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Eighth Doctor Adventures #47
Doctor Who: The Slow Empire
Enter, with the Doctor, Anji and Fitz, an Empire where the laws of physics are quite preposterous -- nothing can travel faster than the speed of light and time travel is impossible.
A thousand worlds, each believing they are the Centre, each under a malign control of which they themselves are completely unaware.
As the only beings able to travel between the worlds instantaneously, the Doctor and his friends must piece together the Imperial puzzle and decide what should be done. The soldiers of the Ambassadorial Corps are always, somehow, hard on their heels. Their own minds are busily fragmenting under metatemporal stresses. And their only allies are a man who might not be quite what he seems (and says so at great length) and a creature we shall merely call... the Collector.
A thousand worlds, each believing they are the Centre, each under a malign control of which they themselves are completely unaware.
As the only beings able to travel between the worlds instantaneously, the Doctor and his friends must piece together the Imperial puzzle and decide what should be done. The soldiers of the Ambassadorial Corps are always, somehow, hard on their heels. Their own minds are busily fragmenting under metatemporal stresses. And their only allies are a man who might not be quite what he seems (and says so at great length) and a creature we shall merely call... the Collector.
250 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published May 2, 2001
5 people are currently reading
282 people want to read
About the author
Dave Stone
73 books16 followersStone has written many spin off novels based on the BBC science fiction television series Doctor Who and Judge Dredd.
Stone also contributed a number of comic series to 2000AD and the Judge Dredd Megazine, focusing on the Dreddverse (Judge Dredd universe). In collaboration with David Bishop and artist Shaky Kane he produced the much disliked Soul Sisters, which he has described as "a joke-trip, which through various degrees of miscommunication ended up as a joke-strip without any jokes." Working independently, he created the better received Armitage, a Dreddworld take on Inspector Morse set in a future London, and also contributed to the ongoing Judge Hershey series.
Stone’s most lasting contribution to the world of Judge Dredd might well have been his vision of Brit-Cit, which until Stone’s various novels had been a remarkably underexplored area.
Stone also contributed a number of comic series to 2000AD and the Judge Dredd Megazine, focusing on the Dreddverse (Judge Dredd universe). In collaboration with David Bishop and artist Shaky Kane he produced the much disliked Soul Sisters, which he has described as "a joke-trip, which through various degrees of miscommunication ended up as a joke-strip without any jokes." Working independently, he created the better received Armitage, a Dreddworld take on Inspector Morse set in a future London, and also contributed to the ongoing Judge Hershey series.
Stone’s most lasting contribution to the world of Judge Dredd might well have been his vision of Brit-Cit, which until Stone’s various novels had been a remarkably underexplored area.
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January 12, 2025The premise here is, you would have thought, irresistible – the TARDIS finds itself in a weirdly 'sprained' region of space-time where nothing can travel faster than light, and time travel is impossible. But while the whole plot does proceed from that, the obvious gag of trying to do a Who story within the confines of actually existing physics barely gets a look-in. Instead, we get a tour of a handful of worlds within an empire where every planet thinks it's the centre, mostly characterised by a blend of baroque cruelty and bureaucratic satire that feels a bit Clark Ashton Smith, a little Robert Sheckley, but more someone else I can't quite put my finger on.
But if the novel physics aren't used to full advantage, this is still a very strange take on Who in a couple of other ways. Part of that is structural; it comes from the period after the (first?) fall of Gallifrey, when the Doctor had lost his memory. With hindsight, while that would have been a perfectly good twist for a book or five, it was a bizarre decision to carry on with it for 30-odd when so much of the charm of the character is all the stuff he knows, half-remembers, may be entirely making up, but still. Stone at least has the benefit of coming at a point in proceedings when the Doctor's Doctorishness, if not his past, is coming back, with the twist that it's not always the right Doctor's, except of course he doesn't remember having had past selves, so lacks the framework the reader has for understanding why he has a powerful urge to play a penny whistle shortly before setting off some useful chaos, or finds himself being needlessly cold to his friends while covertly executing a deadly trap for his enemies. And yet, at the same time, there wasn't a line here I couldn't hear McGann saying, often in that wonderfully offhand delivery that's always been one of my favourite things about his Doctor.
Also, though, this is a Doctor Who story that consists of an awful lot of running around corridors and generally spinning wheels without progressing the plot, which is not in itself unusual, except that The Slow Empire admits to it, has characters realising it, plays around with it. There are other narrative tricks, too; a slightly arch omniscient narrator sometimes gives way to a local character, who depending whether you believe his own account or Anji's, is either a great adventurer and raconteur, or a portly blowhard (though certainly lumbering him with Comic Sans for his sections doesn't incline the reader in his favour). Endnotes are deployed, as notes in fiction often are, to self-aware and comic effect, except when they're hiding unspeakably sad wisdom regarding bereavement. It's a book that's keen to wrongfoot, and looking at the other reviews, that doesn't seem to have been terribly popular. Certainly, it doesn't always come off; if it were only the overblown Jamon prone to getting the wrong word when the language is flying high, you'd assume a character note, but even the Doctor mixes up pseudopodia and pseudophilia. The similes are often deliberately strained, but some fall flatter than I think they were meant to, and from a distance of decades some of the pop culture references jar. But it's trying to do something different, lovingly deconstructing Who in a way that isn't the occasionally adolescent approach of the New Adventures (and I say that as someone who broadly considers them peak Who), which I enjoy, especially when it's done with this much arch wit. And this despite the fact it wasn't even the book I was planning to read; I'd been after Sanctuary, given the sad loss of David McIntee, but wherever that is it's not on my Who shelf here, and the only unread McIntee was Autumn Mist, which I clearly wasn't about to read in January. So, yeah, all in all, a pleasant if occasionally frustrating surprise.
But if the novel physics aren't used to full advantage, this is still a very strange take on Who in a couple of other ways. Part of that is structural; it comes from the period after the (first?) fall of Gallifrey, when the Doctor had lost his memory. With hindsight, while that would have been a perfectly good twist for a book or five, it was a bizarre decision to carry on with it for 30-odd when so much of the charm of the character is all the stuff he knows, half-remembers, may be entirely making up, but still. Stone at least has the benefit of coming at a point in proceedings when the Doctor's Doctorishness, if not his past, is coming back, with the twist that it's not always the right Doctor's, except of course he doesn't remember having had past selves, so lacks the framework the reader has for understanding why he has a powerful urge to play a penny whistle shortly before setting off some useful chaos, or finds himself being needlessly cold to his friends while covertly executing a deadly trap for his enemies. And yet, at the same time, there wasn't a line here I couldn't hear McGann saying, often in that wonderfully offhand delivery that's always been one of my favourite things about his Doctor.
Also, though, this is a Doctor Who story that consists of an awful lot of running around corridors and generally spinning wheels without progressing the plot, which is not in itself unusual, except that The Slow Empire admits to it, has characters realising it, plays around with it. There are other narrative tricks, too; a slightly arch omniscient narrator sometimes gives way to a local character, who depending whether you believe his own account or Anji's, is either a great adventurer and raconteur, or a portly blowhard (though certainly lumbering him with Comic Sans for his sections doesn't incline the reader in his favour). Endnotes are deployed, as notes in fiction often are, to self-aware and comic effect, except when they're hiding unspeakably sad wisdom regarding bereavement. It's a book that's keen to wrongfoot, and looking at the other reviews, that doesn't seem to have been terribly popular. Certainly, it doesn't always come off; if it were only the overblown Jamon prone to getting the wrong word when the language is flying high, you'd assume a character note, but even the Doctor mixes up pseudopodia and pseudophilia. The similes are often deliberately strained, but some fall flatter than I think they were meant to, and from a distance of decades some of the pop culture references jar. But it's trying to do something different, lovingly deconstructing Who in a way that isn't the occasionally adolescent approach of the New Adventures (and I say that as someone who broadly considers them peak Who), which I enjoy, especially when it's done with this much arch wit. And this despite the fact it wasn't even the book I was planning to read; I'd been after Sanctuary, given the sad loss of David McIntee, but wherever that is it's not on my Who shelf here, and the only unread McIntee was Autumn Mist, which I clearly wasn't about to read in January. So, yeah, all in all, a pleasant if occasionally frustrating surprise.
August 24, 2024
Ugh. Such a try-hard book; so much sound and fury, signifying nothing. There are footnotes, there are sections (in a different font!) from the flowery POV of an alien the TARDIS team encounters, there's a Matrix-like AU section -- all of which can't disguise the fact that the plot is incredibly thin. As Fitz points out, much of this book is spent with the characters just spinning their wheels -- running down corridors, essentially. It's so boring and uninspired, and yet, I think Stone really made an effort.
The Eighth Doctor described as tall: check!
This is also the third time an EDA writer has misused the concept of a Golem.
Dear goys: please stop.
The Eighth Doctor described as tall: check!
This is also the third time an EDA writer has misused the concept of a Golem.
Dear goys: please stop.
November 13, 2019
Ugh. Så många dåliga idéer. Introducera en extremt långrandig och svamlig karaktär? Blir tråkigt väldigt snabbt. Låta den karaktären vara berättare i stora delar av boken? Dålig idé. Skriva dom delarna i en EXTREMT IRRITERANDE FONT? Sämsta idén.
På nåt underligt vis gick det ändå väldigt fort för mig att läsa den här boken (kanske för att man seriöst kunde hoppa över en halv sida här och var utan att missa NÅT), och alla huvudkaraktärerna höll ihop i stort sett hela boken vilket irriterande nog aldrig händer annars. Så två stjärnor ändå.
På nåt underligt vis gick det ändå väldigt fort för mig att läsa den här boken (kanske för att man seriöst kunde hoppa över en halv sida här och var utan att missa NÅT), och alla huvudkaraktärerna höll ihop i stort sett hela boken vilket irriterande nog aldrig händer annars. Så två stjärnor ändå.
July 10, 2022
Dave Stone's DW novels are outrageous, preposterous beasts...but this one is by far his most sedate, most contemplative novel, though it still features an undercurrent of the Stone-ish humour we've all come to expect. It's a surprisingly compelling work, as if he's brought a bit more discipline to his ideas, in an effort to make the farcical tragic...and it primarily succeeds. If you go into this thinking this is going to be another wild ride, as with his previous novels "Sky Pirates" and "Burning Heart", you're in for quite a surprise.
February 2, 2025
well I appreciate the inventiveness and some of the humour, but the characterisation was pretty off, and god this one was just irritating to get though.
September 3, 2022
The Slow Empire suffers from being the Eighth Doctor Adventures directly after The Year of Intelligent Tigers. The Year of Intelligent Tigers was a masterpiece, full of beautiful prose and character work, fully establishing how the Doctor, Fitz, and Anji work as a team and creating conflicts especially in terms of who the Doctor has become and how withdrawn as a person he can be due to continually being disappointed with humanity. The Slow Empire doesn’t do that. The first indication of what kind of book The Slow Empire is going to be is looking at the author, Dave Stone. Dave Stone is an author who I genuinely like. His ideas are excellent and his prose can be utterly fascinating. He has also written books like Burning Heart which is terrible. Heart of TARDIS, his previous Doctor Who effort, wasn’t the worst thing he has written, but it was bogged down in references to The Simpsons of all things. The Slow Empire, on the other hand, is a book whose plot succinctly put by a friend of mine only appears at the very beginning and very end of the novel. This is a book that is about 250 pages of incredibly confusing prose where events happen, but they are narrated by a character who may or may not be the Spanish word for ham without an accent. The plot involves creatures called Vortex Wraiths which inhabit the Time Vortex and there is also this Empire which doesn’t follow the regular rules of reality so Dave Stone can float from scene to scene with tenuous connections yet somehow it works. This might be the most self-reflective Stone has been, with Jamon de la Rocas being an obvious self-insert for the author.
There are also several notes at the back of the novel where Stone places the punchlines to many of his jokes as well as even more worldbuilding, and yes The Slow Empire is a lot of worldbuilding. Stone clearly is enjoying a lot of what he has created and nearly every page is riotous with laughter as the wit of a Dave Stone book is there. But the plot is just not there and that is perhaps the book’s biggest problem. As an experimental book, it’s an interesting idea to try and tell a story without a plot or really even characters, just interesting ideas playing around with time travel and a time without time travel. Heck there is really some interesting bits that could be part of the Divergent Universe arc of the Big Finish Eighth Doctor Monthly Range Adventures which would only come out three years after this book is published. This is also a book where one-third of the text is written in Comic Sans. No, I am not kidding. This professionally published and (hopefully) professionally edited novel written as the 47th in a series, is written and printed using Comic Sans. I think that gives you enough of an idea of what madness Dave Stone has in store.
Overall, The Slow Empire is a book that isn’t going to work for everybody, heck it barely works for me, but it is Dave Stone at his perhaps most esoteric and as the final Doctor Who novel he would write (outside of the Bernice Summerfield novels and audio dramas with Big Finish) it’s definitely one to go out on. 6/10.
There are also several notes at the back of the novel where Stone places the punchlines to many of his jokes as well as even more worldbuilding, and yes The Slow Empire is a lot of worldbuilding. Stone clearly is enjoying a lot of what he has created and nearly every page is riotous with laughter as the wit of a Dave Stone book is there. But the plot is just not there and that is perhaps the book’s biggest problem. As an experimental book, it’s an interesting idea to try and tell a story without a plot or really even characters, just interesting ideas playing around with time travel and a time without time travel. Heck there is really some interesting bits that could be part of the Divergent Universe arc of the Big Finish Eighth Doctor Monthly Range Adventures which would only come out three years after this book is published. This is also a book where one-third of the text is written in Comic Sans. No, I am not kidding. This professionally published and (hopefully) professionally edited novel written as the 47th in a series, is written and printed using Comic Sans. I think that gives you enough of an idea of what madness Dave Stone has in store.
Overall, The Slow Empire is a book that isn’t going to work for everybody, heck it barely works for me, but it is Dave Stone at his perhaps most esoteric and as the final Doctor Who novel he would write (outside of the Bernice Summerfield novels and audio dramas with Big Finish) it’s definitely one to go out on. 6/10.
January 15, 2025
The sensible thing, having materialised in this unknown place, would have been to sit tight and wait for the TARDIS to complete whatever obscure healing processes it was going through. The Doctor, on the other hand, had become all but terminally restless in a matter of minutes. There was a whole new world out there to explore, he had said, no doubt full of delights and exciting perils and whatnot, so what were they all doing sitting here?
Not one of Stone's best but still good. It has some really good concepts though I think this should have been slightly longer to give those concepts more time to ruminate. Stone does a decent job with Eight, Fitz, and Anji and I like Jamon alongside the Collector (though I liked it better when it was called "Sgloomi Po"). Not the worst EDA ever (in fact I'd probably put it in the bottom row of the "A tier") but still, a little dissapointing from Stone.
Not one of Stone's best but still good. It has some really good concepts though I think this should have been slightly longer to give those concepts more time to ruminate. Stone does a decent job with Eight, Fitz, and Anji and I like Jamon alongside the Collector (though I liked it better when it was called "Sgloomi Po"). Not the worst EDA ever (in fact I'd probably put it in the bottom row of the "A tier") but still, a little dissapointing from Stone.
March 22, 2024
Yeah, maybe the worst Doctor Who book I've read. A little too impressed with itself to be likable, a little too overwritten to be readable, and due to the Eighth Doctor's (repeated, recurring, infuriating) amnesia, the character isn't quite there. I don't have any connections to Fitz and Anji as companions, and this book didn't really enlighten me on their merits. Jamon was hella annoying. I did not need his comic-sans narration one little bit. Some ideas are cool, but too jumbled in with other ideas haphazardly to be really enjoyed properly. Honestly would've given up and read the wikipedia summary of the conclusion (and I nearly did at the last 20 pages), but this book has been met with such a shoulder shrug by the fandom THAT THERE ISN'T EVEN AN AVAILABLE PLOT SYNOPSIS ON THE WIKI - probably because the plot is a hot mess and no-one wants to try and iron it out into a few paragraphs.
November 28, 2018
This is one of the better Doctor Who books. There was plenty going on to keep the interest but enough philosophising to make you think. I haven't read any 8th doctors books before although I enjoyed the film when I was a teenager. I always felt sorry for Paul McGann as he is a good actor. Anyway, Doctor Who has had a great presence in our household, first through my husband and then through my son. I am glad he likes Doctor Who so much. He is an unconventional sort of hero but that's why he's so special.
July 3, 2019
This is a fun read.
March 25, 2013
I'm still not sure what happened.
The story was a good one, but it felt as disjointed as a multi-episode serial from the 70's. The constant narration by Jamon got REALLY annoying. The version I read has a terrible font for him too.
In all the *running down corridors* there wasn't much time for character development, but the story still managed to be amusing.
I'm a bit incredulous about the Doctor's reaction to getting stabbed in the chest. He seemed more hurt in 'Cold Heart' when he was shot with a tiny arrow. And what was with the magical 'fixer-upper' machine in the TARDIS sickbay?
As to what happened . . . there were wraiths and then a creepy emperor guy and then cult people and wraith cult people . . . and somewhere in all that it stopped making sense.
If you love the Doctor, it couldn't hurt you to read it. (As much as getting stabbed in the chest apparently can't hurt the Doctor.)
The story was a good one, but it felt as disjointed as a multi-episode serial from the 70's. The constant narration by Jamon got REALLY annoying. The version I read has a terrible font for him too.
In all the *running down corridors* there wasn't much time for character development, but the story still managed to be amusing.
I'm a bit incredulous about the Doctor's reaction to getting stabbed in the chest. He seemed more hurt in 'Cold Heart' when he was shot with a tiny arrow. And what was with the magical 'fixer-upper' machine in the TARDIS sickbay?
As to what happened . . . there were wraiths and then a creepy emperor guy and then cult people and wraith cult people . . . and somewhere in all that it stopped making sense.
If you love the Doctor, it couldn't hurt you to read it. (As much as getting stabbed in the chest apparently can't hurt the Doctor.)
December 14, 2009
Eighth Doctor Adventure (EDA) with Fitz and Anji. Enjoyability is purely dependent on whether you like the author's style, as the plot turns out to be quite thin. I quite enjoyed reading it, myself, but there are loose ends and unanswered questions which made it ultimately unsatisfying. Also, there are some EDA arc elements introduced which, although not critical, may bother a reader who wants all the answers right now.
April 8, 2009
http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/2190508.html[return][return]a comically pompous narrator but a real evil empire to fight and destroy, lots of stuff for the Doctor and companions Fitz and Anji, and some genuinely novel riffs on traditional sf and Who tropes.
March 2, 2010
Slow indeed.
January 2, 2017
Good, fast paced story. Being used to Nu Who, I am not used to the Doctor being so low on the uptake, but the more vulnerable doctor is an interesting character
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews