#56
So Vile A Sin
By Ben Aaronovitch and Kate Orman
I’m not sure this warrants a spoiler warning since the book is 20+
years old and the major event in it is probably referenced in half a dozen
other books. But you might have made it this far and not know, and I don’t want
to be That Guy Who Ruined It For You, so: spoilers ahead.
Brace yourselves, this one’s
important. So Vile A Sin is the
culmination of the Psi-Powers arc, the last New Adventure to feature Roz, and
it’s by Ben “Yes I wrote The Also People, I do other things, you know”
Aaronovitch – added up that’s more than enough to hoik up the price on eBay.
But then there was a mix up with a malfunctioning hard drive and a timewarp and
it ended up being a) delayed, b) co-written by the equally beloved Kate Orman
and c) the last New Adventure to feature the Doctor, his book rights having
swanned off to the BBC. The accumulated geek points mean it is now d) eBay gold
dust, unfortunately for prospective readers.
This wasn’t supposed to be the
end of the New Adventures (feat. Dr. Who), but it is how they stopped: with a
huge plot spoiler arriving half a dozen books too late. I can only imagine the
weirdness of reading all the subsequent fallout before the actual event, or the even bigger weirdness of sitting
down to So Vile A Sin afterwards and
trying to look the least bit surprised.
Thankfully I’m able to read it in
order, though it’s now become so infamous that avoiding the main spoiler was
impossible. So Vile A Sin seems to
anticipate this, strangely, announcing the major event on Page 1. Was that
always the plan, or did they rearrange the flow of the story around the fact
that most readers would already know? Either way the book is like: Roz dies.
*mic drop*
Page 2 is her funeral. Much about
this is unexpected, from taking place so early in the book to the blazing sunshine
that accompanies it; the Doctor seems to be coping with disturbing ease right
up to his heart attack. It’s a well-judged gut punch of an opening. I tried to
imagine reading this totally unspoiled, and... you’d assume it was a wheeze,
wouldn’t you? Doctor Who certainly isn’t
above a dramatic fake out. The TARDIS “dies” every other Wednesday.
The ensuing story hops around in
space and time and concerns different timelines and possible futures. The
Doctor, in particular, is besieged by alternative lives and an actual double
for some of it. The cumulative effect is the tantalising feeling that, all
joking aside, there are plenty of escape clauses to choose from and we just wouldn’t
do that to you. They dangle the possibilities quite openly here and there, like
the Doctor seeing various futures and saying to Roz “You’re alive with me in four of them.” And elsewhere a young Forrester
contemplates: “The rumour mill had it
that little Thandiwe’s Aunty Roz hadn’t died, that this was a cover story for
something far more interesting.” There’s even a sweet bit at the end that
hints, maybe, somehow…? Hmm.
The book’s tone also seems to
belie such a cruel twist of fate. I wonder if it’s indelicate to guess which
author made which contribution, so I’ll just say that more often than not the
book feels like Kate Orman – which here
means that despite a lot of horrible things happening, it’s somehow a rather light
and spirited read. A weight of expectation rests on it all, certainly, but at
the same time it seems more than happy to zip away and think about something
else instead. There’s a jolly scene where Chris meets some of Roz’s family in
her multiple-museum-sized home, which includes an adorably Also People-ish bit
with sentient airplanes. (Ben? Or is that too obvious?) There’s a fun bit where
some of the AIs from SLEEPY unexpectedly gain physical form and have a
rendez-vous. (Kate? I bet I’m getting this totally wrong.) One seemingly random
diversion has two bit players meeting an alternate Doctor in his strange little
home, and just being there, soaking up the odd atmosphere before he vanishes.
The damn book is the first one to tell you that Roz dies, but there simply
doesn’t seem to be time for something that big and awful to actually happen.
(It employs a similar zippiness with the Brotherhood plot, with the signal from
Damaged Goods being wrapped up rather succinctly early on. You begin to suspect
that their plan, like Roz’s death, has been exaggerated.)
I spent the whole thing waiting
for some catastrophic conflagration to come along and epically take Roz away,
but of course, that’s not always how death rolls. One day she’s in a war zone, things
don’t go her way and that’s it. The event itself is not transcribed.
The fight against the Brotherhood
takes a bit of a left turn when Roz’s sister, Leabie, decides to go for it and
take control of the Earth Empire. It’s worth noting that the Empire is in
tatters and propped up by the Brotherhood, who have their own agenda, but it
still feels like a coup and Roz might be wrong to participate in it. The epilogue
doesn’t hem and haw too much over this, saying everything’s in good hands with
Leabie, but it still didn’t quite sit right with me. But then, so what? There’s
something brisk and unexpected about a companion taking such a dangerous, morally
uncertain decision, especially as their last one. Roz’s final conversation with
the Doctor is a rebuke, telling him that he’s not in charge and she should be able to go off and make her own decisions; that she isn’t like every other
companion he’s had. “When all those
children you call your companions have
their fits of moral anguish and cover up their eyes because of the things you
have to do, just remember who it is that stands by you. Who does the necessary
even when the necessary costs … You owe me. So you can threaten Bernice and Dorothée, you can show your human
side for the cameras, but I know.
That history kills people and sometimes even you can’t save them. So you owe me
this, for my family, for the children of the angry man and for the ones that
died in the slave ships and mines and all the others you couldn’t save at the
time.” All the Doctor can offer in response, occasionally throughout the
book, is a defeated entreaty not to get involved. Because undoubtedly he knows
she will and that it’ll be over soon.
The Doctor’s powerlessness crops
up throughout, from not knowing which version of himself is a duplicate to being
unable to save Roz. There are literally other version of him that do have a plan and, it is strongly
suggested, “our” one that finds himself at the funeral is not among them. He’s
crushed. But in that curious way that I’m tempted to lay at Kate Orman’s door,
he also has a lot of frivolous and fun little moments, like temporarily finding
himself as a (terrible) ship’s cook or, after assassinating the current Empress
– a thing that happens, incidentally! – he argues with and flippantly denies
the authority of his trial. So Vile A
Sin is acutely aware of the Doctor’s rep as a master game player, and
wrong-foots it in a way that makes him seem a little more three-dimensional. He
even admits to the Brotherhood that “‘You
think I’ve been chasing you. Trying to expose you. But our paths have crossed
at random. I’ve never sought you out.’ His shoulders fell. ‘We didn’t have to
be enemies.’” Which, in all fairness, might say more about the Psi-Powers arc than it means to. I don’t think I’m alone in being unimpressed with the
Brotherhood, and while it is satisfying to tie together their exploits in various
earlier novels, I won’t miss them.
The book has an unusual way of
dealing with these momentous events – Roz’s imminent death, the Brotherhood’s
ultimate plan – in that it’s so flighty that they don’t feel momentous at
first. Some of this I’m sure is an insidiously clever way to manage the reader’s
expectations. It also (brilliantly, I think) reminds you that even grief and
death are shrouded in life, upturns and random good bits: you can’t have one
without the other, hence the odd feeling that you’re reading a really colourful
and fun book about something awful happening. But then there’s the elephant in
the room, somehow tooting “This isn’t how it was supposed to be” with its
trunk. So Vile A Sin, as we’ve read
it, is a recreation of what it might have been. There’s no point getting caught
up in the ways Ben Aaronovitch would have handled all of this on his own, of
course, because that book doesn’t exist for comparison, but the flighty, almost
frantic pace of the thing – the jumps in time, the characters just plain conveniently
turning up when they’re needed – do point to a kind of “Oh crumbs, how do I
stick this together?” Which isn’t hard to believe.
It never feels rushed in the way
a lot of other Virgin books do, i.e. changing tracks every half a page to spuriously
try and get a bit of momentum going. But it nonetheless gives the impression
that it is summarising, however brilliantly, another book. (I’m just observing, I really don’t mind. This is the only way we were going to get So Vile A Sin, so three cheers for Kate
Orman for completing such an uphill brief. It’s not that easy – I recently read
Kurt Vonnegut’s Timequake, which does a similar thing with his own abandoned
story idea. I spent the whole thing wanting to read the original.)
You know what? I’ll need to read
it again to get all of the nuances out of it. There are tons of characters who
for various reasons (blah blah, see above) don’t stand out as much as they
might. I think that’s excusable. But maybe that’s just me galloping through the
book, perpetually surprised I wasn’t reading something turgidly weighty. Roz’s
life, her contradictions and her secrets are celebrated here, going right back
to Original Sin, and there’s nothing token about her death. (Which is a relief
as, according to Bernice Summerfield: The Inside Story, there were plans to
kill her in her first book!) We’re given plenty of nudges and winks that all might
not be what it appears, and yet some sense of closure is somehow snuck between
them. For what you might think of as a rescue mission or a juggling act by Kate
Orman, that is a real achievement.
With its multifaceted Doctor and
worlds of possibility, it also serendipitously embraces its place as a finale, ending
(if you like) the New Adventures on a sad note, but with love. The Doctor could
be anything and his companions can make their own choices. It’s not a bad
legacy.
8/10
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