This is part of a series of reviews of Doctor Who in chronological timeline order.

Previous Story: Together in Eclectic Dreams

Yep, you're reading it right. The reviews are making a rare stop into prose. Normally I'd avoid books like the plague but since this is the only depiction of Mel's first story I decided why not?

It's a quite a fun story, nothing incredibly unique but thanks to Gary Russell's prose it's an entertaining read and at no point does it get boring. There are, however, a lot of inexcusable flaws with it. Specifically it's really edgy. There's a lot of character deaths and if I'm being honest I didn't mind at the start, the way Russell made me care about all these one-off side characters by mentioning their last thoughts being all these various mundane things was genuinely fairly haunting.

The real issue starts towards the later half where you're forced to read descriptions of a man being brutally tortured (it wasn't relevant to the plot) or 12 year old children being suffocated by sentient plastic toys. There was really no need for any of that and if it weren't for a good ending I would have given this story 2 stars. It's more of an issue with wilderness years books in general so I can't blame this one too heavily but still.

One thing I will credit Gary Russell for is his characterisation for 6 was on point. It was obviously a little more arrogant and harsh than his Big Finish portrayal but it never felt out of character for the Doctor like his characterisation did on TV. Mel was also a really fun character, I enjoyed the insight into her character that you can only really do with prose.

Next Story: The Queen of Clocks