Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #392560 in Books
• Published on: 1999-08-02
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• 309 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
Lawrence Miles was behind the superb 1997 BBC book Alien Bodies in which a group of intergalactic representatives--including the Doctor--bid for ownership of the Doctor's body while a group of mysterious Time Lord-like cultists, the Faction Paradox, mess around with time streams. In Interference he fleshes out the Faction Paradox and introduces a new group of beings called the Remote.

These are perhaps the most interesting aliens to have appeared in the BBC range to date. Their culture is based on electronic transmissions which they receive from whichever planet they find themselves on. The people are totally free to interpret these signals as they will. They believe they are given direction and meaning by the signals and are on the whole fairly happy with their lot.

In the first novel we are introduced to I M Foreman, a mystery woman sitting on a hill. (This is also the name printed on the junkyard doors in Totters' Lane, London, 1963, where we first met the Doctor--hopefully this will be explained in Book Two.) The Doctor joins her and they settle down to discuss what happened on Earth. But what did happen? Sam is there keeping an eye on an international arms conference when she becomes captured by the Remote. Sarah Jane Smith (ex-companion of the 3rd and 4th Doctors) is also there along with K9, doing pretty much the same thing. The Remote are trying to sell advanced alien arms to various powers and using brutish alien Ogrons as bodyguards. Fitz meanwhile has been swallowed up in 1996 by a weapon called the Cold and does not emerge until 2593 where he joins a Faction Paradox cult. Meanwhile the 8th Doctor is apparently locked in a cell where he and his cellmate are irregularly and viciously tortured with electric shock batons.

Where all this leads is unclear as it's not resolved in this book. The mysterious I M Foreman remains an enigma, aside from the fact that as a man she might have been running a travelling circus of freaks on the planet Dust which was once visited by the 3rd Doctor and Sarah.

All this confusion and loose ends may leave readers reeling and puzzled. It starts really well indeed with Miles building up an apocalyptic feel with the individual plot elements. It's when the story becomes dominated by Sarah Jane Smith (posing as Sarah Bland, and never was a surname better chosen) that the book grinds to a crawl. She's just not interesting and doesn't rise above the printed page. Fitz and the Doctor might as well not be there (well, they're actually not there for 90 per cent of it) and Sam gets to see all the interesting stuff as usual--which here includes appearing in scenes presented as though from a film or television script. This is a nice idea and works surprisingly well.

The book ends at an apparently arbitrary point, but readers who have bought both volumes can continue straight on... --David J Howe

Synopsis
One of a new series of adventure stories featuring the TV science fiction hero, Doctor Who. Sam Jones becomes a minor player in a million-dollar power struggle, and as it happens, so does the Doctor.

Customer Reviews

Unclear transmissions.
I was expecting this book to be an action packed, thrill a minute read. Instead it has been very slow and in suffers some major problems. The Doctor really is'nt in it that much and Fitz is practically non exsistant. The part of the book set on Dust was a real drag to get through. However there are some redeeming factors. The Eighth Doctors imprisonment seems like he has given up any hope of escape and is merely trying to prolong his life. Also a lot of the book is unclear as to what is meant to be happening and this means that I go into book two with some anticipation. It has its good points but it is no where near to being as good as it should have been.

Too Much Interference
There are times when a character needs a good shake. Sylvester McCoy's last season was a shake-up. The final Virgin book 'Lungbarrow' posed some very awkward questions about the Doctor's age, origins and his involvement in Gallifrey's past. Now, the 8th Doctor finds himself faced by people with time travel and little conscience in how they use it. Faction Paradox are selling something to the highest bidder - and on the frontier world of Dust the 3rd Doctor faces some upsetting extremes of violence and genetic weirdness...

The Interference series has all the hallmarks of following in the footsteps of Trial of a Timelord - in that there are flashes of quality and brilliance, underlaid with a sense that something this sweeping may well be a dressed up attempt at padding the quotas. There are moments in this book where the plot potters along, and the slicing backwards and forwards between times and characters can be quite distracting, rather than compelling.

Faction Paradox have been building up to this for a long time, mentioned offhand or with occasional character appearances in previous books. Now that they've arrived in full force, they don't really satisfy - and where they managed to get the upperhand, it's in the same way Star Trek foists an upperhand on a starship captain - with omnipotent powers and paradoxical time-twisting.

Where is it actually going?
After reading book one I really couldn't see where this story was going. After reading book two I still couldn't see where this story was going. Lawrence Miles' earlier DW novel "Alien Bodies" was an absolute joy to read and it still remains one of my favourite of the BBC range. But this... I agree with other readers in that it does try to change four decades of established DW and this is not a good idea. It also effectively writes "Planet of the Spiders" out of existence. An equally bad idea and one that many fans have met with considerable distaste, myself included. Now, I am by no means one of those fans who think DW should have stayed rooted firmly in it's own past but there is a limit to just how much you can change it in the space of a single story before the fans take an extreme dislike to you. Lawrence Miles' writing is however, extremely good with an incredible eye for detail. At times he is so clever with the plot that he almost seems to clever by far. But this alone isn't enough to save this story. I was also sorry to see Sam go but now we have a new companion in the form of Compassion who seems to be very interesting character and was one of the few things that I actually liked about this story. If you want to read some of the later Eighth Doctor novels then you will have to read this one as they are all tied into the story arc and since this is a vital part of the arc you wont understand the later the later novels unless you've read this one. So unfortunately, I would have to say that it is probably best that you buy this two part novel.