Man, I don't know what to tell you. This is a well loved one, but it didn't click for me, and no one is sadder about that than myself. I didn't hate it, but it was just 'okay'.

Sam and the Doctor are on Hyspero, a planet of the fantastical and mystical. Quite by chance, they meet with the Doctor's old uh... Time Lord friend? acquaintance? person that you don't particularly like, but keep meeting in random places, and since they like you, you have to play along to be polite?... Iris Wildthyme. Iris is in trouble and the Doctor and Sam decide to help her our in her quest to reunite a gang of 'mutants' under the orders of Hyspero's ruler, the Scarlet Empress.

Since this is a quest, they travel a lot around the planet (in Iris' double decker TARDIS bus), meet a lot of people, get in a lot of trouble. There's always something happening. However, the feeling I got was that a lot was happening just for the sake of it, not in the service of the plot. There is such a thing as too much information: while introducing places/people/elements make for a richer story, doing too much just makes things confusing and, paradoxically, less interesting. For instance: oh no, they're gonna torture and kill Iris! What will the Doctor do? He'll... summon a hydra from a story book about that's vaguely about the Master? I don't like it when there's not much of a logical thread to follow from setup to conclusion. The Scarlet Empress is tyrannical, evil and we don't like her for some reasons I didn't quite get. She wants Iris to get the gang together because she knows one of them stole old empress Cassandra, okay. So they depose (read: kill) the current empress and Cassandra takes her place as the new empress... I don't think much has changed for the people of this planet, in the long run. I don't know, man. I kind of feel like this was like someone who's a decent cook cooking with no recipe for the first time. They get excited, use all of the spices, eyeball all the measurements. The result is not bad, but you can tell it's incoherent somehow, and there's too much cinnamon.

Moving on to the characters. Iris was interesting, albeit a bit annoying; I was just as frustrated with her as the Doctor was. The best parts of the book for me were exactly their quiet moments, conversations, and disagreements. Yes, Iris, he does have all the right to be mad at you for taking his life experiences and re-framing them as yours in your diaries!!! She means well, though, and she is very very fond of him. Kinda like a blend of River and Missy, but less murderous and more infuriating.

Sam... sure was there, I guess. The mutant gang were all super cool concepts... that I didn't care in terms of their personalities and plots. The Doctor was not the generic Doctor from 'Vanderdeken's Children', thank God, although (courtesy of Iris) he was more out of his depth than usual.

I did really enjoy the narrative framing and POV changes throughout the book. That was very interesting, particularly when Iris was narrating and telling us (if not her actual companions) what she was doing and what her motivations were. I'd be remiss not to mention the classic comments on the Doctor's gender and sexuality in this book. The weird starfish aliens try to convince Sam that the Doctor is a man, and doesn't care for her (why they do this I couldn't tell you). Sam's answer is along the lines of 'first of all, he's not a man, so jot that down, and he's beyond sex'. The topic of her feelings for him come up again when she realises that she does still love him. I'm pretty sure her love has now galvanized into a more platonic, but still sexual, feeling.

On the list of the Doctor's injuries and torments, I think I should count that scene with the hydra since I did count the bomb and broken fingers in 'Kursaal'. He does faint, and it's the reason Iris drives them away leaving Sam behind. He also gets a few minor injuries throughout this book for no particular reason.

• Memory Loss:1 (in 'The Eight Doctors')
• Serious Injuries/Near Death Experience:6 (gets vampired 'Vampire Science', nearly drowns in the Thames in 'The Bodysnatchers', bomb+fingers broken in 'Kursaal', electrocuted in 'Longest Day', gets shot + severe blood loss in 'Legacy of the Daleks', nearly squashed by giant hydra)
• Torture:2 (in 'Genocide', 'Seeing I')

PS: It was one line, but yikes, please do not imply that the Doctor and the Master are brothers ever again. Please.