JohannesVIII's Doctor Who liveblogs archive: The Banquo Legacy

[Original blog post on Tumblr: September 1st, 2016]

Some highlights of the last EDA I’ve read (The Banquo Legacy).

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

I wanted to like this book, I really did. Its central concept - most of the story being narrated by two persons who know absolutely nothing about the main characters - is brilliant: imagine an entire episode told from the point of view of a random extra! Imagine Marco Polo being told entirely from Ping Cho’s point of view. Or The Daemons from Miss Hawthorne‘s perspective.

See, the problem is not how this story is told. It’s the story itself. The murder mystery is decent, but its buildup is too slow, its twists are too predictable, its resolution is way too long and its characters are forgettable for the most part.

One particular scene made my hair stand on end, Fitz’s antics when the team arrives in the story are very entertaining, and there’s one twist I didn’t see coming. But apart from that, this is a rather frustrating book. 5,5/10

WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH THE CHAPTERS

Oh so that’s why the book is titled like that.

...................okay

Same, Fitz. Same.

Oh shit what’s going on did the Time Lords catch them

Well we’re off to a good start, apparently.

Okay so let me get this clear. There’s probably enemies outside waiting to catch all of you, Compassion has stolen the body of a different person, and you have no idea what’s outside.

Great.

Tell that to Captain Jack, Doctor

What

Okay, so we’re switching to a different type of narration and a different font. Uh. Why not.

AGAIN??

Hey Lovecraft references, hello, how are you, I thought The Taking of Planet Five would be the last time we would see you but I was wrong

Also I don’t want to alarm you, Hopkinson, but that book doesn’t exist

Okay so Simpson the butler is slightly creepy

Is that when Compassion crashlanded? Does that mean the team is finally going to arrive in the plot? Because this is very slow.

This is all well and good but can we please have an actual plot because 1/5 of the book has gone by already

YES GOOD AT LEAST TEAM TARDIS IS THERE AT LAST

“It was as if he had dressed for a formal occasion ten years ago and never bothered to change”

Will I ever get tired of all the different descriptions of Eight in these books

Probably not

I’M HOWLING

STOP IT FITZ I CAN’T BREATHE

Okay so as you can see, Fitz pretending to be a monocled German scientist is the best thing that happened in this book so far by a mile

Stop spoiling everyone Doctor

I...I’m gonna make an assumption and just assume the experiment failed

As much as I love the idea of a story being told from the point of view of extras, it could be exploited better. Seymour!Compassion should look a lot more suspicious than that to a random person.

Eight is reading books in the dark and scaring the crap out of Stratford

And also the most non-existent.Also nice reference to Braxiatel there.

Haha I like that. Doctor Who technobabble put on the same level as pseudo-science from before 1900.

I SEE WHAT YOU DID THERE

You’re only telling them that because you’re a creepy f█cker Simpson

WELL AND THIS ISN’T SUSPICIOUS AT ALL

Meanwhile Fitz is an anxious little shit whenever Eight isn’t around and to be honest it’s very endearing somehow

HAHAHA

TOO SOON

I KNOW IT’S BEEN TEN BOOKS BUT STILL TOO SOON

Fitz is so worried about the Doctor that I’m started to be a bit worried too

OKAY OKAY STOP THE PRESSES STOP EVERYTHING THE CORPSE HASN’T BEEN STOLEN, THE CORPSE ISN’T A CORPSE & THAT'S IT

THAT TWIST IS OLD AS BALLS, DON’T ACT LIKE IT ISN’T

“He’s annoying and a pain sometimes but you soon miss him when he’s not there”

My heart didn’t need this

Well what a surprise right

Now they think the Doctor is the murderer, obviously.

Simpson’s excuse for spying on people is always “oh I was looking for herbs” and it’s starting to look like a running gag

I’m starting to think the Doctor found who the murderer was a bit ahead of everyone else

Okay so the Doctor clearly faked his own death but still, Fitz’s reaction is honestly destroying me a little bit

Not okay

THE CORPSE IS THE MURDERER I TOLD YOU GODDAMMIT

I laughed

And now there’s two more murders and IT’S THE F█CKING CORPSE, THAT TWIST IS INCREDIBLY OLD PLEASE HURRY UP

OR IT WAS THE CORPSE

FINALLY A GOOD IDEA AND THAT IDEA CAME FROM FITZ, OF ALL PEOPLE

Ok so to be fair, this scene is absolutely nerve-wracking because I hate big old houses for reasons that would be too long to explain here and I can totally empathise with that guy’s fear

That’s-

Probably not Hopkinson and I’m not gonna lie, my stomach sank

That scene is honestly terrifying and the hair on my arms is standing on end

GOD F█CKING DAMMIT DOCTOR YOU SCARED THE CRAP OUT OF ME HOLY SHIT DON’T DO THAT AGAIN

OH F█CK OH SHIT OH DAMN I TOLD YOU IT WAS THE DAMN CORPSE

HOLY SHIT SIMPSON IS A TIME LORD AGENT THAT EXPLAINS A LOTI DIDN’T SEE THAT TWIST COMING

At least Simpson has his priorities in order

Yes we know who the killer is but there’s still quite a lot of pages left and a lot of unused plot points (like the Necronomicon and Simpson’s presence) so hurry up