Tag Archives: writer: louise cooper

The Outcast, by Louise Cooper

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Second paragraph of third chapter:

The shock had caught him off guard, but now he was rallying his composure – although it took considerable effort in the face of what had happened. No human being should be capable of breaking through the barrier which held this Castle frozen in a Timeless limbo. His own power, great as it was, couldn’t penetrate the formless, dimensionless yet appallingly real warp of time and space that had trapped him here in his last, desperate attempt to save his life and his soul; and whatever he psychic talents, Cyllan was no true sorceress. Yet she was here, as real as he was…

Second in Cooper’s Time Master trilogy, almost entirely set in and around the castle where her protagonist is being held captive and from which he is trying to escape. The really subversive bit is that the protagonist is very clearly the Bad Guy, and his freedom could lead to disaster for the rest of the fantasy world; Cooper shows this pretty clearly, but also engages our sympathy very successfully on behalf of the villain. A very strong story. You can get it here.

This was my top unread sf book. Next on that pile is The Cartographers, by Peng Shepherd.

The Initiate, by Louise Cooper

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Back in 2017 I read a Doctor Who novella by Louise Cooper, who I had not previously heard of, and was really impressed. Her best known work is the Time Master trilogy, which I picked up pretty cheaply at Eastercon, and The Initiate is the first volume. The second paragraph of the third chapter is:

Taunan pointed towards a familiar dark patch in the sward ahead, and carefully the two riders guided their horses over it, making sure that not one hoof strayed beyond its boundaries. And as they crossed it, the change began.

I enjoyed it. The protagonist undergoes a fairly standard fantasy narrative arc, exiled from his home after an unfortunate magical accident to get trained at wizard school; but he is a deeply flawed individual, and the effect of the dark side of his personality on his colleagues and friends is well depicted. A rounded off novel in itself which still leaves us well set up for the next book. You can get it here.

This was my top unread sf book; next on that pile is Empire of Sand, by Tasha Suri.

Rip Tide, by Louise Cooper

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Second paragraph of third section:

The lifeboat crew were subdued by the incident, and thankful that there were no further call-outs that week. The wind dropped and the rain squalls moved on, though it was still cloudy, and by Friday the sea was calm enough for the fishing boats to go out. Steve finished work at four, and at four-thirty he drove to the beach with his scuba equipment, for an appointment with Charlie Johns.

I must admit I had not heard of Louise Cooper before, but it turns out she was a well-known writer specialising in YA fantasy (best known for her Time Master trilogy, appropriately enough for present purposes). She lived in Cornwall, and set this Doctor Who novella there. It’s a very effective story of the Eighth Doctor, on his own, encountering a human brother and sister and an alien brother and sister, who duly get entangled in the problems of shipwreck – the lifeboat motif is rather well done throughout. I am not always a fan of the Telos novellas, but this one worked very well and I’ll keep an eye out for Cooper’s other books.

This is the second last of all the books featuring Doctors from Old Who, in internal sequence, as far as I know. The last is The Eye of the Tyger by Paul J. McAuley. I have a couple more Telos novellas to work through and then will decide on the next part of my project to read every Who book. (The illustration below is of the frontispiece by Fred Gambino.)