THE TOMORROW PEOPLE-The Chinbeard Novels (spoilers)

 

THE TOMORROW PEOPLE-The Chinbeard Novels  Year One

 

Sigh. This might never see the light of day as I do NOT want to hurt the sales of CHINBEARD’s TOMORROW PEOPLE novels. I want them to succeed. Sadly, I can’t really say I enjoyed the two already released. The first one is from Roger Price’s outline or something and as such isn’t part of the “universe” the books that follow claim to be. Thus it is really book ZERO and has no connection to the first book that follows it, book one, THE FIRST ONE. I just ordered book two, CHILDREN OF THE EVOLUTION.

 

Let me say that like the Nick show, the Big Finish audios, and the CW show, the thrill of having the show back is high and exciting and wonderful…but will it, like those three messes, be just another huge let down and NOT be our show the way it was and the way we remember it? Well, as it feels many of the writers who were involved in the dysfunctional and off base Big Finish mis-step series of audios (all reviewed and detailed in synopsis and review form in the files and on the blog), are involved in this, sadly, I sense a major disappointment in the entire out put of these novels.

 

The first book is from an outline by Roger Price. It is? It is. It seems Roger really didn’t know what value his original concept and characters had, nor what the real entertainment factor came from within his original Tomorrow People show. Or maybe he just burned out from it. This first novel, CHANGES, is really bad. Andy Davison is NOT my favorite writer, no offense to him. I read his TP book JAUNT and the updated version(s). I never felt Andy was a huge fan of the show and certainly he admits that he didn’t watch it when it first came on but has since. Some of his ideas about the show seem off to me and this plays suit into this novel.

 

For one thing, the Time Guardians, are evolved human beings, maybe even evolved TP and the TV show stated that they ---meaning Peter----evolved from Tp, that Peter might even be Carol’s descendant. While, like DOCTOR WHO, nothing is really exclusively clear and most things ARE left vague, the feeling in CHANGES (and probably in THE FIRST ONE, too) is that Andy and/or Roger have NOT written the Time Guardians as they were presented in the TV series. This defeats the purpose of these books. And if Roger’s ideas were so different from both the original TV show AND what the makers of the coming series (this book is NOT considered one of that series of books) wanted, then WHY start with this? Why put this out at all? It’s not like if we didn’t have it, we’d be missing a heck of a lot.

 

Frankly, the book CHANGES and the book THE FIRST ONE, have a lot in common with each other, plot wise. And both of them, I’m sorry to say, do not entertain or cater to the fans of the original series, nor can I see them entertaining non fans of any of the series.

 

Okay so here goes:

CHANGES starts out on the wrong foot by offering a very long treatise on evolution, humans, and the Time Guardians. This boring chapter goes on and on but its main criminal act is to state that the Time Guardians are NOT our species and not human. That they existed outside of our species and have no particular love for our species. No, no, and no. The TV show stated that the Time Guardians are future Tomorrow People and are descended from Earth Tomorrow People, whether or not the TP are considered human or not, they once WERE, thus the human connection. An alienating chapter, it also briefly mentions that one of the Time Guardians was different: Gabriel. This reeks of, despite the footnote that the Time Guardians have no relation to the Time Lords of DOCTOR WHO, uhm, DOCTOR WHO. No, no, and again, no.

 

This is not a great way to start off any TOMORROW PEOPLE novel.

 

The next page or two is an INTERLUDE that discusses the Thargons, Papa Minn, and the Sorsons. Brief, not sure why but again, THIS is a second infraction of how NOT to start off a TP novel. Again, any history of the TV show is safe later in the novel or in another novel but not starting out a new “universe” or whatever it is the writers of this franchise are trying to do.

 

To make this worse: the writers (!) take what was, at best, just a half remembered not very popular alien race from the old TV show---the Thargons---and had them return to conquer Earth and spread all over it, changing it, intermingling with what they believe are their common ancestors—humans. This changes the setting of the TP TV show, whether or not this was an alternate universe or a parallel one. NOT a good move, again, for a new novel that comes out some 30 years after the original ones and some 20 years after the Nick series novels. Gosh, did these writers learn nothing about the failures of returning franchises?

 

CHAPTER ONE, third after the overlong prologue and the two page interlude, is even worse. It’s an even worse way to start off a book series or any book about the TP: “Gabriel hated his life.”  No, no and no. What made BIG FINISH’s TOMORROW PEOPLE so poor was that it presented the TP in a life of misery thanks to and BECAUSE of their being TOMORROW PEOPLE. That is NOT what fans want of the TP, nor do any non fans who might become fans or regular audience members, want to see from their sci fi adventure heroes.

 

So, here we have a new character that none of us can relate to that is NOT from the TV show, well described in the text (there’s nothing wrong with the actual prose and writing but there’s plenty wrong with the plot and events and characters). And he hates his life. AND he’s a rock star? Why? No, no, and no.

 

In chapter two, we get further into what NOT to do in a TP novel. Especially a new TP novel for modern times. We have the intro of Jonathan Dixon. The novel, as those before it in the past, uses the names of the characters and actors, as new characters, thus we get Dixon, which seems to be the name of John in the Big Finish audio series. Frankly, I like Dianne Elliot’s FAIRCHILD as his last name. I’d even take John Young.

 

Not knowing what’s happening is fine. This seems, though, to be alternate universes or a time change that has our actors (?) and characters in different roles. Sigh. That’s definitely not something I want to read about.

 

This is almost unreadable, not because of the text…nothing wrong with the prose but because of the plot and characters. I don’t want to read about Mickey Bell who took Gabriel under his wing. I want to read about Mike Bell and his adventures. And if you had to bring a Time Guardian into it, why a new one? Why not use Peter? In fact, I wonder IF Price, who wrote the outline was under some kind of restriction NOT to use the names of the characters of some of the original TV show, the Nick show, and the CW show? It feels that way and as such it feels like a side alley that is a dead end. It does not inspire further reading.

 

More later. That’s all I could stand. It’s terribly boring.

 

Eventually, there is a Carol MacNeil who is a tutor to Gabriel who is being mentored by a Mickey Bell. She joined their traveling show in 2020 and has two children of her own. The author goes on to describe similar strays and waifs (Carol and Ami strays and waifs? WTF?). One is Ami Jackson, Gabriel’s choreographer. During a stop over in South Korea, Russell Kwon was hired for security. He had a brief career as a stunt man but rumor had it he was not very good and not successful and whatever he had was due to his mother.

 

Do you see the problem here? First, we get shoehorned in, TP like our TP from all three iterations or more, in new roles. Why? What is the purpose of this? If this were some four or five novels into the series, this might (MIGHT) be interesting as a side story or an alt universe story. Here, it’s just annoying. The writer also –instead of setting up scenes for us to find out about these things---merely explains these events in text (staying South Korea there was a terrorist attack on Gabriel’s hotel). Rule one of sci fi action adventure: SHOW don’t just tell. Have action happen, not just text.

 

Now, maybe Price had set up a series that had this as it’s fourth episode but we shall never know.

 

Ami had worked with Bieber “before his fall from grace” whatever that means and also Micheal Jackson was a regular client. Sigh.

 

BTW, the entire plot of this novel minus the time changes and aliens more than resembles the movie PRIVILEGE—a one world government and religion uses a popular young rock star to try to control the thinking of young people via brainwashing and a huge celebration outside festival of music. A young girl is undercover and snaps him out of it.  

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Privilege_(film)

 

A colleague of the 70-something Jonathan Dixon is a Dr. Curthoys (see Tricia from the original series SECRET WEAPON and REVENGE OF JEDIKIAH stories). There is also a period of Dixon’s life that remained “inaccessible.” It all centered around…a girl.

 

Page 30 seems to have one of those typos. “The bond she had with Gabriel was far deeper than anything she had ever felt either of her boys.” So Carol is much closer to 15 year old Gabriel than her own sons. That doesn’t exactly endear us to her. If I read this correctly (this story might be jumping around in time), Gabriel is 15 and…sleeps with and is bonded to a Teddy Bear? WTF?

 

The bear is a robotic one and has a Bronx accent. Anyone getting the feeling of the movie TED?

 

Gabriel looking out to his fans, calls them, “Saps.”

 

The entire set up, including the riveting Professor Dixon riding a motorbike or something, his thoughts about Canada and the Gabriel “team”, and Gabriel’s quick shower take up the next few chapters.

 

Then, in chapter 10, the shop keeper Dixon meets is named. He is Marmaduke and is called Duke for short. The shop is a bike shop called Damon’s Wheels. Sigh again. More Nickelodeon references.

 

Apparently, Gabriel sent one Ty Boswell (yes, really) in a helicopter to pick up Dixon for their interview meeting. Duke tags along. There seems to be a typo on page 46: “”Duke’s was as giddy as a child.” It could have meant Duke was as giddy as a child or Duke’s (something---face, countenance?).

 

In any case, on chapter 11 and while this, if it were a visual TV movie or episode or something, might not be that bad if seen. As it is a book, it’s not bad, not terribly written but I find myself wondering why? And what. What has this to do with the Tomorrow People other than a bunch of references?

 

More later.  

 

Interlude: What’s odd is that, while I found myself wanting to pan this book and criticize it for it not being all it could have been and in particular not being the TP book I’ve waited for, for 25 years or more, I found myself wanting to know more about what was happening in it and what will happen and how this will all turn out.

 

Of course, it’s not really scratching the TP itch but aside from a TP story (which it’s really not, thus far, maybe all the way to the end), it’s not …totally disinteresting. At least as you get into it, the book might raise curiosity.

 

The next few chapters are…bizarre to say the least. Again, they’re competently written but…wow.

 

Some of it reeks of DOCTOR WHO-LUNGBARROW’s protective Teddy Bear like being that is protective of the boy Doctor.

 

The interruption of the interview between Gabriel and Dixon (Duke Damon is there, too) is one of the worst written scenes. I’m not sure if it is typo after typo here but a reader IS able to make sense out of what’s happening. They never get to the interview as John passes out, remembering Carol from his dreams. He then, in the next chapters, recounts his first meeting with Gabriel as a boy, himself being a boy. Gabriel in the near interview, is about 16.

 

Maybe it is me but I’m a bit confused as Dixon claims to have interviewed Gabriel over the years and then at one point a sentence says his first and last interview. Are those two separate interviews or is the first interview also the last interview?

 

Again, it could be me but the writing, again, while competent, is sometimes confusing.

 

And…another odd scene, also oddly written, has Gabe in school with John, they’re the same age in this flashback. John saw Gabe, Teddy, and an older man just appear. Gabe goes to school with John and John’s memories are seemingly messed with. They flee school when a teacher attacks Gabe but Teddy intervenes…in a whole classroom of kids who seem to barely react.

 

At this point in time, I’m sure not one TP fan needs a formal start to the TP that includes John’s break out, John’s meeting with alien Sophistrians and the Galactic Federation and Trig, John’s building of TIM, John’s finding the Woodland disused railway staton that would later house the Lab, and more.

 

Every fan probably has her or his own idea of what happened and there are several fan fictions, some great, some good, some mediocre, and some awful, downright awful, and some in between all of them, and some a combo of all of them, that have iterated such beginnings. A few are in the files of the FB group.

 

Do we need another one? A formal one from Roger Price? Maybe? BUT if we do, then THIS IS NOT IT. A strange boy who seems to be from an alien race with an old man sleeping on a mattress in a filthy underground railroad station, together with a talking Teddy Bear, telling John what he’s about to become AND leading him to a railway station underground that would be the Lab later? No, no, and no.

 

It's disconcerting to think this might be the official history of the TP. Certainly, fans can and probably will, dismiss it. The book, might later on in its chapters, dismiss these events itself by mentioning they are just part of one of many parallel timelines or alternate universes or alternate time lines and parallel universes that can occur that way. If so, do we need to “see” THIS one?

 

With wide eyed wonder at the choices being made by both Roger Price and Andy Davidson, I shall continue. But first, I need a lie down.

 

More later?

 

Some of the prose used suggests, lightly, that John might be gay? He seems to be caught up in the blue eyes of Gabriel when he’s his own age.

 

So TEDE built TIM and the Lab? Gabriel helped John break out. That’s not the way I would have gone with this. That’s not what I want to see when John breaks out. In the series, John says there was no one around to hear him when he broke out, so either he meant no TP around or this is just retconning or his memory changes later in this novel. This strange, strange novel.

 

Okay, so it gets worse. Gabe admits that he’s not …well, human. And he’s not non human in the sense that he’s a TP and not a human from Earth, he’s not even from Earth at all.

 

Hold the fort. While Gabe does mention that he messed up time and using DOCTOR WHO terms like the Web of Time and he does mention in the normal timeline, the Sophostrians were supposed to lead and guide the TP, particularly John and help him build TIM and the Lab and all that but now that Gabe screwed it all up, HE and Teddy are doing that. Gosh.

 

What I don’t understand is HOW the original creator who wrote this outline AND a man who wrote a book (JAUNT) on the TP, can positively get the Time Guardians SO VERY WRONG. They’re not aliens. They’re not Time Lords. They’re not balls of energy. They are, in the original TV show, the descendants of TP (say Peter came from Carol’s line for example which may or may not be true). BUT the idea that the Time Guardians ARE descended from human beings from Earth, TP beings IS what is in the original series.

 

HOW can these two writers change that to make them total aliens from beyond Earth and out in space?

 

And just what is the race mentioned called D’hengali? Is that supposed to be the race from THE BLUE AND THE GREEN? Some audio?

 

Gabe then tried to correct his mistake by…causing a mass break out at one time. And failed.

 

Gabe also claims that the Time Guardians do not register age in number terms. This also goes against the TV show where Peter states his age and the TP talk about how old Peter’s grandfather might be. Sigh.

 

Again, how could Davidson and Price get basic facts about the show so totally wrong?

 

It does not inspire one to read on. 

 

Page 81, there seems to be another typo as briefly, the prose, slips into first person with “salvo my way.” As Tede verbally attacks John Dixon, who is looking like a bum after having jaunted himself, Tede and Gabe after seeing Carol, who he had feelings for.

 

Oh, and again, is Gabriel 15 or 16?

 

Gabe also explains that through interbreeding with Thargons, the human Earthlings have had their “TP evolution” slowed or even totally stopped. An interesting premise but not one I’m enjoying in this novel and this set up.

 

On page 101. Another basic rule broken. I can almost take Gabriel reading Carol’s mind and John’s mind and others without their knowledge of it and it being permitted somehow, his powers undefined as they are and certainly not in line with the TV show’s. BUT as Carol breaks out or just after (we’re in her time so she’s about 15 or 14?), she reads the mind of a Sap on the train. Okay, from the TV show, that’s another no-no and no. Just, no.

 

TP are not able to read the minds of non-TP. Even Liz can only read Tricia’s mind when Trish, another telepath and a latent TP, purposefully opens her mind up to Liz and it’s not really a reading anyway in SECRET WEAPON.

 

And for the sake of repeating too much: how can Price and Davidson allow this sort of thing. I mean were they writing a TP novel or not? 

 

Okay, so everything seems to be put right according to Gabe; Carol and John of their day are still teenagers and sent to their respective homes, despite wanting to stay on in the lab together (hmmm?); TEDE seems to leave his Teddy Bear body and go back to being energy, a product of the Sophistrians (or one of them?); Gabe and Professor Dixon are to travel back to the present day but…

 

…almost a second part of the novel happens.

 

Dixon and Gabriel (who I think must be Peter as in one of the flashbacks, he briefly explains how the plot of THE MEDUSA STRAIN had him, Gabriel, captive of Rubowski and Jedikiah; only oddly there, Stephen and Kenny both die thanks to the time changes I guess) end up in another parallel or time line change? In Toronto.

 

Not only do they, but Carol, her teenage self, ends up with them. Where? They are in a Thargon nasty time of the timelines on Earth. One Thargon in charge named Gith (anyone know if a Gith appeared in the novels or novelizations or the audios from Big Finish?) interrogates them, and the nasty Thargons are intent on making Dixon suffer (they stun him, they also put a spike in his head to relieve the first stun?!).

 

Using what seems to be an anti Link Table, the Thargon’s find out info (that knocks Dixon and Carol off their stools but not Gabe). Gabe confesses to Dixon that he is NOT human (sigh, he should be somewhat) and that he is, like Teddy, an avatar. This should mean he does not look like this “angelic” pop star beauty.

 

The Thargons here know of Gabe and here, he seems to be part of their plans, even akin to a leader. We also meet what seems to be an unnamed female assistant to Gabe (like Carol MacNeil in the 2023 time line) and the name of the female, we find out, is Felu. She is communicating with a Director, a male.

 

 

 

Also in dialog on page 142,  A MUCH NEEDED HOLIDAY gets name checked in an statement unrelated to the story.

 

It turns out that Gabe’s friends are still to be interrogated, someone named Wilson is one of the resistance that Gabe sent on a mission and who died (Kevin Wilson from the 1992 series on Nick) as a result, and that someone who gets to secretly meet Gabe is Newman. Adam Newman from the Nick series.

 

Oh and for some reason, Gabriel is the only Gabriel among many parallel timelines and/or universes. No reason as to why since he SHOULD be involved in Earth’s history, too. Maybe because he made the changes? His intention was good, I think, but the Thargons used him to do all of this.

 

The interrogator of Carol as she is separated from Dixon and Gabe is separated from both of them is named Flas and he is supposed to be less up front about his manipulation to get answers. Carol is claimed as being 16.

 

Also: as Gith interrogates Dixon (who seems to take the most brutal of the violence shown to them) he reveals he knows that Dixon and his cohorts, including Gabriel, have tried to smuggle TP out from the Thargon controlled areas and/or Colonel Masters of the UIA.

 

A Thargon and hybrid Thargon controlled Ultra (CW) is also mentioned as having looked over Gabriel’s should the whole time.  

 

In this universe, Ami is one of the TP rebels.

 

The nearest I can figure is that Gabriel thought by traveling the world, he was secretly calling to Tp and future Tp in some kind of rebellion against the Thargons. HOWEVER, the Thargons were using him to find the telepaths and capturing them, possibly killing them. The Thargons used the UIA, the Ultra Intelligence Agency.

 

On page 146, we learn that Carol’s parents were Richard and Vanessa MacNeil, possibly still alive and that Carol was born in 1954. We also learn that she was carried in the wake of the jaunt Gabe and Dixon took away from the lab. We also learn from the Thargon Gith that Dixon died in 2014.

 

Also on page 154 to 156, we got a potted semi history here of this “universe” and that Dixon was a double agent, working for the TP AND the Thargons but mostly the TP and in the early 2000s a number of telepaths broke out in and around the NY city area. In ten months, 50 meta human subjects were captured, taken and experimented upon.

 

In May of 2014, the NY Cell was completely eradicated with only Cara Samuels and Jonathan Dixon escaping. This date would coincide with the end of the CW series. So, history and events could be different here as John was not in the “cell” but working WITH Jedikiah so he could not be eradicated if events were the same. I’m not sure HOW anyone could break out IF the Thargons were dampening TP from the start of their invasion? Or maybe they were not? Plus, the Tp has moved into Ultra’s building on or around that date (maybe?) so maybe the eradication came before that move and they lost their battles?

 

Newman rescues Carol and Dixon using a disrupter which knocks Gith out but affects Newman as Newman wanted to kill him and the prime barrier bothered him. One of the human slaves, William K-18 is talked to by Carol. It is mentioned that one day, Carol’s sense to nurture and sense the best in people would endear her to the Andonesian Commonwealth representative that she and he (?) would start a new life together.

 

Fleeing, Adam Newman, the 71 year old Prof. John Dixon, Carol, and William helping support John are helped by Mike Bell, who arrives to stop any pursuers. Kwon is in the lift waiting to help, too.

 

Gabe finds out that the Thargons have unlocked HOW to steal the powers of the Tp from them to give to themselves and using that they will eliminate TP from Earth forever AND then go on to war against the Galactic Federation (and probably the Sorsens as well?).

 

NOTE: Undermind is mentioned but I know in the BLUE AND THE GREEN and possibly the novels (checked but no, it’s not in the novels at all that I found), that it is called OVERMIND?

 

Jade Weston drives a van/truck into a woman, a squad leader, killing her and she also threw the driver out of the truck, killing him. She has mild irritation and suffers greatly from breaking the prime barrier. WTF? Isn’t she supposed to go insane and/or DIE?

 

Later, during an attempt to reach the lab, which the group eventually do, Jade is shot by a Thargon in the head, an energy bolt going through her helmet. She dies.

 

The director is human and helping the Thargons and he appears in this chapter as do many more Thargon villains, some of them in something called the Thargon Host. The Thargons in this parallel invaded in 1978 but for some reason invaded younger John’s rechanged timeline in 1981? Sigh. WTF?

 

Okay, I’m totally confused. Maybe it’s just me. From what I can figure, TIM and the younger John jaunted over the Lab (you can jaunt a whole Lab and TIM?). Gabriel KNEW what he was doing for the Thargons or at least the others discuss so but Gabriel in some parts of this section of the book clearly does NOT. Cara is at the underground base in Toronto as is the younger John. The Thargons allowed some telepathic powers at times to locate them and/or have Gabriel locate them and try to help them get away, some did. Gabe just wanted connection to other TPs? And in so doing got a lot of them captured and a few killed?

 

In Toronto, the Director and the Thargons seem to kill a lot of telepaths that they used pacifying gas on. These were harvested to give the Thargons some power (or telepathic powers?).

 

Prof John Dixon, once in the underground base and their powers active again, seems able to have his body heal itself faster? Since when was that a TP power?

 

So, the Thargons use Gabe to round up telepaths for their own uses: slavery, menial work, and/or telepathic power draining…for their power? Are they trying to become telepathic themselves?

 

I’m so confused.

 

John also tells Carol that others broke out: Mike, Tyso, Hsui Tai, and Andrew. There were others who did not make it.

 

There also seem to be minor typos. First, Mike is Mike Bell and he holds “court” by starting to say this: “Mike was the first of us to be accepted into the sentinels.” He just talked about himself in third person?  The Tp infiltrated the Thargon sentinels?

 

Thargon machinery can dampen telepathic activity but not stop it and it also acts as a tracker.

 

On page 200, John says, “TIM and I searched everywhere, including hyper space, for any trace of you. But you there was nothing.”  Another typo?

 

Page 201 sees another typo as John explains, “It happened a couple of years than it did in your world.”  Supposedly, “…a couple of years later…than it did in your world.”

 

Blimey.

 

Also here in the underground Toronto Lab is Elizabeth M’Bondo.

 

Apparently, Kenny was killed by Jedikiah and the TP failed to save the Cyclops (Rash?) when his ship fell to Earth. Stephen was lost in hyper space and his body was never recovered.

 

 

Other Thargons: Homeworld Governor Hath; a tall, fat Thargon named Governor Pone; Bosk, head of the Thargon military; Governor Spir, head of the eugenics program.

 

Then, shockingly and maybe tastelessly, the Director turns out to be severely crippled Stephen. He claims he was on board the Cyclop’s ship when it crashed but the Thargons helped him. He also claims he drifted for weeks. Well, was he on the ship or was he in hyper space?

 

At this moment, I’m not sure what to make of this book. Is it a huge mess? A mis-step? Something unique?

 

I know PVC wanted to return to the TP …as a villain. Despite that, I’m sure he and others who went along with him in this and in the second audio from BIG FINISH made a huge error in judgement making him a villain. Sure, it IS a viable story plot thread and is somewhat shocking and unexpected but…the mistake is misjudging how the fans feel about Stephen. I’m sure things would reset back to the regular history but as this might have been the first book in a series (it’s not), it’s still upsetting and uncalled for. Yet…there’s something to it.

 

The book is not as bad as I first thought and does hold some interesting bits and surprising premises (Thargons taking over the Earth seemingly TWICE and plotting is one of these, though, the Thargons never seemed totally THIS evil to me on the TV show). The book is also more than  bit confusing. It also brings together TP from the CW show, the Nickelodeon show, and the original series and that is a plus. It also feels like a jumbled mess. There is a lot of action but also a lot of talk, talk, talk.

 

So, right here, right now, I’m not sure what to make of this very bizarre novel: parallel worlds? Alternate timelines that replace the other timelines (three? The original timeline, the first Thargon invasion in 1978 and the second Thargon invasion in 1981). Sigh.

 

Okay, someone’s been watching too much DOCTOR WHO: the description of Stephen sounds a lot like Davros from Doctor Who’s story JOURNEY’S END and THE STOLEN EARTH.

 

Kevin Weston was the one who died getting the blue prints of the event’s base and area to the TP.

 

 

John, Mike (frustratingly called Bell only most of the time), Newman, Liz and all the others’ plans are thwarted when John realized it was Stephen. SOMEHOW, Stephen, being one of the TP knew all their plans as they made them. NOTE: this goes against EVERYTHING in the TV show. The TP can only read each other’s minds WHEN they want their minds to be read.

 

Stephen is going to help the Thargons, who have backup generators, become the Thargonae Superior using Stephen’s individual genome (?). Stephen was found by Thargon War criminals who helped him, fleeing from the Thargons for war crimes. Stephen thinks them fools, from a race bred for war. Were the Thargons bred for war in the TV show? Eventually, the Thargons caught up with them and Stephen convinced them that the war criminals, having found Earth (?) were their saviors. Huh?

 

 We also know someone’s watched too much DOCTOR WHO from the scene where near dead or dead, Gabriel seems to transform once John and his older self (the Professor John Dixon self, who, btw, can shake hands with his younger self without a DW blast ala TERMINUS, that awful story) literally touch Stephen and links minds…or something.

 

Gabe’s transformation seems to be a lot like Ky in THE MUTANTS, a classic DW story as Ky flew and Gabe now flies. It’s also a lot like how the Doctor became a God like figure and flew in the inferior THE LAST OF THE TIME LORDS.

 

Mike and Newman and their teams may have been “mowed down” by Thargons when their plan fails. Who knows? We never hear from them again. Stephen, too, seems to die but John feels somehow his old friend “endured” somewhere or something? What?

 

The end has Gabe communing with the masses who attacked him and mingling minds so they all break out: a mass breakout. There’s also an epilog to explain more.

 

I don’t know. There are moments this works slightly but far more moments when I cannot help but think: this is the book they went with? This is the book they started with? Roger Price outlined this story? Why? It’s nothing like most of the TP stories, if any at all. And it’s not even remotely uplifting or optimistic. It’s…almost dismal on every page. No real joy to be found in this novel at all, really.

 

We do get lots of name checks: Megabyte, the Ship, Jade, Kevin, Adam Newman, Mike Bell, Andrew briefly, Hsui Tai briefly, Tyso, Cara, Carol, John, Professor Dixon—older John, Gabriel (but the name Peter is not mentioned AT ALL), Timus, TIM, Liz, Jade, Kwon, Sorsens, Jedikiah (the robot not that guy from SUPERNATURAL), The Cyclops, Colonel Masters, Ultra, and on and on and on. But a DC/Marvel crossover or a hero get together this is NOT.

 

The epilog tells how as the mass breakout happens, the Thargons call to arms happens but Timus and the Federation rebels (or a faction of it) stop them before a single shot is fired. The Thargons surrender before a single shot is fired. Only time will tell if they can live with the humans on Earth. What?

 

Okay, a rather unsatisfying and almost cowardly ending. We don’t know if most of the TP we know from the three shows survived or not: Mike? Adam? Liz? Newman? We don’t know how the future of this world turned out. We don’t know if Stephen did survive. If Gabe is himself? If he truly survived and worst of all, we don’t know if the timelines are back on track and THIS Thargon/recovering TP world is the ONLY world timeline left?

 

I’m sorry to say I cannot really recommend this book to most. Fans will want it. For this reason, this review will probably never see the light of day until and unless Chinbeard goes out of business or the novels go out of publication. I do NOT want to hurt the sales of the Tp books. I want them to succeed just as I wanted the audios, the Nick show, and the CW show to succeed, which, open for debate, none of them truly did.

 

To do the Tp in modern times, even in book form, a sort of “new universe” but “classic universe” melding is needed but also melded to the format it would take on TV: NOT DOCTOR WHO, not in 2024. Maybe in 2005 individual stories would work and aspects of them will work now but the truth is that the TC Kirkham fan fiction universe(s) worked best to bring back the TP and still do now. I realized it then but I realize it more now: TC may have had his issues (with himself, with others, not always his fault) but his format, a night time soap format with, eventually a lot of spinoffs with TP in them, would have been the best way to go.

 

 

Whatever this book is, it’s a false “start” but it feels as if it was never meant to be a start. Maybe it should have been withheld for a few books in (say ten or six?) before being published. As it is, this was published FIRST and while Chinbeard maintains it stands as a solo story, it was the advance guard of the coming series which starts with the second published book, THE FIRST ONE, which has an equal number of problems with it as a TP story and as a first story to be released in a series.

 

This is not bad novel but it’s not a terribly great one either and I feel almost every TP story can be great. As it is, this stands as a curious piece. Maybe Price insisted his idea be published first?

 

As for Andy Davidson, I’m not sure his becoming a fan at age 41 helped him write either JAUNT or CHANGES. He comes off as someone who just wanted to write a book about a sci fi TV show and DOCTOR WHO had had enough books out to fill several libraries…all on their own. He seems to get a lot right in JAUNT and even in CHANGES but sometimes there’s some glaring errors from both of his books that he refuses to correct or acknowledge. But we all have different POVs and different ideas and thoughts and even if different, we can co exist, even when we want different things from books about the TP and fictional stories, too.

 

Truth is there have been fan fiction about the TP since the late 1970s or mid to late 1980s for sure and many fan fiction writers have set up their own TP community and world on Earth and off Earth. Most of those are pretty good and interesting and create a whole world and universes or rather multi verses of exciting ways the TP could go. CHANGES is inferior to almost all of them.

 

As a TP fan, I’m left with a bad taste in my mouth for while things seem to workout in the bigger picture, the fate of many of our heroes here in this one off remains vague as does the situation. I guess there’s a precedent for this kind of thing in novel writing (LOGAN’S RUN books) but frankly, I didn’t like it as much as I wanted to like it.

 

I don’t hate it. I just don’t think this was the way I would have went with a new TP novel, one off and certainly not to introduce a new series, even if this one off wasn’t part of that series. Many would not know that unless they read it from one of Chinbeard’s kind (and they are kind, nice people) staff.

 

 

 

BOOK ONE or rather the first in the book series.

 

Just go with it. CHANGES was not book one but a one off solo “adventure” to detail Roger Price’s outline for a return from the series and as a return it’s just not a good return, if not a bad book.

 

 

About this new book, THE FIRST ONE. Let’s get one thing straight (!): I’m not a big Gary Russell fan. Oh, he’s a competent enough writer but it’s just that his ideas and biases about DOCTOR WHO fall into the zone of opposites. For example, he wrote, rather inappropriately, that Adric was a smelly off putting teenager in an early DW Virgin Novel Past Doctor adventure DIVIDED LOYALTIES, about the Toymaker or something.

 

I hate his DW book about this and he seems not to be an Adric fan. I am. I’m sure his ideas about the TOMORROW PEOPLE and my ideas about THE TOMORROW PEOPLE are wildly different.

 

When he was at BIG FINISH, I believe he oversaw the projects there and was basically what Nick Briggs was or I could be mistaken. Even so he wrote TOMORROW PEOPLE audios.

 

He wrote THE DEADLIEST SPECIES and TRIGONOMETRY.

 

I’ve reviewed both of these: https://scificfanhorrormedia.blogspot.com/2021/05/big-finishs-tomorrow-people-audio-2.html

 

https://scificfanhorrormedia.blogspot.com/2021/06/big-finishs-tomorrow-people-audios-12.html

 

A lot of his stuff leaves one feeling hollow, empty and unsatisfied, not because it’s badly written, it’s not but because the soul seems sucked out of it and it’s all far too grim and there is personal conflict between characters just for the sake of conflict. His writing is, for lack of a better word, harsh and cold could be a word I’d use for it, too.

 

Gary told us in THE BIG FINISH COMPANION (see the files or albums) that since the first story was a traditional TP framework story, he would do a modern take: which meant a lot of snipping at each other, darkness, death of beloved characters that he didn’t love, and Stephen being evil or brainwashed and everyone blaming John for not caring about anyone or anything or what they said and did.

 

Not to sound off my own horn or to present sour grapes or whatever, but THE FIRST ONE starts out a lot like my own fan fiction THE PHANTOM OF CALIFORNIA with a family of four in a house that seems as if it is haunted and the Tp investigating because they’ve picked something up from it ala CASTLE OF FEAR with Andrew. The outcome and plot are vastly different though. I always meant to type up the handwritten story of photograph the TP newsletter it was published in and post it in the albums or files but never got around to it, mostly because I wrote TP fan fic almost daily for almost five and a half years between 1988 and 1992 or thereabouts (including a huge universe off shoot of TC Kirkham’s universe, splitting from him after his abusive behavior and our differences of opinion and his stealing my character ideas but never mind, it’s all water under the bridge now it was so long ago). This caused me to literally burn out on the TP. When the Nick show came on in 1992 I hoped it would inspire me back into the TP universe. The TP show, any TP show should be epic, filled with a variety of stories and realistic and sci fi over the top characters in a wide range of settings, both in space and time as well as on Earth. The Nick series clearly was not epic and didn’t inspire. It was disappointing. The same can be said of the Big Finish audio series. While, it approaches EPIC, it, too, had the series just…wrong. It seemed to want to make it a DW dark New Adventure and used mostly DW writers and thus, the tone was all pessimistic, dark and grim, which would be okay for a few stories but overall, it was not a joy one would want from a TP. One audio story is all about Elena’s mother dying of cancer. Another was about John getting over the death of Paul and OTHER brother. Among many, many things, Gary puts into this info dump of a story (and it’s handled well, don’t get me wrong, it all feels natural in the conversations and plot) is that John had TWO brothers, both dead now. One he says was an adopted brother ---from what I could make out that one was named Timothy. So, was Timothey adopted along with John and they were from different parents or were they from the same parents and adopted by the same family? Or was Timothy already a child of a couple that adopted John or did the couple that adopted John have a baby after they adopted John? A lot of this unnecessary baggage comes from the audio series, which I wish this book series WOULD NOT link to.

 

There’s also mention of John’s brother Colin (from the LOOK IN COMICS). Colin seems to be his biological brother that he was forced to abandon? That seems to be a part of a retcon for the comics and the audios? In any case, there’s also the idea that John’s policeman father IS alive in the TV series and may or may not be alive or dead in the Audio series. Maybe he has a biological father AND an adoptive father?

 

The way it was written  in THE FIRST ONE, it sounds like Colin was his biological brother but Timothy was not (Timothy died in a fire; thus John named TIM after him? I said it was grim and sad).

 

I am on page 27 and only found one typo.

 

In the intro, we get an unlikely TIM anagram explanation---TIM stands for Technobiologically Informed Mentor. Sigh. Rather it is probably Timus Irnok Moster forms the words that make up TIM’s name.

 

We learn it is eight months since Carol met Lefty (and Ginge). Thus, this takes place between THE VANISHING EARTH and THE BLUE AND THE GREEN somewhere. I always assumed, wrongly, that Kenny and Carol left the Earth for the Trig as the same time but here Carol tells Ginge and Lefty that Kenny left to become an ambassador for the Trig and Kenny is on Spyra representing the Federation (I also always thought Kenny was undercover on Spyra).

 

Lefty, at one point, seems to forget Carol’s name!

 

We learn Lefty’s last name is Leftridge.

We learn Ginge’s real name is Norman.

Chris appears and for the first time, Ginge has to admit he told Chris about the Tp once when the two brothers (Ginge and Lefty) were drinking and drunk together.

 

Lefty has told his Aunt Juniper Rose about the Tp.

 

Last year, from the start of this book, it was early January 1972. The Connor Allen family moved to the inherited house then. Presumably they inherited from Oliver McCallister, so possibly an uncle on the mother’s side but not necessarily. The family are Benjimin, Pauline, Joe (who earns money at one point without telling his parents how), and angelic sister Samantha. Joe seems to be approaching age 13 and then turns 13 over the course of Lefty’s flashback as he tells the background to the haunting to the TP. Samantha might be ten? A worried friend of the mother seemed to think Samantha was planning on making changes to the inherited house after her parents were dead and figuring on how to make that sooner than later. NOTE: Gary’s desire here to throw suspicion on the daughter is a bit awkward and clumsy. She’s already been described as an angel and having a friend throw shade on Samantha is grim and needless IMO. It’s nasty to think she wants her parents dead and was already figuring a way to do that? WTF?

 

On page four, Stephen’s friends get name checked: Anthony, Malcolm (most likely Malcolm Neilson who is briefly in the beginning of the very first novel THE VISITOR along with his younger tag along brother, both doctor’s sons, their father being a doctor), Seth, Toaster (no one could pronounce his real name), Sanjeev and Rebecca.

 

Of note, Gary sets up a terrific tone and all the info comes naturally and as part of the story. The setting of the first house and the second house is well described and not overly descriptive but enough to give us a great picture in our heads of the house. The family is well characterized too which makes us think that maybe they will be a very important part of the rest of the novel. They’re not. Not sure that was deliberate or if it was meant to throw us off track, making us think one or both of the children were potential breakouts into TPs?

 

Either way, the book is off to a great start.

 

More later.

 

On page 9, 18 months pass from when the family moved in.  This is still Lefty’s flashback but from the info it is probably June or July 1973 if we use January 1972 as a start.

 

 

 

Stephen’s school is Claremont Heath Secondary Modern. Stephen is still 14.

 

Episode one ends with Carol at the séance in the house. The children are sent away. Auntie June seems to have things wrong: she calls the daughter ghastly and also seems to think the family is in the house less than a year but 18 months is more than a year, unless it a clue that Auntie June IS what’s wrong?

 

The séance goes wrong: TIM in London gets possessed by a horrid voice that has lain a trap for Carol. A boy “ghost” telepath appears and tries to warn Carol. John and Stephen are knocked about by wind. And shadows engulf Carol and when they are gone, she is gone, too!

 

Episode Two or Chapter Two

 

BTW, Gary has the personalities of the TP, Ginge, and Lefty down pat here.

 

Also BTW, the second half of this resembles Kate Orman’s fan fic published years ago in a newsletter of a TP fan group.

 

Not sure that having another time travel plot, as Carol goes to the 1700s, is a smart move for this book, so early in the book series. Time travel is always a part of the original TP but used sparingly. I’d love to have had more of it in the TP but maybe waiting for time travel until maybe the fourth book would be best? In any case, those are well written, too.

 

 

In episode two, on page 61 “three days earlier”, I’m not sure what was being explained here in this bar scene. Were they talking about the family being haunted and Juniper Rose, Lefty (his real name according to Juniper…was that info from the fake Juniper or not?)’s aunt? And what was that about the family showing up on a motorbikes at the hospital? It was for a family member? Maybe that meant Lefty and Ginge? And Chris? Not sure. Most of that brief chapter was very unclear.

 

On page 64, as Gary goes through what Stephen gave up (normal teenage life), which is a nice contrast to his TP life (sunrise on Rexill 4—spelling? And other things), he also mentions the pain caused by the Medusa to Stephen. Hmmmm.

 

In THE MEDUSA STRAIN, I do not believe Stephen ever encountered the actual Medusa. Stephen and Carol are in pain in the end of ep1 and start of ep2 due to the time freeze Peter was forced to give Rubowski and Jedikiah in order for them to go back in time. It was NOT the Medusa. Carol later encounters the Medusa but Stephen NEVER does in THE MEDUSA STRAIN. Unless it happened in the LOOK IN COMICS early stories but I don’t remember. I’ll have to check them out again.

 

The overall feel of this book is greater than CHANGES. It does feel like it could have been a part of the first season and everyone acts like their TV counter parts and the format is the same, though three episodes is a bit short for a season one story, never mind that. This feels like a TP story.

 

That said, there are a few things I don’t like about this. While it is tempting to do a TP before John story (many have fan fics about this), I’m not sure it’s a great idea. I mean I have an idea called THE YESTERDAY PEOPLE which is just an outline right now about cavemen who seem to invade the present (of whenever I wrote it, the 80s?) and seem to be TP but this isn’t really like that. To have a TP before John is a plot that many writers are lured to but I have a distinct feeling that it just…feels wrong somehow. It messes with TP continuity a bit more than usual and…it seems like it’s not possible, given that the Kulthan equipment was running to block telepaths, though Josh and his evil mother come from long before that so maybe that IS logical.

 

Still, somehow it feels as if it messes with the unique premise that John IS the first and while this is not badly written, it does feel like it messes with that premise just to mess with it.

 

The other thing is that, like CHANGES, this involves time travel or travel to somewhere else. I’m not sure, again, that time travel is a good thing for the first novel in a series of TP. Maybe time travel should be saved for a book later in the series.

 

That said, for a book that involves a haunted house, time travel, a super evil villain (who’s also a telepath and yes, while that is a cliché and she’s a TP to boot who seems able to do violence and wants to kill---so HOW?), and the dynamic TP and a possessed TIM, this has…very little excitement about it and the action seems limited and the scope feels small. There’s nothing wrong with telling smaller stories but somehow this feels rather mundane. Even the climax at the end with Juniper attacking with windy house drifts has a ton of dialog while the Tp stand around in the attack and converse pages and pages of dialog. The action feels…limited.

 

And Carol’s time travel stuff, while initially a bit of a surprise, feels inconsequential and dull. I’m not a big fan of Carol as it is but Gary does get her right.

 

This, this is a better book than CHANGES in many ways, less epic but more in line with the TV series and as such a good entry into the TP novel hall of fame. Being a Gary Russell book it has a load of continuity to the comics, the TV show of course, and the previous novels (especially and mostly only THE VISITOR). That’s okay as he melds this nicely into the plot.

 

More details:

 

I’ve meandered about here but the cliffhanger at the end of episode two is Carol entering a prehistoric cave finding Joshua dying as he breaks out (and he later becomes a “ghost” able to leave his body as Tyso did in WORLDS AWAY while ALSO becoming immortal?). They seem to be pygmies. Are these the ones on the island of Flores, a strange archipelago, east of Java, one of many between Australia and Asia, which probably broke off...?

 

Either way Juniper snarls at Carol to get out and it ends there. Carol is spun away back to the room John and Stephen are held in by Juniper.

 

For a dynamic plot, John and Stephen spend much of it captive and in that room and in the “haunted house.”

 

Juniper wants the Tp’s help in eradicating all Saps. Doesn’t she know they cannot kill? Why can she kill? WHY can Joshua touch her and make her human and himself human or something? If Juniper turns human again, or rather mortal, is she still a rouge TP? She can obviously jaunt away. Even so, she makes a nasty and good villain and maybe we will see her again? Again, this is like a fan fic Kate Orman wrote mixed with one I wrote years and years ago but not exactly the same. Haunted house, kid might be telepath, and a TP who is violent and can kill.

 

Oh, and the family here is caught in frozen time inside their home.

 

Stephen seems to almost call Juniper a B word, being that she’s so lonely.

 

Carol was 125 thousand years ago when she saw Joshua and Juniper in that cave.

 

Stephen believes Juniper was born in the time of the dinosaurs.

 

Josh is a psychic projection, nothing more. He can bi-locate and at first John does not trust him. He did lie to Carol at one point. He shared that with Carol which is how she “traveled through time” as her body was still in the room in the house but hidden.

 

I’m not sure but it seems as if he did the haunting to draw in his mother who was also looking for him to exorcise him? Josh warns John and the others to keep an eye on the military in their time and to watch out for other TP who might not have their (John, Stephen, Carol) ethics.

 

Juniper and Josh may be Neanderthal. Josh tells them about themselves: Carol is empathic and creates an aura of calm (this is CAROL we’re talking about, the same hysterical person from the first three stories?) and joy in people and she would make a good hostage negotiator, Stephen will be able to raise the recently deceased (A MAN FOR EMILY) AND heal, in a few years John will be able to use his psychokinetic power to fix a broken watch without opening it up, Kenny has psychometry and can tell just by handling an object who has touched it and where it has been. 

 

Though TIM thinks it is impossible to change time and alter history, Josh corrects him: it is possible if you change little things and tiny events. Joshua’s last name is Newman.

 

Stephen has never really trained for opening his mind up to link into someone else’s opened up mind or they into his but TIM can help him. From Carol he sees a newspaper office, her media obsessed parents who moved from home to home, TV studios, and Carol being abandoned by her parents passed from babysitter to babysitter.

 

Carol tells first Stephen and then John that she will seek less excitement by going to the Trig. She will go to visit Josh there who is staying there and see if he wants to make the 20^th century his home on Earth. She wants to stay there. Kenny comes to visit during a picnic they are having with Chris, Ginge, and Lefty.

 

Stephen is jealous of some of Kenny’s rugby skills.

 

Kenny thinks Carol and John were made for each other but haven’t realized it yet.

 

Juniper Rose posing as Lefty’s Aunt told Carol a possibly true story about a Major Lowe whose wife pranks him sometimes and uses artifacts to do so. Juniper also claims that her sister and her brother in law were drop outs who left school after the war and were conscientious objectors and named Lefty that name on his birth certificate.

 

Juniper mentions an event in 1967 and never explains what she means, annoyingly to us readers.

 

In the 1770s, Carol thinks of Peter and sees Grace McCallister and her father and meets the “ghost” Josh.

 

John mentions that he put a safety protocol into TIM that TIM would almost always use a sentence with the TP’s first names in it. NOTE: I’m not sure this is entirely true if you watch the series and take note of that…or not. John also notes that TIM never does it with Chris, Ginge, or Lefty and again, I’m not sure this is entirely in keeping step with the TV series.

 

Using a surname is TIM’s way of telling them there is something wrong.

 

Carol also visits a place where a Duke of Alencon, Sir William, Robert Dudley, and Queen Elizabeth are.

 

 

Josh has been servant to a Roman Senator, the son of an Egyptian pharaoh, a cabin boy on a Spanish trading ship, a farmer’s son during a Viking raid, a trader’s boy in Babylon, Yeshua, Juosue, Giosue, Iokua, Iesous, Gishu, and Yueshuya. His last name was always Newman. Does he have anything to do with Adam Newman? We never find out?

 

Juniper tried guises to track down Josh: mediums, spiritualists, shamen, kahunas, mambo, and peai.

 

John is 19 and thinks he’s everyone’s dad. Stephen, thought that they were acting like parents at one point but corrects Carol, saying she’s like his bigger sister he never had.

 

All in all an entertaining book and better than CHANGES but perhaps, one I would not have written. I felt the action was sort of dull and the story a bit cliché and even somewhat annoying in how it tried to add something onto the history of the TP before John. In any case, not a bad read at all.

 

One more thing: where did the surnames of Dixon, MacNeil and Green come from for John, Carol and Kenny? Price? I don’t like those last names. I guess it’s bias, for TC’s universe has John named Fairchild (and like that a lot), Carol named Rounders (not sure about that one either), and Kenny Arebeth or something? The one I don’t like most is Dixon for John.

 

 

 

 

BOOK TWO IN THE SERIES or BOOK THREE if you count CHANGES.

 

CHILDREN OF THE EVOLUTION

 

This is by Iain McLaughlin who is yet another DW (Doctor Who) writer. Sigh. I can’t say I like a majority of his stuff much but I’ve not sampled a lot of it. I did like some of his DW stuff: EYE OF THE SCORPION was exciting and I remember THE VEILED LEOPARD bringing together some of the companions while NO PLACE LIKE HOME was bizarre enough and entertaining. He created Erimem, a 5^th Doctor companion and while she’s okay with the 5^th Doctor and Peri, apart from them in her own stories, I find her boring.

 

I also wonder what it would be like to NOT have DW authors and DW fans writing TP. Sigh again.

 

On another note, I guess when I heard about this being a book series, I figured and hoped it would have some book to book continuity such as having the TP in modern times and creating a new sort of feel like the Modern Doctor Who series did successfully from 2005 to 2008 (after that it was downhill IMO). I know there were signs, hints and outright promotions that told us these stories would take place in the seasons between stories but I guess my hope was to have something like the TC Kirkham universe/multiverse where we’d have a modern take on things that resembled the old series but with new TP and new labs and new continual stories, I mean like the CW series but not like the CW series, more like TC’s fan fiction “seasons”. Each book would have a continuity among itself.

 

Now, I’m seeing that the novels are more like the DOCTOR WHO ranges of PAST DOCTOR adventures rather than the NEW ADVENTURES which had some continuity. It’s just my bias I guess and my fault that I didn’t pay attention much to those things. I thought the series would be like a modern day TV series and include a sort of soap opera like run of plots and stories while not being a soap.

 

In short the first two feel like novelizations of a TV story, which is not a bad thing, just not sure that that is what fans want? I sort of do want that?

 

What we really need IMO is someone that can take the TP premise and characters, old and new, and bring it into 2024 or even 1990s or 2000s in some way?

 

With all of that, there IS a brief link to the first book, THE FIRST ONE. TIM tells Stephen that they DO know Neanderthal Man did have the capacity for intelligence and Tp-hood. This is almost directly from THE FIRST ONE. Liz did not know this info as she was not a TP during that adventure.

 

While Mike plays in his band (the drums) at a concert, John, Liz, and Stephen go to a museum to find out about Professor Marchwood and his reasons for being interested in telepathy in conjunction with evolution. There, they find the Professor and his aide Baines are more interested in asking them questions and one of their exhibits seems to have an alien being in it, wax (though the text seems to vaguely insinuate it may not be wax?), and one that John recognizes from the Galactic Federation.

 

John calls the alien a Kultullan. He’s met them.

 

Liz remembers the name of the aliens. She remembers they are in negotiations to join the Federation but not sure if they ever did.

 

The significance of the alien on display is not explained as far as I can tell. Maybe Marchwood hoped someone, alien or TP, would notice and free him from Baines’ control?

 

Another thing that makes me wonder is the significance of the handwriting analysis TIM does of Marchwood’s writings. It could be that Baines forced the Professor to write that or publish Baines’ own writing as his own in order to flush out TP.

 

Though Stephen claims not to have eaten anything, later in the lab, the book claims he is eating again and/or John and Liz think he is.

 

He seems able to make cups of tea appear on TIM’s table and/or TIM does some of that, too.

 

John seems to be faking his fuddy duddy status and only Liz catches on, eventually.

 

This does not really tune into how he acts in THE HEART OF SOGGUTH.

 

The novel is broken into episodes. Like the first season that THE FIRST ONE comes from there are no episode titles but just episodes (three of them). Like the era CHILDREN OF THE EVOLUTION comes from this has episode titles and there are four of them: UNNATURAL SELECTION, MYSTERIES OF THE MOUNTAIN, DISTANT RELATIONS, and TO MOVE A MOUNTAIN.

 

As another fan reviewed—I decided to copy it totally as I agree with most of what she wrote about the novel: “Children of the Evolution - Review. It took me three and a half hours to read this book cover to cover - something I’ve not done for a long time. The writing was easy going and light hearted. No deep thought required but it was immersive to those who know the TP and the recurrent themes used in the show. I don’t mean to sound negative, I really enjoyed it. There’s good characterisation and just enough jeopardy to keep you engrossed. The story was a little predictable but it kept well within the cannon of the show with no surprises or bending of the TP premise. The descriptions of setting and context were ambiguous enough for this story to be set in the 70s but at the same time, it could have been more contemporary. As the forward states ‘ let your imagination take you back to Tomorrow’ and in my opinion this book does do precisely that. I spent those three and a half hours back with the characters I love. Well done Iain McLaughlin. People are out there writing and producing new content after fifty years. Let’s keep the momentum going.

A few very minor niggles struck me as I read this novella. It took a while for the story to get going. There seemed to be a lot of set up. I guessed that there was something sinister at the museum long before the TP did.

I wasn’t keen on the alien race being called the Kultullan. That’s a bit too close to the Khulthan (spelling! Someone correct me if I’m wrong) - especially as they used a form of Psi dampener. Or maybe that was deliberate on the part of the author??… they were definitely not the Khulthan as they were humanoid rather than dog- like. Roger did love alien races beginning with the letter K - maybe this was a nod to him.

A side note on the previous book. This point must be attributed to Shaun Hately who mentioned it to me before the recent Zoom meeting. Gary Russell had Carol jaunt through time meeting TP from the past going all the way back to early man- this was referenced on pg 127 - but we know from the show that during the Egyptian era that the Khulthan installed psi dampeners in the great  pyramids which later broke down allowing evolution to reassert itself so that the TP could break out. Neither of these writers have considered this!

Third niggle - and these are really small issues. There was a little too much emphasis on John being old fashioned and stuffy. In the show he wore quite fashionable clothes and it was his brusque manner which was the issue - mainly for Mike, rather than for Stephen. He felt the weight of being their leader.

I think that Elizabeth would have suffered from frostbite sooner and wouldn’t have been able to walk down a mountain in clothes suited for London.

And she’d probably lose her job for going sick and leaving a bunch of kids alone at a museum in central London.

The ending was predictable- nothing wrong with that- but it felt a little rushed. One minute they were destroying the equipment, the next Mike expertly released those in the cryotubes ( who recovered a little too quickly) then the bombshell was dropped that with the power off the mountain would explode. It was fantastic that John and Elizabeth used their combined powers to calm the reactor just in the nick of time, but was it really necessary for the mountain to explode? It felt like there had to be a big threat to the general human population to make an already dramatic ending have more jeopardy. This is just my own opinion. The author did a grand job of creating something akin to scenarios used in the show.

I don’t want to end on a negative so here’s a list of bits I really liked.

I loved the jaunting belts used to separate scenes.

I loved ( I use that word a lot lol) the Federation’s involvement at the end.

I loved that they kept saying that killing or doing harm was not their way and how they put their lives on the line for the greater good. They thwarted these alien threats by use of their powers : their TPness. That’s what it’s all about.”

 

All of that said, the cliffhangers are: at the end of chapter one, Stephen and John return to the museum to link up with Liz who has taken her students to it for a tour but the children shake their heads when asked where Liz is, and one of the boys says, “No, she’s vanished”; at the end of chapter 2, Yeti surround Stephen and Mike in the Himalayas. Stephen says, “I don’t believe it. The Yeti.” At the end of chapter 3, Liz, chased by Yeti, decides to do something beneath her and scream, causing an avalanche that brings a lot of snow and ice down on the entire area.

 

About Liz’s scream: okay, this not only feels like a DOCTOR WHO story (but that’s okay, many TP stories do) but Liz didn’t see particularly concerned that she might be killing Yeti, any people in the area, villages that might be down below, AND Stephen and Mike who might have been in the area. In fact, she seems quite happy with her actions here.

 

She also does not seem too upset that one of the Yeti has broken its arm thanks to her actions with the scream and avalanche.

 

On page 146, Marchwood speaks but…he’s not in the room or that “scene”. Marchwood is helping Liz and Mike destroy the machinery (and inadvertently stopping the cooling of a reactor buried deep in the core of the base). John and Stephen having pulled off a brilliant ploy using Marchwood and their own capture…are talking to their prisoner Baines. Suddenly, a mistake happens. Baines is talking about the easily led Professor Marchwood but it turns out the mistake has Marchwood talking about himself being easily led when Marchwood is not even supposed to be in the scene.

 

Overall, this book is the best of the three with a link to THE FIRST ONE, a similar structure to the TP episodes, though less of a time frame (I’m guessing it is 1976 or possibly 1975 but some time after Mike broke out, of course and after ONE LAW). Oddly, there is NO mention of Tyso and a strange mention of John wanting to replace Stephen with Mike when Stephen complains or makes a jokey comment.

 

This having belts and not wrist bands, this has to be before THE LOST GODS.

 

Though…it could be in that weird time that we don’t see Stephen and Tyso with no explanation as to where the went…ever. It could be right before or right after THE HEART OF SOGGUTH. Mike does feel like the Mike of ONE LAW and INTO THE UNKNOWN.

 

Andy’s idea that the jaunting belts are male and female patterned in those later seasons coincides with this book in that Liz has a special belt just for her. In the series, at least once, one of the males wore the “female” belt and I believe Liz wore the “male” belt at least once.

 

The Galactic Federation take the Yeti and the kidnapped children (one a girl from the groovy 1960s!_ to the Trig for therapy. The children are only slightly telepathic. Baines turns it around and becomes an ally. The Feds will open up negotiations with Baines’ people.

 

All in all, the novel, especially with the countdown of a reactor about to kill thousands, has tension, urgency, and excitement. It does feel like a DW story though and it is somewhat predictable but everyone talks like their characters from the TV show counterparts. And there is action and a number of interesting settings. All I all, I can picture this being a story from the original series and going out in the 1970s. Some 1960s and 1970s fantasy shows did Yeti stories (Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, Doctor Who of course—twice, and Land of the Lost).

 

Of the three books published so far, this was the best of them.

 

 

Just for completion, here are some suggestions I gave Chinbeard:

 

I'm not sure and I don't know much about business and what will get TP fans or anyone interested in keeping buying stuff but Doctor Who fans seem to buy everything.

 

I think that starting in modern times is probably the best way to go and not look back toward doing New Adventure type stories though I could be wrong, and though I love those things too I think that it would be better to establish a continuity from book to book that set up such a 2024 world in the same way TC set up a 1980s through 1990s "universe" of TPs.

 

There was also a hidden hiding Russian Tp group that eventually made contact with the main group.

 

I think the mistake most make is that the Tp is like DW enough to follow the same trajectory. I think that's wrong IMO.

 

I don't think Changes should have hurt sales that much and/or the confusion from it.

 

I do think that the books should be almost soap opera like in that they set up their own TP universe and that might have drawn people more into them.

 

TC's universe also did spinoffs with things such as Stephen and Tyso and a Peter driven series. A sort of multi verse.

But who am I to say?

 

If they were advertised like the official continuation of the series, like Virgin's New Adventures were, they might have caught more attention maybe?

 

But that's neither here or there and maybe not even that would work, TP fans are a lot of people who are on, I've found, disability, and unlike DW fans, are not a vast majority of computer workers, writers for profession, or particularly skilled. Many are in the military oddly.

 

IMO you should let CHANGES go and not give it more time. Just my opinion but then I'm very opinionated.

 

Their plans going forward, I felt, were wrong. Here is what they were:

 

Fourth novel is set in the modern-day, with an aged John as the lead. Fifth novel is just a classic 1970's type story. Sixth novel combines the 1970's and 1990's characters. Then, we've sort of covered everything (aside from the awful American reboot!).

 

If we do a second series, it will only focus on the 1970's series, and not any others.

 

I have to comment that I think this is the totally wrong way to approach a series of THE TOMORROW PEOPLE in novel format and just having seen the cover of the next book…well, it looks like a disaster and is titled HOMO INFERIOR, a title that does not inspire…and probably will not inspire anyone to buy this book. I hope I’m wrong. And Nigel Fairs? No, no, and no. He was behind the unstable audio series from BIG FINISH which had huge problems, quality wise and plot wise. I’ve written about those extensively on the blog and the FB groups. Again, having disconnected (mostly) novels that do not follow on from one another I feel is a HUGE mistake and having anything from the audio series is a doubly huge mistake but we shall see…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

CHINBEARD TOMORROW PEOPLE BOOK :

HOMO INFERIOR (book three of series; book four)

 

Okay, first off, let me say, I was NOT a fan of most of what Nigel Fairs did with the BIG FINISH THE TOMORROR PEOPLE audios. I love BIG FINISH but occasionally they blow it (Adric in THE BOY TIME FORGOT is another time they blew it, big time).

 

Thus, Nigel’s whole plan for the audios …is not…for me. You read about what he did in my reviews and read about what he planned in the cancelled season 6, 7, 8, and possibly 9. It was not going to be pretty. It was not going to be for me. And a few fans on groups express that the audios were too dismal, dark and depressing. The three Ds!

 

All of that written, I think it is a huge mistake to have Nigel anywhere near this book series, certainly the first ten books, let’s say or forever. I’m not a fan.

 

 

So when I heard he was going to be writing one of the books, I felt it was wasted slot. I must say, the Nigel is good as prose and words. He’s even good, if this book is any indication, at creating a very alien world. Maybe, too alien.

 

At this point I’m only about 56 pages in. I keep expecting Nigel’s alien world to reveal itself as Earth in the future or the past ala PLANET OF THE APES, which would actually anger me if it were something that cliché. That hasn’t happened yet as it would not because I’m early in.

 

So first mistake: having Nigel write one of these.

 

 

Second mistake: having ANY continuity set within the audio series timeline. Okay I’m partial to gay male characters and one of the pluses of the audio so there was a slight hope then (audio series coming out) that they might have a gay male. Paul seemed the obvious candidate but that didn’t happen. I think. Paul seems very heterosexual and they were not yet brave enough back then to give us a main character who is gay. That said they did give us James and Robert, two gay males. That eventually would fall in love and become boyfriends. And it sounded great. Until I read plans were to make one of them die. So, kill your gays? Dramatic? Certainly. Wanted. No.

 

On top of that, to make matters even more angering: the planned to have Paul return from the dead! WHAT? Resurrect your heteros?

 

Even worse, the entire world was to be ravaged by Jedikiah and the space age mob or something. The Trig, too. Not the best idea that the audios had. The entire scenario was to be like a LOGAN’S RUN where the Tp were the run from the aliens who took over, Jedikiah, and the general population who were obligated to bring them in. What? Did I want to read that? Nope. Dramatic? Sure. Original? No.

 

We didn’t get to see any of that play out (including in the long term a huge fight between John and pregnant Elena whose baby John feared or wanted to take or kill or something equally abominable) and I for one, was grateful. I hate that storyline and its sub plots. You can read all about it in the files and in THE BIG FINISH COMPANION. I’ve reviewed all of it. Crushing disappointment.

 

So mistake number three: setting something AFTER something we never got to hear or read about or see. This book takes place AFTER the invasion.

 

And from the first 56 pages as we will go into depth soon, here, I gather that the aliens and Jedikiah destroyed a large part of the Earth and its surface and its buildings, set the population against all telepaths, prevented a Great Breakout and/or came against all telepaths after a Great Breakout (I’m not sure which was planned or which it was and please don’t make me go check the material please), and then, from what I can gather about this book…ALL the aliens and Jedikiah LEFT? And the Trig seems okay as they---those that ran the Trig--- are rebuilding the Trig?

 

Uhm. What?

 

Why would the aliens just leave? What kind of invasion plan was that? Just for revenge and then go?

 

Unless I read a lot of this wrong. It’s possible as I have no idea what Fairs is writing about in the alien sections so far. The aliens that seem to have no connection whatsoever to the main plot at all. Is these strange chapters, which are interspersed with the TP Robert and Carol chapters, about the aliens who invaded or something totally different?

 

 

For me it’s a huge mistake to go anywhere near the audio continuity this soon in the book series’ life. It’s a larger mistake to set it anywhere near the end of the series unless you are picking up right after the cliffhanger of the last episode. This doesn’t do that. Even that, might be uncalled for but here, we pick up AFTER the invasion, AFTER the invaders have left, AFTER Jedikiah has left and you get the idea.

 

 

Most of this refers to material that never saw the light of day, meaning the past of these events we’re reading about that take place in the aftermath of that are on shaky ground and might not mean much to us. I know most of what was planned and most of what happened and I’m confused. I can’t imagine what a causal TP fan or causal reader might make of the Rober and Carol (who have somehow remained behind and hid in the lab which…unless I’m remembering wrong WAS DESTROYED in that audio continuity) sequences.

 

Sigh. Can you see how all of this is a huge mistake. Unless Fairs were going to report on what happened fully (he touches on a lot of it), he was going to leave readers who want TP adventures confused and lost and giving up. I almost did and I’m the biggest TP fan there is (if you don’t agree that is okay but have you written over 15 double novel length fan fics, some 200 short stories, and over 1000 ideas about the TP, reviewed every story from all four iterations of the show and even bought these four novels (?), and collected fan novelizations of the series and beyond, and/or capped every iteration of the show including the CW, Nick, and original series? Posted all the comics?).

 

Wow, went off there. In any case, point is: I’m perplexed by the choices made here. Not only that, I’m confused by the prose (which isn’t bad in setting up an alien world and alien culture but I have no idea what is going on there either). I’m also confused by what happened on Earth previous to this, AND what is happening to Robert (I guess that’s the mystery of the book) in the aftermath of that.

 

I cannot understand the decisions to write a novel based on the audio series seasons we never had and / or the aftermath of the cliffhanger that was never resolved. It is partially resolved here but HOW were things left in this state. Were the aliens and Jedikiah repelled? It would appear NOT. Did they just leave? Why would they do that? Did they also leave the Trig?

 

On top of all of this…frankly, mess, we get the idea that a lot of this could be…a …dream? No, say it isn’t so. And yet I don’t want the TP living in a LOGAN’S RUN world where they are hunted for being Tp. That’s why we have alien worlds where that could happen but why do it ON EARTH?

 

The entire audio direction was a total mess and not in line with the tone and basic premise of the TP. And let’s not even go into Roger Price’s ideas and likes in the present day or present moment about any of the iterations after his original TV show.

 

That said here we go!

 

The book is set up to alternate between  an alien place (?) called Barr-Byzhan and Earth with one chapter being the aien Barr Byzhan setting and the next being Earth in the next chapter for 51 chapters and then switching the The Corridor for 52 and then between those three until the last chapter, 59, it feels rather mundane.

 

I dove into the alien stuff as much as I could. Reading it is perplexing. What is happening here? Confounding the text for a short time is that for one character he uses the pronoun “they” which is fine.

 

I also get an uneasy feeling when reading the alien stuff that this is going where either LOST went (all a dream or everyone is already dead) or it’s going no where that will be explained. Think the awful 73 YARDS of the RTD2/Disney DOCTOR WHO season one. Gosh, that’s awful.

 

Fairs starts out the book introducing the TP, like the other books almost all do so far, but he, happily adds details of the audio series and the unmade audio stories. So far, so good. Everything is written in past tense. And the words “Before the invasion” are invoked. And then “Before Jedikiah and his army invaded the Trig and put an end to their power, The Galactic Federation took a keen interest in Earth…”

 

 

There is no mention if this is the original lab OR the later Lab from the original TV series later seasons from THE LOST GODS to WAR OF THE EMPIRES.

 

 

 

Chapter 1-Barr-Byzhan

 

The sub title says Dagre-Math, Sennith 1/7, Suncycle Midhen.

 

Lots of alien info here, not sure I should reiterate it all because if so, I’d have to rewrite all of it. There is a Citadel of the Unified Hemisphere and First Breath mooncycles and First Naming ceremonies and younghood and being cultivated in an Inculcatal Facility.

 

NOTE: for the first chapters of the alien chapters, it’s most impressive. An alien world is set up and I had hope that these alien chapters would dovetail into the Earth TP chapters nicely. As I read and admittedly only so far up to page 56, I had a sneaking suspicion that this would not happen, that nothing here would be explained, and that we might get a cliché explanation of this as something out of PLANET OF THE APES. In other words, all this fine alien world stuff might led nowhere or lead somewhere we’ve seen or read about before. Jury is still out on that one.

 

 

I’m also not sure if someone is narrating this from a first person perspective or if this is actually third person. And there’s a lot of it.

 

We are given and introduced to:

 

Life here is simple. Unless it isn’t.

 

Primary Designator ordering “me” to replace one rhyme with another.

 

There is an End of Life Foundation.

 

At Valdiation you receive your third name and progress from Younger to Citizen, following by pairbonding, during which you are assigned as a Primary or Secondary Designator.

 

There is a sun.

 

There is a living pod where one will be left with another to be left to “our business” at a Primary’s instruction. Is this forced sex?

 

There are sacred words and gestures linked to Obligations to the Creator recounted every dark cyc (cycle?) by Youngers and Citizens alike. The Creator is referred to as a They (which oddly goes along with one of my basic real life beliefs: that God has aspects of both female and male and that he –if one needs Bible proof---or she---took Eve out of Adam meaning that Adam was both male and female internally or spiritually---and it is said God made Adam in his image, therefore God must have a female aspect in him/her, too).

 

All of this feels vaguely BOTH pro God belief and anti-religion.

 

I could not help but feel that (SPOILERS) this is going to be linked into James’ death and/or resurrection. We shall see.

 

In a sleeping chamber, one is put in after learning the Obligations, violence occurs. There is a poem that the POV alien character (I suspect this is inexplicably, James) said that angered his Primary.

 

His or her primary is a They. They have a job in Population Progress Records, which requires no imagination.

 

Violence happens to the POV character but his Secondary assures him it was a dream.

 

Okay, alien enough and at least Fairs tries to set up an alien world and frankly, he does it almost too well. What the hell is going on? Where is that? What do the aliens look like? Sounds like humans or at least humanoid?

 

This smacks of some Moffat DOCTOR WHO in season 8 or 9 where Missy was faking an afterlife after a death. Didn’t like that either.

 

Not that this is bothering me this early in (page 3). It’s imaginative and creative but it really does feel as if…it’s going to lead us nowhere.

 

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER 2: EARTH

Sunday 18^th October 2009

 

It is two years after the Tnawi warships showered the major cities with alien death rays. Humanity rose from the ashes and for a while the feuds over borders or religions had been set aside. Infrastructures and economies were the focus of rebuilding. Kent was now a vast housing estate. West Country spared of the bombings was the property of moneyed city dwellers feeling ruins of their homes into their second, third or fourth homes. The only thing bombed in West Country was a military base at the southern most point.

 

NOTES: Tnawi are mentioned in A LIVING HELL and are maybe little ones with orange heads (?). There were experimentation camps and “sheep” as well as the Tnawi seemed to have wanted revenge on Sorsons.

 

 

https://scificfanhorrormedia.blogspot.com/2021/06/big-finishs-tomorrow-people-audio-11.html

 

 

The Tnawi also feature in QUEEN OF SLARVOS when the Emperor is murdered.

 

https://scificfanhorrormedia.blogspot.com/2021/06/big-finishs-tomorrow-people-audio-15.html

 

And just for completion: here is the season six info about what happens (what we know):

https://scificfanhorrormedia.blogspot.com/2021/06/big-finishs-tomorrow-people-audios-lost.html

 

I also seem to remember that there was some kind of cartel involved, a kind of space mafia? And what…were the cartel THE Tnawi or does that make three sets of villains that attacked earth and then left?

 

Yup.

 

Okay.

 

President Godwin has a successor who was deposed, the one after that assassinated, and humanity splintered into its old ways. What happened to Godwin?

 

Now, here’s where things get sticky. “The Tp, whose existence remained invisible to the general population, played no part at all in the reparation of Earth.”   First, I thought the governments of the world were inspiring non-Tps and non telepaths to after the Tps and telepaths of the world!?

 

Second, does it really sound like the Tps would have NO part in the repairing of the Earth? I mean I guess if they had to go into hiding from the entire population, they wouldn’t risk it but they probably would!?

 

So which was it?

 

“Only weeks before the Tnawi assault, it had come to light that certain governments were aware of the Great Breakout and were taking action to slow it down, if not, halt if altogether.”

 

The Federation decimated by Jedikiah and his Tnawi army made the choice to lay low. They chose to rebuild the Trig and reestablish it on other Federation worlds.

 

Okay mistake (I’ve lost count!!) five: Carol. Carol seems to be a favorite among a few male Tp fans. I can’t under…no, wait, I can understand why and it’s not due to her irritating voice or over hyperactive panic attacks but…something else. You can figure it out.

 

 

Nevertheless, Carol remained on Earth, manning the Labs (note the plural, in a nice touch).

 

Godwin and her successors were in the post of World President which didn’t last long.

 

Carol missed her home world.

 

Robert was barely out of his teens (so 20?). He was labeled as a potential risk by Fed medics who should have known better. Huh?

 

Maybe this explains that?

https://scificfanhorrormedia.blogspot.com/2021/06/big-finishs-tomorrow-people-audios-12.html

 

 

Carol got to know Robert mostly through a dream. This possibly refers to TALKING TO GOD, an unmade script or rather an unreleased audio that may have partially been recorded?  

 

https://scificfanhorrormedia.blogspot.com/2021/06/big-finishs-tomorrow-people-audios-lost.html

 

Let’s reflect a bit: do you see the problem with this? Referring to an unmade and/or unreleased audio and how two of the major characters in THIS novel met and met through a dream is a double or triple whammy of what not to do with the Tp when you are this early in a book series IMO.

 

It is written that Carol is living deep within THE lab which is below Wood Street station and living with Robert Mitchell, a much younger TP. It was the UC1 machine that made them dream nearly a year of experiences. Carol spent nights by a campfire with Elena, Robert, and James, discussing soul mates, life after death, the infinite universe. Robert learned the play guitar. James talked to God.

 

John, Liz and Elena were on the new Trig.

 

Carol finds Robert not in his bedroom and gone. He is not answering her telepathically.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER 3: Barr-Byzhan

 

Dagree-Tiuh, Senniht 3/0, Suncycle Enneha

 

Discussion of the “Not Like” and this writer is one of them. Huh? This reminds me of the “Not We” from DOCTOR WHO’s KINDA. It also seems to smack of the two sides of Tomorrow People and non-Tp.

 

The Not Like have parts in the Catharsae and they always lose, killed, humiliated or banished at the end of the story. So is the narrator here talking about a fictional story? Everybody laughs at that. Wild, ugly creatures are amusing to a Younger. The Catharsae seems to be a play with misconceptions about the Not Like and fuels hatred and fear among the Younger. The narrator is taught to loathe himself without realizing it.

 

A fellow inculcatalist (Catholic? Monk?) at the Facility is named Coell-J does to the walkway into the Wildland—the forbidden area. There are vid casts.

 

The wild land has feverfruit trees and gray dust. The narrator follows Coell J. Coell J is a They/them. The narrator also saw a Catharsis in which a Younger was slaughtered in the Broken Hemisphere. Their Designation unit is in the Outer Band, known for subversion. Coell J seems to be having plant life move aside for “them.”

 

Coell J knows the narrator is there and confronts him, calmly. “They” wear a symbol of ancient fertility around their neck. There are farms at the citadel’s edge. Coell J (Carol?) seems to cause the narrator to break out. Frustrated, the narrator threatens to expose Coell J if “they” don’t tell him how they are doing what they are doing and what just happened to him.

 

 

 

CHAPTER 4: EARTH

 

Sunday 18^th October 2009

 

Robert visits the grave of James. He remembers being forcibly removed from the funeral while he begged Carol telepathically to let it be and eventually she acquiesced. He was pleased she did not do so quietly. “He rather liked the way Carol’s righteous indignation always sounded like lines from an old TV drama. It was a quirk of character she shared with John and occasionally even Elena. Perhaps they inherited it from TIM, whose gentlemanly tones reminded Robert of a kindly deputy headmaster from GRANGE HILL or TOM BROWN’S SCHOOLDAYS.”

 

Would Robert be old enough to know GRANGE HILL and/or TOM BROWN’S SCHOOLDAYS, even the one with Alex Pettyfer?

 

Robert missed Paul, despite his complicated feelings about Paul (did he fancy Paul or did Paul fancy him?). Robert missed his rebellious attitude ot having to baby sit the new arrival. A strange sentence that feels as if it needed editing, the sentence goes like this, “Despite his complicated feelings about Paul, Robert missed his rebellious attitude to having to baby sit the new arrival, or James’s sulks when Robert challenged the incongruity of his believing in a deity that supposedly condemned their relationship.”

 

 

Not sure that reads right but honestly, all of that brings up more interesting possibilities for character stories and development that…isn’t followed through here, unfortunately. A TP story about gay issues and gay life style and prejudices of even the 2000s would be worth reading. A chance to do that is missed here and who knows how many more TP novels we will get, let alone one that features TWO gay males, maybe THREE?

 

 

Neither Paul nor James patronized Robert. They were not afraid of trigging one of his depressive periods, not that either of them ever could because Robert felt validated by and present with them both.

 

 

Robert’s parents were gone and so were his childhood friends: Stevie Cannon, Johnny Turner, Andy Cull.

 

James’ family was homophobic going by some of the passages here.

 

James’ name is James Lanyon Kitto. Kitto? Really? What is this, STRANGE PARADISE?

 

Robert’s parents were killed and he didn’t shed a tear. That led to him seeing a child psychologist and eventually to the med facilities on the Trig.

 

Paul taught Robert how to shield his mind from other TP. It was a party trick (really?), an act of mischief, typical Paul. Robert needed to hide a while before he made his final decision.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER 5: Barr-Byzhan

 

Dagre Lunh, SEnnith 0/1, Suncycle Thekh

 

Something about a flower being asked by the narrator, encouraged by Coell-J. A shining ball of light is what their hands seem to become. Blending into one. They seem to link.

 

Coell J mentions Nikeys. It was an insult. A word reserved for Youngers who are excused from taxing Sublimation Exercises for “health reasons.”  A bullied Younger was called this and he was removed from the Upper Stratum and the narrator hasn’t seen them since. There is also a rule of Silence in areas outside the Inculcatal Halls. This is beginning to sound like monks.

 

The narrator saw this again, a group of senniths later, and laughed at the bullied along with everyone else. There are Readjustment Intuitions. When Coell J is absent for more than a sennith, rumors start “they” were sent to one.

 

The narrator focuses on his studies and not on his experiences in the Wildland. He thinks he can be normal. His designators are pleased. He knows it is all a lie. It is during this time that “I first hear your voice.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER 6: EARTH

 

Sunday 18^th October, 2009

 

 

TIM can track Robert down on CCTV. Carol might break through his psychic shield. Robert wanted to return to a time before he broke out, before Jedikiah and the attack, before the Trig, to when Johnny , Stevie and Andy and he had the whole of South Downs to play Doctor Who or Indiana Jones.

 

Robert thinks about persuading the Guardians of Time to let him return, jaunting back to Barcombe Hill seemed the closets he could get.

 

Rob grew up with grandparents too old and too tired to offer him anything more than rudimentary care and his friendship group fell apart as soon as Andy disappeared and Rober taken into psychiatric care.

 

Robert remembered hours he spent lying in the damp grass with Andy at the Devil’s Hoof. It was believed the whole village was built in the Bronze Age until John, Elena and Paul discovered the truth. It was a distress beacon built by aliens.

 

 

Robert visits the church.

 

Robert feels James’ presence. He met James over two years ago.

 

Robert thinks he sees James. He cries. He sees Andy Cull, older, taller and with premature grey hair. Energy hits Andy and downs him. A masked figure did it and asks if he was okay. Robert falls to his knees, crying.

 

 

 

CHAPTER 7: Barr-Byzhan

 

Dagre-Hermh, Sennith ¼, Suncycle Triah

 

The narrator hears his voice. He is distracted. He draws scenes from THE LOST SHRINE OF THE ANCIENTS, his favorite vidcast. He begins to get insults thrown at him. Out in the world, Hatch G Mah was launching a moral crusade that will win them the Estabish-mentorship over their hemisphere. He has no interest in politics. A news story broke about Thorrus J Remm one of the Hatch G Mah’s most powerful rivals. He is Not Like. His Secondary doesn’t want him watching news vidcasts.

 

Thorrus J Remm is banished to the Broken Hemisphere. A speech is made by Hatch G Mah. This includes them worrying that Youngers are getting the wrong ideas: ideas that they should express themselves and that they have inalienable right to be Not Like. The speech goes on to say those Youngers are being cheated of a sound start and in life.

 

 

 

The narrator fears that his Primary found out what he did in the wildland. The narrator’s name might be Daghu N.

 

The Primary and Secondary are concerned he has not chosen a pairbonder. He announces Barram L. The Top Grader of his last stratum. L is the younger sibling of N and one of the few not to tease the narrator. L has a leading role in the Council of West Pyramids. The Designators are appalled at his choice. The Daghus are not good enough for the Barrams according to them.

 

Blimey. What is all this?

 

 

CHAPTER 8: EARTH

 

TIM scans Robert. He gives him an MRI. Rob thinks his grandfather would be appalled at the waste. He fought plans to develop the village’s  derelict theater into a leisure facility until his dying day. Is that a good thing?

 

Looking up at TIM is apparently a meaningless old habit that Carol should shake off because it would be better for TIM to recognize her facially if she addressed one of the walls. Really?

 

Robert had taken off his jaunting belt and powered it down. Carol tells him it is no more interesting on the Trig and mentions Elena’s frustration on the Trig checking data diagnostics. Robert frustrates because they saved the world and none of the Saps know it. The boy in the church was a Scavenger gang member by the looks of him. Robert explains he knew that boy: Andy Cull. They grew up together  about ten miles away from where Carol found him. Carol tells him his friend might have harmed him if he knew what he was. “To them, we’re the same as the Tnawi, we’re the enemy.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

9: Barr-Byzhan

 

Dagre Lunh, Sennith 0/1, Suncycle Teshr

 

The narrator feels an urge to repeat his actions in the Wildland but Establishment Hatch’s insistent moral orations on the vidcasts seem to convince more and more every day that what he felt there was wrong. He or she or they. I’m still not sure this is James but is in fact, a total alien.

 

NOTE: all of this seems to be leading us to believe that the alien sections of this are James and his experiences either in some kind of afterlife or memories of when he was training in the religion, a monk I think.

 

Barram L is the perfect smoke screen for what the narrator has become. Almost three suncycles after the Wildland experiences, things change.

 

New Cycle’s Day: Barram L’s Designators are hosting a Second Naming Ceremony to celebrate the eldest’s Validation. This is official recognition of a citizen. The East and West Pyramids celebrate passing from Younger to a Citizen. L has been scathing of N’s perfection.

 

The Primary tells the Narrator and the Secondary to curb enthusiasm.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER 10: EARTH

 

Thursday 22^nd  October, 2009

 

Robert is not sure what organization did it, maybe the European Dept of Safety but someone cut off Barcombe Hill from the outside world. With a 12 foot high fence. The Hoof was declared geologically undafe and Robert wonders if that happened when Caine and her dept removed the spaceship from the resting place beneath the stone circle.

 

 

Robert left the Lab during daily communication from the Trig. He had to jaunt safely without the belt’s precision. He noticed the pub looked different. According to legend, Satan liked to have a pint at the Winter’s Solstice. St Mary’s wasn’t there, the whole church disappeared. He wondered if a rogue Tnawi missile destroyed it.

 

 

Rob thought he saw an animal. Then he saw a young man in combat fatigues in the doorway of the pub. Not an animal but one of the Scavenger gang members using Devil’s Nook as a base. The ground seemed to be moving and the man fell.

 

Someone calls Johnny. Huh?

 

Robert jaunted in time to see Stevie Cannon being swallowed up by swirling gravel.

 

A bearded man trying to warn him away was Johnny Turner. The ground vanished beneath Robert and he fell, a sharp boulder hitting the back of his head as he did.

 

Sigh.

 

CHAPTER 11: Barr-Byzhan

 

Dagre Lunh, Sennith 0/1, Suncycle Teshr

 

There are two towers and this is all suspiciously like the Twin Towers.

 

Barram N Coll is customarily naked ford the ceremony for his brother and he stares directly at the narrator.

 

There is forming genitalia (?) on Barram L Coll. The Holiness the commander of clerics appears. Not sure what this means: if he is just doing the ceremony or if he is bonded to Barram L?

 

Everything is described well enough including the Twin Fowls of Sublimation design on the commander of the clerics robe. It seems all the aliens are “they” and “them.”

 

Byzhans aspire to a state of grace.

 

Something happens. Windows shatter. Blue light engulfs Barram N Coll and he falls. Barram L rushes to him and covers “their” sibling with the ceremonial robes.

 

I have to say at this point I am totally confused. The similar names of the aliens. The distant narrator that the writer is trying to get us to believe is somehow James, the bizarreness of the alien world being delicately and well described. The connection to the TP and our world (is this a 9/11 thing? If so it is in bad taste), and the beautiful nakedness and the hint that by staring at the narrator, the naked Barram is into him (but isn’t the narrator into the sibling?) all converge to make me utterly confused and bored at the same time.

 

Part of the problem is that I tend to think of these are TV episodes or movies and…the gimmick of not telling us what these “aliens” look like so that we think maybe they are human or humanoid and that James is one of them …throws us or me off. A lot.

 

I get that the alien world building here is beautifully written and there is even a bit of action and even a rebellious, “fight back” streak in that the alien narrator and his “plant moving” person are seemingly Not Like telepaths possibly breaking out. It also parallels James and Robert (I think) in that they had a conflict in becoming a Tp and being sort of brainwashed monks or in line to be “holy men” of some kind, probably the Catholic religion or something?

 

But all of that doesn’t make for a good adventure really. It’s sound sci fi but is it really a good TP sci fi? Not sure.

 

CHAPTER 12: EARTH

 

Thursday 22^nd October, 2009

 

Robert wakes up to see his old friend, Stevie dead. A scrawny creature was on him, eating him. It had a firm crocodile like jaw protruding from the top of its long neck, teeth menacingly sharp. Its body was ape like, its arms thin with long, claw like fingers. A shabby tail stood on end, like a cat’s when it’s sensing danger.

 

Robert pressed his belt as the creature leapt towards him.

 

 

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER 13: Barar-Byzhan

 

Dagre-Lunh, Sennith 0/7, Suncycle Teshr

 

An investigation ensues into who tried to sabotage Barram N Coll’s Second naming ceremony. Blame settles on the Outer Island Radicals, terrorists that condemned Thorrus-J-Remm’s arrest and banishment. It is thought the culprits might be trying to make the world believe the Top grader was a Not Like.

 

Thorrus is arrested. The Outer Island Radical’s voice is silence forever.

 

Barram N Coll’s pairbonding service is brought forward. Barram N Coll was controlling the Wildland outside the temple in the same way that Coell J and the narrator once did. The narrator was able to see into their mind and hear their voice. That means they are alike and are Not Like.

 

Six senniths after the ceremony the narrator tries to be alone with Barram N Coll. The narrator knows that he will never pairbond with Barram L. Not Like do not pairbond—it is a prisonable offence.

 

NOTE: this is also very like the way homosexuals were treated in the UK some time ago. It also seems to reflect the Catholic church position on gays.

 

Barram N Coll tells the narrator he knows it was him/they. They do not want the narrator at their pairbonding service and if not for Barram L, Narram N would have the narrator arrested and thrown into prison. “They” think he is diseased and urges the narrator to turn himself/themselves in.

 

I feel betrayed, baffled, dirty. Then comes the Madness.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER 14: EARTH

 

Thursday 22^nd Ocober, 2009

 

We go over, again (sigh) that James, Robert’s grandparents, parents, and Stevie are all dead.

 

Robert, in his mind, has a debate with James about God. This is all very upsetting.

 

Hun, babes, sweetie: James hated all those words. Public displays of affection were out for James, too. Their affair had been conducted behind closed doors. Even in the UC1 machine. Now, Robert would settle for the chastest of hugs.

 

John always told Robert there was no such thing as a coincidence, that everything had a logical explanation if you looked hard enough. The belt locked in to one of its last safe set of co-ordinates.

 

Robert thought of all the death he witnessed since becoming a Tp. Robert feels something here. He calls out, hoping it is James. Carol comes to Robert and gets him up and the vanish, watched by a figure.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER 15: Barr-Byzhan

 

Dagre-Frigh, Sennith 2/7, Suncycle Teshr

 

NOTE: This chapter seems to be a COVID pandemic parallel. It’s unwanted ---at least by me. And it makes for difficult reading.

 

RAD447/Z disorder, known as the Madness affects the Broke, the Uncivilised and Native Byzhans, none of whom have wealth or electoral privileges. Loss of appetite, painless rash on neck or limbs, slight memory loss, untampered emotion are the first symptoms.

 

Emotional barriers collapse, perception of the world blurs. Victims of the madness find themselves unable to digest food, organs collapse. They become little more than animals and then death is inevitable and painful.

 

 

The Establishment Hatch links the Madness to the Not Like.

 

NOTE: this is also like the AIDS crisis.

 

They—advise the Establishmentor to  close the Gardens to the Not Like.

 

Hatch G Mah passes a law that makes it a criminal act to promote being Not Like as a lifestyle choice.

 

The narrator hears a voice for a second time. He faked illness to not go to the pairbonding for Barram N. Barram L went alone. The narrator walks along the outer walkway of the citadel. He hears a voice. He called by someone, that someone is calling  out to Jeyms. James?

 

 

The narrator loses consciousness. He had no idea of what happened between hearing the voice and waking up at Hoss-Well Point.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER 16: EARTH

 

Thursday 22^nd October, 2009

 

 

Robert vs Carol. He thinks she may have been trained in psychoanalysis on the Trig. She thinks he is NOT crazy. She holds his hand. TIM narrows down the identity of the creature to one of over ten thousand species. TIM is having a reboot (Carol’s words) but TIM calls it a circuit recalibration necessitated by the Trig’s new data system. It is a necessary step if he is going to finally overcome the effects of the Tnawi virus.

 

 

TIM and Robert figure that something dodgy is going on at the site where people were evacuated and even the old fogeys who lived there their entire lives left. Carol wants to file a report and send it to the Trig. Carol threatens to have TIM put a forcefield around Robert to keep Robert safe and from going to the area again. He storms off to bed. “To bed, of course. Like a good little boy.”

 

NOTE: of all the TP to use, to use Carol in this way seems fitting but she’s so annoying.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER 17: Barr-Byzhan

 

Dagre-Frigh, Sennith2/7, Suncycle Teshr

 

There is a Hoss Well point at the lowest tip of the Mainland, which got its name from an ugly breed of Hoss Well fish. First Byzhans worshipped it and a monastery is still there, a small clerical order The Friars of Hoss Well exist. The sky, this cycle, is a deep green. The narrator looks for a way into the Monastery, walking along a beach and wondering about his Designators. He wonders if it is “you” that knocked him unconscious and might be responsible for the storm at Barram N Coll’s Second Naming Ceremony.

 

He has no way of knowing if he has been unconscious, if he is a he. He’s probably a “they.” He wonders if he should tell his designators everything about “you” and that it was “you” responsible for the low grades and a vendetta against him.

 

He knows he made it happen. He cries. He would be arrested, if seen, for a public display of emotion. He feels he is a freak of nature.

 

Someone, a Friar, welcomes him. Witness Kahl gives him a uniform, possibly.

 

The Friar that talks to the narrator tells him/her/they that they have seen many things and visited many different places and met every type of Byzhan you can imagine. He observes all without judgment. He says every Byzhan has the capacity to change, even Thorrus J Remm. He meets with Thorrus. There is a time piece, a relic from the Inhibition Era. The Narrator is going to tell the Friar that the Outer Island Radicals are not responsible for what happened at the Temple of the West Pyramid, that he is a Not Like, and the he has sinned. He will also tell him that Barram N Coll and he were responsible.

 

The Friar knows already. His name is Friar Coen. Daghu N is the narrator’s name. Coen wants to find out how Daghu was broke and hold it up to the Creator.

 

Daghu wonders about the Friars. Are they Not Like as well? They have a calling. Coen wants him to think of his life like a tiny part of water of an ice mountain above the water and the rest below is everything hindering natural growth. He wants to melt the ice mountain.

 

Huh? WTF?

 

 

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER 18: EARTH

Thursday 22^nd October, 2009

 

Carol reflects on her being a good little girl. She would hide from the rows of her parents in her room. She had imaginary friends (sigh and they are George, Dick, Julian, Carol, Anne and Timmy the dog). And an imaginary Nanny. Eventually, by the time Carol took part in the woodland adventures, they metamorphosed into John, Susan, Titty (TITTY?!!), Roger and Bridget. Carol found a baby badger under one of her favorite beech trees. Carol was punished. She would never take the lead again until her friends became real. Julian made his final transition into John, Timmy into TIM, and Carol left home.

 

NOTE: WTF?

 

Carol’s mother’s illness rendered her physically incapable and Carol took care of both of them (it’s unclear but Fairs seems to mean her parents and not TIM and John). Later, she was invited to the funeral but she was not encouraged to attend. DO we ever find out if she went? I’d love to know even if I reject this background as Carol’s background.

 

Carol goes to Robert’s room and tells him that he hasn’t done anything wrong, despite every reason to break the rules, he hasn’t. “You’ve been good as gold, we both have. I think it’s time we weren’t.”

 

NOTE: NOT enjoying this novel at all. First, the choice of Carol is annoying. Giving her a background that makes her a “good little girl” and her changing her mind from being non rule breaker watcher over Rober to the one who does this in this chapter is okay but also quite tedious. If it was Mike or Stephen or Tyso or Andrew we’d have…well, a faster paced story. As it is, the alien-ness of the alien world parts, as well thought out as it is, makes little to no sense to me and I’m not sure what Fairs is on about or trying to accomplish with those chapters AND the Earth chapters just seem to further alienate me/us as Carol is not my favorite TP and Robert is just too caught up in grief and unbelief to really be our POV relate to character.

 

The novel feels a bit of a slug through.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER 19: Barr-Byzhan

 

Dagre Math, Sennith 0/6, Suncycle Pendh

 

Then, there’s the format. This format has long passed its life cycle of its own and it is tedious rather than free style. It feels chained to its own moor as it is. And going back and forth from the alien world to the Earth and the TP is already quite boring and tedious and continues through the rest of the chapters (some 50 plus chapters!). I can’t wait for this to end.

 

Daghu, the narrator, sleeps in a small cell and thinks about how he hid the primary’s gold pin and scarlet sash beneath a loose brick beneath the window. I must admit the Great Bell in the tower and the rest of the prose gives a very gothic atmosphere.

 

Witness Kahl assures him or them about the mild sedative that will dull emotions. Coen tutors them in the hall of Contemplation. There are some confessors who reveal shocking details about their younghood experiences are considered beyond redemption and transferred to an asylum for Total Reprogramming.

 

Daghu is interrogated and asked the moment when he was abused by his Primary that led him to the path of darkness. Wait. I thought the Friars here were the good guys? No, they’re not. In any case, the narrator tells them he was not abused and that his Secondary did not have to protect him against his Primary because the Primary never abused him and was not even there…never. Huh? It stops and they are satisfied.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER 20-EARTH

 

Thursday 22^nd October, 2009

 

TIM finds the sign is made from FB-Z, a metal found in the Western Sector only. He complains that his database was compromised by the Tnawi virus. Timus insisted that the original Universal Cartographers label the various sections with names that the common Federation citizen would understand. It was, Carol claims one of Timus’ and TIM’s little quirks. The TP don’t use the names any longer or maybe it is the whole Federation?

 

Robert felt sick, thinking of everyone he knew that might have been murdered in the area, not evacuated. He thinks Theresa, her therapist, her girlfriend, Mrs. Lidster from the Post Office, that weird kid who always seemed to be on the swings with her mobile phone every time he and Andy came back from the cinema in the next village.

 

Robert tells them the alien he saw was an animal that could hardly put up signs and fences. Carol thinks it could have been another species, a pet or a guard dog. TIM notes the sign bent out of shape. Robert realizes what the sign was bent by and what evidence was left behind on it, “Teeth marks!”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER 21-Barr-Byzhan

 

Dagre-Frigh, Sennith 0/6, Suncycle Pendh

 

A mooncycle after the confessional. Coen tells the narrator he or they were never Not Like. They just never had a Primary Designator and that is what broke him/they. The Creator, Coen claims, allows them to hate Kemmonos, the King of Demons and the sinful thoughts they infect “us” with.

 

Coen claims that Daghu’s hatred of his Primary who abandoned them has broken him but the creator can give a new Primary relationship for them to heal.

 

The narrator trusts Coen now to lead him/them out of the immoral way of life. He will be changed and Coen calls the narrator Seeker Daghu.

 

 

 

CHAPTER 22: EARTH

 

Thursday 22^nd October, 2009

 

Carol and Robert intend to jaunt in and look for Johnny and Andy and jaunt them out (well, it would have be matter transported out because Saps cannot jaunt). Robert has some kind of attack, he shimmers, his eyes narrow to tiny dots and the rest gleamed white. TIM is unsure what is happening to Robert. 

 

Robert appeared to shimmer with blue energy as if he were  a television image coming in and out of focus.

 

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER 23: Barry-Byzhan

 

Dagre-Frigh, sennith 0/7, Suncycle Pendh

 

Daghu seems to be indoctrinated into the thoughts the Sacred Monastery of Hoss-Well’s Friars want him to be having. He hates his False Primary who caused all his problems and he hates Kemmonos who put thought into him and he no longer hates himself.

 

Kemmonos created the Not Like to bring about the downfall of the Creator. Coen explains he was Not Like, too. Wait? I thought he told Daghu that he was NOT Not Like? Gosh. Daghu blushes when Coen touches his cheek and then leaves him alone in the cloisters.

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER 24: Earth

 

Thursday 22^nd October, 2009

 

Robert’s head trip? Robert in a desert with a burning James. Dunes were collapsing. Energy screamed from inside the planet. Robert mind talks and mind screams to James. He cannot lose him again. James seems to mind talk to Robert, too, “I lived, Robert. I survived.”

 

Robert comes to in the Lab and tells Carol. “J…James! I saw James! It was him, Carol! He’s still alive!”

 

And now the writer is just playing with us. 87 pages and this is where we are at. Blimey. What is going on?

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER 25: Barr-Byzhan

 

Dagre-Laugh, Sennith 2/7, Suncycle Pendh

 

Daghu looked back and saw how Coen manipulated the situation. Kahl seems to be replaced as “their” Witness with a common witness and Daghu is moved out of his frugal cell.

 

After a few weeks and maybe months of focusing on other projects, mostly the DARK SHADOWS audios and fan fiction serial by Dale Clark, I return to this and with hesitation. It really is amazing how much crap I’ve read, listened to, watched, and put up with in the names of both DOCTOR WHO and THE TOMORROW PEOPLE because I, once a long time ago, fell in love with their characters and premises. Maybe it’s time to stop. It’s also amazing that the DOCTOR WHO crowd seems to have gotten their negative philosophy regarding …well, everything, into THE TOMORROW PEOPLE universe, mostly via BIG FINISH, I’m sorry to say.

 

 

I don’t think the authors meant it but they’ve created a whole negative aura about the world, the universe at large, the nature of human beings, and more. I don’t like it and truth I don’t think it was some big conspiracy for them to make us think the hateful ways they do but a sort of…well, science fiction (and fantasy AND horror) have mostly been warnings about one thing or another, many have ending badly for the characters (THE ROADS MUST ROLL, ALL SUMMER IN A DAY, THERE WILL COME SOFT RAINS, RAIN RAIN GO AWAY), the world and the universe at large.

 

Maybe –and this is not a conceit but an observation----I’ve moved past this. I’m not the same person I was even 10 years ago but some 40 years of loving science fiction, horror and fantasy, one tends to see the negative side of all of it and the positive side is hardly as large. It’s 90 percent warnings, cautionary tales, and “shock” endings where everyone or some die. The world ends, everyone ends, all those false premises.

 

Back to this novel: I tried to be kind before but as I slog through this and do not understand what it is I’m slogging through or whose mind I’m reading from…first person comes from this being that the author is trying to make us think is James but by the end, I think it’s not…I realize this is just a bad book.

 

And it really is. Maybe others can latch onto something or squeeze some meaning out of the prose here and this chapter is not alone but this chapter emphasizes all that is wrong with this book. With no focal point of character and setting, nothing fully or firmly established in the hopes of setting up a shock ending, the writer takes us through…the mind of the being.

 

Making matters far worse is the whole pronoun thing. I know it is a controversial idea and probably not a popular one but for God’s sake, describe the characters fully and not just tell us they are a “they” and a “themselves” when they are singular. I need more. I cannot identify with anything in this chapter (and the others like it) and that includes setting, the mind of our narrator, and EVERYTHING he discusses in his own mind, thinking about it, thinking about they/them/themselves. Maybe if the writer established what that “they” “Them” “themselves” are/were or will be, some of this might make some sense and the parts that do make some sense (not much) is just flat out boring.

 

Thus we get a lot of info from the head of the character who may or may not be reptilian insectoid or something?

 

Friar Coen manipulates the narrator to make him believe he can provide the Primary relationship he lacks. He sees Seeker Kahl, walking in line to their duties in the gripp fields, look up towards the window and flash him a look of…what? Jealousy? Disdain? I mention it to Friar Coen and Kahl spends a sennith in the solitary cell as punishment.

 

The Friar excuse the narrator from the pacification drug and offering him a gripp flower infusion. Under its influence one act leads to another intimate act. Together they are controlling and containing the evil that Kemmonos put into them by allowing it into their chamber and no further.

 

I guess they are talking about gay sex here?

 

The narrator witnesses confessionals, just as Kahl did. He mocks the broken down beings later with Coen,  who eventually  bores of him and on the reliance on infusion. Both have fantasies about the occasional new Seeker. One was fresh faced Dravvhian called Waldh-H who starts to obsess Coen who eventually makes him chosen for Confessional. When the narrator challenges Coen on this, he is put in the solitary cell for a sennith.

 

The narrator in his dream hears words again.

 

Waldh_H takes his position and he is escorted back to his old cell. In an act of defiance, the narrator he finds his Primary’s scarlet sash and gold pin. He doubts the Creator and wonders why there is such wild perversion in the world.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter 26: Earth

 

Friday 23^rd October 2009

 

TIM has found only a trace of temporal disturbance, faint but enough to register on his secondary scan. Carol and Robert wonder if it could be the Guardians (of time?). Robert brings up Malachi, remembering his trip to an alternate future. He wonder if James is reaching out to him from a universe where he didn’t sacrifice himself.

 

TIM informs them that accompanying the disturbance was a trace signature of the late President Dracquell’s Universal Transportation Network. Even though it was destroyed by Paul, it’s possible that not all of if was obliterated and a few corridors remained partially intact.

 

Robert believes James was alive, somewhere in time and space and they would be reunited as soon as humanely possible.

 

Robert felt utterly alive again. Carol instructs TIM to jaunt them to the Devil’s Nook where they should be safe.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter 27: Barry-Byzhan

 

Dagre-Laugh, Sennith2/7, Suncycle Pendh

 

The narrator is hearing birds and plants in an unnatural and illegal manner making sounds. He thinks someone has brought him here. Someone says hello to him, Daghu-N. That someone says he/she/they are Addh-C. They are having a thought share. Addh-C thought when he first had his he had caught the Madness. He doesn’t know why the Guru always chooses him to do it.

 

“For the Creator’s sake! What in the Dark World are you talking about? And where are you?”

 

Dag refuses to go with this one (is this Robert?) but this one, Addh tells him he cannot sleep out here and the rodents that are friendly during the cycle at dark cyc will sink their teeth into anything the moves.

 

Addh walks Dag toward the Sanctuary. They make it to the courtyard. The Guru is Clahh-M. The two strangers share something in thought and talk about upgrading, unlearning, and forgetting.

 

I’m lost.

 

If I knew what was going on in this horrid book, I’d relay it here. I don’t. I can’t. I want to stop reading this garbage.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter 28: Earth

Friday 23^rd October, 2009

 

Carol and Robert materialize in a bar in Barcombe Hill. Robert notices a new arrival, Johnny Turner. He tells Johnny that he is Robert Mitchell from school. When a vehicle arrives outside, they trio flee back into the bar but soldiers come out. Robert reaches for teleportation belts in his back pack but Johnny pulled a revolver out of a microwave and the soldiers fired without hesitation. Sigh.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter 29: Barry Byzhan

 

Dagre-Laugh, Sennith 2/7, Suncycle Pendh

 

Eating Hall. None here has a third name. Here, the beings do not conform to the way of life of a Citizen. They are Not Like and proud to be. The narrator finds this utterly alien, taking pride in one’s perversion and he thinks Add, Clahh and their follow islanders are terrorists. This is one of the Outer Island. They crafted dwellings out of gullies and holes in the rock so no passing air transport could spot them. They will not return to civilization until the Infos are ready for them. WTF?

 

The progression from Info to Sup.

 

“I don’t understand what you’re talking about.”

 

The Byzhan race was on the verge of a massive genetic change, the final upgrade. Geneticists realized this some time ago but their discoveries were buried and their voice silence. They are metamorphosing from Byzhan Inferior to Byzhan Superior.

 

The narrator in his own mind questions the story.

 

Add reads Dag’s mind and apologizes. Add informs Dag he does not have to recite the Obligations before bed. He also tells him that the Creator never existed. Sigh. More false premises.

 

Their lips brush. “I am alone but not alone.”

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter 30: Earth

 

Friday 23^rd October, 2009

 

NOTE: I hate this book.

 

Andy tells Robert they picked him up in Cuckberry, just lying there. He seems to blame Robert (I can’t remember this at all from reading it so long ago). Robert does not like being called mate. He and Carol has been responsible for Andy’s incarceration, indirectly.

 

From Barnaby Eaton Jones after I messaged him:

“But, I can't speak for Nigel Fairs on this. It's clear, to me, it was an allegory for growing up gay, told through the prism of an alien race, but it's all for readers to decipher.”

 

There’s a reference to TIM’s skin graft on Robert which seems to be around his head wound taking time to adjust to the surgery. I have no idea what this refers to. Another audio? TIM did something while Robert was unconscious?

 

They were in one of the old classrooms Andy, Steveie and Johnny had once sat sloshing powder paints onto sweet smelling paper and whispering naughty limericks to each other while Miss Ireland tries to enlighten them about the Battle of Hastings.

 

There were 20 others in the room, also captives. A woman in her 60s, a young boy, Andy, and Johnny. Andy was no longer the plump prankster. Johnny laughs at the idea that they knew Stevie would get himself killed. Most of these were arrested at anti government rallies. One woman is an MP, liberation party and is named Bridget Crowley, used to be a green. I have no idea what any of that means or if he’s referring to two different women.

 

Johnny explains that “they” are going to let the alien pet of theirs kill them. Johnny finishes with the word, “Bloodsports.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter 31: Barr-Byzhan

 

Dagre-Hermh, Sennith 2/7, suncycle Pendh

 

Addh-C uses telekinesis to snake through Dag’s hair and unbutton his shirt. He has both Primary and Secondary genitalia. The narrator Dag calls him more of a freak than he himself is. Add telepaths to Dag that nothing is inanimate at a molecular level. There are growth meadows here for food growing. Dag makes reference to Add having smoked gripp and uses the pronoun their for Add. Thought sharing makes Dag’s teeth ache (is that a lame Star Trek Dr. McCoy reference?).

 

If the final upgrade (great break out?) happens, not all Byzhans will be Sups. They want to keep their ability to mouthspeak so that the Infos don’t feel left out.

 

When the Settlers got together manipulating objects in a group, at first, they nearly brought the Courtyard Roof down so object manipulation should only be practiced in pairs now.

 

One suncycle ago is when the Settlers came.

 

The Guru planted bulder bramble when they first came to the island.

 

The narrator, Dag, knew Ritch U as a gripp head back on the mainland.

 

Dag’s primary had an unpleasant stink in robes: drugs?

 

When Dag wonders about a Place Roam, Add tells him that only one of them could do it until …Dag himself.

 

Add, with Ritch U (possibly?) disabled Dag’s emcel and Dag’s arrival was planned. All others come on sea transport vehicles. Add thinks Dag’s Designators told him nothing. A youngest is fitted with an MCL as soon as they’ve learned the Obligations. An MCL is a microchip code locator. The Primary fits the Youngest with it. This is the violence in the darkness. It was not a dream.

 

All their emcels are disabled. If not, all of them would be taken up, killed, or taken to a Readjustment Institution. Hatch G Mah and their cronies hate the Sups. The Final Upgrade will be a bloodless revolution, more a gentle progression.

 

Add had a look in their eyes that was also once directed at Clahh-M. It makes Dag feel uneasy.

 

A field has been ravaged by fire, last dark cyc Dag figures. Clahh M has brainwashed Add, the narrator figures and tells him so. Dag suspects the fire was set by one of them. TYPO: “it hovers between is…”

 

Add seems to lift a boulder telekinetically and tells Dag to hit him with it. Dag feels a memory flash into his head, perhaps Add’s primary raising a hand to him?

 

Dag moves the boulder away. Ritch U is assigned to practice object manipulation with Dag. Dag tries to sublimate the thought of Addh-C, who he finds engaging. Dag does this the way he was taught in the emotion Sublimation classes at the Facility. It seems that the act of intrusion into one’s thoughts was done by Add and Friar Coen only.

 

NOTE: this is one long, and semi boring chapter.

 

Pipes from the nutrition plant spread nutrition promoter to the crops. It is painted the same colour as the sky. The gripp flower has a sentience. Dag gets a cloud to release its moisture onto the vegetation which signaled him to please do so. This makes Ritch U annoyed as they were supposed to do that together. Dag feels no connection with Ritch U. Dag has Addh-C’s memories of a storm. Add has been watching them and projects a happier version of them watering the living vegetation. “We might not be able to kill each other but we can soak each other all right!” Dag splutters.

 

Add and Dag laugh, Ritch having left in a huff.

 

 

NOTE: is this narrative growing on me? This was a warmer chapter and one that I think is more relatable.

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter 32: Earth

 

Friday 23^rd October, 2009

 

Protestors, immigrants and homeless are dumped here in the school or sometimes in the leisure centre. It is made easy to escape and then the escapees are dragged underground and eaten. Andy believes the Minister for Housing is responsible for all this. “We’ll make Britain Great again…”

 

When Robert counters that homes are being built, Johnny protests again him, telling him the rich are getting richer and the poor blamed for everything. When the world economy crashed the gov’t blamed them and blamed them for the bug eyed monsters invading.

 

NOTE: This sounds more like leftist propaganda than it does truth with evidence.

 

Johnny tells “Bobby” that he always buried his head in the sane. Carol telepaths that she thinks Johnny is more upset about Stevie than he’s letting on and not to take it personally.

 

Susan spotted a couple of trucks parked on the other side of the playground. Bridget Crowley has a plan to steal them. Andy tells her that the trucks have no engines. Carol has a better plan: Robert and Carol will fetch the equipment in the pub that will help them escape. The young boy jumps out a window, thinking they will just abandon the rest of the group. While everyone is distracted, Carol and Robert tell Johnny and Andy to stay in the classroom. Then Carol and Robert jaunt across to Devil’s Nook, the pub.

 

The boy is swallowed up into the ground.

 

 

 

Chapter 33: Barry-Byzhan

 

Dagre-Math, Sennith 2/7, Suncycle Exhih

 

Ritch refuses to train with Dag so the result is that Dag spends more time with Add. They object manipulate so that random thoughts and memories do not interfere. Those they share on their own terms, learning intimate details about each other. Some memories they do not share, Add saying those are reserved for the Guru’s assessment. Dag comes to resent the Guru’s hold over Add and is never quite able to abandon his initial disgust but that might be due to his psat with the Friar.

 

Dag thinks of his Designators, his Primary and Secondary and how, due to not wanting to be linked to the Not Like, they have taken his vanishing with disinterest and indifference. He also thinks of Barram L just once.

 

Emotion take priority here. Senniths and moon cycles pass.

 

Dag’s skin darkens from daily exposure to the sunlight. Dag, too, has two sets of genitalia and they have developed maturing at an alarming rate. “And I’ve nearly forgotten that I even had a life before Addh-C.”

 

He address the next part to someone else (probably Robert): “And there’s you. I nearly forgot about you. It’s obvious that you’re Not Like—how else could you be thought sharing?—though why only I should hear you perplexes me. Who are you?”

 

 

 

 

 

34: Earth

Friday 23^rd October, 2009

 

Three more escapees are sucked into the ground. Robert cannot find the backpack. They must have taken it when the two of them were tasered. Robert calls for TIM to jaunt them back to the Lab to get more telepath belts (couldn’t TIM just send them to them?). Carol reminds Robert of TIM’s reboot. Robert jaunted back to the classroom where the hand he offered a young woman clambering through the window was met with a cold stare.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter 35: Barr-Byzhan

 

Dagre-Lunh, Sennith 2/8, Suncycle Exhih

 

Dag talks about his contact (Robert?) with Addh-C. They’ve been assigned to shore up the walls of a passageway  that used to walk along a sun cycle ago. Dag explains they use their powers sparingly even though it would mean less time at work but also that doing work with powers strips the work of meaning or enjoyment. I say screw that, use your powers. Another ridiculous premise. I’d enjoy it just for using my powers.

 

Add tries to make Dag think he chose him but Dag argues against that, thinking the Guru has lied about some things and Add has fallen for it. Dag thinks that the Not Like do not pair bond. Add thinks the surgery that Establishment says is needed to promote growth of one or the other of their genitalia is cruel and unnatural. This is why they have to choose Primary or Secondary.

 

Dag wonders if Clahh-M’s outrageous theories are motivated by warped sense of compassion. The wall falls after a sharp crack. They seem to vanish. They heard music. A discordant set of notes. Their bodies are entwined. “Our sweat mingles. Our lips touch. We are alive.”

 

 

 

Chapter 36: Earth

 

Friday 23^rd October, 2009

 

Carol is separated from the others and Johnny claims that she will not be harmed if Space Boy (Robert) doesn’t do his disappearing trick again. Crowley was up for letting the mob beat their brains out. The whoever they are think Robert and Carol are the same as the killer pixies who invaded as they did the same vanishing act. Sigh.

 

I’m not even sure who has Carol. I guess it is the survivors and not the gov’t doing this to Carol and blaming she and Robert for being with aliens. I’m confused.

 

Johnny suggested sending Carol out onto the ground to see where it is safe so they can make it to the vans. Carol thinks maybe Johnny thought she could jaunt out when the ground opened up and she could if she were fast enough, she thinks. She telepaths to Robert that now they are making Johnny go with her.

 

Robert uses his powers to make the door open. Susan, Crowley’s second in command was untying Carol, when Robert telepathed to her to jaunt away…because blue energy makes him vanish…into thin air.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter 37: Barr-Cyzhan

 

Dagre-Lunh, Sennith 2/9, Suncycle Exhih

 

Dag and Add are in the Broken Hemisphere. They bury a dead shortneck (not sure what those are) they found in a hut overrun by the forest. They find an emblem that is also painted on the door of the nutrition plant on the Island.

 

What’s a Nikey thing?

 

Gripp pollen relaxes them as it interacts with the catalyst in the blood. It searches for the pleasure enzyme in the blood. Add smokes one. He kisses Dag and breathes the smoke into him. They sleep. The following cycle (day?) Add licks juice from the riverfruit off Dag’s chin. Add wants to pairbond and stay here forever.

 

They lay together.

 

Dag saved their lives when the wall fell by placeroaming away from the falling wall. No citizen has ever returned from the Broken Hemisphere alive. Dag wonders if Robert brought them here---I think. He thinks it might be a trap. Dag recounts a story that a vehicle crashed here and the crew ended up eating each other to stay alive. This is a story in the Catharsae.

 

“As long as I get to eat you first,” Add mouth speaks.

 

Add uses his mind to calm Dag.

 

Dag hears Robert? Nottagh-N, please not now. Carr-L jaunt!

 

A wave of energy hits Add and Dag. Sigh.

38: Earth

Friday 23^rd October, 2009

 

Wherever Carol jaunted to she was in darkness and she hadn’t time to touch her belt. It smelled of decaying flesh. She was surrounded by at least six shapes in the dark.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter 39: Barr-Byzhan

 

Dagre-Laugh, Senith 2/9, Suncycle Exhih

 

Dag and Add managed to get back to the Island and lie about where they’ve been. Ritch U accused them of thought sharing. Add wants to be back at the Broken Hemisphere. Clahh M thinks Add and Dag are a perfect couple. He gifts Dag with a neck chain when he hears about their pairbonding with Add. The medallion has the same symbol that Coell J was wearing in the Wildland when he was younger. He notices a tiny crack below the symbol of ancient fertility.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter 40: Earth

Friday 23^rd October, 2009.

 

Carol and Robert confer back in the lab. They do not have know how to matter transport the group away safely. They do not know how to programme the belts to do that. Instead, the belts would bring them to the lab. They do not want Bridget Crowley to see the Lab as she is a political opportunist, Freedom Party or not she wants to be in power and giving her access to Federation technology is not a good idea.

 

TIM’s reboot has not finished yet.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter 41: Barr-Byzhan

Dagre-Laugh, Sennith 2/9, Suncycle Exhih

 

Dag has nightmares as he gets ill at night. He is wearing the necklace/medallion. Dag wonders if it is the Madness. Clahh M thinks Dag should be isolated. Add will not leave Dag. Dag wonders if he was ill for a long time before this. Dag’s nightmares include Coell J, his Primary and Secondary, a betrayal by Add, his going the pairbonding alone, and his primary sacrificing his secondary to the Creator as an act of penitence on Dag’s behalf.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter 42: Earth

Saturday 24^th October, 2009

 

Johnny is in the underground. He thinks Andy fell too and is dead. Johnny remembers when Robert aka Bobby grasped him as an adder came from beneath iron in Cornwall. They went to the beach afterward, laughing and teasing. He falls into a huge, dead alien eye. Someone calls his name.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter 43: Barr-Byzhan

 

Dagre-Frigh, Sennith 3/1, Suncycle Exhih

 

More nightmares from Dag. He wakes up to feeling better but finds a naked Add near him, also with a necklace on. Dag accuses Clahh M about giving them both the Madness.

 

The medallion belonged to the first Sup Dag ever knew and he wonders how it ended up here. He also figures that Clahh has lied to them about everything. The bushes growth, the time they were on the island, the growth meadows out in the open can be easily seen from the air…and some engines of transport vehicles arrive. Clahh was jealous of them. Of Dag. Clahh, the Guru lead “them” here and they are dropping bombs. He takes his chain off. Clahh M arrives and raises their gun to fire.

 

 

Chapter 44: Earth

Saturday 24^th October, 2009

 

NOTE: I’ll give this to the writer: I have to find out what is going to happen to both sets of characters in both settings. I cannot stop reading! I guess that means it’s a good book and it’s sucked me in. And honestly, it’s sort of riveting as well as annoying.

 

Andy has found Johnny. Andy was an architect and Johnny a landscaper. Andy thinks this means Robert was better than them. Huh? Andy knew better than to bring up what he believed the real reason for his friend’s anger with Robert---that Johnny was I love with Robert and always had been. He’s suggested that once back in the sixth form and got a black eye for it. Johnny’s girlfriend---Jess or Jenny---got pregnant shortly afterwards, leading to a disastrous marriage that had only lasted a year. Both ex wife and son were killed when the Tnawi blasted most of central London.

 

NOTE: WHY more grim? Sigh.

 

Andy and Stevie were the only ones Johnny trusted and perhaps they were the only ones who trulyknew who and what Johnny Turner was?

 

The buildings that fell into the ground are parts of the church, the old manor house and the folly above the railway tunnel. They both froze as they heard what sounded like windchimes echoing down the tunnel towards them. The discordant notes lasted a few seconds, then there was a voice.

 

Robert Mitchell. Andy swore he saw a smile flicker across Johnny’s face. Then they heard the scrabble of claws on rock and a low growling which sharpened into a ferocious howl.

 

 

 

Chapter 45: Barr-Byzhan

Dagre-Frigh, Sennith 3/1, Suncycle Exhih

 

The chains made Add and Dag ill and robbed them of their powers. Dag wonders if Add was part of the deception and everything that happened between them was a lie. The Not Like are deceivers. They have to be in order to survive. Dag finds his Secondary and he tells Dag everyone knows about him. Dag runs for a whole sun cycle, roaming Wildlands and the deserts. He placeroams. Dag hauls what he thinks is Add toward him.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter 46: Earth

Saturday 24^th October, 2009

 

Carol and Robert put the creature with crocodile like jaws to sleep in order to save Andy. Carol puts a matter transfer belt on one of the creatures to bring it back to the lab! Carol asks TIM to contain it in a forcefield. Johnny, the creature, and Andy are taken to the lab by Carol and Robert. Robert explains the only life signs left in Barcombe Hill were Andy and Johnny. The others must all be dead. TIM seems to go out and Robert turns blue with energy and says with the creature, “Mummy! I want my mummy!”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter 47: Barr-Byzhan

 

Dagre-Sunonh, Sennith 3/0, Suncycle Eftah

 

Dag meets a Younger at the island. His name is Pith-Q. Pith thinks the Elders have only been here 30 sinniths. Dag asks about Add. Add is half Drahvvan, and is a couple of cycles older than Dag. He projects an image of Add into Pith’s mind. He asks about Ritch U and Kayleb-J.

 

Dag gets Pith’s memory of a Byzhan in chains. Dag opens a door to the nutrition plant. Add died here. Chained, drugged, then fed into machines that line the walls, their bones crushed, their body fat melted into sludge that left the building in the pipes that fertilized the crops used to feed the next suncycle’s worth of Not Like brought to the Sanctuary.

 

Great, this has now become SOYLENT GREEN.

 

Coell-J and Clahh-M have been feeding Not Like into the soil. Dag wants to destroy the tanks but Byzhan Superiors are incapable of harming any living thing.

 

NOTE: Not sure this makes sense. TP CAN and sometimes DO harm other living things but only as a mistake or a rage and then they face repercussions (Peter in THE MEDUSA STRAIN). The sludge in the tanks was once living matter: Addh-C, his friends. Again, this makes little sense. They’re dead but they’re not living matter any longer. Dag SHOULD be able to harm them.

 

Dag falls to his knees. He wants his mai mummh-E. “I don’t know what the words mean yet but I understand the feeling. Your feeling. And that’s enough to take me where I need to go, see who I need to see.”

 

NOTE: just as this book was making me warm to it, even like it or think it might be innovative, we get this sad revelation. I liked Addh-C as a character, perhaps the most alive in this whole book and now he’s dead. And the whole thing gets muddled again. Is Dag one of the alligator lizard croc aliens? Is he the one who wanted its mommy in the lab? WTF?

 

Muddle, confused, and annoying, this book is really starting to get to me and under my thoughts. Maybe that’s a good thing? But it sure does not feel like it and I certainly didn’t want this from a TP book. I find myself once more hating this book and wishing it would just end already.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter 48: Earth

 

Saturday 24^th October, 2009

 

The dead thing under the playground was the mother of the other creatures. Johnny calls Robert Mr. Spock. Robert was linked for a bit with the baby creature in the lab, something to do with the fragment of time space corridor. It’s hungry. They haven’t been eating people whole but draining them of blood something in the blood of humans is what the need, something they should get from their mother.

 

“Alien breast milk?” Johnny scoffed.

 

But whatever it is in blood is not enough so that is why they ate the sign and the ground itself, creating tunnels. TIM, who for now is being named names as if the story is being told from Johnny and Andy’s POV (it’s not), calls the word Lassertilla. TIM has identified the species. The male lacks the ability to lactate. TIM thinks if he can isolate something missing from the stone that can also be found in human blood, “we” should be able to manufacture a compound that would satisfy the lassertilla and stop them destroying Barcombe Hill and its inhabitants.

 

“Like making baby formula?” asked Andy.

 

“Yes, Andy,” said the PA. Sigh.

 

This is either somewhat clever or the stupidest most mundane thing ever and it briefly seems to also be robbing LOGAN’S RUN, STAR TREK-DEVIL IN THE DARK and other stories, and SOYLENT GREEN. And it’s entirely morbid, miserable, grim, and sinister. I don’t like it after all and it’s dark and awful and pessimistic. And this is not what I want out of a TP story.

 

 

 

Chapter 49: Barr-Byzhan

 

Dagre-Sunonh, Sennith 3/0, Suncycle Eftah

 

I’m going to try to rush the rest of these “details” from what I can make out. The next book is already out.

 

The Secondary had regulation face paint. Dag’s Primary lies to an official. The Primary seems to be  a terrorist trying to create an alternate reality where Dag wasn’t born. The Primary says that he and Dag were unable to pairbond to have Youngests but he claims that didn’t mean Dag was “that way.”

 

 

Chapter 50: Earth

 

Saturday 24^th October, 2009

 

Carol is unsure to let Andrew and Johnny come with them. TIM isolated nutrients to create baby formula to place into a hypodermic attachment to the stun guns. The baby creature has bonded with Robert, who names him Simon. Robert, back in the lab, after three hours (and the TP planning to or having already done---?_---the return of the alien babies to Lassertil 6-----vanishes in blue energy and he opens his mouth to scream.

 

 

51: Barr-Byzhan

Dagre-Sunonh, Sennith 3/0, Suncycle Eftah

Dag finds his Secondary in a kind of casket with his mouth bound. He tries to free the Secondary but causes him to scream. He hears other screams.

 

 

Chapter 52: the Corridor, Timeless

 

Rober is in a corridor filled with dust and echoes of the dyinig. He sees a figure and thinks it is James. He stepped out of the light after stopping his screaming and saw the face of the man who’d reached across time and space to find him, to rescue him. He reached out to touch it.

 

Chapter 53: Barr-Byzhan

Dagre-Sunonth, Sennith 3/0, Suncycle Eftah

 

Dag meets Robert and shares his mind thoughts. He hopes they can cure his Secondary from the Madness. He also mentions Mai Mumhh-E (mommy?). A body from Younghood? Dag thinks he can save Barr Byzhan form the Madness.

 

Chapter 54: Earth

Saturday 24^th October, 2009

Robert is with Carol in the lab and says it was James. He believes James is alive. The baby lassetillum settles into Robert’s lap and its tail curls around Andy’s ankles playfully. “I’m coming back as one of those things!” Johnny joked, halfheartedly, nodding towards it, “All fur and purr when it’s fed then bites your head off as soon as it’s hungry!”

 

TIM advises entering the corridor fragment, although it focuses on Robert, it’s unstable. There is no guarantee that Robert could return. “You remember what happened to Paul,” Carol added, gently.

 

“I don’t care!” Robert objected, “I’m going!”

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter 55: Barr Byzhan

 

Dagree sunonh, Sennith 3/0, Suncycle Eftah

 

Dag placeroams into the Establishment Palace where he is immediately caught. The Hatch wonders to the Chancellor Ffilhips if the dampeners have a fault. They have not. Clahh M arrives. The Hatch orders Dag taken and given dampening serum.

 

Clahh knows that inside the Secondary’s blood cels and tissues is a hungry gripp pollen, having been denired the enzymes desired by the RAD447/Z virus that he--Clahh helped create in the palace labs.

 

Chapter 56: Earth

 

Saturday 24^th October, 2009

 

Robert hates when people call him mate and tells Johnny so. Johnny changes it to Bobby. Andy tells Robert not to do anything he and Johnny wouldn’t do. “That doesn’t leave much scope,” Rober quipped.

 

Carol tells Rober to give her love to James. Robert vanishes even though TIM cannot calculate where and when the corridor will bring him to.

 

Chapter 57: Barr-Byzhan

Dagre-Lunh, Sennith 3/1, Suncycle Eftah

 

Dag is dying.

 

Chapter 58: The Corridor, Timeless

 

James Lanyon Kitto. Robert is certain he will be reunited with James. James was lying naked and bruised in what looked like a coffin. Bound. Gagged. Eyes closed, hair longer than before, matted with blood. Sleeping? Or…

 

Robert touches cheeks with him…and he’ s a lassertillum. He mistook it for James. Yet, this alien recognizes Robert. An alarm sounds. Robert put a teleport belt around the emaciated body. He pressed his safe return button with the other hand and held the alien with the other.

 

Chapter 59: Barr-Byzhan

 

Dagre Lunh, Sennith 3/1, Suncycle Eftah

 

Dag acknowledges Robb-Erdimich-L has found him. He notices Robert has no tail, no jaw or neck to speak of. He knows Robert has the idea of reincarnation. There are things beyond their comprehension. The emblem is not of Earth but came from Earth? “I feel at ease with you and I believe you feel the same about me but we both have questions that need answering, injustices that need addressing. Do we solve them together? It’s a choice we have to make sooner or later but maybe not quite yet.”

 

 

THE END?

 

Geeze. That was quite a slog. And that ending lurks and reeks of a sequel having to happen. Do they get away? I’d like to think so. But was this worth reading? I think so. Like so much about this novel, I’m not sure. Glad I read it? Maybe? It’s such an alien world from an alien POV that it is worth reading once at least. BUT it’s so unlike any TP novel and experimentation is fine but I wish it came later like maybe the 11^th or 12^th or even the 9^th novel (even A MAN FOR EMILY was later in the seasons than in season two or season one, haven forbid).

 

The format is tedious but I guess in order to keep up the suspense of “is this James or not” it is necessary. I think this might have been an old audio script as I can see the gimmick working on audio, too, with Dag having the voice of James but not being James, possibly a reincarnation of James?

 

Who knows? No definitive answers, no real conclusion, and not much action (some), make this novel a bit of a slog and a bit unsatisfying and yet…

 

 

…there is something truly alien about reading a truly alien world with a different set of words for almost everything. It does feel a bit…distant from the reader but that’s what alien is supposed to do. And this book is alien. The Robert/Carol/Andy/Johnny stuff is okay and interesting but there isn’t enough of it and it’s hardly fresh and seems to lack originality. It’s all adequate as a science fiction novel but below par for a THE TOMORROW PEOPLE novel.

 

In any case, I’m glad they tried this and did it and glad Nigel wrote it but don’t ask me to read it again.

 

NOTE: WTF? Another fan on the FB group thought it was Robert who died and NOT James in the audio plans and…he was right. It was Robert who died. So, now I am completely confused. Was this supposed to happen before Robert died but after season 8 or 9 which makes NO sense as Robert was to die in season 6? What a total mess. As if the audio continuity wasn’t a mess already.

 

Here is a discussion on a thread about HOMO INFERIOR (gosh, that title is so poor):

 

 

Me: SPOILERS considering the writer was trying to trick us into thinking the POV "alien" world chapters was James in some other dimension or some other time and it wasn't...I cannot even defend it by saying the POV was James. I'm pretty sure by the ending it's...well should I reveal this....??? SPOILERS? In any case, I don't think it's terrible and the writing is not bad and it DOES do what Sci fi is supposed to do: set up a totally alien world....but as a Tp "adventure" it hard to defend.

 

 

Andy: Not made it past the first few chapters of Homo Inferior yet. Contemplating just skipping the alien world chapters completely, as they just seem tiresome and semi-unreadable nonsense.

 

Me: well, then to be honest, if you skip the alien world parts (and I do feel you there!) there's no sense in reading any of it at all. I don't think it was unreadable and yet I did find a lot of it tiresome but not because what happens isn't a good sci fi, cautionary tale (which these days no one seems to want; people seem to think sci fi is NOW just escapism; it's still not and it's not what sci fi was created for) and it IS well written. It's tiresome to me because it's clearly NOT a traditional TP adventure. I salute it for trying something different but as when DW tries to do something different, it only half way succeeded and turned people off. I got through it and reviewed EVERY chapter as when I post the reviews of the entire first year of books, one will read but at the same time, I do question some of the TP stuff in the book and the choices made about those choices. It felt as if the writer had this old idea left over from the audio scripts he may have already written and just turned it into this trippy, mysterious novel. AND it is trippy and mysterious but as you said it is also irritating and often confusing. It DOES set up a very alien society though but it also seems to be fooling us into thinking the alien telling the story IS a TP we might have half heard during one of the also questionable audio episodes. Though I also salute the audio choice of giving us two gay males and the future of that would have been saluted by me, too: of them becoming a couple, the first in professional TP released media....the rest of the choices made for the audios were more suited to DW's grim, dark, depressing circle of limited writers who gave us false premises and dark, depressing stories during the audio time (and they still are doing that with DW), thinking that dark, depressing is "adult" fair ---they sort of hated the TP as it was in the 70s and kept mentioning how it was time to grow it up....or something like that. The future of those audios was cancelled and yet they planned yet another bad choice: killing off one of those gay males (and bringing Paul ---not my favorite---back). The book seems to think they were going to kill James but without checking yet again, I believe the future of those audios meant to kill off Robert AND not James. So this book is yet another alternate storyline/timeline or something. And as someone else said above the ending doesn't even give us a definitive ending to the tale. Once one finds the others, it ends and we're robbed of their interactions, which is what I was hoping to read the most. It's left unfinished and it's difficult for us to even imagine their dialog because the "alien" that Robert thought was James and Robert never really meet or even communicate much in the novel. How would one feel about the other? And they haven't yet escaped though it's highly suggested they will. Maybe another book is needed? I for one would read it but hoping it's not written in the same unique style.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE MAN WHO SOLD THE WORLD

The best book so far, though CHILDREN OF THE EVOLUTION was close, too. This is more like a TP story, though…spoilers…

 

 

…somehow I don’t buy that first John, Liz and TIM seem to kill a parasitic life form taken out of Stephen’s brain and then Stephen kills the mother or indirectly brings about the alien mother’s death…and the death of all her parasite children?

 

In a way this resembles a number of TP stories across the franchise: first, there’s the whole fad fashion trend that both RTD in THE SARAH JANE CHRONICLES and Moffat in his writing under RTD’s first glorious DOCTOR WHO return 2005 to 2008 era and his---Moffat’s own disgustingly silly, gimmicky, and poor era error used over and overa again. This was first done in THE TOMORROW PEOPLE with …well, kind of THE BLUE AND THE GREEN (though I don’t believe wearing blue and / or green was ANY kind of fad fashion in the UK or anywhere else for that matter, so if you squint), definitely THE LIVING SKINS (was wearing bubble suits really a fad fashion in real life?).

 

It also resembles more closely, DOCTOR WHO-PLANET OF THE OOD with its giant parasitic brain in a lower pit and also the fad fashion of the highly illogical and boring DOCTOR WHO fad with boxes THE POWER OF THREE (an awful story and again, the Moffat Era).

 

More close to TP home it sort of looks like a number of Nickelodeon Thames TP stories from the 1990s series: THE LIVING STONES comes to mind first but also it has bits of THE CULEX EXPERIMENT (Liz stalked by giant insects) and possibly the rich businessman psycho from THE MONSOON MAN.

 

All that stated, this is actually better than most of the above named stories and probably all of THE SARAH JANE ADVENTURES.

 

Let’s dive into the details of the first TP novel of 2025. The book is dedicated to Nicolas Young, Elizabeth Adare, and Peter Vaughn Clarke and rightly so.

 

1-TIME

Alien POV. Uh-oh but don’t worry, it’s two pages and worth it, though it gives away the alien being rather quickly. A mother who will do anything to feed her children who will use Earthlings to hatch and breed and eat. So in a way it is a lot like THE BLUE AND GREEN’s back story.

 

The disused Underground Station is 60 yards below the streets of London.

 

TIM can create a clip on bow tie.

 

It is said in this chapter to be eight weeks since Liz discovered she was a Tomorrow Person. NOTE: On page 17 in chapter two, Liz says, “I think you forget that it’s only been four weeks since I broke out. And four weeks ago, you were just another pupil in my class.”

 

So which is it, FOUR weeks or EIGHT since Liz broke out?   

 

Elliot Jackon was a hippie in the 1960s and now one of the leading philanthropists and entrepreneurs in the UK and selling Mindstones, giving away almost all money to charity, according to Stephen. Elliot is in league with some mysterious voice.

 

20-Fill Your Heart

John has dinner with Mary Hungerford, who, later, John asks not to contact him again at the end of the novel. While working for Elliot, she has no idea of his plans to aide the parasite mother life form and use the MindStones to infect the brains of everyone who buys one.

 

Liz marks the fifth’s year CSE coursework.

 

Stephen claims other students say things about teachers, even Liz and he doesn’t feel able to defend her—this could be the influence of the mind parasite.

 

Stephen thinks (again, the alien influence of his real thoughts?) that sometimes Liz acted more like his mother than his own mum.

 

Stephen was used to living a double life. It was more than a year since he had broke out and been discovered by John, Carol and Kenny. His mum and dad know he is a Tp.

 

Liz has her own home (the original novels in the 70s depict this, too). 

 

The next day is Saturday.

 

John managed a 30 percent improvement on TIM’s telepathic link but might secretly try to get some info on how to get Mary’s advice on boosting it higher.

 

Liz has some insecurities about how she broke out and wonders if it were a mistake and what use she could have at the Galactic Trig like Carol and Kenny seemed to be of use at.

 

3:Come and Buy My Toys

 

Happledon Grange is the home of Elliot’s institute.

 

A gooseberry is British slang meaning: to be an unwanted third person who is present when two other people, especially two people having a romantic relationship, want to be alone.

 

Inside, there was a shelf with a large Newton’s Cradle with balls the size of footballs.

 

On page 31 there seems to be a typo, Stephen looks a conveyor belt and says, “It’s a Fibonacci sequence. I mean the design of the conveyor built…it circles round and out and round like a shell.”  Surely this is supposed to be either “belt” or “Build.”

 

Stephen has read Elliot’s book TUNE IN, GET ON!

 

Everyone’s upset on one TP group that Stephen’s name on the back cover of the paperback is spelled Steven. This is corrected on the hard cover (to Stephen) but the kindle version doesn’t seem to have a back cover.

 

John thinks Elliot is a phony and doesn’t like him.

 

Jaunting belts are used between scenes.

 

4: Changes

Stephen falls into a coma. TIM reports that people all over the world are doing the same. Italy and France declare national emergencies. A man in a bowler hat fell to the ground. A riot happens in southern Europe. John gets TIM to use Computed Tomography to see Stephen’s brain. The helmet TIM and John created can make a 3D image of someone’s brain. It only works if it is plugged into a biotronic computer.

 

The creature is a kind of cephalopod, almost identical to a nautilus, a spiral shell, smooth sticking out of the open end protected by a hood, was an array of tentacles and a large eye.

 

TIM figures there are alien creatures that attach to hosts through telepathic infiltration with the ability to use amino acids and proteins in the host and manipulate them to create a living creature.

 

TIM estimates it will pose a threat to Stephen’s life in two hours. Not sure of the time frame of the entire story but…do the other people infected survive?

 

John plans to sever the links and to do so telepathically, then remove it manually.

 

5: Saviour Machine

 

John seems to have needed knowledge of the human brain to telepathically remove the links of the creature to Stephen’s brain.

 

Liz goes to one of the secluded back rooms in the Lab for a bit (15 minutes).

 

TIM gets taken over but he still has himself within. When John tries to shut down TIM, he and Liz vanish.

 

6: Unwashed and Somewhat Slightly Dazed

John used to have (?Maybe? is this a faulty memory?) astronaut pyjamas? He wakes up in a wooden holiday home or beach hut.

 

Giant silverfish kill a giant fly and then stalk Liz, who hides in a pit in the ground.

 

7: When I Live My Dream

John’s headmaster used to be called Mr. Magoo, he was bald. John at 11 years old was the youngest ever student to gain his O Level in Physics.

 

John’s dad is a policeman. His name is George. John’s mother’s name is Margaret. She thinks John can hear their thoughts.

 

There was a boating lake near his aunt and uncle’s house in Kent where he was sent during the school holidays for a change of scene his mother used to say.

 

 

John and Liz, separately, cut off from each other, realize they are trapped inside TIM. The TIM fluid was carried in the walls of the tubes and the centres of the tubes were hollow to allow cooling air to pass through TIM’s systems. The silverfish were mechanical and must be a part of TIM’s automatic defense system. They were used to clean dirt and other debris from his circuits.

 

8: All The Madmen

 

Stephen’s head had been healed up again without stitches.

 

Elliot’s institute is in Hertfordshire. Stephen contacts Chris to get him there. Chris jokes, “It’s not like I have a life of my own.”

 

It is past 6.

 

Stephen, at the institute, finds a giant nautilus, 40 feet tall in a glass tank. The head had a triangular beak and below the beak a vast flat eye.

 

The stones are the creature’s eggs.

 

Jackson catches Stephen and shows him that two guards have Chris. If Stephen teleports away, Jackson tells him that they will have to shoot his pal---Chris.

 

9: Can’t Help Thinking About Me.

 

Liz finds a way to put the silverfish out of commission. John knew he was trapped in TIM’s telepathic circuits. Sherlock Holmes is referenced. TIM must have been corrupted and taken memories from inside John’s head to build this illusionary ever shifting prison. John made TIM using his own mind as a model. This gave TIM easy access to parts of his memory he never intended to share or revisit.

 

Butlins camp in Bognor Regis, on holiday with his parents when he was four years old. Wet and windy they spent time indoors. On the last day, he heard them arguing. Margaret is his mother and George is his father. His mom is afraid of him. She is not sure she loves him. NOT sure I like this history for John and his mom. John was in TIM’s electronic amygdala. TIM’s voice, colder, threatens them. TIM’s real voice calls out for them to help him.

 

10-Hang On to Yourself

 

On the first page of this chapter, TIM’s name is spelled Tim using lower case for the i and the m. They have to sever the telepathic link between TIM and the nautilus creature and the physical link as well.

 

The creature tells them Elliot Jackson is working with them, together. The mother made contact years ago when he was high on hallucinogenic drugs. That helped communicate across vast distances between species.

 

He wants a world without free will or individualism. A hundred thousand siblings grow inside the soil of human brains. The mother almost died making the leap from her world to the Earth.

 

Liz and John free TIM using emotions and some of those are what if they failed. TIM informs them that Stephen is being held captive by Elliot Jackson.

 

 

Chapter 11: The Man Who Sold the World

Several actions free Stephen and get him to levitate Elliot (and as if invisible hands were undressing him, lifted his shirt up his body, the bare skin of his arms and stomach on the rock) over the stone and get Mary Hungerford (who Stephen communicates to telepathically) to amplify the fear using a microphone. Stephen gets loose and touches the mother and the creature’s own fear is broadcast back to it and it and its offspring die.

 

 

12: After All

Mary tells John she had no idea what Elliot was doing. John has never been in a serious relationship and he felt deeply for Mary and yet she betrayed him and all of humanity. John despite her asking if they can get over this and be friends, he is not sure he could ever fully trust her again. He does not want to see her again.

 

John postulates that an egg could have been floating in space for generations until captured by Earth’s gravity or the alien could have slipped through a gap between universes or it might have been brought here deliberately. “We’ve made many enemies over the last few years and not all of them live on Earth,” John reminded Liz.

 

TIM’s chemical analysis of the shell fragments on Stephen’s clothes leads him to conclude that the alien is not alien at all: it originated on Earth. The isotopic fingerprint of the calcium in its shell suggests that it was born and grew up in the Mariana Trench in the Pacific Ocean many millennia ago.

 

When the nautilus severed its connection to Elliot, the man was left in a deep trance, unable to speak or move and in a permanent state of deep relaxation. He has no memory, no ambition, and is harmless. The last thing he remembers is living in a commune in the Himalayas.

 

Chris calls himself one of the members of the yesterday people.

 

Chris brought them supper: an East End treat; chips and scallops, scampi and cockles. Stephen says, “I’m afraid I’ll stick with the chips. I think I’ve had just about enough seafood inside me for one lifetime.”

 

NOTES from the publisher: don't think it's stated as fact, but implicitly assumed that - with all the babies dead - the people infected would be freed (though, with how it affected Stephen, you'd have to assume there would have been some casualties even if the parasite was killed off).

 

 

 

 

 

PRIME FACTORS

 

 

John’s last name: Dixon. Carol’s: MacNeil. Kenny’s: Green.

 

Episode 1

 

I like that this, a first season type story set in the first season somewhere, has only an episode number and no subtitle. It gives it the feel of that first season.

 

Carol telepathically “hears” thumping of some kind.

 

John is 17. Kenny was only 12 and usually hid behind an air of quiet mischief. He chews his thumbnail. He broke out much earlier in his life than the others. Stephen Jameson is 14. Carol is 16. Each break out for the four was slightly different.

 

Carol believes the thing causing the heartbeat is human and perhaps a TP but…it said it was going to kill.

 

Something blocked TIM’s abilities with either deliberate attempt or as a side affect of their own abilities.

 

Lefty’s last name is Leftridge (!). Ginge and Lefty help in an experiment. TIM calls Ginge, Mr. Harding, something I don’t believe he ever did on the TV series.

 

It seems they are comparing heartbeats so as to locate the new source of the voices and/or potential break out.

 

The location turns out to be a police station on Leman Street, the new building having opened a few years ago and a station has been there for almost a hundred years since the time of Jack the Ripper.

 

 

Episode 2

 

Ginge had always seen himself as someone who had a part to play, destined for great things, which is maybe why he was an easy mark for Jedikiah. He and Lefty create a distraction in the police station. The desk sergeant is McCourt. The Baker street robbery is mentioned as having happened and the trial ended several months previously.

 

The Baker Street robbery was a real world robbery. The trial ended on 23 January 1973 and sentences were handed down three days later. This book takes place “several months” later.

 

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baker_Street_robbery

 

 

 

McCourt is not English but a “son of Caledonia.”

 

John and Carol jaunt into a broom closet. They do find Abel Brown, a thin boy who looked 13. They take him, John heaving the malnourished boy over his shoulder, back to the Lab.

 

Stephen and John rescue Ginge and Lefty who are held in the police station. I wonder though weren’t they arrested and their photographs taken? Were they known to Scotland Yard?

 

Kenny reads comic books.

 

The dangers of an unguided transition were real: the sea, a brick wall, or disappearing into one’s own mind, with no way back to the conscious world, floating alive but not alive.

 

Five people missing between the ages of 12 and 16.

 

Abel starts to break out but something that says it is Abel stops it.

 

“I am Abel. And I want…everything.”

 

 

 

Episode 3

Abel was orphaned when he was 8. Carol felt that the thing inside Abel is not Abel. An accident killed his parents, it would seem. He spent the last five years in a series of foster homes. His health has been an issue. He had headaches over the last few years. Carol felt their own experiences had been deeply personal by way of breaking out but had common factors to feel like a shared experience.

 

Now I DO wonder about this section: Carol feels any voices they had heard had been each other.

 

First: not sure there is a lot of evidence for or against this but it does seem to be what we see on TV. If so, as talked about in possibly CASTLE OF FEAR and maybe ONE LAW, why do the voices if it adds to the pain? Maybe to call them into breaking out safer? Carol wonders why the internal or external dark alter ego’s murderous impulses were not affected by the prime barrier.

 

John visits Mary’s mother, Mrs. Haynes and learns there are four more missing children. Stephen searched Mary’s bedroom.

 

Stephen’s mother and father had never been entirely comfortable with Stephen’s new life as a TP. As long as Stephen’s remained good, which they had, his parents never made a fuss about the Tp life. Stephen realized “long ago” that his parents treated it like an extracurricular activity. “Long ago” suggests years but it can’t be THAT long ago as this seems to take place during or after season one.

 

Stephen thinks his parents hoped that the TP life would stand him in good stead when it came time for university applications.

 

Missing children update: Mary Haynes (dad in military and the family moved around a lot), Lizzie Upton, Andrew Ilet (mother passed away six months ago and went to live with his aunt and uncle), Katie Robbins, and Jane Swanell.  Within the last three months, all joined the Richardson Community Theatre Programme.

 

On paperback page 69, Carol picks up Stephen’s stray thought, that at first, he thought he only kept to himself.

 

Stephen’s father has a leather bound encyclopedia set. From Carol’s thought to the volume, they find the names of the children match victims of Jack the Ripper.

 

Stephen suggests the name Cain for the alter ego. John wants them to call him the second Abel.

 

John’s unintentional joke: “I think a trip to the theatre might be in order. Perhaps Mr. Richardson can shine a spot light on the matter.”

 

While John and Kenny work on getting TIM back on line, Stephen and Carol go to meet Mr. Richardson.

 

Once up and running, TIM admits he powered himself down to prevent further damage from their “guest.”

 

Before doing so, TIM was able to isolate his central processing algorithms in a small, undetectable,  biofluid unit, which allowed him to continue to work on the problem. Kenny suggests TIM slept on it.  

 

TIM believes Able is like a chimera from Greek mythology. This means, as in Earth science, Abel may be someone with two distinct genotypes, cells from two different sources, like during the mating cycle of the Anglerfish.

 

In 1947, Walter Stoeckel identified vanishing twin syndrome, a human child can possess cells from a twin that did not develop but rather became part of a single child. In human this might manifest in small ways: two different color eyes. TIM believes Abel might be two separate people. In ordinary homo sapiens TIM suspects this would not be possible (to be two separate people) but bring into play the evolutionary mutations leading to homo superior…and Abel IS and IS NOT a TP.

 

This is brilliant. A wonderful way to explain what the villain is and a unique angle.

 

The sapien and superior cells are in conflict and has had an effect on his mental state. The sapien aggression is funneled entirely into overcoming the restrictions placed on it (the prime barrier). Abel is unwilling to kill but the homo sapien part is trying to kill.

 

From Richardson, Carol and Stephen learn that the play the group were working on was the Whitechapel Murder of 1888.

 

 

Episode Four

 

Stephen tells Richardson, “I’m odder than most.”

 

Abel Brown suggested the play about Jack the Ripper.

 

Richardson and his wife care about Abel.

 

Abel is 13. Dark Abel takes John, Carol, and Stephen into his created mind world. It is not real and not a place, like Dark Abel himself. Dark Abel admits that he owes Abel something: without powers from superior, he might not have even been able to live.

 

Dark Abel, when the five of them linked, came up with a plan. He gathered info during that link and believes they can separate the two Abels and make him real. More real.

 

Kenny launches a TIM based attack on Abel.

 

Abel believes he is homo dualis. He grabs Kenny inside before Kenny can get the kids free. With four TP, Abel believes that they can stabilize him and make him able to kill.

 

John bargains with Dark Able, who seemed older than Able but still had blind spots. Dark Able lets Kenny free the children and John tells him then they will do as Dark Able asks.

 

The place is a manifestation of the physical divide between Abels. Only one Abel can be in this place at a time. When Dark Abel is totally freed from him, Abel will be with the four TP trapped inside. He will not last long, Dark Able believes. Kenny stuns Dark Able.

 

Page 118, during the terrific explanation of how both Dark Able and Able are now human, has a misprint: “home sapiens.”

 

Page 119 uses “sort” instead of “sought.”

 

The transference of power between Abels and TIM gave TIM the clue how to separate them. Energy is finite (it’s not) TIM says so both boys are now homo sapien and with normal levels of aggression. He doubts they will resort to murder in future. He does believe that in the future, one or both boys can break out into a TP.

 

Unrealistically, TIM seems to have asked for their permission to make slight alterations to their memories. They’re unconscious! How’d he do that? In any case, it’s a good way to sort out this problem they had.

 

When they awake, they will believe themselves to always have been brothers. TIM used his databanks to give the second Abel the name of Alan.

 

TIM also told the missing children the truth and they will not finger Able as a suspect and a kidnapper.

 

“You trust a bunch of kids to keep their word?” asked Kenny.

 

“It has become a habit.”

 

John is glad TIM is on their side. TIM is too.

 

NOTE: the entire novel is full of wonderful rapport that goes along with the entire relationships between the characters (all of them) in the original season of the original TP. This is a lot like the other novels in this book series (well leaving out CHANGES and maybe HOMO INFERIOR). Here, the comic relief lines are funny and match every person saying them. It all works.

 

Mr and Mrs Richardson are going to foster Able and Alan. The story is that Alan is a long lost twin brother. The Tp, Ginge, and Lefty go to the play COMEDY OF ERRORS.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here are my earlier, shorter reviews:   “…making its way up the charts? Does that mean it's doing well in sales? It deserves to, it's the best one of the six that are out and many of those are worth reading, too but this one is a lot like the series. And takes things a bit further, which any TP book should strive for. You did it seamlessly. A more meaty review should be forthcoming soon!”

 

“…into the first 30 pages and so far, loving it. The way it is written I can hear it and see it as a TV story with some added unique plot threads. I believe Roger Price originally wanted twin TP characters in the show as detailed in the original outlines for what was to happen. There is also a plot line thread that TC Kirkham (and others?) used that makes sense for the show to explore. This feels like something the show could have done and everyone talks and acts like they would from the TV series season one. Loving it, nice job!”

 

 

…finished the book and love it, it's my favorite of the six released so far, there were a few typos (maybe five or six?) with words missing here or there but that does not matter. I loved how the writer left explanations for later and revealed the mystery layer by layer and love that he DID explain everything. The best of the six IMO and just like the show, something the show might have done but taking it a step more than that and giving us something unique. Not sure how Abel could not finish the break out and also have finished the break out at the same time, how could he have a prime barrier if the break out wasn't finished or I think that was the point of the whole thing: he was caught between two DNA sets/strands, which is a brilliant idea. I hope Kenton writes another TP book. Maybe one set at the end of the series?

 

About this time between PRIME FACTORS and THE LAST ONE, this was posted:

 

ALTERNATE UNIVERSE NOVEL

'Changes' by Andy Davidson and Roger Price

Dear God! A mess. Some great ideas but badly put together and sort of cliché. Some hideous mistakes and misalignment with the original series. Not the way to start a set of novels. The Time Guardians are treated as if they are outside our universe or at the very least some kind of aliens and NOT as in the TP show: our future kind, earth people who have broken out into Time Guardians. We also get the same kind of thing we had in the audio concerning one of our TP and it’s not good. As this is from Roger Price, it was expected to be great and sadly, it’s the worst of the lot. It is worth a look.

 

 

SERIES 1 (Set in the 1970s, 1990's, and Big Finish universes)

 

'The First One' by Gary Russell (1970's series)

Better but I do not understand this perception that it’s good to introduce characters that broke out before John. I don’t like that idea at all. Other than that it is better but with the evil telepath/evil TP it’s sort of cliché to a lot of fan fiction. Worth getting.

 

 

'Children of the Evolution' by Iain McLaughlin (1970's series)

Far better but again, another idea that’s been done to death: the abominable snowmen being from another planet. Liz seems to not care if she harms some of them or even kills some of them. Recommended though. And exciting.

 

 

'Homo Inferior' by Nigel Fairs (Big Finish series)

Horrid title. This book is probably not for all but the most die hard fan of the TP as it contains a very experimental and puzzling format and two audio characters from the Big Finish audios and my least favorite TP, Carol. AND it seems to follow an audio TP timeline that was never released due to Big Finish having the rights not renewed AND it seems to have killed off the wrong one of those two. A stand out by being the first TP stories to have not one but two gay male characters who are TP, the audio series then went and killed one of them off and this book does the same (but to the wrong one?). Actually, this book keeps one guessing and reading and is sort of a must for sci fi fans and those interested in untraditional books and writing. It works on a different level, a sci fi one, but it’s also rather tedious, too.

 

 

'Prime Factors' by Kenton Hall (1970's series)

Good and one of the better books but again, another rogue and evil telepath and I seem to recall the plot of this with a identical boys in an old 1970s anthology show: A set of quadruplets (played by Roderick and Barnaby Shaw) are telepathically connected as they feel one another's pain and share skills and talents; Michael Tolan and Nanette Newman play teachers who investigate. That episode was based on the novel The Paper Dolls by L. P. Davies. Of course, there are differences but having another evil telepath makes for a good villain but a very similar novel. Added to that is yet another serial killer tale, one that we’ve seen repeatedly over the decades. Even so: recommended as it has an exciting build up and climax.

 

 

'The Man Who Sold The World' by Rebecca Levene & David Derbyshire (1970's series)

Good and maybe one of the best of the books but again, we seem to have another rogue telepath or so and a monster straight out of New Doctor Who (Planet of the Ood). Worth reading.

 

 

'The Last One' by Gary Russell (1970's and 1990's series)

Not yet out. Gary’s not my favorite writer.

 

 

THE LAST ONE

 

Oh dear.

 

I knew going into this, a few things. Gary’s not my favorite writer but he has written quite a few things I’ve enjoyed. I like some revelations here (SPOILERS) and loathe the background for Adam.

 

One revelation I like is that Megabyte is gay. Gary might be also? Not sure but I guess it does and does not matter? In any case, I think Gary missed the mark in the 1992  to 1995 TV show, AT LEAST regarding Megabyte being gay. He was gay and it was a bit subtle but clear that both he AND Adam were. Sure, Adam had Lucy but she was gone and gone fast. The sparks between he and Megabyte were very, very clear. They were a couple. Totally.

 

What’s more grievous is the backstory for Adam. I don’t like it. I guess there’s always the danger of that in fan fiction and especially when professionally published novels mess with a part of a character’s history that was mysterious or just not ever explored in the TV aired episodes. We all imagined (and that’s what good TV does) some back story for Adam (if we cared to, that is) and this one just doesn’t ring true at all. It’s as if Gary just wanted to tie something into the first TP novel--- which he wrote btw and which was, at best, left as a stand alone story---and almost none of it rings true and feels hollow as a back drop for Adam. Still, I guess it fits that his mum didn’t really seem very involved in his life but his dad did. In true Gary fashion, Gary writes in that his dad dies of cancer. A lot of false premises follow or precede that, one being that because the dad lived a good life and took his chances, he was now getting paid back. SUCH BULLSHIT.

 

Another death by cancer of a character’s parent (Elena in the TP audios which Gary presided over though to be fair, it was---SAYING GOODBYE ----darkly written by Nigel Fairs).

 

Suffice to say THE FIRST ONE is not my favorite book in this seven book series (see review above?) and that premise bothers me. It bothers me even more now that it is tied to Adam Newman and his background and I do NOT like it one bit.

 

Just learned this about the audios, TANDEM being this one? From the actor who played Amos De Sante: “It was in a parallel world. Mike Holloway was a singer and I was his manager. We lived in a totalitarian system and a song when broadcast sparks a revolution. It was great fun. Unfortunately I don't think it was ever edited. If it was, I never heard it.”

 

Again, Gary’s not my favorite writer and I think he wastes words. For example, the first chapter, COLD OPENING ends with this, “Why did he need to find a ship? And the rest, as they say, was history.”

 

And… about the ship, “There was something primeval about the ship. And primal.”   Primeval is specifically the earliest, ancient, prehistoric, and the distant past while primal is often animalistic, instinctual and basic. DO we really want the Ship to be any of those?

 

While on that, Adam has a link to the Ship, which I can understand but they should all have that and for another thing, Adam seems to spend much time there as a refuge…they do not say he specifically lives there but it seems he has NO OTHER HOME. So…where does he go? It’s a bit confused or maybe it’s just me.

 

Let’s start at the beginning. There are things about this novel I love and things I truly hate.

 

First, this IS first and foremost a 1992 to 1995 Nickelodeon TOMORROW PEOPLE novel. The intro even has the same basic intro as the other novels but…features Adam, Ami, Marmaduke, Kevin, Lisa and Jade rather than the 1970s TP. Ami’s mum is Hasana. The unnamed island the Ship is on is in the South Pacific Ocean.

 

COLD OPENING

Four Years Ago (from when?)

 

Mart is Adam’s father’s business partner. Adam didn’t know what that business was. Huh?

 

Adam was well looked after (by who? Employees) from the money made by the business. Adam was schooled way down in Manly. Adam was 13 when he father died. He knew he hadn’t been planned, that his parents were barely 18, if that, when they had him. He never doubted he was loved and wanted by both of them.

 

They came to Australia when Adam was two years old. So? They’re British? Sigh.

 

Mum met someone else and left. He had seen his mum a few times since (this is later contradicted in the book) but she never seemed interested in him. She was always there when he needed her but it was that she never sought him out. Adam could not remember his father ever having a girlfriend. A year ago his father had a cough. His father felt this was life paying him back for using up a lot of his life.

 

Identical twins Sean and Ben, at Adam’s school, tried to comfort him. Ms. Curtis tried to explain how grief worked or didn’t for other people. Dad’s ashes were spread at Avoca Beach. Joshua Newman’s life seemed to be from 1959 to 1991.

 

John comes to Adam and tells him he knows his name and knew his father Josh Newman about 20 years ago, a couple of years before you were born. Huh?

 

If John knew Josh 20 years ago and Adam is just 13…it would have to be at least seven years and not a couple? A couple would be maybe 15 years ago?

 

John hasn’t seen much of Josh since. He knew he was a good person. John gives Adam his card. It has the Underground Railroad logo.

 

NOTE: is this stupid or maybe again, it’s just me? John gives Adam a card to know how to contact him with just the logo of the London Underground station? What?

 

John knew the questions in Adam’s head and is sus to Adam, which is even sort of stupider.

 

Adam sees five people. From the descriptions it sounds like the idiots from THE RAMESES CONNECTION, pretty much lead by Millicent. And a man with a tortoise on a leash (seen for some reason I the ORIGIN STORY, one of that story’s stupider aspects).

 

Adam gets a headache and then he’s at the island and finds the Ship.

 

EPISODE 1

Megabyte, Jade, Ami, Kevin and Lisa are celebrating Adam’s 17^th birthday. The last year Mega and Ami were dogging Adam’s every move while Kevin and Lisa explored the world. Apparently…and in another bad move IMO, Kevin and Lisa are a couple now!? WHAT?

 

No.

 

Something Kevin ate on Cozumel from a little shack on the beach did not agree with him.

 

Mega was the one who knew Adam’s birthday and got the gift: a photo of seven year old Adam with his father.

 

So when did mum leave?

 

Mega explains the photo was taken ten years ago “today” on Adam’s seventh birthday. Mega’s dad tracked down Mart in some primitive outpost in Sydney. Josh died on Adam’s 13^th birthday.

 

Adam claims to have gotten over it a long time ago but is four years that long ago?

 

Ami admits Adam is secretive about his background. Ami throws hints that Adam cannot see what is in front of him.

 

Mega’s mom Christine stays in Boston and Millie, his sister, stays with her. Christine and Gen Damon are finalizing their divorce. Letitia de Lillevelt O’lidam, Lottie Oldham visits him and puts Gen Damon in a catatonic state. Gen Damon’s first name is Bill.

 

She uses an octopus like creature. Damon thinks there are more than one.

 

In yet another confused bit of prose, Adam feels it is odd for him to shudder at something because as a rule Tp are ultra sensitive to what was going on around them, a side effect of their powers. Then why would he be surprised or find it odd?

 

Ami suggested that their powers were tied into the planet Earth itself which would explain why some of their individual strengths fluctuated in strength depending on the weather or seasons. This would explain Adam’s healing powers, Ami’s  telekinesis, and Kevin’s foresight. Or rather bad continuity in the 1992 to 1995 series.

 

No, no, and no.

 

I don’t like a lot of what is going on here.

 

First, it’s suggested that Adam lives by himself at age 13. Unless we find out later in the book more info, it would seem servants or nannies or maybe Mart (Uncle Mart?) would seem to have looked after Adam. OR he spent most of or all of his time at the Ship after age 13. AND…is Adam really only 13 when he was brought to the Ship? Is Gary suggesting that his break out was much earlier than what we see in the pilot. Adam does NOT seem to be 13 in the pilot. AND in the pilot (BOTH pilots, aired and unaired) Adam seems to have found the island THEN AND THERE. He also seems to be about 15 at the latest. At the time, the actor Kristian Schmid was about 18. Huh?

 

Second, Adam’s background. If you’re going to make it cliché…his mum was uncaring and caring at times, left for another man, his father dies of cancer…why? Why make it that angsty? I get needing Adam to be explained for the serious character he was when we saw him but was he really carrying around that much baggage? No, no, and no. There’s also a lot unexplained here. And why not just have his family background entirely Australian? I don’t like what Gary’s done to Adam here.

 

Third, the Earth thing. I know Gary presents it as just a theory Liz has but tying the TP’s power into the Earth is another complication to an already complicated mythology. The TP are the next step in human evolution. Period. What does that have to do with the Earth, the planet itself? Nature? I guess it makes some sense but again, I don’t like it.

 

Fourth: not sure what the Nick 1992 series said about their powers but…all TP should have telekinesis if not healing and/or foresight, though I think they should probably have the foresight. Gary does explain how the healing is not present in the four stories after the origin story of the 92-95 series. It’s awkward.

 

Fifth and most important and more is coming on this: Adam, to me, is as gay as Megabyte. If you watch the show, Adam seems more interested in Megabyte than anyone else and they are constantly touching, wrestling, hugging, worrying about each other, etc. It’s physical and almost romantic. Having Adam unaware of this AND straight seems…wrong. Yes, he had Lucy but there was no Lucy in the later serials and not even a mention of her.

 

The old lady does things to several people: a young man stands on a multi storied car park thinking he was wire walking between the Leo Burnett Building and the Marina Tower in Chicago; a woman was  up a tree mewling like a kitten because a giant spider chased her up there; a businessman who was sure he was involved in a gunfight with Al Capone; and a Mr. Jones on a zebra crossing insisting he was on a rope bridge in Machu Picchu.

 

The old lady would not go to America for the Davises or Mega’s mom and sister. She does have Damon and Hasana Jackson already.

 

Adam volunteers at the Mission House once a week to serve food and play board games to the community. It started a year earlier---Adam’s then girlfriend Lucy had been doing community service, two hundred hours. Lucy broke into buildings unlawfully and accessed info unlawfully and annoyed police. One day she had gone too far.

 

Adam talked to the elderly, sometimes about his problems. This also feels wrong to me.

 

One problem was Lucy. Her disregard for the rules was in opposition to his ethics. 18 months ago her devil may care attitude was appealing but now it was wearing off. They still saw  each other occasionally at Mission House but Adam was fully aware she was seeing an eco warrior who squatted on a houseboat in Brentford and smoked a lot of dope. One of the old ladies is Mrs Ainscott. She asks him if he’s asked Ami out yet.

 

He and Ami ate pizza in Tottenham Court Road or sushi in Minato City that he almost suggested a night at the cinema or a walk over the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Ami held back. Adam and his Tp didn’t use telepathic powers much. Adam recalls fighting off ancient Egyptian pharaohs or alien rocks or a renegade group of Sorson warriors. Adam had been tempted to read Ami’s mind but didn’t.

 

Adam had broke up with Lucy six months back.

 

Jade’s additional power seemed to be low level empathy, reading moods, and sometimes influencing them.

 

The mission has an old man named Mr. Cooper.

 

Lottie meets Adam. She tells him that drop bears were once real but she helped wipe them out. She claims all legends and myths have origins in truth somewhere.

 

Adam jaunts away.

 

Lottie tells the old people who are either working with her or under her spell that Adam’s father is dead, his mother is long gone too, and that just leaves his mad old grannie. The old people are in her thrall. “Adam’s grannie is right here,” Lottie said. “And you’re looking at her.”

 

 

Oh dear. No, no, and no. Having Adam be linked to this villain…is just a no-no.

 

 

EPISODE 2

THREE YEARS AGO.

Sigh.

 

 

In the middle of this, wrote this up:

SPOILERS FOR THE LAST ONE:

SPOILERS for the Last One book:

Like the new book a lot though I have a lot of quibbles about the backgrounds and new grounds of the characters. I don't like that the entire plot is hinged upon Adam being the son of the caveman TP from THE FIRST ONE, a premise I didn't like to begin with. This is almost a retread of that one with Adam standing in for his father's role.

Kevin and Lisa are dating. I didn't see that and didn't want to. I don't like it for some reason. It doesn't make sense and the two never showed any inclination for that but they were young.

Not sure of the year but it might be late 1990s, a few years after THE LIVING STONES.

I like that the book is a NEW TP 1992/1995 series adventure. We've never had one of those before and probably will not again.

Again, I don't like the entire backstory for Adam. At all. I don't like that his mum left him when he was young for another, less likable man; I don't like that his father dies of cancer and he's left alone or with "uncle" Mart? I don't like that John visited Adam on the day Adam accidentally jaunts to the island. I don't like that Adam calls Teleporting Jaunting (no evidence in the 1990s series that Adam knows that term.

I don't like that Mega is gay and Adam is not. If you watch those 25 episodes, it is clear that Mega and Adam are in or have started a romance after Lucy or maybe even before that. Lucy comes and goes on TV with no explanation. Adam didn't even seem all that into her.

Adam's also made dense, not to see Mega's interest in him from a romantic POV. On screen in the tv show, it seems almost too clear that these two are so...well, in love with each other and are very touchy feely.

Not sure I like Mega's parents getting a divorce. Why can't these characters have happier lives?

I do like that there is some explanation about the Ship but if it is that old, why didn't it contact John's group of TP? I don't like that it is discussed as primal and primeval.

Gary also seems to....at times, NOT have a way with words. He's wordy and there are, like the other books, some typos and mistakes but other than that, lines like,  "And the rest the say is history" are somewhat corny and jarring.

I LOVE that Gary has Jade have two dogs. On TV it's never made clear that her dog in CULEX survived the adventure. In fact, the dog is dog napped and never heard from again and was in bad shape. Gary has both dogs alive, thank God. So good job there.

I also like the cameos by Tyso, Evergreen, Kenny, Carol, Stephen, and a few others and a small hint of the NY TP (maybe?). I like that a new girl has broken out, Neena or something? I like that this feels like an adventure that takes place after both series have ended so it's a NEW ADVENTURE, probably the last of its kind as the next "season" of books will only be during the show's run, supposedly. Shame that and I think that's a mistake. I think taking it into the future is a good way to go forward. But never mind, most of the "action" here is well done even if I don't like the basic plot again, and again it's pretty much the return of the plot from THE FIRST ONE.

I DO like that Liz is Ami's aunt. A more lengthy review and details from the book will follow. Overall, a good read even if I have a lot of complaints about it and the continuity it made up around Adam and the Ship but mostly around Adam, who is definitely in my book, gay as well.

 

Back to Episode 2.

 

Anderson Lewis House was part of a large estate a few miles north of London on the Herts border. Agents were charged with selling it at the end of 1992. A minor celebrity was a guest on This Morning with Richard and Judy, sadly when the stars were on holiday and some Z list celebs were taking over for them that morning.

 

A cat from Marco Polo House in Battersea is mentioned as having watched some of his 1am broadcasts.

 

Loz: a rich fop from a wealthy part of London.

 

Charly (Adam’s mum) and Neal (Adam’s mum’s new boyfriend). Charly was an alcoholic and Neal was a tall, balding man who talked about men he’d beaten up in restaurants.

 

Adam’s grandmother possesses Charly and makes Neal and Loz vanish. Neal was sent to the time of the Crusades and Loz at the Battle of Ypres, probably.

 

Charly’s name is Charlotte Dell. On page 35, Gary mentions Lawrence Clements---no sign having been found of him----is this Loz? Might be good if we were told that was his real name?

 

Myron Hardcastle went mad and six months later Anderson Lewis House was demolished.

 

 

NOW…

 

Kevin has been living in the states for a year or so now, enrolled in some college not far from Lisa’s home and the romance grew stronger and healthier every day. Ewl, no.

 

Jade can sense the Ship’s moods (Adam’s party was in the Ship but Adam has already gone…back to London…mind telling us where?). Adam can speak to the Ship. Jade figures the island has grown around the ship which was here for centuries.

 

Mega wonders if Tutankhamun ever paid the Ship a visit. Ami holds Mega’s hand to stop him from jaunting so she can talk to him. Ami and Jade have both noticed Mega’s feelings for Adam.

 

Mega is on the beach looking at the Pacific Ocean, remembering the past few years. He believes they’ve all changed, grown up and changed. Ami calls it a great adventure, Jade calls it utter madness. Mega jokes about Lucy being old (I don’t like this idea that Mega is jealous of Lucy; he certainly wasn’t in the ONE story she was in, from what I recall and it’s clear from that story and the rest after that, that Adam was more into Megabyte than he was into Lucy).

 

Mega’s mom gave him the nickname of Megabyte. He thought about calling himself Duke going forward. He thought that sounded like an old cat.

 

NOTE: I get the feeling Gary’s thrown in references that only he might know. I certainly would not and don’t feel at all like researching them.

 

Mega’s walls in his room have Seattle bands no one in the UK had heard of. Movie posters from films now in Blockbusters one pound bin. A small magazine sized illustrative poster of a Japanese girl in a sailor suit from a video game. His dad once saw that and commented. A photo a year ago falls as Mega rips the posters down. It was taken a year ago outside the front door. Adam was in an orange sweater that smelled of fresh soap. Mega was in a tight white T shirt that was two sizes too small.

 

Mega finds his dad in a zombie state. Ami finds her mum that same way.

 

Jade Weston lived in the countryside, far away from the city of London. Her mum, Penny lived in a nice village called Mulberry which had once been invaded by aliens. Bonny and Jester are their dogs. A cat called Pegleg also came recently. It had only one eye. Pegleg came to live with them when old Ms. Triplett has finally passed away.

 

Ruth Tanner, the vet from nearby big town Boscown, was known to Jade for years but only became really close to her recently since her nephew was Kevin Wilson.

 

Jade wanted to be a vet when she was younger. Ruth had dealt with Kevin becoming a TP far more reasonably than Kevin’s parents had.

 

Jade can read moods and temperaments. Jade becomes zombie like and frozen like Ami’s mum and Mega’s dad.

 

Lucy was hostile for days when Adam broke it off with her. People always said Adam was a bit standoffish, unapproachable. He felt some people wanted his attention a bit too much.

 

His mum had said that like his dad, Adam was on the spectrum.

 

On page 47, it says Adam’s mum ran away and he never saw her again. This conflicts with earlier text.

 

It then says Adam has never had a home since his father’s ashes were spread on Avoca Beach. So where in London did he go to?

 

Adam has made a quick teleport to Mart’s place one night and shoved everything he owned into two bags and was gone. He went back a night later and left Mart a note. NOTE: This strikes me as most unlike Adam and just about cowardly and unthankful. The man seemed to take care of Adam for his deceased father. I also am not sure Adam as standoffish and on the spectrum or unapproachable. It doesn’t jive with the Adam on TV.

 

Adam wonders what would happen to him if his powers vanished it when a TP hit the age of 21.

 

He finds John Dixon’s card. He was going to ask Red Rainwear if John was one of their group, like the tall schoolboy or the guy with the tortoise. NOTE again: From what I recall, Red Rainwear was part of Millicent’s group but the man with the tortoise was only in the first story of the Tetra/Nickelodeon show. So, linking them? WT?

 

Adam hasn’t seen Red Rainwear and his people had not been seen by Adam for a couple of years now. So…is this 1997? If Kevin is in college, probably it is later than that and all indications are it IS later than 1997.

 

Adam’s paternal grandmother confronts him and tells him that his mother is dead. Lottie Oldham is the name she goes by in this slice of human history. She spent thousands of years trying to find Josh, Adam’s father. Thousands of years ago in a cave in Africa, she tried to kill Josh, thinking she could gain his power.

 

She tells him that she will take his and his fellow TP’s energy as well as other TP dotted around the world.  “Oh, this century has coughed up more TP than you can shake a stick at. Some, like you, have gotten together. Others keep themselves to themselves.”

 

She tells Adam he has his father’s DNA: homo novus. She wants to keep herself alive for a few thousand more years by stripping the DNA out of hi.

 

Jade, Penny, and the two dogs are zombie like.

 

Lottie’s cover seemed to be a vet and Mega recognizes her name. Ami simply vanishes. Lottie knocks Megabyte to the floor.

 

 

EPISODE 3

 

 

 SECONDS LATER…

 

Ami meets John, Indian girl new TP Neena, Andrew and Hsui Tai. In the lab.

 

TIM introduces himself. TIM is the version in the ceiling. Which is not where he was in WAR OF THE EMPIRES.

 

The up lit coffee table seems to be the TIM of the later eps of the classic series? 

 

More than once, Gary seems to describe the Lab as tacky, offensively, at least to me.

 

TIM’s main focal point is the biomorophic matric above the table. Yet he claims he is all around her. John is in his mid 40s. Andrew seems to be in his late 20s with flame haired. NOTE: Gary describes Andrew as having “flame haired a bit like Megabyte.”  Megabyte’s hair is red and so that can be like flames. Andrew in the classic series had neither red hair or blond hair but brown hair, brunette. SO…either Gary has had Andrew change his hair color to red and/or blond or this is a mistake. Nigel, the actor who played Andrew, surely had his hair blond in later years, probably dying it. So, to be like Mega’s it has to be red here. WT?

 

Neena is about 14 or 15. Neena only broke out a few months back.

 

Hsui Tai wears a business suit. She has been working with John and TIM for many years now.

 

 

Neena reads the biometrics on the card Ami has and figures John gave it to a boy in Australia a long time ago.

 

Andrew claims to have tutored Neena.

 

Andrew mentions the word Sap.

 

Ami believes Lisa and Kevin’s families are not touched by this old woman who has the others in their zombie like trances.

 

From TIM via Trig records: Possibly millions of years ago, tens of thousands of years ago, beings of great power roamed the universe. It is said they were telepathic, almost Godlike in their powers. They are older than the Kulthan and from Trig records, and records on a number of planets that they owned sentient star sthips. It was suspected, assumed that the reason TP broke out on Earth in the first place was because these people and possibly their ships, arrived here at some point. It is possible that Ami’s Ship is one of those ships.

 

 

NOTE: Not sure I like that either. Having aliens and God like aliens at that, the reason TP broke out. I’d rather believe it was nature’s way and not, boringly, aliens again.

 

TIM suggests that the Trig suggested the spot the Lab is built on was because it was possibly built on one of those sites where one of those ships landed and was destroyed over the aeons.

 

TIM, with Ami’s permission, probes her memory of the old woman Lottie and puts it up on a screen in the Lab. 20 years ago, TIM and John knew her as Juniper Rose, though she looks different now. Adam’s father was born in Neanderthal times.

 

Timeline notes: if the hints in THE FIRST ONE are correct about the year being 1973 (maybe?), then…it cannot be 20 years ago that THE FIRST ONE took place. That would only make this book take place in 1993 and that would mean everything is off and wrong. CULEX EXPERIMENT and MONSOON MAN take place in 1994 while RAMESES CONNECTION and LIVING STONES take place in 1995. All the references in this book to how much time has gone by other than the 20 years, seem to indicate this is far later than 1993, more like 1997 or even the early 2000s or mid 2000s.

 

It cannot be 20 years ago. John’s age does fit though as he was 19 in that story but is in his 40s maybe here (he should be 29). BUT even that doesn’t fit with the rest of the timeline as Jade breaks out in 1995, Mrs. Tiplett is still alive in 1995, and Ami breaks out earlier in 1994. And Kevin can’t start college in 1993.

 

Thus it might be more like 25 years which would make this 1998. Or even 30 years which would make this 2003 which would fit even better. John’s comment about this being 20 years later MUST be a mistake on his part AND on Gary’s part in writing that in the first place.

 

To write a book like this and get the timeline wrong…IDK, feels careless. I mean one of the reasons to write a book like this or have a book like this is to link the two series solidly and getting the years wrong feels…off. Unless I missed something in the FIRST ONE about what year it was, it was a first season story not long after Carol met Ginge and Lefty! At best that would be 1973.

 

Lottie later says, “About 20 years ago.” That could give us a bit of wiggle room to make it 25 years ago but…

 

 

A note for the publisher from me:

Please for future books, and I don't mean to be harsh or mean or offensive, I love that we have books but please get the timeline or timelines right. Mostly the books do have the timelines right but the last one, THE LAST ONE, does not. I could be wrong but the kindle version of THE LAST ONE says it is 20 years after John met Juniper Rose. She says it is around 20 years. From what I recall, the FIRST ONE indicates somewhat or sort of that it is summer 1973. 20 years after 1973 is 1993. The Nick Series first story is 1992. CULEX and MONSOON MAN are 1994. RAMESES and LIVING STONES are 1995. If THE LAST ONE happens in 1993...you see the problem? Ami broke out in 1994; Jade broke out in 1995, Mrs Tiplett is alive in 1995. ALL of THE LAST ONE indicates that it is some time after the Nick Series ended. The events of THE LIVING STONES are mentioned more than once as having already happened some time ago. Kevin is in college (and more worryingly in a romance with ...Lisa....NO!). It has to be more like 25 years which would make it 1997 which might work but not really as that's just two years more than 1995 but it might work. It's more like between 25 years and 30 years since 1973. As for the rest? I don't like linking Adam's past to an alkie mom, a caveman dad, and a psycho gran. Also: he goes to London after the party and as the book states he has no home...where did he go? Why leave Mart? And in two separate places it mentions that Adam's mum helped him when he asked and gave him stuff when he asked AND later on in the book it mentions that after she left, he never saw her again. WHY does it all have to be so grim for him? The book as a whole DOES work but I don't like some of the aspects of it. Never mind that if you watch the show, Adam is way more interested in Megabyte than either Lucy or Ami. Adam turning out gay as much as Megabyte is what would be more in line. I do like that Ami's aunt is Liz. And I guess Andrew dyes his hair now? In any case, I would hope the timelines and years these take place are more carefully watched than in THE LAST ONE. No offense meant. It's also a shame we wont' get any more books from both the end of the CLASSIC SERIES and the NICK SERIES as the rapport between characters here is well done and I'd like more of the Adam team AND the John teams after 1979. But maybe that's just me!?

 

A fan wrote this and I mostly agree:

"But unlike them, all of these are set within the continuity of the 1970's series. It's what the fans seem to like best."

... having just read "The Last One" (which, in fairness, is the *only* one I've read so far--but I also picked up "The Man Who Sold the World" alongside "The Last One", so that should change fairly soon) I was left with one overwhelming question: has Gary Russell ever actually WATCHED the 90's series? Characterizations that range from nonexistent to flat out wrong (no, that's not a reference to THAT one, even if I don't see it myself), character timelines that seem off, plenty of Wikipedia style references (it's Gary, that comes with the territory since his VNA days) but basic flubs like one of the 90's TP saying "Adam calls it jaunting" (which he most assuredly never did on-screen) but then being perplexed by "broke out", terminology which absolutely *did* crossover between series...

 

 

Because the Tp stopped Lottie from absorbing her own son Joshua, Adam was born. Joshua was brought to “this time,”   by the Tp.

 

Lottie tells Ami, who is distracting her, that she got the “pet” medusa from someone. “You meet all sorts of people from other worlds paying a visit. I think it was some trader, or pirate, or thief.” 

 

Lottie tells them Mega’s dad and Ami’s mom are free and awake now.

 

John called Lottie a sponge which gave Adam an idea.

 

Lottie tries to use Adam to drain every TP on Earth of their powers into her.

 

We also see or read about Jade and her mum. At a fairground in Shakopee, are Kevin and Lisa. In south London travel agency a girl called Elena Plowright stopped writing out a customer holiday request. In an unassuming Ministry of Defense building in Shropshire, Tricia Conway dropped the box files she had been carrying.

 

NOTE: I’d always guessed Tricia would have remained on the Trig as far from Earth as possible because she would start a new life and be able to use her skills for all of the galaxy and maybe the universe. Her returning to Earth feels less…likely? In any case, I don’t think she’d stay away forever but it sure might be possible. We do not even know if she had family on Earth alive or if she was talking to them if they were.

 

John Peel, that tasteless man who wrote LOST IN SPACE books despite hating the show and most of Irwin Allen (probably all of) and who liked the crap DC LEGEND OF TOMORROW in its entirety (emphasis on the tire) while panning trend setting, TV changing creative DARK SHADOWS, once thought that it might have been more interesting had the series explored a power struggle between John and Tricia (not sure if he meant on the Trig or on Earth or both) and maybe she loses and goes to the Trig for those who might “vote” for her when the TP vote John as leader?

 

In any case, while Trish could have returned to Earth in any unseen story or “missing” adventure or short scene, after REVENGE OF JEDIKIAH on screen, we never see her again and while I’d have to fact check, I don’t believe we even hear ONE line about Tricia again after REVENGE. But it’s a nice mention, like all the rest.

 

 

Tyso and Evergreen Boswell are mentioned. They have inherited a caravan from their parents a couple of years back (did BOTH parents die?), the two were hosting a game night with Stephen Jameson (spelling?) and Debbie Crossland.

 

NOTE: I have no idea who Debbie is.

 

Okay, I’m just going to post this and ask:

 

okay I must ask, WHO is Debbie Crossland in THE LAST ONE? From the audios? Someone else? Gary has this mean way of throwing in references to other shows and past Tp materials but it is not fair or at least he could try to explain these references either in the text or in a back glossary or something. WhoTF is she? It's annoying.

 

She’s a TP.

 

On a farm in Northumberland, fraternal twins Cynthia and Adrian Price stood in a field. WHO TF are they?

 

Okay, I’ll tell you who they are. The names are twins that were first proposed by Roger Price in an early draft of some storylines of the Tp before they became a TV series. The twins were dropped early on (the book JAUNT probably tells us why…maybe?).

 

The twins are the youngest of the group at age ten or would have been. While their mention here is just a nod or cameo, it begs other questions:

 

-did these twins break out in between first season stories, before first season stories, and then “check” out of TP life for the majority of the eight seasons on TV?

 

-OR is this an alternative universe where they broke out some other time?

 

As Gary writes them as owner of the farm, they must NOT be ten years old here.

 

Hasana Jackson was talking to Ami’s aunt ---Elizabeth----and Hasana’s sister.

 

Ten minutes before going on stage at the Labatt’s Apollo in Hammersmith, Fresh Hearts’ lead guitarist is Mike Bell who is in his locked dressing room.

 

In outer space, on the Galactic Trig (first time in the NEW books?) Ambassador Kenny Green stood in his quarters looking down at planet Earth. On the same Federation Base, Carol MacNeil-Tran and her Andonesian husband Narcissa and their sons Nova and Lukis were operating the Overmind Projecctor when their own telepathic powers linked with Adam.

 

LOVE the cameos but each highly represents the fact that there can be MANY other stories about all of these characters, whole books and probably whole series if spinoffs were ever able to happen (they have in fan fiction).

 

In any case, less interesting than those cameos, is the conclusion here: Adam drains his grandmother.

 

“From out of the glowing column of the ship, a massive concentrated beam of light, focusing all the individual tendrils coming from the TP all over the world, AND BEYOND, into one massive beam into Adam.

 

Adam and the Ship destroy the Medusa (uhm, they just killed).

 

The Ship, after so many years, starts to speak.

 

The Ship returns everyone’s energy.

 

After their win, The Tp have a party on top of the hill at Alexandra Palace in North London. Present: Ami with her aunt Elisabeth who knew John Dixon. Jade and Penny with Bill Damon, catching up with Kevin and Lisa plus a couple of John’s TP friends: Andrew and Neena. Evergreen was there. Evergreen told them about old age pensioners in North London who told police they were kept prisoner in a Mission House.

 

John was talking to Carol, Stephen and Tyso.

 

Mega tells Adam he talked to his dad who accepted that Mega is gay. Adam asks about mum but Mega tells him he told Millie instead.

 

They feel that this is the same thing as telling his mum, in a strange conversation. Does that mean Millie will tell his mum? Huh?

 

Mega, for a while, will stay with his mum in the US to get away from Adam.

 

Adam says, “There’s a whole new generation of TP out there, according to John. I need you to come back and help train them.”

 

The two declare their love for each other.

 

While all this is “nice”, it feels a bit…wrong and while not exactly hollow, for reasons stated above (and I’ll probably restate them here), it feels sideways of what we see on screen. I know the intention of the show as NOT that Adam and Mega were going to have a romantic relationship but the way the characters come across on TV…it sure feels more like it than not.

 

Also feeling hollow is the last words: “Then, Adam was alone on the beach. Just as he had been all those years before, when he first wound up there, his first ever jaunt. When his life as a TP had first begun. When he’s first found home.”

 

THE END?

 

Well, that ending is a bit hollow, again, for reasons already mentioned. Adam had a home with his dad’s friend Mart (is there more to this story? Knowing Gary, probably).

 

And if one part of the text can be believed over another part, his mum had provided, at least monetary needs.

 

Certainly as the last few pages of the “win” against Adam’s grandmother (who also seems to have been killed) AND the party afterward, Adam is hardly “alone” in the classic sense. I know what Gary was striving for but I think he misses the mark here.

 

In fact, the whole book both hits and misses several marks, mostly through format and/or Gary’s desire to rush forward into mixing both groups.

 

To be fair, it’s a difficult task writing formal professionally released crossovers. Yet, some simple checks could have fixed a few of these.

 

Several major plot points rely on things that either are not right (the timeline) and/or don’t feel in line with the show (Mega being gay is fine but Adam should be, too). Perhaps all the years of fan fic and speculation and discussion in fandom have biased me and Gary’s vision is just fine.

 

At times, while it is like the first book in this series written by Gary, THE FIRST ONE, it’s written a bit better in prose and plot, but it has several flaws, the least of which being typos and being wordy when it does not have to be.

 

In any case, it’s not a bad book by any means and I’m glad we have these TP books, and surprisingly, I really enjoyed reading about Adam, Ami, Megabyte and their others (Lisa, Kevin, Jade feel like cameos to be honest). The other cameos feel like the wetting of an appetite that will never be satiated but with seven more books on the horizon for the second half of 2025 and all of 2026, maybe they will be?

 

Trouble is with the announcement that those next seven books will be more traditional “missing” stories from only the original classic Tp, we will not get any about Adam’s team as the focus, any experimental books (and as much as I complained about these, I do like a few experimental books), and/or any that take place after WAR OF THE EMPIRES (or dare I say it, MYSTERY MOON in some kind of really missing story and afterward).

 

While it’s a dream fantasy to even have TP books after so many years, one can still hope it branches out into other things, too.