Human Nature

[Special thanks to Steve Traylen for lending me the book, and making sure I didn't get anything done yesterday.]

Summary: 10/10 Dr John Smith and his neice Bernice Summerfield move into the town of Farringham shortly before the start of the first World War. Dr Smith's writing strange children's stories about a far away place called Gallifrey, and Benny's got a strange idea that her uncle's really an alien. And when the aliens _do_ arrive, something really unthinkable happens.

"I remember other kinds of bullying. A boy in my class so hated and loved me that he kept upsetting my experiments. I made myself forget it, thought that I was an adult and could leave it behind. But if you ignore that, you ignore yourself."

I don't know what to say yet.

Perhaps I'll have to give it some more thought.

[some hours pass]

I've now read three of Paul Cornell's NA's, Love and War, No Future, and now Human Nature. Where Love and War explored the nature of the Doctor's companion, and No Future had a strong comparison of the nineties Doctor with his sixties enemy the Meddling Monk, Human Nature focused directly on the Doctor himself. It's one of the few times I can think of that a work tried to answer the fundemental question of the series: Doctor Who?

No, I'm not talking about nonsense of Time Lords, or mysterious Others, or the Doctor's relationship with them, even though both of those are part of the novel, but getting down to the character of the Doctor. Who is the Doctor?

John Smith? Theta Sigma? Merlin? And finally, Does It Really Matter? No matter how hard he tries, or how much he doesn't believe it at first, it turns out that the human Doctor John Smith is the Doctor. He sacrifices himself for the ones [or the one] he loves. The Doctor convinces himself in thinking he only loves "in the big sense", forgetting the sacrifice of his fifth self for Peri, or his role in almost being a parent to Ace in the last televised season. And of course, Tim Dean's change into a sort-of teenage Doctor appeals to any of us who were fans of Doctor Who in our adolecence.

There were some nice subtle touches in this book, tieing together pieces of history. Using the first Doctor's ring was a delight, and naming Dr John Smith's old flame Verity was a perfect little touch, using the name of the show's first producer.

There were some very interesting points on other issues as well. "The Old Man and the Police Box" is something that can't help but make you wonder about what role the Doctor [or, as it seems more likely, some sort of past life of the Doctor] had at the dawn of Time Lord society. The book also supports theories that the conversion from Gallifreyan to Time Lord [and interestingly, humans into Time Lords] is a function of fancy technology, not just part of their natural biology.

As some have mentioned before the Eternals are certainly taken from the same sort of mold as Neil Gaiman's Endless, and I'm not quite sure how well that works, as I think I have to see how they fit across the New Adventures as a whole.

I haven't mentioned the Auberties yet because there is little to really say about them. The book wasn't about them, and they were there because there had to be some alien opponent, perhaps.

I was very pleased [and surprised] the Joan was not killed during the plot of the book. It's the way out of "impossible" love affairs too often, but it made it a more emotional experience for the Doctor and for the reader to keep her alive. The end of the "Cat Heaven" chapter was probably the most emotional pieces of Doctor Who I've read, and on the television series only the regenerations in Logopolis and Caves of Androzani matched it for impact, but for quite different reasons.

All and all, a very emotional book. It explores the very edges of what is possible in the Doctor Who environment, making it an unusually rewarding work. Even though I'm reading a borrowed copy, it's certainly a book I intend to purchase. [Perhaps I have to go home and visit my folks in the Twin Cities when Paul will be up there.] Another 10 [and I thought I didn't give them out very often.]