Class - from the Universe of Doctor Who: What She Does Next Will Astound You

It was with a heavy heart that I picked up this book to read - as I knew this was going to be my last chance to spend time with April, Ram, Tanya, Charlie, Matteusz, and of course, the devilishly sadistic Quill.  The television show on BBC was short-lived (only one season), but it showed so much potential, had some excellent (and good looking!) actors, and was yet another spin-off from Doctor Who that expanded on that growing universe of characters and shows.  Now, after having read the previous two books, I picked up the third book, ready to enjoy this last bit of time with the stars of Class.

Sadly, What She Does Next Will Astound You fell flat, and it was a disheartening final farewell to the show and its characters.  Author James Goss has written a lot of BBC material - from Doctor Who to Torchwood to Being Human.  He has even written a fairly decent audio story for the Dark Shadows series from Big Finish Productions.  So I really expected more from the story than what I got.

The premise was not altogether bad.  Students have been disappearing from Coal Hill School, but everyone is so caught up with the crazy internet challenges to help stop the disease known as Skandis that no one notices.  No one except April.  She realizes something is off.  The oh-so-handsome Seraphin, who has a vlog online that urges people to take up the challenges, seems to be placing hidden messages in his videos.  And the teenagers who are doing the challenges are becoming more and more reckless, with some getting seriously injured and others putting their lives in mortal danger - all for what?  To help raise money for a disease no one has heard of?  When April gets frustrated that no one is listening to her, she places her own online challenge - and ends up in the Void.

What is the Void?  Well, it's someplace.  A place with white walls, white floors, white furniture, white ceilings, where the doors blend into the walls, and it is challenging to find your way around.  What is more challenging, though, is the truth - the truth about Skandis.  The truth about the internet challenges.  And the truth about where those teenagers have been disappearing and what they are being forced to do.

Sounds interesting, right?  Well, it might have been, if it had been written as a normal prose novel.  Instead, for reasons unknown (perhaps because he thought it might appeal to the teenage audience?), Goss decided to tell the story in an unusual way - a sort-of stream-of-consciousness, changing points of view, sudden interjections of news flashes or memory blips, every day conversational style of writing.  And for me, this did not work at all.  It is not until page 119, when April wakes up in the Void, that the writing begins to be a little more straightforward storytelling.  The first 118 pages, though, jump around so much, it is jarring, in places disjointed, and quite frankly, annoying.  It does nothing to provide characterization, it doesn't garner any sympathy for any of the characters, and it leaves the reader (well, at least me) feeling rather bored.

Which is not the way I wanted to feel reading the final story of Class and its characters.

But, it is what it is, and so the final tale does little to build any of the relationship among the characters, provides no character growth for any of them, and while it was admittedly fun to watch Quill enter the Void to discover she is able to kill the enemy (she still can't kill Charlie, though), which she then does with relish and enjoyment, by the end of the book, I was left only with a feeling that I was glad it was over.  It's a shame that this is my final farewell to Charlie and the gang, but at least I have the DVDs I can go back and watch again - - and who knows, maybe BBC will be brave enough to allow authors to venture into the world of Class again in the future and take Quill and her students beyond that first season, so we can see what happens next (although I just discovered that Big Finish Productions has gained the rights to do audio stories to continue the adventures!  Yay!!!)

RATING:  5 bowls of bland porridge-stew out of 10 for pointing out that society's addiction to the internet and technology could very well be their downfall.

Class - from the Universe of Doctor Who: Joyride

This second Class novel, based on the television spin-off from Doctor Who, has an interesting premise.  What if you found a machine that would allow its users to switch bodies with someone else?  And what if you were able to use this machine to start a business, allowing those willing to pay a high price to use this chance to inhabit another person's body and basically do anything you've ever fantasized but were too afraid to do - such as take ballet lesson...or drive a car at the highest speed possible...or jump off the roof of a school...or set fire to a house while a family is still inside...?

Joyride answers that question when a man down on his luck happens across an alien being who seeks his help - only, instead of helping the alien, he kills him and all of his brethren and turns the alien technology into a profit-making business.  April, Tayna, Charlie, Matteusz, Ram, and Quill get drawn into the mix when one of their classmates is killed when she crashes her car into the front of a store after a wild joyride and another burns down his home while his family is inside - but claims he has no memory of it.

And then Ram wakes up in the body of a middle-aged, overweight man.

Author Guy Adams provides a story that is definitely worthy of the television show, and based on comments made by the characters throughout the story, it is set sometime in the middle of the season - before Ram and April hooked up, yet after their April takes half the heart of the shadow king. I think he captures the characters nicely, particularly the naivety of Charlie, the vileness of Quill, the shyness of April, and the energy of Tanya.  And to say there is only one villain in the story wouldn't quite capture the story - because let's face it: who's the greater villain?  The man who gives you the opportunity to kill others, or the one who actually switches bodies so that he can kill and get away with it?

And quite frankly, not all the body-switchers are pure villains.  The one man, with whom Ram is switched, doesn't actually switch bodies to commit a crime; rather, he switches bodies so that he can finally be himself and experience a life he only imagined but was forced to hide by his family and society's dictates.

Adams tells the story through the eyes of quite a few of the characters, and it's interesting to see how each of them view each other - particularly Quill and Charlie.  Poor Matteusz is barely in the story, which is a shame, as he was one of my favorite characters in the show, albeit underused there, too. I also liked what he did with Ram's character - don't want to give away anything, but suffice to say, this could easily be seen as a turning point for Ram, which could have easily integrated into the television program to show how Ram gradually grows as a character.

Now, the one thing I did not like, and quite frankly it bugged me for more than half the book (until I got so involved with the story that I didn't notice it anymore), is the use of present tense.  I've said it before (with the Curious Cat Spy Club series and the Samantha Wolf series), but what is it with this sudden fad of authors writing their books in the present tense?  For me, I find it awkward to read, and it always takes me a bit to settle into the book, because my mind constantly wants to change every verb into past tense.  Present tense does not make the story happen "now" for me - rather, it is jarring enough that it actually takes me out of the story and forces me to concentrate harder to read it.

With this second book in the series read, that only leaves one more Class book to go (it comes out here in the States in March 2018) - after that, with no more show and no more books, Class reaches the end of its short run. Which is sad, because it was a well-written show with great actors, interesting characters and stories, and a whole world of possibilities.

RATING:  8 pyramid-shaped pieces of alien technology out of 10 for expanding the Class universe just a bit farther and proving these characters have many more stories to tell!

Class - from the Universe of Doctor Who: The Stone House

Class has been an unexpected surprise for me.  The television show was announced some time ago, back when Clara was the companion of Doctor Who, but it never seemed to see the light of day.  Well, apparently it aired overseas last year, but it never made it to America until just recently.  In the meanwhile, I've heard reports that BBC is not picking up the show for a second season, which is truly sad - despite how dark it can be sometimes, the show has some really good stories, some very strong characters (both likable and not-so-likable), and a fantastic underlying thread of a subplots.

Then along comes The Stone House, the first novel based on the Class television show published here in the States.

Not exactly sure where this tale fits in with the television timeline, but the author, A.K. Benedict, manages to capture the essence of these characters pretty much dead-on.  Miss Quill, Charlie, Matteusz, April, Ram, and Tanya all read exactly as they act on the show.  While the whole "present tense" thing was a bit annoying (is this the next up-and-coming thing for writers to do?  write in the present tense, rather than past? it is not something I enjoy reading, but just like the switch to first person tales, I suppose it is something I will get used to as more and more authors do it), the story itself overcame that obstacle.

The stone house at the end of the street sits quietly.  No one has really noticed it.  Until the day Tanya finds herself walking past it.  And sees the face in the window. The face of a girl.  A girl crying out for help.  Who is she?  And why is it that Tanya feels a need - no, make that a NEED - to go back to the house?  To go into the house and help that girl.  A girl who doesn't seem to be there.

Miss Quill and her friends are somewhat skeptic of Tanya's request that they help her investigate the house.  But as with anything set in the Doctor Who universe, nothing is quite what it seems.  The house seems to bring nightmares to life.  Whether's it's Tanya's fear of never having her mother's approval, or Charlie's fear of being thrust back into the war that devastated his planet - the house seems to give those fears form and make them real.  But what's worse is what isn't seen.  Tanya knows there is a girl in that house.  Is it Alice, the former owner, who died at a ripe old age?  Is it a kidnapped young girl being held against her will?  Or is it something else?

There is plenty of mystery in this book, as well as good ol' sci-fi jumps and scares as the classmates realize that Tanya is on to something, and the danger this house represents could be a danger to the world at large - and only they can stop it.  But can they stop it before the developer who has purchased the property comes in and demolishes the old stone house?  And just what happened to Tanya...?

Benedict gives a bit of a lengthy build-up, but it's well worth the payoff in the end.  And while the overall mystery does have resolution, there is a subplot that is left unanswered, giving it some real-world feel (since, let's face it, every mystery in the real world doesn't get a clean-cut resolution, does it?).

Fans of the Class television show will enjoy this novel, and since it doesn't appear we'll be getting any more seasons from BBC, this and the next two books will have to serve to quench our thirst for more stories of these characters.

RATING:  7 white bone spiders out of 10 for expanding the Class universe, even if just a tiny bit.