Story: The planet Moriel is of great tactical interest to three races: The Czahns, the Saloi, and the Dakharri. An impromptu summit of these three great empires has been called by the Hollow Gods in order to apparently settle the sabre rattling over this seemingly important planet. The Doctor has been designated as the mediator of this meeting and, even though he doesn’t know how he got there, or the whereabouts of his companions, he seems in total control of the situation.
Bernice, who has been snatched from the safety of the TARDIS, has ended up on some backwater gambling spaceport world, and inadvertantly gets mixed up with a displaced human named Jason Kane. All forms of hijinks and adventures befall these two, leading them right into the proverbial sack with each other. This leads to more hijinks, which I will spare all of you the pain of reading about. Roz and Chris, also seperated from the Doctor, have wound up on the military, slave-driven world of the Czahns. Being as clever as they are, they join up with the Soldier Caste (by beating two of them up and stealing their uniforms…) only to find themselves shipped out on the next troop transport on the way to invade the poor old world of Moriel.
Review: So, I know what you are asking. What do the desires of these Hollow Gods have to do with all this typical weirdness? And what stake does Jason Kane’s “pet” have in the summit meeting on Moriel? Most of all, why is the Doctor wearing his old brown coat? I can tell you that 2 of these 3 questions are answered. Are the answers sufficient? You be the judge.
I was initially wary of sitting down with this book. Dave Stone’s last book, “Sky Pirates” was, to pick an appropriate word…stupid. But, amazingly, he appears to have come away from his fixation with demented flying characters of many colours, with flying colors! There are still weirdos galore in the pages of this book, and his predilection in using run-on sentences is in full bloom, only done tastefully this time. I no longer fear the idea of a Dave Stone book, and am looking forward to his next attempt at quasi-normal writing. I certainly hope that whatever medication he is on continues to focus his talent away from the ridiculous, or else we could see a future book of his called “Sky Pirates II: Return Of The Wanna-Be Douglas Adams”. But modern medicine is a wonderful thing, as it earned this title an 8.5 out of 10.
Year: 1996
Author: Dave Stone
Publisher: Virgin
Pages: 288