The Waters of Mars is one of Modern Who's most overlooked gems, I always gets praised certainly but I feel it deserves so much more attention. It speaks volumes that I can give the Target novel a perfect 5*s and yet I still think the episode is better! More or less following the same plotline as the episode, the book offers more insight and depth into members of the crew and their stories, but also including some lore into the Flood, how they came to be on Mars and even their history with the Ice Warriors. We get a full sequence dedicated to Adelaide's childhood, the longest chapter of the book, and the fateful day she lost her parents, which I'll admit was a bit over the top and contrived (they just walked from the countryside to London and luckily got a lift from a flower delivery man!) but again it's sequences like this that really give more life to Modern Who stories that had the disadvantage of not having enough time to flesh out certain areas. One thing I definitely felt it did better than the episode was the ending with the Doctor's brief god complex, it details very well Adelaide's shock of how the man she previously trusted became someone she was utterly repulsed by and the Doctor's shift in behaviour that she soon snaps him out of. The ending of The Waters of Mars is one of the show's best and I wholeheartedly believe the credit for that goes to Phil Ford and not Russell, I don't believe for a second Russell would ever script a gutpunch ending like that! The book in a lot of ways is the definitive version of The Waters of Mars, even incorporating deleted scenes and elements from every version of the draft scripts, but it still falls short compared to the original which is a mark of one of Modern Who's best stories.