The Flakes of Doom...

Pairing up UNIT with the fourth Doctor always feels like playing against the strengths of each - a mismatch of concepts. It's not unprecedented, but even on TV it always felt like Tom Baker was itching to be elsewhere. Perhaps that's why, for much of Drift, the Doctor is a bit-part, obviously restraining his own elemental abilities in an appealing fashion. Leela is similarly almost sidelined, and in a way which suits her - as the noble savage with a similar worldview to the native Americans we meet, she struggles valiantly to comprehend. Part of the problem, though, is that we're left with Leela, striving to follow the point, and calling out "what is happening?" to the amusement of all around.

Because Drift is a book with two distinct, if related, strands, only one of which really works. As a story of human beings working to come to terms with the world around them, it's a triumph - a drunken, abusive husband and father chasing his estranged wife and daughter is easy to assimilate, and intrinsically affecting. As to the precise nature of the problem UNIT has been called in to deal with, though... I'm at a loss.

So the book is simultaneously intriguing and inscrutable. The title refers to both strands, and reflects the text in being deeply metaphorical - the weather is obviously particularly meaningful - although perhaps the writer's been so concerned with portraying ambiences through subtext that the text is a little strained. The writing's slightly po-faced early on - later it becomes slicker, despite sometimes tending toward purple gibberish like "the Doctor fell silent and stared into a multiplicity of dimensions". The human story remains strong throughout, though - the people are mostly pleasant company, with clear exceptions - right up to a coda which touchingly ties up the loose ends of the characters' reactions, with barely a reference back to the SF plot which got them there. As a book dealing in effect, it's highly successful - there are sufficient great moments to overcome the nebulousness of the whole.