Based on the beloved Doctor Who episode of the same name by Douglas Adams, the hilarious and brilliant author of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, comes City of Death… race in the universe disappears from existence. Few are sad to see them go.
1505 CE: Leonardo da Vinci is rudely interrupted while gilding the lily by a most annoying military man by the name of Captain Tancredi.
1979 CE: Despite his best efforts not to end up in exactly the right place at exactly the wrong time, the Doctor, his companion Romana, and his cybernetic dog, K-9, arrive for a vacation in Paris only to discover that they have landed not only in one of the less romantic periods in Parisian history, but in a year in which the fabric of time has begun to crack.
It is once again up to the Doctor to uncover an audacious alien scheme filled with homemade time machines, the theft of the Mona Lisa, the resurrection of the Jagaroths, and the beginning (or possibly the end—it is all quite complicated, you see) of all life on Earth.
Some holiday indeed…
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A friend gave me this book, because he knew I was a fan of Douglas Adams and Doctor Who. Yeah, full disclosure, I’m a huge fan of Douglas Adams. This novel has a bit of history, it’s novelized by James Goss, based on a television script by Douglas Adams, which was originally commissioned and based on an original script by David Fischer. I learned in the Afternote, that David Fischer was unable to do a rewrite of his script as he was going through a divorce and Douglas Adams jumped in and knocked it out in a weekend – and wow. It’s one of the most watched Dr. Who episodes and on many critic’s all-time top five Dr. Who Episode lists.
I went into the book with some trepidation. How much Adams would come through, being someone else’s story and then rewritten by another author in novel form. So, first chapter, my impression is that it was dripping with Adams’ style and jocularity. I figured it would fade over time, but nope, never did. You see, what I love about Adams is not only his wit and humor, but his relentless clever observations on life, the universe, and everything (see what I did there?). I’ll never know exactly what parts was by Goss, or Fischer, or Adams, but in the end, it doesn’t matter, I’m still going to assume that all the best parts were Adams – sorry Mr. Goss and Mr. Fischer.
This story starts with the Doctor and his companion taking a holiday in France, and like a lost tourist finding their way though Paris, meanders its way into a story about the end of planet and an explanation of all of mankind’s progress and advancement. There is clearly a love of Paris and France that comes shining through, but Adams manages to disparage and insult the French in the nicest and most charming way. The story, of course, stays connected to the Dr. Who threads and themes, with wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey bits about aliens, time travel, and the sonic screwdriver. But what I really love about this book is the unrivaled Adam’s telltale dry, English-wit-filled observations. Some examples:
– The Renaissance was charming, what with that lazy smoky sunshine. But quite a lot of that smoke was caused by burning heretics, thinkers and the eccentrically dressed. Oh dear.
– You can be as rude as you like in Paris, so long as you don’t insult your waiter.
– There is a universal law that says that, the more you need a taxi, the less likely you are able to get one. This applies even more so in Paris.
– Paris can be exceedingly subtle. The texture of foie gras, the flavour of cheese, the exact point that a road ends and a café begins.
– The Venus de Milo flirts with an Egyptian scribe, and shipwrecked sailors call for help from the Emperor Napoleon. It is a firmly egalitarian court, presided over by a woman who wasn’t even French. That’s probably why she’s smiling.
If you don’t know Douglas Adams passed away much too soon back in May 2001, but it’s wonderful to see a bit of him in this fun, witty, Doctor Who classic.