Gratuitously meta and packed with continuity fanservice, there's really no reason for me to like this. Plus there was some out of place bathroom humor, which usually puts me off.

But I enjoyed seeing the new Doctor Who books tied in with the audios and the old lines of books, and Russell seemed to be having fun with it in a way that few of the modern authors have. And it's a couple of days after Christmas, so I'm feeling generous.

Because an extra star from me on a Goodreads review is totally a big deal. ( )

This has Bernice Summerfield meeting up with the twelfth Doctor. For the Doctor, it's part of a set of loosely-linked novels called The Glamour Chronicles, where the Doctor keeps bumping into an Ancient technology called the Glamour. For Benny, it takes place following on from the Big Finish box sets set on Legion, seemingly after Missing Persons, and it features her main cast from those stories alongside her: Ruth, Jack, and her son Peter.

This was sort of a reread for me: I actually already listened to it on audio as part of my journey through Bernice stories on audio. When I heard it, I thought it was terrible. Aimless, confusing, overlong, unfunny, belabored. Not even Lisa Bowerman as reader could save it.

As a book, it was better, mostly I suspect because instead of having to suffer through every single word of Gary Russell's excruciating dull prose, I could speed read my way through it. So even though the fact that there are repeated, inexplicable digressions about the twelfth Doctor's relationship with the obscure New Adventures character Keri Pakhar, of all people, I could just jump over them.

Keri is not the only annoying use of continuity. It also has the Doctor claiming to Benny that every time he goes to France, he thinks of Guy de Carnac. Seriously? Gary Russell wants me to believe that when David Tennant was snogging Madame de Pompadour, he was thinking, "oh i'm so sad about a one-off character from a mediocre david mcintee VNA who died centuries and centuries of years ago in my personal timeline." Go ahead, pull the other one. On top of that, there's a cheeky reference to the NA version of Human Nature, where the Doctor claims he went to "extraordinary lengths" to understand Benny's sorrow over the death of Guy. This is a fundamental misunderstanding and misreading of the events of Human Nature. Benny raises this as a theory on p. 116 of Human Nature, but on p. 202, the Doctor gives his actual reason, which has nothing to do with freaking Guy de Carnac, c'mon.

On top of this, there's an excruciatingly out of character moment where the Doctor and Benny console each other that bad things happen because of fate so oh well, which I think is contradictory to the entire ethos of the programme and of the characters.

The plot doesn't make a lot of sense. It was never clear to me why the Doctor, Benny, and company pretend to be a gang of con artists in order to fool an actual gang of con artists; I don't know what anyone would have done different had they actually been aboveboard about their intentions. Seriously, what was the point of all that?

Even by Doctor Who standards, Gary Russell has little grasp on science. We're told that the planet Legion doesn't orbit a sun... which would surely make it too cold to live on. However, we're also told it has a light side and a dark side; the light side faces the rest of the galaxy. Gary Russell has apparently never looked at the sky and realized the light of distant stars is actually not that light. But we're also told it spins very slowly. Well, if it does rotate, even if slowly, how can you do something like build a city in the middle of the light side?

Continuity-wise, it seems to follow on from the box set Missing Persons. I say "seem to" because given Gary Russell wrote this novel and produced those box sets, the details don't really line up. Specifically, Jack and Ruth are engaged to be married here... whereas there was a not a single hint of any kind of attraction at all in any of the preceding box sets. Like, where did this even come from? Why do this? Bizarre. Only Gary Russell could write a book that has detailed references to novels from over two decades prior but messed up continuity with something he wrote himself five years ago. Similarly weirdly, there's a bit where the Doctor thinks of his past companions, and it's only ones from tv and audio. Like, Gary, I know you know the books "count" because freaking Keri Pakhar is in this book! Are you telling me that Samson and Gemma really loom larger in the Doctor's mind than Fitz?

I was vaguely amused by how the story contorts to avoid mentioning Irving Braxiatel, who was a member of Benny's Legion-era supporting cast, but who could wreck the entire premise of post-2005 Doctor Who if he turned up. The Doctor's not quite the "last of the Time Lords" anymore by the Peter Capaldi era, but the Doctor still certainly shouldn't be bumping into random Time Lords. Braxiatel is only referred to as the owner of the White Rabbit; at one point Benny is probably about to say "your brother" to the Doctor but gets cut off.

So anyway, pretty bad but you can read the whole thing in about a day, because basically nothing that happens matters.

This book took a while to get into but it was a good read. Gary Russell portrayed Peter Capaldi’s 12th Doctor really well and loved that he pulled some familiar faces from the past. A part of me wished he brought back River Song but like it said in the endnote Benny wax chided so that it couldn’t contradict anything that could have happened between River and Capaldi.

This was a good second part the Glamour Chronicles. ( )

Sometimes we need to be careful what we decide to seek. For Professor Horace Jaanson, who has studied ancient history all of his life, it's finding the most important artifacts of the past, long lost and hidden. But sometimes those things are lost for a reason. And when Jaanson's expedition is usurped by an unlikely band of explorers, he might start to regret his search. Things are more complicated than they seem and the leader of this newest group calls on an old friend, The Doctor, to help them sort out the mess--a mess that might actually lead to the end of the universe and all existence. After all, there is a reason the Ancients made their technology difficult to find in the first place...some things should be left alone.

It's difficult not to enjoy an adventure with The Doctor, though I didn't really feel like there was as much of his personality in this one as I would have liked. This is partly due to the very large cast of characters, keeping them all sorted, and sometimes trying to figure out how they pop in and out from scene to scene. The character of Bernice Summerfield is also a big personality, often taking charge of conversation but not always the situation. This was my first experience with her, so perhaps I wasn't really prepared for that, either.

Overall, though, an enjoyable adventure with enough ties to the current incarnation of The Doctor to make it work.

[Disclaimer: I received a copy of this book from the publisher via BloggingForBooks in exchange for an honest review.] ( )

During Christmas 2015 in Sydney Cove, Australia, a time portal appears. The Twelfth Doctor (Peter Capaldi) appears in Sydney sans companion. As with other Doctor Who stories, there's a ticking time bomb, the imminent destruction of the universe, ragtag gangs of good guys and bad guys, and copious wisecracks.

Big Bang Generation revolves around the recovery of the Glamour, an important device essential to saving the universe. “In the fifty-first century, at Stormcage Confinement Facility Number One, a message was received by a representative of the Papal Mainframe requesting the loan of a prisoner called Professor River Song. The request was immediately denied.” In the aforementioned Stormcage Confinement Facility the mobster Cyrrus Globb and Kik the assassin are placed in adjoining cells.

Cyrrus and Kik are temporarily released because of their unique skill sets. They end up assisting Professor Horace Jaanson in his quest to find the Glamour. In opposition to these intergalactic criminals are Professor Bernice Summerfield, Peter Guy Summerfield, Ruth, “Spring-Heeled” Jack, and the Doctor. Peter is Bernice's son: half-Killoran, gay, and “really good at guns.” As is the spirit of the Doctor Who franchise, Peter's half-Killoran appearance is described as “big tall aliens that look like anthropomorphised Rottweilers; smarter than they look and quite charming.”

The good guys and the bad guys finally converge in Sydney to stop a pyramid from blowing up the universe. The Doctor explains, “The Ancients of the Universe manipulated all of space and time for their own ends, then vanished, leaving the famous Pyramid Eternia to be stayed away from.” Will our heroes save the universe? Will Peter find a boyfriend? Will Bernice get the recognition she deserves?

I enjoyed Big Bang Generation, albeit I felt decades older than its intended audience. But the story is sharp, the wisecracks tight, and the prose polished as a Doctor Who TV episode. Given these rather apocalyptic times, I would highly recommend this book to a YA readership. Great fun can be had if adults choose to read this to (or with) their children. A little scary, but most of the book is rollicking silly fun.

NB: I received this book via Blogging for Books. Unfortunately, it is no more. It was a great website and offered some wonderful selections.

https://driftlessareareview.com/2020/04/17/espresso-shots-big-bang-generation-by... ( )