The last 8th Doctor novel I read prior to this one was The Shadows of Avalon and I did not enjoy it. With a little trepidation, I approached the next in the sequence, The Fall of Yquatine, wondering how the revelation of Compassion’s transformation into a TARDIS would be developed.

Fortunately, Nick Walters doesn’t do too bad a job. The Fall of Yquatine is a pretty straightforward story. The Doctor, Fitz and Compassion arrive on a planet which is quickly subjected to a horrific attack from space which wipes out the entire world. The Doctor, Fitz and Compassion manage to escape but Fitz is thrown back in time to before the attack, Compassion is trapped in the vortex and the Doctor is with the survivors of the disaster trying to prevent the rest of the local star system falling victim to the same rain of death that fell on Yquatine.

Each character’s thread is well written. Fitz, in particular, gets a lot of good stuff as he struggles to survive knowing what is coming on the planet but unable to do anything to prevent or change it. Fitz being Fitz, he gets involved with a woman which, naturally, goes completely pear-shaped for him.

The Doctor is perfect 8th Doctor – desperately trying to find a peaceful solution to a horrific situation and battling against the petty rivalries and foibles of humans, humanoids, reptilians and spinning, floating crystals.

Compassion, never the easiest companion to like, takes a distinctly dark turn. The Doctor, keen to avoid the Time Lords tracking Compassion down, fits her with a black market randomiser. It causes her immense pain and she is thrown into the vortex. It takes her years to track down Fitz, and even then she attempts to kill him. Eventually reconciling with the Doctor and Fitz, Compassion is actually the solution to the tensions within the star system. However, this does see her use her chameleon circuit to impersonate various other characters. It’s a logical way of using a human TARDIS, but it does raise the question as to if this is a bit of a cop-out. Will this get over-used in future novels? I hope not. It also echoes a previous companion of the Doctor who could impersonate other humans….let’s hope Compassion doesn’t become another Kamelion (because hiding her away inside herself could cause some weird dimensional issues).

The guest characters are a clearly drawn and an interesting bunch – President Vargeld and his girlfriend Arielle in particular. I’m not completely sold on the reptilian Anthuark, the principal villains of the piece at first suspected of raining death on Yquatine until it is found to be an intelligent weapon gone haywire – the Omnethoth. The Anthuark are a bit cliched and reminded me of previous alien races such as the Chelonians, the Ice Warriors and numerous other reptilian humanoids. The Omnethoth – a black cloud of acid – is, ironically, more interesting. I’m a bit of a sucker for disaster movies and the destruction delivered on Yquatine by the Omnethoth is horrific. Unfortunately, it’s also a bit short. I know that sounds a bit morbid, but the scenes of destruction are often my favourite bit of a disaster movie. The Fall of Yquatine is a disaster movie filtered through Doctor Who, but the actual disaster bit is over and done with very quickly, pretty early on in the novel, and the rest spends possibly a bit too long getting to the resolution.

If anything, The Fall of Yquatine is possible a bit too straightforward. Despite Fitz’s throwback in time it is still quite a linear story. There aren’t a huge number of surprises in the plot but it was a pleasant read, even if, at times, it started to feel a little like it was treading water. It changes locations enough to keep it interesting, though, and the characters are engaging enough to make you care. The three regulars are well depicted and all in all, this is a solid novel and certainly one of Walters’ strongest efforts.