The Infinity Race

Some highlights of the latest EDA I’ve read (The Infinity Race).

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

 

Well, folks, this is it. It took us eight years, and it was quite a journey, but here we are. We've found it at last. It's finally there.

The worst book in this series.

I'm not saying this lightly either. I had to pull out my spreadsheet where I keep track of every rating I've ever given to a Doctor Who story (thank the autism, I guess) and I'm staring at this list right now, and there is nothing I could place lower than this one. I gave The Space Age a 1/10 for being boring as hell, and yet, it was better written than this one. It's clearly worse than War of the Daleks and its 1,5/10. God, The Slow Empire, with its out of character regulars and its plot based on a pun, looks like a masterpiece next to The Infinity Race. And I gave that one 2,5/10.

The prose is beyond awful, the regulars are either out of character or complete caricatures of themselves, the plot is boring and its rare decent ideas aren't fully exploited, there's "native" locals speaking in baby talk, there's a couple of weirdly sexist bits, and it's constantly breaking the fourth wall for no reason.

I've heard the next book is pretty bad too, but surely it can't be worse than this. Surely we've reached rock bottom. 1/10

 

Oh, that's a pretty great first sentence. A boat in the TARDIS?

You're a coward and you already ruined that first sentence.

 sdfghjjhgfds good description, Eight

Can't put my finger on what's wrong with the style but something is definitely wrong. It kinda reminds me of the kind of SCP Tale first drafts some people ask me to proofread and edit on SCP-FR. And most of those are written by teenagers. Hm.

Speedrunning the description of each Doctor

Brand new sentences

I kinda like the idea of a species (or is Bloom human? Not sure yet) thinking like this.

I'm bad at physics so I have no idea how that could work

An ocean planet with a giant boat race sounds interesting, at least

Well, that's a clunky sentence if I ever saw one

How boring of you

My brain automatically added a "dun dun duuuuunnnnnnn" effect. That guy is pretty cartoonishly ominous.

Uh, not really, no

Why is Anji so bitter in this book

Idiots lol

SHOTS FIRED

As long as no one's getting sea-sick

Must be tuesday

Well that didn't take long

Is it just me or are the regulars either a bit out of character or caricatures of themselves

INSTANT KARMA

Ok now that's the Anji I know and love

SHOTS SHOTS SHOTS SHOTS SHOTS SHOTS

That reminds me of Earthworld. "Fitz trying to look cool and his coat getting destroyed" should be a recurring joke of the series ngl

Ok that was kinda cute

I'm sorry we seem to have landed in Man of Medan by accident

Ok seriously, why is it written so badly

Where's the editor

What's going on

GOD I WISH

 I can FEEL the author panicking and trying to find an excuse so they can stay on that planet

Ok so why does the narrator keep changing and breaking the fourth wall

Great description, thank you Fitz

I mean it was a nuclear explosion, soooooo

 Time for an Aldebaran reference, I think

There you go!

Now we have sea monsters!

I'd rather deal with sea monsters than prejudiced assholes

Meanwhile here's Eight complaining about not being threatened enough

Everytime this guy is there I want to say DUN DUN DUNNNNN.

He's Sabbath isn't he

Why are they constantly addressing the reader? It's so distracting

STOP DOING THAT

Ok that was mildly funny

Interesting?

Yeah ok Sabbath is De Vries, there's no way it's not him

The author trying to convince his editor

Bad writing, but still funny

STOP DOING THAT, FUCK OFF

A description of the planet. A bit Stoneship-like but that's the Myst fan talking.

Say what

Might be Tuesday again

Bloom's internal monologue is a bit annoying because it's formatted in quasi baby talk

Zombie surprise in 3, 2, 1

Called it

Sabbath is really written like a pantomime villain in this one isn't he

Yes. And I wish you'd stop

Clunky

And also it's not very hard to tower over Eight

Kind of a Scooby Doo plot

Goddddd the writing is so fucking bad

Who are you and what have you done to Anji

Ok that was mildly funny

Me @ Simon Messingham

Mr Messingham, this is a book, not the news

Ok ok that one was funny too

sdfghjkljhgf

At least this author didn't forget about Eight's claustrophobia

Oh the crystals show parallel universes, don't they?

This is pretty cool

Well you know what they say, doomed yacht once, shame on you, doomed yacht twice, shame on Fitz

So Fitz think cliché villains are sexy, apparently

I'll make a note not to ever mention the Master around him

Oh this book said ACAB, ok ok

Shut the hell up

Aw

This would be so stressful in a better book

Spoken like someone who's never been suicidal before

Friendly reminder that this is not some shitty fanfic but a real book

Isn't that every EDA

I HATE THIS BOOK

At least Anji has found a cool place

Bad, but funny-bad

Every other EDA author right now

Sentences that should have been immediately deleted

Could have been cool in a different book

At last, the glorious return of your favorite game: "Take a shot every time an adjective reminds you that Sabbath is fat"

Shut the fuck up

Pretty telling that the only decent characters all talk like this

At least he's keeping it simple

Bad.

Don't try to use big words like this my dude

So it's the opposite of Vanishing Point then

Idiots

Ok. I know what the theme song of this book should be.

Me noticing there's still 30 pages left

Oh no you didn't

So... it's Griffin from Unnatural History again, except with parallel worlds instead of species. Except way less well thought-out. How boring of you

Everything is stupid

Even the explanation for the warlocks is boring

This triggered my "It's Bad" verbal tic

Okay then

Not screening a lot of things at this point cause I don't care, but the same scene repeated itself three times withdifferent outcomes

Can't believe it got worse one page before the end!

FUCKING SAME