Sometime Never

Some highlights of the latest EDA I’ve read (Sometime Never).

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

ok can we agree this is the most EDA-core cover ever

No one told me anything about this book. That's the biggest surprise for me. You see, I had heard or read stuff alluding to The Ancestor Cell being a trainwreck even before I started reading the books. I had heard that Alien Bodies was good, and that The Blue Angel confused a lot of people. I had even heard vague stuff about the Doctor losing a heart at SOME POINT in SOME CONTINUITY back when I hadn't even glanced in the general direction of the books. But nothing about this book was even vaguely known to me. And I have no idea why, because it contains the mother or rather grandfather of all retcons right at the very end, and I'm sure a lot of people are pissed off about it. 

I don't really mind it.

What I do mind is that almost nothing happens for like 180 pages, then the book starts making catastrophic decision after catastrophic decision, and then, when you think it's going to be one of worst books in this series, it somehow decides to course-correct a little bit and it kinda sticks the landing for the most part.

Is the plot good? Not really. Are the regulars interesting? No. Is it full of technobabble? Oh yes, tons. Is it a bit cheap? Definitely. Do I hate it? No. It's not good, but it has some fun moments, and the last 30 pages are a bit of a rollercoaster at times. And weirdly enough, now I respect The Ancestor Cell a bit more. 3,5/10

 

 Banger first line

 Other than that it's your typical Doctor Who opening

 These guys must think they're really clever

 You might as well give up now guys you won't be better at that than Griffin from Unnatural History

 Eight please

 Fitz please

Dumbass 1, 2 and 3 are flying in a TARDIS

 Nothing is happening but they're killing me

 STOP MAKING ME LAUGH

I'm sorry I seem to have landed in technobabble central by accident

 Yeah, no shit. I don't want to be fifteen ever again don't make me go back there

 This is so stupid

 Okay. Okay. In before Fitz uses an alias with Trix's name in it.

 Oh wait now we're in The Kingmaker

(it's my fave audio story with Five, by the way) 

 Don't worry about it

 HELL YEAH LET'S GO FOSSIL HUNTING

 HELL YEAH HELL YEAH LET'S GOOOOO WHAT A COOL DUDE

 NOOOOOOOOOO you killed the only cool thing that was happening

 Okay brace yourselves a new Fitz alias is coming

 LMAOOOOO ok this isn't what I expected. 10/10 incredibly stupid no notes

 He's so bad at this

 There's logic to his madness

 Suspicious

 Oh he's looking into people's future again

 I don't even remember who that guy is. Have we seen him before

 This is really sweet

I wish this was a joke but I fell asleep while trying to screen this

 

 

In case the link is broken this is Crystal Gazing by Mike Oldfield 

Kind of a mood not gonna lie

 Okay so on one hand this is very funny, on the other hand I'm having Endgame flashbacks from when Eight was terminally depressed

 Crystal [skeleton] gazing ♫

 Either this is deeply concerning or it's Trix again which would be on brand but also kinda lame

 Indiana Jones is on the phone, he wants to talk

 Very scientific

 This is every writer of this range when they're writing themselves into a corner and have to justify not using the TARDIS lol

 

a splashette

 

 lmao he ruined that guy's magic trick by accident

 

it's okay Fitz I was also getting that reaction from people even before transitioning

 If this thing isn't coming back to life before the end of the book we riot

 But not right now. Maybe it needs to be complete first

 This is a cute detail

 Wait. I'm slow. So the council of eight are Sabbath's mysterious employers, then

You know what else is slow, though? This plot. We're almost halfway through the book and I'm still waiting for anything of substance to happen

 By the way every discussion between these guys is boring and I'm not screenshotting anything from them because it's just technobabble central of and over again. But trust me, there's a lot of them

Acting very normal once again, I see

 Eight please try to focus

 Me trying to emote

 LMAO Everyone's on a mission to ruin this guy's life

 UH OH

 I swear to god I'm so done with her antics

 Respect the Doctor's pronouns dude

 Wait pause. Rewind. What was that about, Trix

At least he admits it I guess

 Least surprising plot point ever but I'm still glad it happened

 I know I haven't finished this book yet but I think we can already conclude this arc is pretty bullshit

If that's what happened that's one hell of a retcon since it wasn't described like that all the way back in Adventuress of Henrietta Street

 Meanwhile Fitz rolled a 1 in Charisma

 Oh Zezanne's mother is Miranda? That makes more sense

 I don't like that book very much but the dialogue can be fun at times

 Like this dialogue, for instance

 This is all a bit too cartoony for my taste

 

The writer seems to be struggling to find a decent way to move to the next plot point

 

I labelled all three of these screenshots as "interesting" during my liveblog so I might as well put all of them here at the same time and say "interesting"

 

And also there's this old guy and this viking girl for some reason

 There's also the Eminence, Eight in several continuities, and that thing that was knocking on the door in Listen. It's quite crowded at the end of the universe really

 That's rough, buddy

 So they're collecting crushed stuff at the end of time. Basically fossil hunting then. I wish the narrative was more interested in that theme because it keeps popping up but it's more or less ignored

 Ok you destroyed it after spending the entire book trying to put it back together. What now.

If they're planning to live in the vortex they can have a convo with the vortisaurs I guess but they're going to get bored really fast

 SDFGHJKDFGHJK

 Eight please

WAIT, THEY'RE IN A CELL, TAKE A SHOT

Ok this is really touching. But also now I must assume some of the people in this equation are gonna die

 Meanwhile Patterson has a deathwish

 FUCKING SAME

so you built a big thing to destroy History. how boring of you

Oh I like that Fitz's hourglass seems to have been hastily put back together, this is a nice touch

 Terrible job, everyone!

Did he just hit Octan with a "no u" to refute his entire explanation

I like that, for the record. It's very funny

 Oh they're using his companions' timelines to power the machine, and they can terminate some of them more of less at will. This is a bit fanwanky, but at least that makes things more complicated in the middle of this frankly exhausting pile of technobabble

WAIT. Rewind. Did they just kill Sam off screen with a single sentence

I take it back. This idea sucks

 This entire plot is starting to look more and more like the author taking a baseball bat and drunkenly swinging it around the canon to break random bits of it

 The main issue with putting the entirety of history at stake in a plot is that the reader, well me at least, is going to look you in the eye the entire time going "I dare you. I double dare you"

Wait are we killing Miranda too

 Apparently, yes. Yes we are killing Miranda too

 someone please throw a brick at crystal boy

 Well okay, this is mildly clever, but I'm still voting we kill the fucker

 For anyone reading this and not remembering this book very well (or who hasn't read it at all. I don't know why you'd read my ramblings if that's the case, but you do you), I feel the need to mention that Miranda is literally dead at his feet while he's smiling and saying this, and also that they've been talking about who Sabbath should kill for 5 pages in a row

Or you could fucking shoot yourself because at this point you've all been talking about this for ever and I'm tempted to do exactly that

again, I'm reminding you that Miranda is dead at his feet while he's cracking jokes

LMAOOOOOOO YES. PERFECT. THANK YOU

I know this is probably not the intended reaction but that discussion had been going on for TEN PAGES 

 Teenage me too scared to correct people saying my name wrong

  this book is making me appreciate The Ancestor Cell, which is a strange thing to say

ok that's cute at least

 

Wait. Did that undo some offscreen deaths. I'm confused

 every argument on the internet

Guys he's destroying you by going "no u" over and over again. Do something

Some pretty cool imagery there

 FINALLY

 he's gonna go back to the first page isn't he

 called it

Eight basically wrecked these guys' entire plan by alternating between "no u" and "I double dare you" and ragebaiting them to death, and ngl, I respect it

 So yeah, this is probably the worst arc in this series of books by quite a large margin. Can't believe the best book in it ended up being Reckless Engineering

 surprise! you're an uncle now

 lmaoooooo Eight doesn't have time for your complaints about surprise adoptions

 oh my god Anji is never going to be able to rest ever again is she 

 I just remembered how the book started with that sentence. A bit disappointing, but could be way worse. That's kind of this entire book, isn't it. But I have to admit it sticked the landing quite well after being some type of slow-motion boring car crash for 180 pages

oh WOW completely out of left field. The mother of all retcons has just hit the second tower

I'm not sure I dislike it, though. Does that mean the timelords have been erased from the entire continuity, or is this just in the specific timeline of these two? Bold move, in any case. Pretty cool