Now that The English Astronaut has finished I've gone back to re-read it. TBH it didn't really seem to land that well.
The overall concept seems reasonable enough. Admittedly it is a fairly well-trodden "investigating the future to prevent a catastrophe" framework, it starts out fairly soundly. Whether the significance of the dates lies in the Whoniverse is a little unclear. Certainly it is fair to say that there are strong links to Dr Who in the tale, parallels with UNIT and so on.
Then of course there are the cultural divergences. Shifting from modern protest through historical schisms and into full-blown cultural-icon manifestations seems a bit chaotic. There is a definite sense of dislocation and discontinuity in the tale. The shape of the modern comics industry seems to take a bit of pasting in that middle episode with talks of 'porny comics' and 'fifty quid statues'. There is also the play with the standard scientific and military types. Archetypes that are pretty much the staple of Dr Who at times and quite a bit of British Sci-Fi to boot. Throw in a flying saucer and a giant cat being attacked by (Sherlock Holmes / Alan Turing / Quatermass?) and it is chaotic and then some.
It's hard to figure out whether Cornell is being incredibly clever or quite lazy. The tale closes with a character as confused as the reader. There is no real sense of closure, is that the point though? Major Thomas Anderson never returned home but someone has, possibly? Is that closing scene the modern day or the time at the start of the tale? It ends with a fairly standard "and then he / she woke up ..." that has the potential to simply negate everything that went before. It sort of undermines the whole story to some extent.
Overall it feels overloaded as a tale. A little too much going on and not enough thought given to getting across the central idea. It's still a little unclear what that idea actually is. Is it questioning the possibility of achieving change? There may well be multiple realities but ultimately we only ever inhabit one? Why are we fighting over ideas rather than trying to find lasting solutions? All of these at the same time?
It's a provocative tale to be sure but perhaps not for the right reasons.
The overall concept seems reasonable enough. Admittedly it is a fairly well-trodden "investigating the future to prevent a catastrophe" framework, it starts out fairly soundly. Whether the significance of the dates lies in the Whoniverse is a little unclear. Certainly it is fair to say that there are strong links to Dr Who in the tale, parallels with UNIT and so on.
Then of course there are the cultural divergences. Shifting from modern protest through historical schisms and into full-blown cultural-icon manifestations seems a bit chaotic. There is a definite sense of dislocation and discontinuity in the tale. The shape of the modern comics industry seems to take a bit of pasting in that middle episode with talks of 'porny comics' and 'fifty quid statues'. There is also the play with the standard scientific and military types. Archetypes that are pretty much the staple of Dr Who at times and quite a bit of British Sci-Fi to boot. Throw in a flying saucer and a giant cat being attacked by (Sherlock Holmes / Alan Turing / Quatermass?) and it is chaotic and then some.
It's hard to figure out whether Cornell is being incredibly clever or quite lazy. The tale closes with a character as confused as the reader. There is no real sense of closure, is that the point though? Major Thomas Anderson never returned home but someone has, possibly? Is that closing scene the modern day or the time at the start of the tale? It ends with a fairly standard "and then he / she woke up ..." that has the potential to simply negate everything that went before. It sort of undermines the whole story to some extent.
Overall it feels overloaded as a tale. A little too much going on and not enough thought given to getting across the central idea. It's still a little unclear what that idea actually is. Is it questioning the possibility of achieving change? There may well be multiple realities but ultimately we only ever inhabit one? Why are we fighting over ideas rather than trying to find lasting solutions? All of these at the same time?
It's a provocative tale to be sure but perhaps not for the right reasons.