‘LONELY’

Please feel free to comment on my review.

The Eighth Doctor vs. IamI

This story is by Richard Wright, and it features the Eighth Doctor. ‘Lonely’ is written in the form of a chat room discussion, which I found fascinating to check out. The Eighth Doctor attempts to save a group of online users from a peculiar alien intelligence, as their bodies are being absorbed into data.

I found this story easy to read, especially when it’s written as a transcript for a chat room discussion. Reading this did put me in mind of the episode ‘Special Features’ from ‘The Demons of Red Lodge and Other Stories’ anthology. It’s a neat idea to have the story in the form of a chat room discussion.

As well as the Eighth Doctor, the other characters in the chatroom discussion are Faceless43, Shirley1968, Nicky and DrLuvin. The Eighth Doctor goes by the username Jsmith8 when he’s talking to everyone else in the chatroom discussion. The mysterious alien intelligence is simply called IamI.

IamI was a biotechnical intelligence that ran a starship before the Eighth Doctor destroyed the ship. Reading this story also put me in mind of ‘Iterations of I’, when IamI keeps repeating “I am lonely” and “r u lonely?” at times. Surely it’s John Dorney who penned this short story and not Richard Wright. 😀

Apparently, Nicky is twelve years old and DrLuvin can get hysterical when his life is being threatened. Incidentally, the Eighth Doctor says he’s met Leonard Nimoy. I’m sure he met Mr. Spock as well when the Fourth Doctor visited the ‘Star Trek’ universe in the original TV series segment of ‘Assimilation²‘.

‘Lonely’ rating – 9/10