Doctor Who: The Placebo Effect: Amazon.co.uk: Gary Russell: Books

Amazon.co.uk Review

Placebo Effect has at its heart an interesting idea: the insectoid Wirrrn (from the 1975 story "The Ark in Space", with spelling taken from Ian Marter's "Target" novelisation of that same story) want to use athletes visiting an artificial planetoid for the 3999 Olympic Games to carry their spawn out to other worlds. What is confusing is how long the Wirrrn have been inside the planetoid in the first place and how they managed to develop pills which in the first part of the book are meant to inhibit full conversion into a Wirrrn larva but in the later stages seem to do exactly the opposite (humans touched by Wirrrn larvae turn into Wirrrn themselves). Maybe they had human operatives working with them all along, but there's no sign of them, and in any case, how did they avoid detection when there would have been no way to prevent infected humans from turning into Wirrrn too quickly?

In addition to the Wirrrn/Olympics plot there is a lot of material about Foamasi operatives (from the 1980 story "The Leisure Hive") and their various Lodges which seems to have been imported from another novel entirely as it has little or nothing to do with the main Wirrrn story.

On top of all this there are some Teknix (from 1965/66's "The Daleks' Master Plan") roaming about, not to mention Stacey and Ssard from the Paul McGann Radio Times comic strip of 1996 and a cornucopia of alien races lifted from the pages of TV Comic, the Doctor Who annuals and several of the Virgin novels. If there's one thing Gary Russell likes, it's continuity. Add to this strange mix some operatives from the SSS and a bizarrely over-the-top ruler of Auckland with her foppish attendants, and you have a book buried under its own ideas, with the plot--what there is of it--struggling to surface.

The enthusiasm of the writing carries Placebo Effect along, and aside from a period of tedium in the middle of the book it's all good fun. It climaxes with a riot of randomly exploding athletes and a hasty conclusion with no-one knowing quite whether the others are human, alien, Foamasi pretending to be human, Wirrrn pretending to be human or even Wirrrn pretending to be Foamasi pretending to be human. Though not breath-taking it's a strangely enjoyable novel. --David J Howe

Product Description

It is 3999. An artificial planetoid, Micawber's World, is hosting the intergalactic Olympic Games, and athletes from all the worlds in the Galactic Federation are arriving to take part. But when the Doctor and Sam arrive, the murders soon begin.

The Doctor finds himself drafted in to examine some bizarre new drugs that claim to enhance the natural potential of the competing athletes. But what is their real purpose? Why are members of the Security Forces disappearing randomly? And just why is Chase Carrington, manufacturer of the drug, so protective of his company's secrets?

Watching and waiting, at the very heart of Micawber's World, are a race of parasites the Doctor has fought before. The Wirrrn have come to the Milky Way from Andromeda, determined to spread their seed throughout a whole new galaxy, and it seems to Sam that the Doctor's hands are too full to pay their threat full attention.

This is another in the series of adventures featuring the 8th Doctor and Sam which reintroduces the Wirrrn from the 1975 television adventure The Ark in Space.

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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful

Great fun!! 24 May 2001

By A Customer

Format:Paperback

This is a really enjoyable novel which is fun but at the same time quite serious. It's good to see the return of the Wirrrn. The reader is given a very interesting insight into how their hive mind works. The characters are all fleshed out very well and the plot works quite nicely. A highly enjoyable read!

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Doctor Who - The Placebo Effect 30 Jan 2003

By Mr. Derek Pike

A bit of a mess this one. I was looking forward to reading this after the author's introduction, I thought this would be a good traditional Who adventure, but it was just hard work.
I was never a big fan of The Wirrn anyway, but they were a bit more interesting in this adventure. However, this was the only plus point in a story that simply features far too many characters and at least half of them irrelevant. I found The Royal's farcical and the religious cult predictable and annoying. The idea of an intergalactic Olympics has a great deal of potential, but the arena is blown up before any action really kicks off.
As for the Doctor and Sam, once again they are lost in a sea of excess detail. After the revelations of Seeing I, I was expecting some good banter between the reunited pair and some development in their relationship, but this was virtually business as usual, and once again they were split up and Sam becomes involved with another hapless do-gooder, a repetitive feature of Sam's narratives.
Could've been a Gold medal winner but came in as a limping also -ran.

Could have been great...but isn't 21 Sep 2000

By finna

This could have been a really great story; it has several original and exciting concepts at its' heart to make it so-the 3999 intergalactic olympics, a plethora of alien races, and an old enemy lurking mencingly in the background. Unfortunately, for me at least, the book is a very unsatisfying read.There are just too many elements working against it. Too much time is wasted concentating on the Foamasi and their lodges, a strange religious order is included that neither interest nor contribute to the plot, and the Wirrrn in the background are just, well... too much in the background always, so that their effect is pretty much negated. The story simply treads water too often for its' own good, with the main plot becoming so obscured by tedious and irrelevant subplot that by the dull ending you hardly care any more. Not quite as bad an effort as, say, Beltempest, but not really much better either.