Casualties of War

[Original blog post on Tumblr: October 13th, 2016]

Some highlights of the last EDA I’ve read (Casualties of War).

I took these screens while reading, along with my reactions. As usual, this is full of spoilers.

So, World War One, mental patients, and necromancy. Oh, and a doomed one-sided love story. If that sounds like the perfect recipe for a disaster of epic proportions to you, well, that’s also what I thought. But I was wrong. This is not a bad book by any mean. Well, yes, there’s a couple of odd sentences here and there, and actions scenes seem to be the writer’s achilles heel - but I enjoyed reading this.

Maybe my appreciation of this story is enhanced by how desesperately manichean the last book about a real life war was (Autumn Mist), and also by how insulting the last book with mental patients was (The Taint). Casualties of War is way more mature than these two books, which isn’t a small feat since it’s apparently Steve Emmerson’s debut novel. Well played, sir. 7,5/10

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Okay. So we’re like 9 months before the end of World War One. With traumatised soldiers.

Considering how cringy some previous books with similar themes were, I’m bracing myself for disaster.

...okay so this book is going to hurt

You know I’m French, right

How do I put this

When I was twelve years old, the school sent us on a trip to Verdun, to see the ossuary, where you can read the same family names four or five or sometimes seven or ten times because some families lost all their sons in the trenches, and we saw a fort where the guide dropped a big metal plaque on the floor to give us an idea of how loud a bomb could have been for the guys inside the fort, and the sound left my ears ringing for an hour despite the fact the guide told us the actual bombs were louder, and we saw places where, at the end of WW1, the ground was so full of bomb craters, bits of people and unexploded stuff that they just decided to plant trees instead of building or cultivating anything on top of that

And my grandfather told me about this ancestor who came back home only to die a few months later because of the delayed impact of some combat gas on his lungs, and that other one who received an army certificate after he “died with honor”

And he talked about all the weird superstitions his father and grandfathers told him about the war, the little yellow and red dolls some people were wearing to protect themselves against the bombs, the soldiers who were hiding in craters because someone had told them bombs never fell twice in the exact same place, the myth saying you should never light more than two cigarettes with the same match or the youngest soldier in your group would be the next to die

Endless stories about people surviving with bits of their faces missing, and there was so many of them that a specific name was invented for them

Twelve-years-old me was completely terrified by that war and by everything anybody told me about it

So I’m afraid this book is going to hit a bit too close to home. But maybe not.

Let’s proceed.

Haha Eight continues to be part charming part terrifying, good

Who the f█ck digs a trench in the middle of a field for no reason I mean that’s a lot of work

That’s... unexpectedly close to the truth, actually.

I snorted

I just realised two things.

One: Eight has to transport his dead TARDIS everywhere he goes now, and it’s a lot less practical than a small cube, like it was before.

Two: We’re in 1918, and he apparently still managed to avoid being enrolled in the army. I’d like to know how he did that.

Oooooh no. Mary no. Don’t have a crush on him, this cannot end well

Also he’s not interested

HAHAHA mood whiplash for the win

Hmmm nope. No. Nope. No no.

Doctor I’m glad you have a chance to do a Sherlock Holmes routine but could you not shove dead bits of people in the face of living people while doing so

I’m having Feelings about Emma the nurse and Corey the patient

Well that wasn’t your worst introduction ever, Doctor, but still, I laughed

Doctor no

Ace was clearly a bad influence on you, wasn’t she

That last sentence is marvelously terrible and I’m cackling.

I must admit I love how Eight interacts with the patients.

EXTREMELY RELATABLE, LIKE, DAMN

Eight finds the ominous clay sculpture made by the patients during their therapy sessions “very pretty”

Not screening this whole terrifying flashback, but boy am I glad this book doesn’t demonize German soldiers, that is always a good thing.

Uh. Was the TARDIS trying to tell her something?

Ahhhhh Eight picking flowers oh no cute

Oh no

I just remembered a very accurate description of Eight I’ve read who knows where, and it went a bit like “a character who walks over three corpses to cry over a dead butterfly”, so... yeah, accurate

HAHAHAF█CK THAT HURT

Eight has so much empathy for Corey and I love these little scenes

You don’t have any money

Eight please try to follow the conversation

Honestly most of the dialogue between Mary and Eight is great

Hmmmm

HMMMM

I have no words

HEY SO MARY IS HONESTLY A VERY PERCEPTIVE CHARACTER

Except about the fact that her crush is completely one-sided

In which Mary realises the Doctor is also just a little bit scary

In which EVERYONE realises the Doctor is a little bit scary

͍̪̺̘

I’M HOWLING THE PRIEST WANTED TO COMPARE HIM TO FRANKENSTEIN AND EIGHT THOUGHT HE WAS JUST A FAN OF THE BOOK

Mary stop, you’re only hurting yourself

Oh no cute

Also hell yeah hot milk and honey that’s my favorite cold weather drink

Why do I get the feeling I’ll have many more occasions to use this gif during this arc

AZSDFGHJK COREY IS DEAD NOOOO I LIKED COREY

Thank you for your precious contribution Charlie Skaggs

I laughed out loud

Oh no f█ck what the hell

You could also tell her you can’t remember shit, Doctor, that would solve the problem instantly

MARY STOP FLIRTING WITH HIM EVERY SINGLE ONE OF YOUR ATTEMPTS FLIES TWENTY THOUSAND LEAGUES ABOVE HIS HEAD

Ooooooh. Interesting.

Damn. That was brutal.

I’m starting to wonder if there’s more to this than a basic zombie story, though.

NURSE DOROTHY, NO

EXTREMELY RELATABLE²

The f█ck is wrong with Banham?

Either nothing particularly strange happened to him between this book and The Burning, or more stuff like that happened and he simply thought it was the most interesting case.

Admit it Doctor you have no plan whatsoever

So far the plot is pretty basic but the character moments are great.

Meanwhile Davies the traumatised soldier decided to guard the hospital even though he’s a patient and he does a better job than the staff

Ooooh, Davies was friends with a German prisoner? I really like that.

I love this dialogue too.

OH SHIT OH NO HIS FRIEND WAS KILLED

This is way more interesting than a basic zombie plot and I approve.

OH. Oh. Mary Minett is a synesthete. Oh shit this is so cool.

Nobody can turn back time, take that, TV movie

This is making me emotional for a multitude of reasons please stop

I said “stop”, not “add even more reasons to make me cry”

ADFGHFHGJLHLJKLJ MARY I TOLD YOU HE WASN’T INTERESTED

“infuriatingly cheerful”

He didn’t even notice oh my god

[insert clever Ministry of Chance joke here]

Damn Mary keeps getting better and better

Oh shit

You know what, I’ve already made a plethora of Silent Hill references in the previous review and even one in the present one already, but these two books are way to Silent-Hillish to do otherwise.

I laughed out loud and I have no idea if that was the author’s intention

Still laughing at the Doctor’s one track mind

BEST DIALOGUE IN THE BOOK EVERYONE GO HOME

That was more effective than a jumpscare tbh

Fitz is also a bad influence on you Doctor

So they aren’t zombies. And they aren’t entirely real. Interesting.

I......I......

Okay so, yeah, this is the second profoundly Silent-Hillish book in a row, then. The traumas of a whole community literally manifesting themselves as monsters. Probably based on actual dead soldiers. Damn.

DAMN.

Oooooh. And they’re fueled by the “golems” created by the patients during their therapy sessions, too.

I think we can add I.M.Foreman to the list of people who had a bad influence on the Doctor

DAMN IT THERE’S EVEN MAGIC, THE ONLY THING MISSING IS AN OTHERWORLD, AND MAYBE DAHLIA

GET MARY OUT OF HERE

F█CK I JUST REALISED THAT CHARACTER WAS CALLED “MARY” AND I KEEP MAKING SILENT HILL REFERENCES PLEASE STOP

Banham, I’ve read Revolution Man, and he totally would

...Is that what I think it is.

GUYS STOP

I WAS ONLY JOKING ABOUT THE OTHERWORLD THING

HOLY SHIT

ASDFGHJK EIGHT WHAT ARE YOU DOING COME BACK

Oh. OH. Okay.

That was a pretty good resolution, but it was also slightly too easy.

EIGHT IS STILL IN THE DAMN PLACE GET HIM OUT OF HERE

You’re not fine you liar

I’d suggest a complete medical checkup but a good bath is also a nice choice

Oh nooooo

Thank you, Mary Minett, for being an excellent character and a great human being. But that last part put something in my eyes and I need to get it out.

Okay, I laughed.

Godspeed, Steve Emmerson.