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A promisingly eerie concept let down by weak characters, a lack of period atmosphere, and an underused TARDIS team. It improves towards the end, but not enough to leave much of an impression.
I read this years ago, but I remember liking it. The domestic, slice of life setting appealed to me as did the more “normal” plot (I.e. low-ish stakes). I liked how the villain was weaved into it.
This one wasn’t bad. A story of strange ‘truth tellers’ becoming popular where a small device on a person’s face is always very direct and even cruel and people responding with ‘its the truth so if you reject it you can’t handle the truth’ attitude. And a boy who is trying to get one to impress a girl who wouldn’t even look at him twice. Only to find that the girl he likes has been enslaving an entire race for these things. And the girl who helps him is the one he really likes, he just didn’t know.. The writing was okay, and the Doctor has absolutely no wiggle room for people who commit such acts, not willing to look away.
The Doctor and Nyssa aren’t really in the story much, but they make an impression when there. The writing wasn’t bad either but it was definitely heavily focused on this boy in particular.
Overall a fun little story, I appreciate the choice to focus on the lives of a normal person with the TARDIS Team acting throughout in the background, only coming to the front at the end.
Fantasy/Sci-Fi bigotry alegories usually feel a bit… off, but here I think the fact that we actually get to see that real life bigotry and its impacts, and the comparison isn’t directly called out on (iirc) it’s not too bad.
Do have to agree with @MrColdStream though, that the lack of period atmosphere was a real shame.
I thought it was enjoyable but a little thin. The setting was compelling and the wider message about harmful speech and intolerance - especially the WWII 1940s Maine setting and the Truth Tellers - made for an interesting background. It just would have been a lot stronger had the scope been larger.
I think I would have preferred it had it been less YA-centric, had more complex prose, better use of setting, and had given the two protagonists more interactions with other townsfolk.
