Time of Your Life

Book review by Samual McLeod

Having not read Steve Lyons' previous book Conundrum and having read rather conflicting reviews, I was left unsure as to what to expect from Time of Your Life. The book has a clever yet intricate plot that demands full attention from the reader, making it very hard to put down. The best thing about Time of Your Life is that it deals with mass technology in a reader-friendly manner, unlike the abysmal Transit (Ben Aaronovitch please take note). The future of television is well thought-out and genuinely scary. Lyons' writing style is fluent and easy to read.

Lyons has countered the problem of the Sixth Doctor's larger-than-life personality by making the rest of the cast even more so. Miriam Walker is a brilliant take-off of a certain TV critic, although I thought her assistant was a bit of a waste of space. Giselle is almost like the Meddling Monk as she delights in being all seeing and manipulative and is another brilliant take-off - this time of Michael Grade. The Xyrons were interesting but ultimately pointless. The biggest disappointment of the book is the character Angela. At the start of the book we are given a detailed description of her life making her look like she had great promise - but she then disappears until the very end making it hard to see why she was included in the book at all other than to represent the obese population of Torrok.

All up, this is an excellent book that leaves me longing to read Lyons' upcoming New Adventure Head Games. 8/10