Topping, Keith
About the Author:
Keith Topping was born in 1963 in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, England.
www.keithtopping.com
AVERAGE REVIEW SCORE:
2 out of 5
(1 book)
Doctor Who: The King Of Terror
The Fifth Doctor (Peter Davison) and his companions Tegan and Turlough star in this Past Doctor Adventures book. The Doctor is called in by Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart and UNIT to investigate the powerful conglomorate InterCom. Amid subterfuge and espionage, they discover that the Earth is the latest battleground in a war between two powerful alien species.
This book has a serious tone problem. The author never seems to decide what sort of tone he wants to set and therefore bounces back and forth between various ones seemingly at random. You may think that the tone of a book isn't that important overall, but when it gives us things like a crew of mass-murdering terrorists who are played for laughs or a tense ultra-violent action sequence which turns into a cheesy romance subplot, it definitely is important. At times the author writes as if this story shouldn't be taken seriously at all and then he throws in a chapter of Turlough being tortured and anally violated (yes, you did read that right). In short, this book is a mess.
It's a real shame too because Topping's prose is easy to read and of compelling quality on the small scale and he even gives us some interesting new UNIT characters to get to know and understand. Unfortunately, however, he also recycles awful characters from the miserable 'The Devil Goblins of Neptune' (not to mention the convention of having a really terrible title), without ever really justifying doing so.
2 our of 5
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Doctor Who (here)