From: ph9991_manfr@rivers.acc.uwrf.edu
Newsgroups: rec.arts.drwho
Subject: Thursday Afternoon Review-"Time's Crucible" !SPOILERS!
Date: 7 Jan 93 22:59:10 GMT
Organization: University of Wisconsin - River Falls

At long last, I got hold of a copy of "Time's Crucible" and have just
finished reading it, thus I can at last read SPOILER messages concerning
it, and offer thoughts of my own...

And a Review!

here goes....

SPOILERS! for "Cat's Cradle: Time's Crucible" by Marc Platt AHEAD!






SPOILERS!   Look out for the cat.





Well, it was certainly an absorbing read.  Once the story took off from
Perivale, you didn't dare look up for fear of missing something in one
of the most complex reads I've had in a long time.  If Marc Platt has
a fault, it's that he gives us too much to chew even though we love the
taste.  This happened on the TV version of "Ghost Light" but was corrected
mostly for the novel.  Unfortunately, such a filter does not exist for
this story, so we're stuck with the complicated version.

Not that's that's bad.  It's much a much more enjoyable way of spending an
afternoon than working in a gas station.  :)

Let's split this into good and bad categories:

Good stuff:  
	1) the TARDIS playing such a crucial role and the whole unfolding
		into a city thing.  The Banshee circuits were fun, as
		were the greyprints.  
	2) Just the idea of the city, the "living next door to last week"
		premise.  
	3) Using the pre-Time Lord Gallifreyans.
	4) The way the City's story is told, starting with Ace stumbling into
		different areas of the city and thus different eras, allowing
		the reader to think, "What the hell is going on?" for a good
		while, and then even when the Doctor shows up and we say
		"At last, we'll get some answers now!" we find out he hasn't
		got the foggiest idea either and in fact is missing memories!
		Thankfully that doesn't last too long after that, if it had,
		this book would be fueling my house's heat supply right now.
		Overall, every scene and change of venue was in pretty much
		the correct place in terms of structure.
	5) The Doctor's almost Hartnell-like reactions to the threats to
		his ship.
	6) No real continuity errors or open contradictions to things stated
		 in the past of the series.  Considering all the little
		references he tossed in, I'm amazed he held it all together
		as well as he did.

Bad stuff:
	1) If the New Adventures are canon (and I don't think they are, but
		if you say they are), then I think Platt has taken too
		many liberties all upon himself in establishing certain
		things in Gallifreyan history.  I don't mind the bits that
		suggest Gallifreyans didn't have regenerations until
		Rassilon :), but I do mind the "no biological families" 
		stuff as I think that closes off some interesting areas
		the books or a future TV series could take, like for instance
		William Hartnell's old idea of meeting the Doctor's son
		or any similar relative meetings.  
	2) The narrative could have used a few more colorful twists and
		jokes, but that's probably just my own stylistic differences.
		Otherwise it's OK.
	3) Most of the secondary characters didn't have any real fire in their
		bellies, apart from Vael and the Pilot.  I was scared for
		a while that Vael would turn out to be the Valeyard (scared
		for my own hopeful story), since the word origins look
		similar, and perhaps that is an inference, that a Learned
		Court Prosecutor's title comes from the role that Vael
		played in this story.
		Back to the characters though, the only thing really
		fascinating about any of them was their lack of memory,
		which is probably the reason for their lack of depth.  
		Still, if the mind is gone, then at least describe the body
		or mannerisms.  There isn't anything memorable about those
		people.  Thankfully they weren't all that important as 
		individuals.
	4) The biggest problem of all.  No explanation of where the Processes
		came from or what they are and only theories about what they
		were up to.  Similar problem to that in "Ghost Light" where
		we learn nothing of Light's origins.  That wasn't so bad
		as we were visiting another place in that story, but this is
		a far more personal attack on the Doctor, so I feel we should
		know his villain a little better than we did.
		If there was an explanation, I missed it, probably while
		trying to remember something else.  It was also not explained
		why they were called Processes.  For a long time I hoped
		they would turn out to be Fendahleen.  :)

Overall though, it was a fascinating read.  A little more pace could have
helped too, but as it is, I'll give it a solid 7 out of 10.  

Steven.K.Manfred