Review – Doctor Who: The Coming of the Terraphiles
Doctor Who: The Coming of the Terraphiles
Synopsis:
Miggea: a world on the edge of reality, a point where space-time threatens to collapse, and the venue for the grand finals of the competition to win the fabled Arrow of Law. The Doctor and Amy join the Terraphiles, one of the teams of contestants determined to win the Arrow. But the Doctor has another reason for taking part in the contest – and the safety of the whole universe depends on who wins.
Written By: Michael Moorcock
Cast
Performed by: Clive Mantle
I am not a fast reader and do not have much time to read, but I do have a long commute to work every day so I have lots of time to listen to audio books. Clive Mantle does an excellent job reading this book. He has a different voice and accent for each character in the book, and more acts the roles than reads them. This is extremely unsettling however when he sings a song while doing his Amy impersonation.
Michael Moorcock is an award winning writer and it shows, but there are parts in The Coming of the Terraphiles that seem to be just long strings of gibberish words strung together to try and make something sound really impressive. On the flip side there are many parts of the book that are very beautiful and poetic in nature. During the gibberish sessions I feel sorry for Mr. Mantle, as I only have to listen to the ramblings, but he has to try and perform these long descriptive passages of miscellaneous words crammed together. All the while I am thinking “Get to the point Mr. Moorcock!†Seriously I really enjoyed this book, it was a very interesting concept for a story, and Michael Moorcock did an amazing job building an incredibly detailed universe for the Doctor and Amy to interact with. However weighing in at just under 11 hours for the audio book, I feel that it probably could have been about 9.5 – 10 hours long had he shortened some of the long gibberish descriptions. There was even one point where the Doctor describes the main villain and his theories about his plans to the pirate Captain Cornelius, and then Captain Cornelius says the same thing almost word for word back to the Doctor. I was left thinking “what was the point of all that?â€Â
Aside from that as I stated before I really did enjoy the book, I thought all the characters where interesting, and some were really annoying, but they were meant to be. I really liked the concept about everything being about Order versus Chaos/Matter versus Antimatter. I also really enjoyed how one of the primary means of propulsion was using gravity to pull ships deeper into the center of the galaxy.
The main story revolves around the Doctor and Amy trying to find the regulator that maintains the Multiverse’s conversions from matter to antimatter and vice versa. It’s a cycle that everything in the Multiverse goes though and has gone through since the beginning, but now everything is in danger as someone has stolen the regulator that keeps the changes in balance. The Doctor and Amy have to find the regulator and restore it to the center of the Multiverse before Frank/Freddie Force and their Antimatter Men get their hands on it. Yeah, it sounds like something out of the 1960s, but I think it’s for that reason that it’s so much fun.
The Coming of the Terraphiles is a fun story and Clive Mantle makes listening to the audio book very fun, I give it an overall 8 out of 10. It’s a good listen, and excellent story.
