Doctor Who: Emotional Chemistry by Simon A. Forward

Doctor Who: Emotional Chemistry Reviews

• 
  Michael Battaglia

  While "Emotional Chemistry" is indeed a striking title, by not calling the book "Love Will Set the World on Fire", they really missed an opportunity to capture the market of all those romance novel readers who don't check what a book is about before they buy it. It's an untapped bonanza. Fortunately the book makes up for not giving us the steamiest of titles with a plot and setting that offers us something resembling a challenge for once, along with a few breaks from the tried and true.
  
  In the course of an investigation, the Doctor, Trix and Fitz wind up separated in an explosion and find themselves in different time zones. The Doctor winds up in the year 5000 and change with a soldier turned art thief, Fitz stays put and gets interrogated by an increasingly exasperated Russian general, while Trix gets to cause chaos pretty much wherever she goes, one of those places being 19th century Russian right before Napoleon marches into town, where a beautiful Russian can kiss everyone back to health. If you don't think this all connects at some point, you must be new to "Doctor Who".
  
  I remember Forward's first novel "Drift" as one that showed promise but probably needed to wait for his ambition to catch up with his talent. Even so, his talent was evident then and it appears that all he needed was a bit more seasoning. While this one isn't one of the game-changing masterpieces, it is one of those fine second-tier books that should be what makes up the bulk of the line.
  
  Often it's not one thing that makes these books go well but a bunch of little things done right that all add up. Here, Forward takes a few storytelling risks that pay off, one of which is separating the main cast for the bulk of the novel and by separating, both in the physical and temporal senses. To make this work and give the impression that it's all happening simultaneously, he flips back and forth from plot to plot like a sugar addicted toddler, managing to keep the plots constantly moving without giving us whiplash. The sections are short and there are times when you wish he'd spend a little more time before racing off to the next occurrence but the end result is not only making the book a page turner but also making it reward close reading. Most of the lesser "Who" novels I can take knock off in a couple of hours, while this one required a bit more intense study to make sure I had everything straight. And yet, it wasn't a chore.
  
  Part of this is helped by giving us interesting supporting characters. Most of the TV episodes that don't have world shattering premises live or die based on the people who aren't the Doctor and company. A good writer makes them come to life and thus brings the world to life, a feat that isn't necessarily easy to do. They exist as partners in the plot, capable of carrying scenes by themselves, whether it's Colonel Bugayev trying to piece together what the heck just happened or Razum Kinzhal outthinking everyone in the 51st century scenes, you get the sense of a whole series of moving parts that keep moving even when the focus isn't on them and the Doctor isn't in the room. It amplifies the effect of the Doctor, showing how he can push a balanced system out of whack, whether he intends to or not.
  
  What gets me is how sly the plot is. There's a villain but he's more a means to an end and not the real threat, dangerous as he is. He's another link in the complexity, more catalyst than climax. The world is threatened but for once not from crazy generals or world-conquering aliens but by a mystery with an aura of strangeness to it, the components of the solution but only brought together by the Doctor and a little bit of luck, which is how it should be. For the first time in a while aliens are treated as great unknowns and not murdering psychopaths or warmongering fools, bringing back that sense of fairy tale myth that works best in the Eighth Doctor adventures (and really nowhere else). The Doctor doesn't have to fight anyone as much as stop something from happening, giving him a chance to puzzle out and solve, and that sleight of hand isn't what we commonly see in the "Who" books, but it's certainly welcome.
  
  This is also our first real run of the new TARDIS crew, and while I'm pretty sure I won't like them as much as the Doctor/Fitz/Anji combo, it does have its moments. Fitz remains the unsung hero in the "Who" canon, the cowardly hero, the Jamie to this Doctor, and seeing him alone reminds us of what he's brought to the range and how different it would have all been without him. Trix I'm not as sold on yet, she's given more chance to act and make an impression here but it's hard to see what she's doing with these people. She's not altruistic (but the Doctor seems bent on teaching her how to be) and while the dilemmas in this novel appeal more to her special skillset as opposed to Anji's, beyond saving her own skin and continued survival. she's not making much of a case (although there's a hint that she's trying to prove to the Doctor she's not all shallow). But she likes the edge that Compassion brought with her, the balance of someone who isn't quite in tune with the Doctor but willing to go along anyway.
  
  Still, Forward gets so much right here that even the lapses are forgivable. And the novel isn't perfect. For one, the resolution lacks any kind of impact at all and some of the "rules" seems easily broken (Aphrodite claims she can't go to the times of her parents, but, um, isn't one of those 19th century Russia?). The novel is a twisty, entertaining affair but lacks the emotional gut punch a scenario like this requires to be truly great, a heartstopping sacrifice or insight. We're brought to the lip of it, as several people claim to know the Doctor from old, adding a nice tension to the plot and reminding us of his memory loss. But little is done with it except add some local color (the 51th century scenes do tie in to "The Talons of Weng-Chiang", which is a nice subtle touch), where using that as a springboard to delve into the mystery of the Doctor and give us some revelations into how he works could have taken the book to another level. As it is, the Doctor remains distant as always, the hero we all know and yet someone we're not quite sure we know.
  
  But all the hints that bleed off the page, the little touches and attentions to detail, it shows the work of someone who is capable of conceiving something that isn't standard, of writing odd structures without getting caught up in their own cleverness, of being able to use the background of "Who" without becoming enslaved to the continuity of it, finding new wrinkles to keep it interesting. A good rule of thumb with these is to see which ones work as "Who" novels and which ones work as pure novels. This one is more the latter than the former. Congratulations, you've made your name worth paying attention to.
• 
  Mikey

  Overall, a pretty good story all round. Things get a tad confusing with all the different timey-wimey(tm) shenanigans, and I feel that some of the resolution does come across fairly rushed but yeah, I still really liked it.
  
  We get a pretty interesting love story, surrounded by some great dark stuff that's explored very well. The character stuff admittedly occasionally slips and some of the Characters of the Week can be a bit grating, and while Trix gets a fair amount to do it kind of feels that the writers haven't really talked enough about what exactly to do with her, so it mostly comes down to her fulfilling whatever role she needs to for the sake of progressing a plot. I mean, it works, I guess, but it would be nice to maybe pin down who Trix is just a bit more in future beyond wearing disguises and being adaptable.
• 
  Nicholas Whyte

  
  https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/emotional-chemistry-by-simon-forward/
  
  Part of it is set in the year 2024 in Russia, where the Doctor’s companion Fitz Kreiner finds himself isolated while the Doctor and the other companion Trix McMillan zoom off to the year 5000 and to 1812 respectively. To be honest there is little here to differentiate the Russia of 2024 from the Russia of 2002 when the book was written, and if it weren’t for the back cover explicitly mentioning 2024 you would tend to think it was set in or very soon after the year of publication. I’m afraid I was not terribly excited by the plot, with a McGuffin and a time-travelling entity looking for it, but there are some pleasing references to Magnus Greel from The Talons of Weng-Chiang.
• 
  Maya Panika

  I’ve now read most of the EDA’s; some have been good, some have been excellent and some just don’t work for me - Emotional Chemistry is one of the latter.
  
  The plot is all, here, and it’s a tale stretched thin, across three time zones - which is, of course, a staple of Who-fic and not to be grumbled at, but in this story, each bit of the tale seems far too short, so that the story never gains any momentum making the style annoyingly choppy.
  
  There are far too many characters and this, coupled with the complex, three-pronged plot, means you never get to know any of them well. The original figures get all the love, there’s just not enough Doctor and Fitz and even Trix – who's new, we need to get to know her - none of them get any flesh on their bones. The Doctor felt the least important of all, he seemed tacked on, an afterthought. I was left with the distinct impression that the author wanted to write a novel about Aphrodite and her Sisters Across Time but was forced into writing a Who book instead, had tried to shoehorn The Doctor and his companions into his concept and didn't do it well.
  
  It just didn’t work, not for me. I like The Doctor and Fitz, I needed much more of them in my EDAs and what you got here instead didn’t make up for the lack.
  
• 
  Adam Highway

  I’m incredibly fortunate to be able to call Simon Forward a friend. That friendship arose quite a number of years after I first read this, and this novel is why I was so gasted in my flabber when we first interacted - it’s a beautiful, clever, witty, funny, technically and artistically well executed piece of writing, and I was in awe when first I read it. Timey-wimey before that was a thing, it straddles (at least) three distinct epochs and draws those time periods so incredibly well you feel you’re living there. Like all good stories it’s a beginning, middle and end, and like all good *Doctor Who* stories they don’t necessarily occur in that order.
  
  Every single character feels real, and fully fleshed out. You care about the vast majority, and revile those couple of villains whose actions and motivations are so incredibly plausible and real you almost feel dirty for understanding them. This is high art masquerading as sci-fi.
  
  Talk about having big, expansive goals and fucking nailing it.
• 
  Nakaya

  I'm one of those people that never lets a book go unfinished, and this one made me regret it. Very bluntly put, there were a lot of things going on - very few of which managed to actually hold my interest, and there were a lot of characters - none of which I found myself particularly invested in, strangely including even the Doctor. On top of that, the author seemingly couldn't stop himself in writing very embellished descriptions of all the women, constantly drawing attention to their figures and their beauty (I exclude Aphrodite in that because, fair enough, it's what you'd expect for the goddess of love and beauty). It became increasingly more tedious to read.
• 
  Gary Ruddock

  Intriguing.