Something is astir in the universe. If Benny is to save all she holds dear, she needs all the Jason Kanes she can get!
Something is astir in the universe. If Benny is to save all she holds dear, she needs all the Jason Kanes she can get!
The Two Jasons
The Two Jasons… Is really a companion piece to the ‘End of the World’. A cynical part of me thinks its unnecessary, just a cash in attempt for Dave Stone to rescue his favourite character from obsoletion (nobody really stays dead in Science Fiction :p), and he was given an excuse and a way to do this via Philip Purser-Hallard’s short story (thankfully repeated and just as good as before) from ‘A Life Worth Living’.
On the other hand, I have to defer to his argument at the start of the book, that points out that in the Big Finish range we have no obvious reason to actually ‘like’ this character. We’ve seen him be brave, be selfless, be political, be everything that keeps us interested in him as a character, but there’s very little that actually shows WHY Bernice Summerfield tolerates him at all. Anyone who joins the range with Oh No It Isn’t has missed the entire point of their love/hate relationship.
And expecting people to spend money on Ebay hunting down old copies to understand the range isn’t really an acceptable state of affairs.
So, for me, who has never read many of the old Virgin novels, I found the retelling of what happened right at the beginning, absolutely fascinating. I need someone who HAS read both novels to tell me if anything has significantly changed, has he copied and pasted material over or completely rewritten it? (I suspect the latter from my own intuition).
But he tells the story, and at the same time adds another dimension to the events of The End of the World (which was already pretty multi-faceted as it stands) by showing just how far reaching what Braxiatel has done is.
The actual story, of Two Jasons fleeing a medical facility with Mira, trying to work out who and what they are, I found interesting enough, but I was pulled along by the flashback chapters with Bernice and Jason meeting for the first time. Framing the story, as if told by a man recovering from amnesia, is definitely a good (and in this case realistic) way of feeding us information without ever forcing us down our throats. And if there’s one thing Dave Stone excels at its the waffle around the edges that makes characters seem like real, rambling people. As always he has a message about the medium the story is told in, a hook to draw you in and get you thinking…
I’d recommend the Two Jasons as a landmark book that sits as the exact opposite end of the Jason spectrum to ‘End of the World’. Whilst one story writes out this key character, Dave Stone uses the novel to remind us why we should care in the first place. It’s mad, bad and ridiculous but has a genuine heart at its centre.
And despite outwards appearances it’s not just a selflish chance to keep his favourite creation alive after all.