It seemed appropriate that Dave Stone's CITADEL OF DREAMS would have a foreword by Andrew Cartmel, as a number of elements in the novella reminded me of the latter's own Doctor Who books. The Seventh Doctor is used quite sparingly, and is only really onscreen for a handful of pages. The book deals with psychic powers, something that Cartmel was fond of employing (in his fiction, I mean). Ace has a house, not totally unlike the dwelling at Allen Road that serves as her base of operations. And, of course, there's the old Cartmel standby: people soiling themselves. Oh dear; maybe some things would be better left unstolen.But superficial comparisons to Andrew Cartmel's work aside, I really found myself enjoying this. Of the Dave Stone books I've read so far, I would rate this as probably his strongest work. It contains a lot of the sort of thing that we've seen before from Stone, but it feels fresh and not at all tired. I get the impression that the shorter size of the novella format caused Stone to rely on his strengths. And as I'm someone who appreciates those strengths but fears his self-indulgences, I was grateful for that.
The story concerns a city -- a city that we see from two separate time zones. At first, we aren't sure exactly how far apart temporally these two eras are. In one time, labeled "before", we see a run-down, decaying inner city, with random crime and brutal, unfeeling authorities. In the "after" zone, there exists a utopia of sorts. But the people there seem to possess whacking great holes in their knowledge. The reader is lead through the mystery via a character named Joey Quine, who lives in the "before" time and has strange psychic abilities.
I really enjoyed the parts of the story told from Quine's point of view. The sections concerning him coming to terms with and then taking advantage of his own unique mental abilities are told with sensitivity and style. This sort of thing could easily have been hooky and cliched, but Dave Stone did a really good job, and frankly, I'm surprised; I didn't think he was capable of pulling it off.
It's extremely well paced; I managed to read the entire thing in one sitting while looking to kill some time before (what turned out to be) the final Baltimore Ravens game of the 2003 season (sob!). The plot is not easy to follow, but rewarding when it all comes together at the end. I thought I was clever by spotting the book's Big Surprise by the midway point, but looking at reviews on the 'net, apparently everyone else figured it out too. I should mention that guessing what the twist was didn't diminish anything, as seeing how the story got there was still fun.
Of course, some of Dave Stone's more annoying authorial tendencies are also on display here. He has a habit of throwing italics around with abandon to emphasize particular words, rather than structuring the sentence in such a way that the word is highlighted by the grammar instead of the font. (You know the type of thing I'm talking about. Pg 34: "...it was hard to even *think* about it in terms of description..." Pg 31: "...there were certain obvious things he *could* do..." Pg 77: "...certain things that she *liked* about this world...") Although I find this annoying, repetitive and lazy, I'm not usually bothered by it when used in moderation. But here Stone seems to rely too heavily on this voice, using it sometimes three times a page. And, I swear, if Stone ever again describes an alien as being "too different to describe" or "something which the human brain cannot possibly understand", I'll jump out the window. Okay, so Stone obviously can't describe an "otherness" concept without falling back on the same stock phrases. But can't we create some new stock phrases? Please?
Overall, I enjoyed CITADEL OF DREAMS. It tells a good story quickly. Although the beginning is slow to get started, by the end the plot is bouncing along. It's a great way to spend a few hours; I just hope it brings you better luck than it brought me.
