Doctor Who: The Infinity Race

Eighth Doctor Adventures #61

by Simon Messingham

The Doctor is in trouble. He has his own race to win. Stuck in a parallel dimension, pursuing the mysterious Sabbath, he must unravel a complex plot in which he himself may be a pawn. Following the only lead, the TARDIS arrives on Selonart -- a planet famed for the unique, friction-nullifying light water that covers its surface. A water that propels vast, technological yachts across its waves at inconceivable speeds. All in all, an indulgent, boastful demonstration of power by Earth's ruthless multi-stellar corporations. Is Sabbath's goal to win the race? Who is Bloom, the enigmatic Selonart native? As the danger escalates, the Doctor realises that he is being manoeuvred into engineering his own downfall. Is it already too late for him?

Genres: Doctor Who, Science Fiction, Fiction, Ebooks

273 pages, Paperback

First published December 30, 2002

Reviews

[Michael Battaglia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Falling off the last cliffhanger, the TARDIS crew finds themselves stuck in an apparently parallel universe with a toy boat of sorts sitting on the console. It's a message it seems from Sabbath. Or maybe it's a trap! But the Doctor narrows his eyes and says with steely resolve, "Let's ensure that his plan stays . . . underwater."

Cue opening credits!

Okay, maybe it doesn't happen quite like that. But we do slip into the new arc with a renewed sense of panic, with Sabbath perhaps victorious and a new sense of dire urgency.

Or maybe not.

For the first time in a while we have what feels like a "normal" adventure, where the team lands on a planet, has to figure out what goes on, gets split up and captured and mixed in with the locals before realizing what the true danger is and maybe saving the day. Here, they wind up on a planet almost made entirely of water (would have been amusingly if they had landed on Stanislaw Lem's Solaris) which every four years has the World Cup of Boating, more or less, due to the water being nearly frictionless. Tons of people from all over are crowding on the tiny bits of land while everyone makes use of the inhabitants, genetically modified humans who have been there for generations and are starting to evolve into a closer symbiosis with the planet. Meanwhile the prissy and emotional governor is going way over the top in his own scenes and people are being slaughtered in their boats. Oh, and then there's Bloom.

Even if we are going to have a typical adventure this time out, at least the author goes out of his way to give us an interesting scenario even if I'm not sure if all the elements of it go together are efficiently as they should. Part of the problem is that we're constantly being told that Sabbath is a worthy villain without really being shown that. Beyond his initial appearance most of his showings have been to lurk in the background and then grandiosely describe his plans and how brilliant they are . . . on the one hand he seems capable of manipulating the Doctor but we rarely see the full extent of it. Giving the Doctor his second heart back was a nice dramatic move but it seems to have neutered Sabbath slightly, turning him from a mysterious and dangerous figure into someone who is a new version of the Master, compete with ridiculous disguises that fool no one. His scenes with the Doctor still crackle in their way (and the Doctor's attempt to kill him is shocking in a way that the book doesn't really address) but being that the central conflict that the book is wrapped around is this epic struggle between the Doctor and Sabbath, I'm not entirely feeling the urgency of it. In a way you expect Fitz and Anji to roll their eyes and go "Oh no, not again" in bored voices every time he appears.

The other problem is that for a parallel universe it doesn't really feel parallel. That may be the point and thus makes the problem a bit more abstract than what the moment requires, but being that they're already exploring vastly different worlds in space and time, the idea that everything has changed means nothing when it's all new every day anyway. With those two problems forging the heart of the dramatic undercurrent, if they don't work for you it means that the rest of the book is going to feel like a standard romp.

Which it kind of is. It makes nods toward the past strangeness with Sabbath's inclusion of the Warlocks but the author's imagination isn't entirely capable of keeping up with their menace and the more they appear the more like mundane Who monsters they seem (an end sequence set on their homeworld is almost undermined by this), but in a way its more of the Doctor both initiating and resolving a crisis. The bits with third generation native Bloom feel like sub-Iain Banks at times, but without being as caustic. The ending actually feels like it was worth the effort but the getting there doesn't always sparkle, at times feeling like it's going through its paces.

I give him partial credit for attempting to play with format by having Fitz and Anji's sections be told in the first person. Unfortunately, it half works. His "voice" for them isn't as strong and comes across as almost breezy at times, subtracting some of the impact when they get self-referential or say things like "Hi, me here again". Not to mention, who are they telling it to. Fitz's character lends itself more to this kind of approach, while Anji's come across sometimes as trying too hard.

But I will say it kept things different and at least it shows he was trying. Even if it doesn't scale the heights that previous books have, its not a drastic drop-off in quality, just a little more of a step back to old school values for the traditional adventures. If we went back to this kind of thing all the time I'd be less pleased but if we dip back into familiar waters (ha!) once in a while, I think we can manage.

[Jacob Licklider · Rating 2 out of 5]

There are indications that The Infinity Race should be a novel catered to me. Simon Messingham’s second and final Eighth Doctor Adventure takes some of its inspiration from Barbara Clegg’s Enlightement, a personal favorite, and reads in places as a tribute to certain aspects of fantasy role playing games of the time. Sadly, referencing things that a reader may like is not the same as writing a compelling narrative. To have a compelling narrative, first you must have a narrative that maintains itself through the length of the story being told, something that Messingham just does not do. The Infinity Race is a story that flits from plot point to plot point, not being content with the initial setup of a regatta set on a distant ocean planet of “friction-nullifying light water” in a parallel universe. The parallel universe aspect of the novel is the weakest plot point, it suffers from Messingham not using any aspects of a parallel universe story. The fate of humanity in this future is different, however with the nature of Doctor Who as a franchise that does not actually mean anything. Instead of using it to make any connections to our three protagonists, or even to Sabbath, Messingham keeps it largely a background detail behind everything. That also means that because this is one of many parallel universes there is a sense that the supporting characters of The Infinity Race don’t actually matter. When Messingham finds himself almost bored of the regatta plot, he introduces the Warlocks (later Warlock) of Demigest, humans changed by a completely different planet that are on Selonart, that is the ocean planet of the novel, because they are essentially Sabbath’s MacGuffin. This plot leads to one of the few interesting scenes for the Doctor here, Messingham doing a decent job of playing with the Eighth Doctor’s harsher morality, but outside of that he is a background player in events.

The scenes where Sabbath does appear, largely contained to the final third of the novel, are clearly the one regular character Messingham enjoys writing for. When Sabbath is on page there is immediately this sinister charm added into the scenes, something that has become a standard in the Eighth Doctor Adventures now that his own arc is taking the forefront, but he just breathes some life into an otherwise lifeless book. His plan here is nothing special, it almost feels as if Messingham substituted Sabbath for a different, possibly original villain of the novel and changed it ever so slightly to fit Sabbath when the commission confirmed where it would be placed in the range of novels.

The changing characterization to fit is also what plagues Fitz and Anji as companions. Because the parallel universe plot thread is not really exploring many of the side characters (although Bloom is at least intriguing and part of me wonders if the theme with the supporting characters is naming them after playwrights and literary critics), it is imperative for Fitz and Anji to at least work. Messingham at least makes the attempt of getting into their heads by alternating there perspectives at several points. This should be a slam dunk for exploring where their mindsets are, and Anji’s perspective gets closest to this aim, however Messingham is not content from being in their perspective. Instead, The Infinity Race is a novel that attempts to change from third person limited to first person limited and back again. This does not work. The first person segments are Fitz and Anji separately, but the way Messingham writes their internal narration is this similar over the top style of breaking the fourth wall. This has a knock on effect of making the prose itself clunky throughout, meaning that a story already light on plot is quite difficult to actually get through. By the time you get to the conclusion, again where things improve by the presence of Sabbath, you’re left with nothing but this empty feeling that nothing mattered and you took way to long to get to nothing mattering.

Overall, The Infinity Race is another of Simon Messingham’s missteps as a novelist. Its best moments are building on the work of others, mainly the characterization of Sabbath as written by Lawrence Miles, Justin Richards, and Lloyd Rose specifically and Barbara Clegg’s contribution to Doctor Who. Everything else about it feels almost retro fitted into the current arc and characters without really succeeding. The characters are all one-note outside of a few select moments and there isn’t much here to really grasp onto. At least it’s not offensively bad, but it’s a novel that is difficult to get through because of a lack of focus. 3/10.

[Nicholas Whyte · Rating 3 out of 5]

https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/the-infinity-race-by-simon-messingham/

The Doctor, Fitz and Anji have slipped into a parallel universe where they encounter the mysterious Sabbath, once again, and get involved with a race that is more than it seems. I’m not a fan of the Sabbath arc, and the racing story has been done better elseWho; also Messingham uses first-person narration from both Fitz and Anji, and doesn’t really get convincing voices for either. Not very memorable, for me anyway.

[James Barnard · Rating 3 out of 5]

Simon Messingham referred to himself as the Doctor Who book range’s most indifferently received author. That’s a very self-effacing description from a very accomplished writer, but it’s apt since, unlike the other stalwarts of the series, he doesn’t have a distinct style so no-one quite knows what to expect from one of his books. That disunity – from his own books as well as from the range as a whole – can sometimes mean an individual book will fall down a little, however strong the book itself may be. And that’s the case here.

I am a little baffled by the placing of ‘The Infinity Race’ within the multiple universe story arc BBC Books had decided to set up. Having foreshadowed the saga over several months, allowing it to come to the fore in ‘Camera Obscura’ and building interest and excitement in ‘Time Zero’ there were a lot of hopes riding on this one as a continuation… which we don’t get. Apart from some aspects which felt like they’d been shoehorned in, this bears little sense of being part of a wider whole – and while this may have been something of a blessing later on, here, when things are just getting going, the book’s failure to properly progress a wider story can’t help but feel like a disappointment.

Of course, not every book in a long-running saga needs to be an express part of it. But at the very least, the emotional journey of the regular characters needs to feel consistent. Not here, though, which is a shame. The books which led to this showed how far Fitz and Anji had come to respect and care for each other as travelling companions, but here they seem to view each other more as minor irritants than close friends. It doesn’t ring true.

As a standalone book this tale of a boating race on a planet that’s almost completely covered by water is a strong one. As a story within a wider arc, this falls down. It’s a shame it couldn’t have been published either a few months earlier or later, but then hindsight is a wonderful thing. It’s worth a read but, for once, it’s probably better to do so out of the wider context of the whole series.

[Abhishek Dafria · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Eighth Doctor continues his adventures in The Infinity Race along with companions, the ever scrowling but Doctor believing Anji and the rash and brave Fitz. This book takes the trio in a parallel universe altogether set into motion by events of the previous book (which I haven't read yet). Pursuing a clue left by the devious Sabbath, the Doctor and his companions end up on a planet called Selonart, where a yacht race of epic proportions is on-going. But as mysterious events start to plague the race, it is only the Doctor who truly understands the proportions of the sinister scheme Sabbath is trying to set in motion.

The Infinity Race is a book that picks up pace in its own way, but once it does, you really need to hang on! As is (I am assuming) typical with the Doctor Who series, the real mystery of the story largely develops due to the Doctor's own hysterics and his style of revealing little until the time is right. The reader is left with the same frustration at times that Anji feels, knowing that the one besides you holds the key to a lot of the problems, but have to be patient for him to reveal things in his own way. When events do reach their climax, the revelation is worth the wait. Overall, it may not be the best in the series, but The Infinity Race is enjoyable, and the scenes with Sabbath and the Doctor, as expected, are the highlights!

[Maya Panika · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a mostly great book. The story is fascinating and - unlike many other EDAs - doesn't let the science get in the way; Simon Messingham isn't out to awe us with his erudition and book larnin' like some Who-authors, there is exactly as much science as the plot needs.

The world-building is excellent. There are beautiful descriptions of the ocean-world, Selonart. The original characters were well-rounded, believable; they have a life beyond supporting the plot and team-TARDIS. I completely fell in love with Bloom; even his end was heroic, unpredictable and thoroughly wonderful.

The only thing stopping me from giving this 4 stars is the sometimes poor characterisation of the regulars. It gets better as the book progresses and the style settles down a little, but for the most part, whenever the narrative goes into first person, both Fitz and Angie sound completely wrong, and almost identical, both with the same, irritating, over-excited voice - so much so that I had a hard job working out who was speaking most of the time.

That aside, for the exciting, fascinating plot, the wonderful descriptive quality and the fabulous OCs, this book is going on to my EDA A list. Definitely worth a read.

[Numa Parrott · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved the story, but I got kind of annoyed by the story-telling.

Fitz and Anji were more relatable and likable than usual, but seeing the story through their eyes still felt . . . limited. I would've liked to see more from the Doctor's point of view--especially what was going through his head in the first confrontation with Sabbath. I have a lot of questions about that scene. The Doctor is really starting to scare me a little. I think it's kind of fantastic if they're doing that on purpose.

Sabbath wasn't as amazing as he could've been. He was basically the Master, but a little less obsessed with the Doctor and a little more condescending of him. (I've always liked that Sabbath thought he could look down on the Doctor--whereas the Master is clearly always somewhat impressed by him.)

If you love the Doctor, read it.

[Simon Curtis · Rating 3 out of 5]

Really starts to feel epic now this storyline - a ship riding though space, Sabbath pursuing the Doctor...

[Christopher · Rating 4 out of 5]

A boat race on a vast ocean world hides some nasty surprises for the Doctor and company. A little breather before the Sabbath arc kicks back into high gear, this is a lot of fun.