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scampr's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
I'm really not sure what to think of this novel, it was just weird more than anything. The central plot of an invasion of hive-minded insectoid aliens is not particularly original, and nor is the 'replacing people with duplicates' aspect of the story.
It's serviceable and does a couple of unique things with the concept, but it was the extraneous elements to the uninspired invasion that carried my enjoyment - this includes the unique setting, the mythology and history of the alien threat, the exploration of UNIT dealing with bureaucracy, and most importantly the initial hook of the Doctor's future predicting machine.
The supposed vision of the Brigadier's betrayal in cold heartedly killing the Doctor and Jo drives a significant chunk of the narrative, and provides us with some good emotional beats and character exploration.
Dancing the Code takes place in a fictional north-African country, Kebiria, which is experiencing territorial disputes between the state and the villages/tribes outside the developed city areas. Sometimes settings and situations like this serve only to be an exotic backdrop visually/atmospherically, so I was glad to find some substance to the decision. The novel uses this conflict, alongside the conflict with the alien invaders, to explore some ideas and morals about war, authority, responsibility, escalation and extremism.
In turn, the volatile setting enhances the stakes of the sci-fi half of the plot, which intersects to form a dangerous mess of conflicts and motives.
This does however lead me onto my main criticism and source of confliction with Dancing the Code, which is the tone. This story is pretty serious, is trying to tackle some mature morals and politics, and does this all with a large amount of violence, body horror and general bleakness.
With a little dialling back, this would align well with the approach of Season 7 of Classic Who! But instead, the writer decided to base this story in the latter half of Season 10, and I just don't understand why.
Season 8 and beyond firmly established a more light-hearted tone, evolving the Doctor's personality, giving us the 'UNIT family' dynamic, and of course the wonderfully likeable Jo Grant. The characters at play are totally at odds with the type of story they're in, and while subverting such things can be interesting, it just doesn't work here. While I can somewhat buy into the Doctor, the Brig and the UNIT soldiers going through this story, it's pretty rough on them - but Jo is completely out of place in this kind of warzone and the amount of traumatic stuff she goes through.
On paper this novel is perfectly fine, some interesting sci-fi ideas and weird alien imagery, an uncommon setting and diverse characters, an engaging plot with some fun twists, some thematic and emotional weight, and enjoyable action beats - but the intensity of some of the darker/more serious elements made this story clash with the era it was meant to belong to. This will not be an issue for everyone, so I don't consider this a bad story, just a flawed one.
My one last nit-pick is that Dancing the Code was a little slow and dense to read, and does get slightly annoying/repetitive at times (you'll know what I mean).
It's serviceable and does a couple of unique things with the concept, but it was the extraneous elements to the uninspired invasion that carried my enjoyment - this includes the unique setting, the mythology and history of the alien threat, the exploration of UNIT dealing with bureaucracy, and most importantly the initial hook of the Doctor's future predicting machine.
The supposed vision of the Brigadier's betrayal in cold heartedly killing the Doctor and Jo drives a significant chunk of the narrative, and provides us with some good emotional beats and character exploration.
Dancing the Code takes place in a fictional north-African country, Kebiria, which is experiencing territorial disputes between the state and the villages/tribes outside the developed city areas. Sometimes settings and situations like this serve only to be an exotic backdrop visually/atmospherically, so I was glad to find some substance to the decision. The novel uses this conflict, alongside the conflict with the alien invaders, to explore some ideas and morals about war, authority, responsibility, escalation and extremism.
In turn, the volatile setting enhances the stakes of the sci-fi half of the plot, which intersects to form a dangerous mess of conflicts and motives.
This does however lead me onto my main criticism and source of confliction with Dancing the Code, which is the tone. This story is pretty serious, is trying to tackle some mature morals and politics, and does this all with a large amount of violence, body horror and general bleakness.
With a little dialling back, this would align well with the approach of Season 7 of Classic Who! But instead, the writer decided to base this story in the latter half of Season 10, and I just don't understand why.
Season 8 and beyond firmly established a more light-hearted tone, evolving the Doctor's personality, giving us the 'UNIT family' dynamic, and of course the wonderfully likeable Jo Grant. The characters at play are totally at odds with the type of story they're in, and while subverting such things can be interesting, it just doesn't work here. While I can somewhat buy into the Doctor, the Brig and the UNIT soldiers going through this story, it's pretty rough on them - but Jo is completely out of place in this kind of warzone and the amount of traumatic stuff she goes through.
On paper this novel is perfectly fine, some interesting sci-fi ideas and weird alien imagery, an uncommon setting and diverse characters, an engaging plot with some fun twists, some thematic and emotional weight, and enjoyable action beats - but the intensity of some of the darker/more serious elements made this story clash with the era it was meant to belong to. This will not be an issue for everyone, so I don't consider this a bad story, just a flawed one.
My one last nit-pick is that Dancing the Code was a little slow and dense to read, and does get slightly annoying/repetitive at times (you'll know what I mean).
Content Warnings
Minor: Rape and Sexual assault
In one of the last few chapters of the book there is a very brief mention of an antagonist's intention/attempt to SA/R*pe a female character
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