Written
by Oli Smith
For
BBC Books
Published
2011
A number of years ago,
when Lara Croft was a video game, and was sponsored by Lucozade Sport, or some
such energy drink, there was an advert, which featured a gamer pausing the game
while he nipped to the toilet. In that short space of time, the characters on
the screen relaxed their pose, ripped open their energy drinks and despite
being enemies in the game, appeared to get along like actors taking a break
between scenes. When the guy returned, they returned to their frozen battle
positions and awaited the Play button.
I’m wondering if Oli
Smith, writer of System Wipe saw the advert too because the story puts you in
game mode as soon as the Doctor hits the Play button. But if I’m thinking
correctly, Oli Smith is a gamer in real life.
In 2222 AD, it’s the End
of the World, again, and the Doctor, Rory and Amy, are once again trying to
stay alive – with the added misfortune of the Doctor discovering a game station
still plugged in and user logged in, and joins the virtual world of Parallife,
while Amy and Rory, make friends with a very large, and quite docile, robot
called Daryl.
To anyone who grew up in
the 80s, having an artificial life form with the name Daryl, instantly takes
you back to the schmaltzy sci fi story that had many of us sobbing before the end
of the film. The music was a bit cringy if you were to listen to it now, but
back then, it was a great kids movie.
Back to Parallife and the
Doctor discovers that not only does he have to choose a body for himself, but
to achieve anything within the game, requires him to ‘kill’ a few animals along
the way – power ups. Of course, not being one to kill anything if he can, it
takes him a while to find his feet in the game. He teems up with a young woman
called Blondie who you discover in the first opening chapter is running
away from the darkness.
As you can imagine System
Wipe is a computer term, and does just what it says on the tin, but the Doctor,
being the Doctor, isn’t about to leap out of the game and run with Amy and Rory
as a sand storm heads in their direction, along with demolition robots, ready
to flatten the city that they’re currently hiding in. Oh no, the Doctor wants
to save everyone in the game – even though, none of the users are plugged in,
because, this is the End of the World, and nobody is there any more.
System Wipe is a quick
read book and it took me a day – would have taken me less if I wasn’t working
in between, however, it’s an interesting book with lots of surprising chapters
and possibly one of Oli’s best novels from the Eleventh Doctor series I’ve read
thus far – even though I’ve probably said that before.
If you’re a gamer, then
you’ll appreciate this story, and wonder why other people haven’t latched onto
this kind of idea before – or maybe they have and I just haven’t found them
yet. It makes me want to dig out an old game console and play Syphon Filter
again.
