Falls the Shadow (New Doctor Who Adventures) [Paperback]

The Doctor and company land in a mysterious house where, as expected, Things Are Not Quite What They Seem. At least, one imagines that they aren't quite what they seem, since it is difficult to describe what it does seem like. It's a house that wouldn't be out of place in an Escher sketch, with rooms and corridors rearranging themselves, stairways that occasionally stretch off into infinity, and a dank, dark cellar full of strange and horrible things. Insane experiments are beginning to take place in the house, experiments which are being observed by unearthly visitors. To say any more would be to wander into spoiler territory, but take my word that it becomes a lot less conventional than the back-cover description would suggest, and a lot stranger. A whole lot stranger.

Some of the thoughts and ideas that constitute this novel almost make it worth reading just by themselves, regardless of anything else that the book succeeds or fails at. The grey man and his people are a fascinating creation, with the grey man himself earning extra praise for being a staggeringly interesting concept (I love how I managed to view him in a completely different light by the end of the story, even while O'Mahony had kept this character absolutely constant throughout). Gabriel and Tanith are marvelous ideas (even if their effectiveness in execution leaves a little to be desired). The settings used aren't exactly unique, but they gain a lot from the excellent descriptions. A few items that should feel tired and worn are instead made bright and enjoyable purely from the writer's skills.

Above all, FALLS THE SHADOW is a book dripping with atmosphere. It's not a happy tale, but the depressive nature never feels gratuitous. It can be a bit overpowering at times, and there may be a few places where the pain and suffering that the characters experience is just a bit too much. Still, it makes for very absorbing reading. The revelations surrounding many of the people (one in particular) are mind-bending and fascinating. They go through hell and back, and I must give a lot of credit for the author managing to make me care about all of the trials and tribulations that he throws at his characters.

And, of course, there are certain flaws, many of which are common to first-time novelists. O'Mahony doesn't quite yet have the knack of moving characters seamlessly around the plot. Many of the attempts to introduce and/or remove people from the story are clumsily done, and, in particular, the way in which the Doctor is separated from the main action feels far too contrived. The ending is also a slight problem. The author has done a great job of making the narrative ease satisfyingly into its conclusion (the last 100 pages or so convey a real sense of impending doom), but not in making the mechanics of the ending seem smooth. I think the conclusion is logical enough on paper, but it seems a bit of a letdown after the amount of build-up that the reader was subjected to.

A flawed work, I still found much to enjoy in FALLS THE SHADOW. A lot of the little subtleties really work, and many times during the read I would stop and just think about something that the author had presented me with. Sometimes what I thought about turned out to be a little shallower than I expected, other times there was indeed some impressive thinking behind the words. In any case, a book that makes me pause and wonder is definitely a good thing, even if it doesn't hold together completely from cover to cover. Not a book to be missed.

(As an aside, the extended length of this book made me hanker for the days of old when Doctor Who novels were published in the length that they needed to be, regardless of their page count. FALLS THE SHADOW is 356 pages long, far above the length of the average book in the series. One imagines that if it were published nowadays, it would contain the same number of words, but they'd be crammed into the 278-page limit via the insanely small text font and margins that made THE ADVENTURESS OF HENRIETTA STREET possible. I don't know if I'd be able to handle FALLS THE SHADOW written in a font that tiny; my eyes would be suffering as much as the characters in the book.)