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There is more to science fiction and fantasy than Star Trek and the works of Heinlein, Asimov and Bradbury. Did you know they have science fiction and fantasy books in England too? I was quite surprised to hear this. Not only that but they have novels based on their science fiction shows. Curious as I am about such things, I decided to investigate.
- Red Dwarf - Backwards By Rob Grant:
I'm a huge fan of the TV series of Red Dwarf and I read the first two novels about a decade ago. They are a weird tangent from the show giving a mix of new alternate back story, quasi-novelizations of episodes in a different order plus new material that takes familiar stories and twists them in a whole new direction. They are lot less sitcomesque than the TV series gaining a certain dark comedic tone. The third book contains more of the first and last ingredients. The only episodes it encapsulates are 'Backwards'- which morphs into a who done it murder mystery in reverse, 'Dimension Jump' with a remarkable different fate for Ace Rimmer and the International Emmy Award winning episode 'Gunmen of the Apocalypse' which is probably the darkest reimagining of them all. It took me an incredibly long time to get to Backwards the book for one simple reason. The first two books did not sell very well in the United States. This was probably due to the fact that the TV series, in the markets where it was even available, tended to be on very late at night on PBS and not network TV. (It makes a nice fluffy bridge between the British Sitcoms and Doctor Who.) After years of searching I found several used book sellers in Canada and Britain who were willing to send me one for a price that wasn't my immortal soul. I had managed to get (and read) the next book 'Last Human' many years ago. Luckily it's not even set in the same timeline as these books but does have a similar tone.
Normally, I wouldn't read or least count- a book that was 95% novelization of previously existing material. The Red Dwarf novel featured above had some old material but was more or less a new story. My next read is a book that is almost a straight out novelization. However, this is a novelization of what is perhaps the greatest Doctor Who episode ever partially made. I say partially made because a strike hit during production and they never quite went back to finish it properly. They made a direct to video version more than 15 years later with Tom Baker narrating what should have been in the unshot material. Why? Unlike many of the other 'lost' episodes this one had fan demand. It's all because it was written by one of the greats of British Sci-Fi: Douglas Adams. The episodes are so popular that it was later rewritten as an animated short for the Eighth Doctor.
- Doctor Who - Shada by Gareth Roberts (From a story by Douglas Adams):
Shada tells the story of a renegade timelord named Professor Chronotis who steals a book from the archives on Gallifrey and flees to Earth. He becomes a professor at Cambridge and manages to pull off the disguise for centuries. Until one of his students shows up to borrow books and accidentally takes his 'special book'. Another nasty alien shows up looking for it and all Hell breaks loose. If the story seems at least somewhat familiar- it should. Since Douglas Adams was not paid for completing Shada, many elements of the story (and at least one character) were recycled into Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency. Luckily this is where the similarities stop. Whereas Dirk Gently was more comedy in that way only Douglas Adams could do- either Adams's BBC handlers at the time or Roberts handling of the adaptation- keep the story firmly entrenched in a Whovian vein. Some effort is made by Roberts to fix small and almost insignificant continuity holes that cropped up in the years since Shada was supposed to have aired and the present. He also throws in a few references to other Doctors past and future which were not in Adams's original script. He also wisely wraps up two story arcs that Adams (at least judging from the butchered VHS version) forgot about. Another brilliant addition by Roberts is the discussion of The Death Penalty and indefinite detention (across multiple lifetimes) that old school Doctor Who wouldn't ordinarily go near with a 20 foot pole. Not only had that, he made the welds fairly seamless. It was an enjoyable read. It is probably a rare case where the novelization was probably a better story than the TV version ever could have been.
- First Among Sequels by Jasper Fforde:
Jasper Fforde is guilty of a very dangerous crime. He writes satirical metafiction that blends characters from Beatrix Potter, Lewis Carroll and Jane Austen on one end of the scale and by special arrangement , Temperance Brennan on the other. Mix in some of the ever growing (and increasingly wacky) mythos Fforde has grown in his own world surrounding Thursday Next and you have a book that is intelligent, funny and an all-around laugh a minute read. To make matters more entertaining- Jasper Fforde goes after two targets he has never attacked before. The first being excessively complicated time travel stories and the other is satirical metafiction. In other words, the almost sole target of the full force of Jasper Fforde's parody is the mind of Jasper Fforde. This one has got it all. Recurring enemies on the loose. Not one but two fictional Thursdays. Rogue agents of the Chronoguard. Even the return of one of Thursday's greatest foes, The Goliath Corporation. The only difference is that in the first few books Thursday was in her 30s and just getting started in her career. Now she's in her 50s. Things are supposed to be slowing down in her life and they are just getting worse. It makes for probably the funniest book in the Thursday Next series I have read to date.
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