CHRISTMAS!
CHRISTMASCHRISTMASCHRISTMASCHRISTMAS
- Crap. I haven't finished my Christmas shopping.
Still... CHRISTMAS!!
And what would Christmas be without a young Smith in an Attic giving a few reviews on Christmas? Exactly the same as every other Christmas, of course! I only started these reviews this year, after all.
Given that this is my first Christmas reviewing stuff, I thought to myself - 'Smith, you really need to give a review on something classic, something regular - something quintessentially British and Christmassy all at once; something bold, iconic, and preferably something that you've already seen so all you need to do is refresh your memory and you'll be able to review it without, you know, paying money for it.' So yeah, Doctor Who Christmas Specials it is.
The Christmas Invasion.
Yes, nitpickers, it's not technically the first - there was another made starring the First Doctor, William Hartnell, early in the show's history. I won't be reviewing that one, since I plan to only do the NuWho episodes and because... Well, I haven't seen it and have no particular interest in trying to find it and watch it.
So The Christmas Invasion starts at the beginning of Season Two of the new series of Doctor Who, or the end of the first depending how you choose to look at it. While I, personally, see it as a bridge between the two series, if I had to pick I'd say it's a part of Season Two as, for me, Eccleston's departure was what marked the definitive end of the First Series. Now this immediately put it in a difficult position; though many people now consider Tennant to have been the greatest Doctor to have graced the show (I don't, if anyone's wondering) that wasn't the feeling we had when we saw him in the Series One finale, The Parting of the Ways. In fact, most people I knew thought he was too young, or too happy, or too effeminate.
Yes, there were people who felt that way.
But looking back at Eccleston's performance, it's easy to see why people were so upset. It bothers me to this day that he left so quickly; I honestly think he'd be remembered as the best by many more than just me had he had a run as long as Tennant's, or even Smith's. Either way, people loved him in Season One, and were reluctant to see him go - meaning Tennant needed to pull something great out of the bag in this episode for the transition to be relatively painless.
The episode begins with the TARDIS pretty much crashing outside the Tyler... er... appartmenthold, I guess, and Mickey and Jackie running out to find a strange man emerge. He angrily goes on about how he needs to tell them something important, when he remembers - 'Merry Christmas!' Then he collapses in front of them.
It's a pretty clever way of showing what the episode will be about - Christmas, and the Doctor being unconscious for about half the episode.
The episode is pretty involved, so I'll try to shorten it as best I can in terms of plot: The people of Britain have sent out a probe to Mars, and it gets picked up by a large alien spaceship. Harriet Jones, Prime Minister (and yes, she actually keeps calling herself that way past the point it's still actually funny) finds herself threatened by these aliens to surrender, or everyone with a certain blood type will step off a roof. See, they become sort of hypnotised and walk up to a roof, where they stand near the edge for a while. It's actually pretty eerie, made worse by the fact that she's constantly trying to get in touch with the man who helped her in an episode in the previous series, The Doctor.
He, meanwhile, is still recovering from the TARDIS radiation stuff he absorbed from Rose at the end of the previous episode and is in no position to help the people of Earth. It turns out he can barely save himself from a killer Christmas tree - and yes, they have one of those and it is so ridiculously brilliant to see.
After Mickey and Rose wander about getting attacked by alien Santas and there's a joke made about a guy Jackie knows (you know what I mean by know, right? You know, knows him? If not, you're probably too young. Ask your parents) having fruit in his dressing gown pocket that the Doctor is wearing while he recovers, the TARDIS, along with Mickey, Rose and an unconscious Doctor are taken to the alien ship, who are revealed to be called the Sycorax. They meet Harriet Jones and some of her staff, who were taken up to the ship to negotiate a surrender of Earth.
Rose steps forward in a painful attempt to imitate the Doctor, using a bunch of stuff he said last series to try and intimidate them, but in a very unintimidating manner and quite frankly, in a way that makes no sense. The Doctor was often able to scare his enemies, but rarely - if ever - to the point that they would back off. He always needed to back up his threats, something Rose definitely cannot do. Assuming she is threatening them - personally, I couldn't really tell what message she was trying to get across, it was all very jumbled and incoherent.
In any case, the leader of the Sycorax laughs and starts talking in his alien language, which they have been using all episode since - with The Doctor out of commission - the TARDIS translator has been inactive meaning we can't understand what it's saying. Personally, I don't know why The Doctor being unconscious has anything to do with whether it functions or not; he's been unconscious before and it still worked fine. Maybe I'm nitpicking, but it seems like a bit of a convenience to build up the fact that he has woken up when the Sycorax leader starts speaking English.
As it turns out, all the Doctor needed was a cup of tea to get better, which had been spilled by Jackie in the TARDIS earlier. Ah, British TV, where a brew really does solve all your problems - including extra-terrestrial hostile takeovers. So he's back, and immediately takes charge of the situation, removing the mind control over the people on the roofs, challenging the Sycorax leader to a duel for the planet, and lamenting the fact that he's not ginger.
The Doctor wins the duel - after losing a hand and growing another - but when the Sycorax leader tries to stab him in the back (almost literally) he throws a Satsuma at a conveniently placed switch that causes the floor to open beneath the alien invader, and he plunges to his death.
The time travelling hero then announces to The Sycorax that they are to tell other species and let them know of its riches, people and most importantly - that 'It. Is. Defended'. This draws a concerned look from Harriet Jones, but the Sycorax send them back and retreat. However, before they can get away, Harriet Jones orders a mysterious group known as Torchwood (admittedly not so secret now) to open fire, and they destroy the ship using some sort of weapon that looks alien in nature. The Doctor is livid, and confronts her in a pretty shouty but effective scene in which he threatens her, and she - who has seen how dangerous he is - doesn't bat an eyelid. Until she thinks he has said something to her aide which will bring down her rule as Prime Minister - and she panics.
The episode ends with Rose and The Doctor having Christmas dinner with Jackie and Mickey, before heading back to the TARDIS for more travels, while Harriet Jones' mental health is called into question and it's hinted there will be a vote of no confidence that will remove her of her position.
The Christmas Invasion is pretty good. It's not my favourite of the Christmas Specials, but that is partly down to the fact that - well, it isn't entirely a Christmas special. Sure, the backdrop is Christmas, and the airing date was December 25th, 2005, but it's also an introductory episode for Tennant. And on both ends, it does a decent job.
Part of the problem for the Christmas element is that it's a little too plot driven. A lot is happening, and honestly there isn't much that's heartwarming and fun surrounding the episode aside from the Christmas dinner scene near the end. The whole Torchwood, blood control and blowing up of the Sycorax are a little dark, and while that's fine for a Christmas special to have, it just seems a little out of place in the way that it's done. It certainly doesn't feel very much like the Christmas element is prevalent enough within the actual story for it to feel like it is first and foremost a Christmas Special, since you could very easily remove anything Christmas related and the plot would be just about the same.
As for an introductory episode to a new Doctor, this one takes a pretty bold approach by not actually having him particularly present for about half of the special. These sorts of episodes usually annoy me, but in this case it really works. It piles on the tension, as things get gradually worse and worse and we, the audience, become more and more desperate for the Doctor - any Doctor - to appear and save the day.
The fact that it takes place on the modern Earth scene with characters that we've gotten to know over the past series means we still have a familiar element and aren't scratching are heads and wondering why we should care what's going on, as well as being able to focus almost entirely on the Doctor when he does appear. And, when we finally see the Doctor everyone was so sceptical about, we are relieved, our view of him immediately being a pretty positive one. It's an example of a changeover done right, for the most part - and one which holds up even better when contrasted with the Matt Smith introductory episode (which in my opinion went about introducing the new Doctor in a completely different way that just did not work).
That said, it's a bit heavy handed on the whole thing with him not knowing what sort of person he is. Constant repetitions of 'that's the man I am' got very grating, and I felt like I was being hit over the head with the idea over and over again. Then when I rub my head and groan in pain, they hit me again. It really takes away from the episode, which was otherwise doing an excellent job of introducing a new Doctor to the audience.
The Harriet Jones stuff was some of my favourite elements, going back and watching it, having seen her character arc of sorts come to an end in The Stolen Earth, and I really think she's one of the best supporting characters that wasn't a companion the show has had. I love that she refuses to become dependent on The Doctor in the end, realising that humanity needs to be able to defend itself because he won't always be there to defend them. The way she challenges his authority is fantastic, and she actually brings him up short for possibly the only time in the episode - in fact, he completely ignores her argument and topples her regime. It's a wonderful moment, after seeing him almost dance his way through the whole Sycorax thing with childlike energy until his final speech to them, to have him behaving deadly serious with this woman who he feels betrayed his trust and is in many ways no better than the monsters he fights is a great moment that hammers home the intensity that Tennant would bring to the role.
I actually feel the parts of the episode that don't hold up too well are the bits without The Doctor. On the one hand, I like the risk they took there and I think it had the effect they desired; on the other hand, it means that the first half of the episode can really drag, and at times feels a little incoherent. The stuff with the killer Christmas tree and alien Santas seemed to be nothing more than keeping the main characters that weren't unconscious busy, as I can't remember it actually contributing anything significant to the plot given the amount of time it took up.
The Christmas Invasion was a solid start to Tennant as a Doctor, and a decent first Christmas Special for NuWho that would remain a tradition up to this day, eight years on, that shows no sign of stopping anytime soon (I hope). It may not be my favourite, but it's still pretty good for all that.
I'm a Smith in the Attic, and these are my stories.
Tuesday 10 December 2013
Tuesday 3 December 2013
Pretentious reviews: The Fall of Five
Right then. That happened.
Spoilers ahead, ye be warned. As it were.
I remember saying last post that I hoped they brought Sam back, and that they would keep up the good quality of The Rise of Nine. Well, they did the first one. Not so sure about the second...
But I'm getting a little ahead of myself. This is my review of The Fall of Five, the last of this series that I'm going to be reviewing for nearly a year now, since that's how long it's going to be before the next book comes out. Which means that this series will become an annual event; at least, in terms of this book series. I'm sure I'll find stuff to occupy my time and write about.
So from where we left off last book, all the main characters - bar Sam - had come together in the enemy Mogadorian base where they had barely fought off the big bad off the series, Setrakus Ra, leader of the Mogadorians. But between then and now, there were a bunch of mini stories released about a young Mogadorian called Adamus, or Adam, who was given the memories of Number One in some sort of sci-fi manner, and at least one of her legacies, terrakinesis. At least, I think that's what it is - as far as I know, he's just made earthquakes. He then switched sides and freed Malcolm Goode, Sam's father. That's all I know about the series as I haven't read them myself, but I was very intrigued by this development and looked forward to seeing this new character in The Fall of Five.
Naturally, when the book opens with Sam getting rescued by Malcolm and Adam, I was thrilled. Then Adam splits off from them to cover their escape, and pretty much disappears until the end. Still, we had Sam back - as a narrator, as well, which was a very welcome addition. The book switches to the Garde, and their viewpoints switch between John and Marina as they basically interact and their characters develop. John and Sarah share a room and bed, but have apparently been very appropriate despite that. Which I find a slight stretch of the imagination and a little nauseating, since this couple is a little heavy on the cutesie as it is without them needing to cuddle every night, but I'm willing to overlook it. It's cool seeing more of Nine and Six, though I wish they had more interaction. As it is, they seem to interact with the other Garde members more than each other, which leads to some fun interactions nevertheless. John and Nine are at peace with each other, it seems - which I like, it's cool seeing the respect and friendship they developed for each other carry over to this book without sacrificing some of the banter between them. I also love how Nine shows off so much to the other Garde, the girls in particular, which is absolutely hilarious since not a one of them is impressed and he doesn't even seem to expect them to be, he's just winding them up.
About the only things that happen for a while seem to be that John is unofficially made leader - which I'd have been annoyed at if we hadn't had the final battle at the end of the final book. John really comes into his own in that, learning to throw fireballs because of his Lumen (the cynic in me rolled my eyes; the kid in me thought 'WOWTHATSFRIGGINAWESOME!!!!!) and keeping a clear head through the fight. I guess his being bland means he's something of an everyman with fewer flaws than the everyman; while it doesn't make for a compelling character in their own right, it makes him a good choice for a leader, as he's competent enough in a fight to command respect, but not such a hotheaded warrior type that he's reckless and insensitive to the others with him. And that brings enough conflict for his character to make him that much more bearable. Speaking of which, Sarah learns to shoot. Still not too bothered about her, but at least she's being pro active.
Five then does something monumentally stupid - before we even meet the guy. He burns a Loric symbol for five as a crop circle, and sends them a message on where to meet him. Personally, I thought it would have been easier if Eight did some sort of chain teleport to his location with Ella using her telepathy and the tablet to guide him from the penthouse (she got that ability at the end of the last book; she also managed to block out Setrakus Ra's power cancel ability in some way) to find Five, but either that wouldn't work or it's too much common sense for the Garde to handle. Anyway, John, Six and Sarah set out to meet Five and bring him back. The love triangle is resolved in a very anticlimactic fashion, with Six agreeing to step aside as she knows John and Sarah are in true love or something stupid, which I'm fine with since I still pair Sam and Six. They find Five, who seems to be a bit of a klutz; the Mogadorians then find them and there's a brief battle that ends with Malcolm and Sam arriving and saving the day.
Yep. Less than halfway through the book and we have all but one of the major players on the good side all together. I never expected that.
I'm of two minds of this; on the one hand, brilliant, we don't have to keep juggling storylines while Sam and his dad search for the Loric. On the other hand, it really makes the meeting with Five seem very anti-climactic. It should have been much bigger than it was, I feel, and is kind of offset by Five being so anti-social, and not in an entertaining or endearing way. In a pretty annoying way, actually. Thankfully, we get a great payoff to this at the end.
In any case, they return to the penthouse. They exchange stories; and we learn that Malcolm was one of several people who greeted the Loric and helped them get set up when they arrived at earth. The others are naturally dead now. As is Pittacus Lore - supposedly. It was meant to be his skeleton in the well, but given the name of the author I will either assume that's a red herring or there's some sort of reincarnation thing about the character. The others are distrustful when he says he and Sam were rescued by a Mogadorian, but he convinces them it's all good. Five turns out to have had a pretty dull life. His cepan died from a disease and he just wandered around a bunch of islands for a while.
Oh, and it turns out, according to Crayton's goodbye letter to Ella, that she is not Number Ten but the great granddaughter of an Elder who started a civil war on Lorien and got kicked off, and she was sent to earth by her father who wanted her safe. Or something.
Anyway, they play a game of capture the flag - yes, really - for training. It's a pretty cool section, with John and Nine leading each team, John leading Six, Five, Bernie Kosar and Sam against Nine, Eight, Marina, Sarah and Ella. The game ends with Nine's team barely winning, and it's pretty cool how close it was and that each member of each team contributes in some way.
There's some romance brewing in the background between Eight and Seven, which is cute enough I guess, and Eight is fairly comical so I don't mind time with him - or Marina, for that matter, who is developing reasonably well as a character. John and Sarah go on a date as well, and run into a couple of Mogadorians who John kills and finds a note on. Ah, and they same romance is dead. Six and Sam almost start a relationship, it seems, though Six is reluctant at first because of their predicament she seems to be won over until Eight teleports into the conversation with news.
They decide to set out for Five's chest, which he buried in a swamp apparently. However, Ella falls into some crazy sleep and John somehow gets sucked in when she touches his hand, and they both go into a coma sort of thing. The remaining Garde members decide to go for the chest while Sam, Sarah and Malcolm stay behind.
At the penthouse, Sam finds out the Mogadorian note John found has their location on it, and mistakenly believes it's his dad that gave him away, possibly as a sleeper agent of sorts. At the same time, he finally receives a call from Adam that his dad had been waiting for all book who warns them that they know where they are. The Mogadorians arrive, and the three humans try to fight them off, Malcolm getting badly wounded and Sarah getting injured.
Meanwhile, the Garde find Five's chest, but he turns around and betrays them, trying to win over Marina and Eight to his cause after subduing Six and Nine. Eight and Marina refuse, and are incapacitated. They try to talk Five around, but it doesn't work partly due to Nine's snarky remarks and partly because he was indoctrinated into the Mogadorian ranks when he was pretty young. They are able to just about overpower Five, but he breaks free and flies at Nine, trying to stab him - when Eight teleports in the way and is stabbed through the heart. This time, legitimately and fully dead.
Yep. They went there.
Marina suddenly develops a legacy that I think is cryokinesis, and takes out one of Five's eyes. She drops an F-bomb (which felt a little forced, but what can you do) and threatens him, as the remaining three get away as the Mogadorians attack, leaving Eights body (frozen) with the enemy.
John has a nightmare in which Ella is Setrakus Ra's heir, Chicago is decimated and the only resistance left are Six and Sam, who are captured. Ella orders their execution and Setrakus Ra cuts off Six's head, to Sam's horror, and John feels the burning sensation on his ankle - waking him up. He is able to fight off some of the Mogadorians in the apartment, but has to make a choice between saving Malcolm from death, or Ella from captivity. He chooses to save Malcolm - and thank heaven for it. After having Sam waiting so long to see his dad, it would have been cruel and cheap for him to have been killed off at the end of the book, particularly since at least one adult has needed to die near the end of each book so far. Ella is captured, Bernie Kosar - who went to the roof of the building to hold off the invaders - has not returned, John knows one of them is dead and that Five has likely betrayed them (having seen Five in the vision working for the Mogadorians). Things look pretty bleak, when Adam finally returns and John accepts his help to win the war.
The end.
It's odd, that this book did nearly everything I wanted it to - more than Rise of Nine, even - and yet it left me feeling a little hollow at the end.
I initially thought that was Eight's death. While he wasn't my favourite character, I still liked the guy and was shocked that they would kill off one of the major players in the series - let alone one of the Garde - like that, particularly so far from the end of the Lorien Legacies run. But the more I thought about it, the more I realised that I actually liked it - after all, I'd felt somewhat cheated as they killed off all the important grown ups before they had been around for a full book, but all the people under twenty were completely fine. Killing off a character presumed safe, and one that we'd gotten to know over a fair bit of time and grown to actually like, was a very good move and I appreciate the book for it. I also like the twist of Five being a traitor, and the way it's done actually makes sense - he feels betrayed himself by his own people, who he feels deserted by, whereas the Mogadorians took him in and trained him, and taught him properly, at least in his mind. It also serves to give us a much more complex villain than the one dimensional (at least so far) Setrakus Ra, and the stupid federal agents who really come across as more of a minor annoyance than anything else.
Then I thought it was the ending. After all that time waiting for Adam to appear, and for us to see some really cool dynamics - or at least the start of some - was something I thought we'd be getting in the last tenth of the book. But oh no, instead we get a section devoted to that dead cepan that takes up a full ten per cent of the book - and I got it on Kindle, I know it was exactly a tenth. Why would you do that? Give a major cliffhanger for an ending, leave us assuming we have more to read and then give us a pointless mini episode instead? We don't even know if the stupid pet is alive and that could have been determined with about a page more of the actual story (though I doubt he's dead; we're already on a bum note going into the next book, it's unlikely they'll kick it off with a dead dog to add to that). The ending infuriated me, if only because I expected more.
Then I realised that the real problem was that very little was actually accomplished in this one. Funny, since this is probably the longest synopsis I've actually done since I began these reviews. The thing is, the previous books felt like build up, like we were heading towards a certain point, the pieces coming together and then when they finally do come together, stuff will really begin to happen - and that point was the end of the previous book. It feels like such a step backwards; we have the Loric fighting the enemy in the heart of their base, all coming together and using their powers to combat the leader of the Mogadorians, and then... They go back to Nine's apartment. It takes them a while to actually do anything. They go and get Five, where they pick up Malcolm and Sam too. They go to get Five's chest - which should have been a simple collection, and ended up being the flipping climax of the book. Some stuff is revealed. Comparatively, last book we had one group pretty much travelling the world finding a Garde member then getting back to the other group, that really spent more time bonding and developing character - which still worked - and then it ended with a huge, awesome fight at the end. It felt like the stakes were getting higher, and this one should have really picked up where that left off. But the next time we see the Loric, after they fought their greatest enemy who nearly killed several of them, they're in a penthouse relaxing. It feels so backwards.
More than that, it feels like its trying to focus on all the characters and do them justice; which shouldn't be hard since they're not brilliantly complex and usually, at their deepest, stereotypes with a bit of a twist. Still, to have about ten different characters in the apartment, two of them we've never even met, and develop their characters while at the same time moving the plot along means you need to use more material. A decent job is done on most, though Six gets somewhat glanced over - as does Eight, actually, and considering his death is imminent, it feels like more of an effort should have been made. Even Ella, who seems to have the most to do with the plot (my personal guess is that her great grandfather, or grandfather is Setrakus Ra and the whole thing is a Loric civil war in some way or another) doesn't get much in the way of character development. Nine seems there primarily for other characters, like Five, Marina and occasionally Eight, to bounce off, without getting much focus - though I guess last book gave him plenty. John actually improves, and Sarah too (slightly). Heck, Sam seems to be the main character of this one - why am I complaining? Because I feel like a lot of noise is made, but there's too much time spent debating what they should do, and stretching a story between more characters than this tiny amount of page space can handle effectively.
I like the stuff with the Garde building relationships, but the story really needs to be picking up, and it was much faster when there was a sense of urgency that came with the characters being on the run in the previous two instalments. Hopefully, given the ending to this one, we'll see more of that and we'll get to see some great dynamics between Adam and the other characters. A part of me thinks Malcolm's death would have been interesting, if only because next book, Adam would only have Sam - who had known him about five minutes before they parted ways - to vouch for him, and he'd need to start things completely from scratch. Still, I'm happy how they did it, and the parallels between Adam and Five are awesome - I would love to see them go head-to-head at some point.
So what's there to say about this one? Well, I won't deny it's important to the story. It takes some well-placed risks, introduced some great plot elements and has actually improved on some of the characters. On the other hand, it feels like a lot is crammed in here but not a lot is actually done, and it does suffer from a feeling of going backwards after the last book. I still think Rise of Nine is the best, and this possibly sits alongside or just below The Power of Six. Still above the first, but not the best work.
For all that, looking forward to the next one - whenever it is released - and giving my thoughts to you then. I hope I'm better at this by that point, but if not... Ah, well. In the meantime, well, I'm feeling Christmassy at the moment, for one reason or another. And given the recent Fiftieth Anniversary of Doctor Who... Well, some Christmas special reviews wouldn't go amiss, I'm sure.
I'm a Smith in the Attic, and these are my stories.
Spoilers ahead, ye be warned. As it were.
I remember saying last post that I hoped they brought Sam back, and that they would keep up the good quality of The Rise of Nine. Well, they did the first one. Not so sure about the second...
But I'm getting a little ahead of myself. This is my review of The Fall of Five, the last of this series that I'm going to be reviewing for nearly a year now, since that's how long it's going to be before the next book comes out. Which means that this series will become an annual event; at least, in terms of this book series. I'm sure I'll find stuff to occupy my time and write about.
So from where we left off last book, all the main characters - bar Sam - had come together in the enemy Mogadorian base where they had barely fought off the big bad off the series, Setrakus Ra, leader of the Mogadorians. But between then and now, there were a bunch of mini stories released about a young Mogadorian called Adamus, or Adam, who was given the memories of Number One in some sort of sci-fi manner, and at least one of her legacies, terrakinesis. At least, I think that's what it is - as far as I know, he's just made earthquakes. He then switched sides and freed Malcolm Goode, Sam's father. That's all I know about the series as I haven't read them myself, but I was very intrigued by this development and looked forward to seeing this new character in The Fall of Five.
Naturally, when the book opens with Sam getting rescued by Malcolm and Adam, I was thrilled. Then Adam splits off from them to cover their escape, and pretty much disappears until the end. Still, we had Sam back - as a narrator, as well, which was a very welcome addition. The book switches to the Garde, and their viewpoints switch between John and Marina as they basically interact and their characters develop. John and Sarah share a room and bed, but have apparently been very appropriate despite that. Which I find a slight stretch of the imagination and a little nauseating, since this couple is a little heavy on the cutesie as it is without them needing to cuddle every night, but I'm willing to overlook it. It's cool seeing more of Nine and Six, though I wish they had more interaction. As it is, they seem to interact with the other Garde members more than each other, which leads to some fun interactions nevertheless. John and Nine are at peace with each other, it seems - which I like, it's cool seeing the respect and friendship they developed for each other carry over to this book without sacrificing some of the banter between them. I also love how Nine shows off so much to the other Garde, the girls in particular, which is absolutely hilarious since not a one of them is impressed and he doesn't even seem to expect them to be, he's just winding them up.
About the only things that happen for a while seem to be that John is unofficially made leader - which I'd have been annoyed at if we hadn't had the final battle at the end of the final book. John really comes into his own in that, learning to throw fireballs because of his Lumen (the cynic in me rolled my eyes; the kid in me thought 'WOWTHATSFRIGGINAWESOME!!!!!) and keeping a clear head through the fight. I guess his being bland means he's something of an everyman with fewer flaws than the everyman; while it doesn't make for a compelling character in their own right, it makes him a good choice for a leader, as he's competent enough in a fight to command respect, but not such a hotheaded warrior type that he's reckless and insensitive to the others with him. And that brings enough conflict for his character to make him that much more bearable. Speaking of which, Sarah learns to shoot. Still not too bothered about her, but at least she's being pro active.
Five then does something monumentally stupid - before we even meet the guy. He burns a Loric symbol for five as a crop circle, and sends them a message on where to meet him. Personally, I thought it would have been easier if Eight did some sort of chain teleport to his location with Ella using her telepathy and the tablet to guide him from the penthouse (she got that ability at the end of the last book; she also managed to block out Setrakus Ra's power cancel ability in some way) to find Five, but either that wouldn't work or it's too much common sense for the Garde to handle. Anyway, John, Six and Sarah set out to meet Five and bring him back. The love triangle is resolved in a very anticlimactic fashion, with Six agreeing to step aside as she knows John and Sarah are in true love or something stupid, which I'm fine with since I still pair Sam and Six. They find Five, who seems to be a bit of a klutz; the Mogadorians then find them and there's a brief battle that ends with Malcolm and Sam arriving and saving the day.
Yep. Less than halfway through the book and we have all but one of the major players on the good side all together. I never expected that.
I'm of two minds of this; on the one hand, brilliant, we don't have to keep juggling storylines while Sam and his dad search for the Loric. On the other hand, it really makes the meeting with Five seem very anti-climactic. It should have been much bigger than it was, I feel, and is kind of offset by Five being so anti-social, and not in an entertaining or endearing way. In a pretty annoying way, actually. Thankfully, we get a great payoff to this at the end.
In any case, they return to the penthouse. They exchange stories; and we learn that Malcolm was one of several people who greeted the Loric and helped them get set up when they arrived at earth. The others are naturally dead now. As is Pittacus Lore - supposedly. It was meant to be his skeleton in the well, but given the name of the author I will either assume that's a red herring or there's some sort of reincarnation thing about the character. The others are distrustful when he says he and Sam were rescued by a Mogadorian, but he convinces them it's all good. Five turns out to have had a pretty dull life. His cepan died from a disease and he just wandered around a bunch of islands for a while.
Oh, and it turns out, according to Crayton's goodbye letter to Ella, that she is not Number Ten but the great granddaughter of an Elder who started a civil war on Lorien and got kicked off, and she was sent to earth by her father who wanted her safe. Or something.
Anyway, they play a game of capture the flag - yes, really - for training. It's a pretty cool section, with John and Nine leading each team, John leading Six, Five, Bernie Kosar and Sam against Nine, Eight, Marina, Sarah and Ella. The game ends with Nine's team barely winning, and it's pretty cool how close it was and that each member of each team contributes in some way.
There's some romance brewing in the background between Eight and Seven, which is cute enough I guess, and Eight is fairly comical so I don't mind time with him - or Marina, for that matter, who is developing reasonably well as a character. John and Sarah go on a date as well, and run into a couple of Mogadorians who John kills and finds a note on. Ah, and they same romance is dead. Six and Sam almost start a relationship, it seems, though Six is reluctant at first because of their predicament she seems to be won over until Eight teleports into the conversation with news.
They decide to set out for Five's chest, which he buried in a swamp apparently. However, Ella falls into some crazy sleep and John somehow gets sucked in when she touches his hand, and they both go into a coma sort of thing. The remaining Garde members decide to go for the chest while Sam, Sarah and Malcolm stay behind.
At the penthouse, Sam finds out the Mogadorian note John found has their location on it, and mistakenly believes it's his dad that gave him away, possibly as a sleeper agent of sorts. At the same time, he finally receives a call from Adam that his dad had been waiting for all book who warns them that they know where they are. The Mogadorians arrive, and the three humans try to fight them off, Malcolm getting badly wounded and Sarah getting injured.
Meanwhile, the Garde find Five's chest, but he turns around and betrays them, trying to win over Marina and Eight to his cause after subduing Six and Nine. Eight and Marina refuse, and are incapacitated. They try to talk Five around, but it doesn't work partly due to Nine's snarky remarks and partly because he was indoctrinated into the Mogadorian ranks when he was pretty young. They are able to just about overpower Five, but he breaks free and flies at Nine, trying to stab him - when Eight teleports in the way and is stabbed through the heart. This time, legitimately and fully dead.
Yep. They went there.
Marina suddenly develops a legacy that I think is cryokinesis, and takes out one of Five's eyes. She drops an F-bomb (which felt a little forced, but what can you do) and threatens him, as the remaining three get away as the Mogadorians attack, leaving Eights body (frozen) with the enemy.
John has a nightmare in which Ella is Setrakus Ra's heir, Chicago is decimated and the only resistance left are Six and Sam, who are captured. Ella orders their execution and Setrakus Ra cuts off Six's head, to Sam's horror, and John feels the burning sensation on his ankle - waking him up. He is able to fight off some of the Mogadorians in the apartment, but has to make a choice between saving Malcolm from death, or Ella from captivity. He chooses to save Malcolm - and thank heaven for it. After having Sam waiting so long to see his dad, it would have been cruel and cheap for him to have been killed off at the end of the book, particularly since at least one adult has needed to die near the end of each book so far. Ella is captured, Bernie Kosar - who went to the roof of the building to hold off the invaders - has not returned, John knows one of them is dead and that Five has likely betrayed them (having seen Five in the vision working for the Mogadorians). Things look pretty bleak, when Adam finally returns and John accepts his help to win the war.
The end.
It's odd, that this book did nearly everything I wanted it to - more than Rise of Nine, even - and yet it left me feeling a little hollow at the end.
I initially thought that was Eight's death. While he wasn't my favourite character, I still liked the guy and was shocked that they would kill off one of the major players in the series - let alone one of the Garde - like that, particularly so far from the end of the Lorien Legacies run. But the more I thought about it, the more I realised that I actually liked it - after all, I'd felt somewhat cheated as they killed off all the important grown ups before they had been around for a full book, but all the people under twenty were completely fine. Killing off a character presumed safe, and one that we'd gotten to know over a fair bit of time and grown to actually like, was a very good move and I appreciate the book for it. I also like the twist of Five being a traitor, and the way it's done actually makes sense - he feels betrayed himself by his own people, who he feels deserted by, whereas the Mogadorians took him in and trained him, and taught him properly, at least in his mind. It also serves to give us a much more complex villain than the one dimensional (at least so far) Setrakus Ra, and the stupid federal agents who really come across as more of a minor annoyance than anything else.
Then I thought it was the ending. After all that time waiting for Adam to appear, and for us to see some really cool dynamics - or at least the start of some - was something I thought we'd be getting in the last tenth of the book. But oh no, instead we get a section devoted to that dead cepan that takes up a full ten per cent of the book - and I got it on Kindle, I know it was exactly a tenth. Why would you do that? Give a major cliffhanger for an ending, leave us assuming we have more to read and then give us a pointless mini episode instead? We don't even know if the stupid pet is alive and that could have been determined with about a page more of the actual story (though I doubt he's dead; we're already on a bum note going into the next book, it's unlikely they'll kick it off with a dead dog to add to that). The ending infuriated me, if only because I expected more.
Then I realised that the real problem was that very little was actually accomplished in this one. Funny, since this is probably the longest synopsis I've actually done since I began these reviews. The thing is, the previous books felt like build up, like we were heading towards a certain point, the pieces coming together and then when they finally do come together, stuff will really begin to happen - and that point was the end of the previous book. It feels like such a step backwards; we have the Loric fighting the enemy in the heart of their base, all coming together and using their powers to combat the leader of the Mogadorians, and then... They go back to Nine's apartment. It takes them a while to actually do anything. They go and get Five, where they pick up Malcolm and Sam too. They go to get Five's chest - which should have been a simple collection, and ended up being the flipping climax of the book. Some stuff is revealed. Comparatively, last book we had one group pretty much travelling the world finding a Garde member then getting back to the other group, that really spent more time bonding and developing character - which still worked - and then it ended with a huge, awesome fight at the end. It felt like the stakes were getting higher, and this one should have really picked up where that left off. But the next time we see the Loric, after they fought their greatest enemy who nearly killed several of them, they're in a penthouse relaxing. It feels so backwards.
More than that, it feels like its trying to focus on all the characters and do them justice; which shouldn't be hard since they're not brilliantly complex and usually, at their deepest, stereotypes with a bit of a twist. Still, to have about ten different characters in the apartment, two of them we've never even met, and develop their characters while at the same time moving the plot along means you need to use more material. A decent job is done on most, though Six gets somewhat glanced over - as does Eight, actually, and considering his death is imminent, it feels like more of an effort should have been made. Even Ella, who seems to have the most to do with the plot (my personal guess is that her great grandfather, or grandfather is Setrakus Ra and the whole thing is a Loric civil war in some way or another) doesn't get much in the way of character development. Nine seems there primarily for other characters, like Five, Marina and occasionally Eight, to bounce off, without getting much focus - though I guess last book gave him plenty. John actually improves, and Sarah too (slightly). Heck, Sam seems to be the main character of this one - why am I complaining? Because I feel like a lot of noise is made, but there's too much time spent debating what they should do, and stretching a story between more characters than this tiny amount of page space can handle effectively.
I like the stuff with the Garde building relationships, but the story really needs to be picking up, and it was much faster when there was a sense of urgency that came with the characters being on the run in the previous two instalments. Hopefully, given the ending to this one, we'll see more of that and we'll get to see some great dynamics between Adam and the other characters. A part of me thinks Malcolm's death would have been interesting, if only because next book, Adam would only have Sam - who had known him about five minutes before they parted ways - to vouch for him, and he'd need to start things completely from scratch. Still, I'm happy how they did it, and the parallels between Adam and Five are awesome - I would love to see them go head-to-head at some point.
So what's there to say about this one? Well, I won't deny it's important to the story. It takes some well-placed risks, introduced some great plot elements and has actually improved on some of the characters. On the other hand, it feels like a lot is crammed in here but not a lot is actually done, and it does suffer from a feeling of going backwards after the last book. I still think Rise of Nine is the best, and this possibly sits alongside or just below The Power of Six. Still above the first, but not the best work.
For all that, looking forward to the next one - whenever it is released - and giving my thoughts to you then. I hope I'm better at this by that point, but if not... Ah, well. In the meantime, well, I'm feeling Christmassy at the moment, for one reason or another. And given the recent Fiftieth Anniversary of Doctor Who... Well, some Christmas special reviews wouldn't go amiss, I'm sure.
I'm a Smith in the Attic, and these are my stories.
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