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Set between The Seeds of Doom and The Masque of Mandragora, System Shock sees the Doctor and Sarah reunited with an old friend who they haven't seen for a while. But while it's only been a few weeks for them since Terror of the Zygons, it's been twenty years for Harry Sullivan. The late 1990s setting also means that Sarah is well out of date - CDs, office automation and the Internet are all alien concepts. She can't even master the telephone manual when she goes undercover at the offices of Integrated Intelligence. As you'd expect, the return of two people he hadn't seen in two decades but who barely look a day older than when he last saw them is equally confusing for Harry. He's no longer assigned to UNIT, having become an Assistant Chief of Staff at MI-5, but this isn't quite as impressive as it sounds because there are a dozens of Assistant Chiefs of Staff. However, the bad puns and the tendency to call Sarah "old girl" - which is now even more inappropriate given their ages - are still there. I've always thought the character a bit under-rated, so it was nice to see him once again. The novel's aliens, the Voracians are an interesting race. In their human forms, they're fond of mid-1990s management speak, with the ability to talk a lot without actually saying anything useful. Initially I thought they were simply a reptilian version of the Cybermen, but when their background was revealed, this wasn't the case. Their method of controlling technology seemed straight out of The Invasion, but in practice it was reminiscent of the Nestene Consciousness' control over plastic in Terror of the Autons. A decade on, System Shock is still a pretty enjoyable read. It's a decent enough thriller, although its characterisation (particularly the Doctor) isn't the greatest. back to the top |
SYSTEM SHOCK |
