Well, that was a pleasant surprise. Not a breathtaking surprise, mind you, but a pleasant one.
The BBC books, in trying to avoid the stale “Aliens invade Earth!” formula that the series has returned to way the hell too many times during its history, seem to have developed a formula of their own.
The new formula is set in the future. In space. According to this formula, life in the future, in space, will be very much like it is today. Except with more explosions.
Humanity will live on colony worlds and space stations, few of which appear to have very many ties to other planets or larger political bodies. Despite this, they do not have individual cultures; all humans everywhere—and quite a few aliens—are indistinguishable from the mainstream, middle-class, twentieth century inhabitans of the UK.
Each space station or colony world is divided into at least two factions who are fighting about something. This is a Rule. If the colonists have nothing to fight over, then, by God, they’d better find something, even if it’s only which way to hang the toilet paper.
Periodically, evil monsters show up and kill people. The Doctor stops them.
The Face-Eater follows this entire formula almost to the letter, so I was expecting to hate it. But I didn’t. Unlike many of the EDAs, the story was told with a certain amount of style and intelligence.
The Face-Eater continues some plot threads from the previous book. This startled me. My heart, grown weak from years of poor dietary conditions, nearly could not take the strain.
Sam isn’t certain that she’s free of the nanites who posessed her in Beltempest. She has decided that she needs to “impose her will” and “isolate her centre”. Unfortunately, Imposing Her Will involves exaggerating her most stereotypical mannerisms until she becomes a grotesque charicature of herself. For about the first half of the book, Sam is precisely the annoying little git everyone thinks she is.
Fortunately, once things start happening, she forgets all about her will, which in any case is even more boring than the rest of her. In the latter half of the book, she seems intelligent and competent.
The major characters are okay. This isn’t groundbreaking, character-driven literature, but the most important cast members were reasonably three-dimensional.
The Face-Eater defies The Formula in one aspect—there are some characters who appear to come from cultural backgrounds other than the twentieth-century US or UK. Unfortunately, they’re treated patronizingly. With only one or two exceptions, the people in positions of authority were the US/UK types. Additionally, while the Face-Eater-induced fears experienced by the US/UK characters are believably personal, the more ethnic characters all live in terror of generalized superstitions. Still, I’m happy to see any sign at all that other cultures survive into the future; the last time we had one was Seeing I.
The most memorable thing about the book was the plot twist about halfway through. It could easily have looked like Messingham ran out of ideas and just stuck it in on the spur of the moment; however, he pulled it off.
There’s a scene where Sam is driving a car while a shapeshifter pulls itself onto the back which is very similar to a sequence in “Terminator 2”. I’m embarassed to admit that I’ve seen “Terminator 2”, but someone had to point it out.