(Note: I wrote this originally on TheTimeScales.)

Man… I’ve only read 3 of Baxendale’s books (Fear of the Dark, Prisoner of the Daleks, and this.), and the one constant thing I can say to him is that the man can consistently write some top-notch Who.

This is a pretty traditional (sometimes predictable) story with some cliched characters, a standard 1930s English village, and a typical monster of the week story but it does it so effectively while not being boring. The threat of the wasps is just soooo Doctor Who, it’s glorious. And the elements of body horror in this sooooo goood. Disturbing but soooo gooood.

This story almost reminds of something from the Hinchecliffe Era, more specifically The Seeds of Doom. The Doctor really invokes this being both seemingly flippant to the chaos and deaths around (even going to ship for mint humbugs and offer it to people like Baker) while being very serious and determined to stop the wasps and the impeding doom of nuclear destruction. Oh yeah… another element of this story that invokes Seeds vibes is the growing tension that builds through the story. We get introduced to a group of time agents hunting down a weapon of mass destruction and have the duty of retrieving before it sets off or nuke the whole village of Marpling. This story does an excellent job of building the sense of things going from bad to worse to literally how do we even fix this.

The one thing I can even slightly criticize is the usage of Fitz and Anji. While I’ve only read them one time, that being The Crooked World (another phenomenal book), they’re really interesting and fun characters that I wish for more things to do in this story but even then they have their moments.

All in all, this is just a solid piece of Who. I almost wish this was a televised story because I think this would be a highlight in the show. Highly highly recommend checking this out and reading it. Excited to get to read another Baxendale book, Deep Time with 12th Doctor and Clara.