earlgreytea68 | The Chaosverse Book Club: Week Seven (Reply)

Chapter Eleven of Chaos Theory

"But he talked less around him, seemed a bit drawn in on himself, as if he suspected his father would command all of him and he needed to keep some for himself." It was interesting for me to read this, since a reader in a comment just reminded me of the part where Athena accuses Brem of being just like their father in that he sucks all the air out of the room, or something like. Like the force of their personalities is too much to be dealt with.

What I'm learning on this massive re-read is that I must really love Dr. Seuss, because, my goodness, the Doctor makes a lot of Dr. Seuss references. (I do really love Dr. Seuss. But really. There's got to be a fic involving Dr. Seuss at some point...)

"Sometimes I just have to make sure you’re still there, that you haven’t…vanished." Which is exactly what his panicked little boy does in "While She Is Sleeping."

Questions for Discussion:

This chapter is where the foreshadowing starts. It really wasn't until this chapter that I got the idea that I was going to work "Doomsday" into the story. It's why the rest of the chapters have this meandering, exposition-y feeling. They're vignettes without any sort of plot. This debate over the dog was where it started to occur to me that maybe, just maybe, a storm should be coming. Is this also where you started to suspect that there was a storm on the horizon?

Chapter Twelve of Chaos Theory

A Christmas chapter! And now I want it to be Christmas.

Questions for Discussion:

I've been talking so much about how much Brem is like the Doctor, and I've been talking specifically about the Tenth Doctor. But Jackie reminds us in this chapter that Brem also has the Ninth Doctor in him. What are the ways in which you think Brem is most like Nine?

Chapter Thirteen of Chaos Theory

I really love the Doctor's point of view in this chapter. Angry, frantic, impatient, desperate. He thinks a lot of uncharitable thoughts about the humans around him and I think sometimes the Doctor does think thoughts like that, especially in the state he's in right now. We've been out of the Doctor's point of view for a little while now, I suspect I probably enjoyed writing it as much as I'm enjoying reading it right now.

"He’d do it all over again—he’d do worse—if it would teach every species in the universe that Rose, Brem, and Athena Tyler were not to be touched, that not a hair on their heads was to be harmed, for fear of his wrath." Ah, I was just saying in my review of "The Wedding of River Song" how my Doctor loved his family more than the universe. And here it is, right in this chapter.

Questions for Discussion:

What are your thoughts on point of view? Do you have a preference for Rose's vs. the Doctor's? (Or the kids'?) Does it depend on the scene?

Next Week: Chapters 14, 15, and 16 of Chaos Theory in Vortex Orbits in Relative Dimensions in Time and Space

Also, a plea: I have weekend-long engagements the weekends of October 23 and October 30. Therefore, I won't be able to do the book club those weekends. The readings for October 23 are Chapters 20-22 of Chaos Theory and October 30 Chapter 23-25 of Chaos Theory. Does anyone want to volunteer to run the book club off of their LJ that weekend? You don't have to do it the way I do it, you can do it any way you like and be in charge of the discussions. Those chapters are really good chapters, the meat of the entire fic, so there should be lots to say.