke about Ian and his ACTION SWEATER!, I kept envisioning that every time he was in a scene. Hee. So, overall, two and a half stars.