We're All Stories In The End 6 - Beltempest

A swift review for a very swiftly moving novel...

Beltempest by Jim Mortimore

Eighth Doctor Adventures number: 17

Originally published: November 1998

Companions: Sam

The people of Bellania II see their sun, Bel, shrouded in night for a month following an impossible triple eclipse. When Bel is returned to them a younger, brighter, hotter star, it is the beginning of the end for the entire solar system...

100,000 years later, the Doctor and Sam arrive on Bellania IV, where the population is under threat as disaster looms — immense gravitational and dimensional disturbances are surging through this area of space.

While the time travellers attempt to help the survivors and ease the devastation, a religious suicide-cult leader is determined to spread a new religion through Bel's system — and his word may prove even more dangerous than the terrible forces brought into being by the catastrophic changes in the sun....

                                                                                                     

So here we are with another 8th Doctor Adventure - and I'll be honest, I struggled with this one.

But you know what this book has ? Pace.

It moves like a racehorse,  barely pausing to draw breath. It's relentless. 

It's Doctor Who does a disaster move - but with six disasters one after another.

If it was a TV episode, you could imagine many of the scenes with Sam being one long continuous take, as she careers from one crisis to the next.

It's also poetic. Dreamlike. A symphony of metaphors. Phrases like "a church raised to the god blue" are glorious.

It's interested in a sense of place. It has an inner monologue which propels the thing along - even if you are not entirely sure what that thing is.

And that may be both its's blessing and its curse.

The positive is that this is a book grasping for a deeper meaning about religion and faith and trust  - and all that stuff - which is admirable in the confines of a Doctor Who novel

But it's also a story about Sam rather than the Doctor, which would be fine if it was an interesting story. It's one that  frustrates enormously and never really works. 

Sad to say, at times I found myself wanting Sam to just stop talking and GET ON WITH IT !

Is it all style over substance? Hmmmm - possibly….

While the sun may blow up with a bang, unfortunately the story ends with a whimper…

But hey - that scene with the clothes as the the hold is depressurising - and the Doctor sings Bernard Cribbins and moulds Devils's Tower ?

Those are moments of pure joy.