2007 Book Log #11: The Surgeon's Mate, by Patrick O'Brian

I'm posting this in March, but I'm counting it as a February read since I actually finished it in February! The Surgeon's Mate is my latest Aubrey-Maturin read, and while I do continue with the general Aubrey-Maturin love, I have to admit I found this one a bit erratic in quality.

There's a subplot with Jack that I found simultaneously amusing and annoying--and it winds up getting resolved in a way that really leaves nothing for Aubrey to do but privately angst about it for a little while and not, as near as I can tell, actually gain much from the experience. (I'll have to see whether this is actually different in later novels.) Meanwhile, there's quite a bit of mileage with Stephen doing nifty spy things, which is far and away the more interesting part of the book. Also of quite a bit of interest is the romantic subplot involving Stephen, which was very nice to see dealt with after what happened with him on that front in earlier books.

I found that the book really didn't pick up for me until the final quarter or so, but that part definitely made it worth the read. So I'll give this one three stars.

2007 Book Log #12: The Clockwise Man, by Justin Richards

As I've posted about on my journal earlier, the Ninth Doctor, Christopher Eccleston, completely sold me on being a Doctor Who fan at last. And as I have also lamented, Mr. Eccleston held the role for entirely too little time. So I was rather interested when I was browsing at the University Bookstore the other day and found out that the BBC has been releasing hardback Ninth and Tenth Doctor novels. I picked up the first one, The Clockwise Man, by Justin Richards. Disappointing read, unfortunately. The bones of a good plot were there, and it did rather feel like a Doctor Who episode at least in terms of the story, but the writing was very pedestrian--and Richards' fascination with sentence fragments, while not quite as pronounced as Annie Proulx's, was still enough to grate.

Worse yet, the author seemed to have very little grasp of how to write either the Doctor or Rose as characters. There were little bits here and there all throughout the book that just made no sense--for example, a bit where the Doctor is talking to Rose and seems unable to remember the word 'syllable', and as if he somehow doesn't have a perfect grasp of English. Which makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.

I may check out other Ninth or Tenth Doctor novels by different authors, but I dunno yet. This one was not exactly encouraging. Two stars.