E.H.'s Reviews > Doctor Who: The Also People

This was a reread of a book I have read many times. In fact, I have read it so many times that my copy is falling apart, and page 65/66 has departed for a better place. This was my first time rereading this since my early 20s, and I have to say it was both what I remembered and not that.

The bad: Some of the stuff around the African women was a little weird (not really racist but kinda not cool by modern standards). The dialog in the scene where Roz confronts Feli!xi was like an old noir novel. The book fulfills several (bad) NA cliches, including "Chris sleeps with someone," "Benny gets drunk," "The Doctor is accused of manipulating people" (even though I didn't see it). There's also Dep, who decides she wants to have Chris's baby without consulting him about it. Which...what? And I have like half a dozen other petty complaints.

The good: I have rarely met an alien civilization that I quite so wanted to just wrap myself up and live in. And even with my eyes open to the novel's faults, I still feel that way. I like the Dyson sphere, I like the language with its weird pops and clicks, I like the technology, I like God, I like all the sentient machines... I like everything. Oh, and Kadiatu. Of all the characters from the NAs that I have been wanting to see in the new series, Kadiatu is the top of the list. Unfortunately, I think they "adapted" her into River Song, so that will probably not happen...but if the powers that be want to bring the Worldsphere to the screen, I am totally there for that.