Not sure if this was a 2 star or a 2.5 star, but it's not like I'm consistent with these ratings anyways. The thing with this one is that I liked the story, but the way it was written didn't work well for me. Lemme break it into parts

The scifi concept was good: a planet divided into literal timezones that you can rent and do whatever you like with; like 'Kursaal', it was a very good setting. But with Hirath, the timezone planet here, the foundation for it was confusing. The Kusks' space-time probe crashed into Hirath. They sent a ship after it with a computer that could interface with it and control it. But the probe and the computer ended up corrupting each other. So now the ship, which turned into a base on the moon, was out of control because the computer was going bonkers, and the planet was also going bonkers because of the probe, and it was going to explode and time-kill half the galaxy. And then there was a second probe?? I don't know, man. The concepts were cool, but it was one of those stories where you just can't piece things together yourself, since the explanation depends on elements you had no way of knowing. The only way to understand the scifi aspects in this one is really waiting for the Doctor to figure it out and have him explain it to you in the dialogue. This made the story lose a lot of appeal to me.

The pacing was awkward at times. In the last book, 'Option Lock', there were some scenes with quick back-and-forth between a few characters/locations. It made sense then, because these things were quick actions which were taking place at the same time, and which were causing the reactions in the other POVs. There's a similar back-and-forth in this book throughout the second and third acts. It works great in the final act. But in the second act, it doesn't, because Sam and the Doctor are not reacting to what the other one is doing, and what is happening to each of them at that point is not going to affect the other either. What ends up happening is that the action is cut off too often, braking the flow of the narrative. It also gives the constant feeling that the Doctor is gonna show up and save Sam at any second. This works for a while, giving you that 'he's gonna save her now! wait... now!' feeling, but after pages and pages and pages, it just becomes pointless and, for me, annoying.

The characters: there's like a dozen of characters in this story. They are named, they get some characterization, they show up on a couple of scenes, and they die. I'm all for rich side characters, but if there's so many of them and they're just all going to die, a lot of it felt pointless. Nashaad has metal legs, is used as mostly as a prop, then dies. Vasid is there, is awful, then dies. Sost is there, is mean to Sam, and dies. Like, okay. Nice to meet you? RIP?

I have to talk about the way women and male character's interactions with women are written here. It sure felt like the author was trying to make a point, but I can't tell you what it was. Vasid, for instance. He's a complete scumbag, horrible, horrible, pathetic man. We're informed of this from the way he treats Anstaar, which includes telling us about all the times he sexually assaulted her, or tried to, and how he's obsessed with her. I don't need Anstaar to be treated like this to feel for her character, just like I don't need Vasid to be this level of awful to dislike his character. He dies so fast anyways!! It didn't matter that much that he was this awful. Similarly, there's the K'Arme commander that is constantly sexist towards the soldier woman Fettal. I don't need him to be explicitly sexist to understand him or her any better. Fettal is a horrible person, yes, but again, I don't need her to called a 'b*tch' multiple times by multiple characters to get that. And again, they all die very fast!!! I don't know if all this sexism was supposed to add flavor to the text, make it grimmer, make it more 'realistic' or whatever, but I can tell you that for me it just felt dated, tired, and mildly upsetting.

Sam goes through it in this one, by God. She's separated from the Doctor almost immediately and put in the middle of a complex situation in one of the prison sectors of Hirath. The plot with the rebels was very nice, by the way. But yeah, Sam is just crushed, physically and emotionally, throughout this story. Traumatizing a character is one of the easiest ways to make us care for them, that's true, and it did work. I wanted to climb into the book and save her myself. It was very effective seeing her confront her own naivety about morality from 'War of the Daleks'. More effective even was her relationship with Tanhith, and how it mirrored her relationship with the Doctor. She was projecting the Doctor on Tanhith, who she saw as a good person, a person who saved her life and who was fighting against a tyrant government. When Tanhith uses Fettal to distract the Kusks, killing her in the process, Sam's vision just shatters, and it's painful to see. This breaks the spell, because the Doctor would never. And it makes her realize what the Doctor means for her and what she feels for him. "Your friend on the moon, do you love him?" "Yes." Of course. Is she in love with him? I'm not sure. She's probably not sure either.

For all my complaints, the last part of this book was very cool. Sam's reaction to the Doctor's 'death' was so so so sad. I'm excited to see where things go from here, with the two of them separated, Sam believing he's dead, and him looking for her, hoping she's not.

On the Doctor's not-death: he really needs to tell companions about how very difficult he is to permanently kill. Even if the electric shock had killed him, he would still regenerate... Oh, and this goes on my list!

• Memory Loss:1 (in 'The Eight Doctors')
• Serious Injuries/Near Death Experience:4 (gets vampired 'Vampire Science', nearly drowns in the Thames in 'The Bodysnatchers', bomb+fingers broken in 'Kursaal', electrocuted -- he flatlines -- in this one)
• Torture:1 (in 'Genocide')