Inside of this book there are two books: one is about the dream kingdom of Avalon and their war, the other is about Compassion being turned into a TARDIS. Book one? I could not care less. Book two? Hell yeah.

Picking up right where 'Parallel 59' left off, we learn the Doctor and Fitz stayed on Skale for a while, helping with the rebuilding of the planet after the massacre. Compassion was acting so cold and being so unhelpful in general that the Doctor shipped her to Earth because she was annoying him, which is objectively very funny. He gave her a little list of things to do while she was there, which included 'make friends', 'kiss someone properly', and 'fall in love'. That's his way of begging her on his hands and knees to please form some sort of bond with people. Doesn't work. Anyway, back on Skale, there's a second where we (and the Doctor (and Fitz himself)) are quite sure Fitz is going to stay behind with Filippa. The time to say goodbye comes and Filippa just asks him to visit sometime and kisses him goodbye. He's relived, but it is sort of implied he is planning on coming back to her eventually. I frankly doubt we'll ever see that place or that woman again. I'm just glad he's not pulling another 'Revolution Man' on us, and so is the Doctor, who was probably internally panicking over the prospect of traveling alone with Compassion (like he does in 'The Blue Angel'). The Doctor and Fitz head back to Earth to pick up Compassion, and the TARDIS explodes immediately upon landing, stranding them + the Brigadier, who was around, in Avalon.

We are finally told why the TARDIS kept going to strange, time-space distortions on Earth (in 'Unnatural History', 'Dominion', etc.). As the Doctor theorizes, 'All those strange realities were her trying to escape her fate, trying to convince herself that [...] she wasn't going to die when she hit the gap between worlds.' And why did she follow the dimensional disturbance in Drebnar ('Frontier Worlds') and the Mechta shared dream ('Parallel 59')? She knew what was coming, and was sort of preparing herself to 'face her death'. Now, I know the TARDIS is not really gone for good, because there are 1231920 other stories set after this where she's alive and well, but the Doctor cannot sense her at all, and we have no reason to believe she's not dead. Sad!!!

The Brigadier is here and he's very sad as well. Sadder, even. His second wife Doris (not Kate's mother, by the way) died tragically recently, and the Brig, repressed man that he is, has not allowed himself to properly grieve and recover from it. He is so deep in it that he's suicidal. I didn't read the VNAs or saw much of him outside Classic Who, so seeing him like this was not a fun time. Kind of similar to seeing an older, jaded Jo Grant in 'Genocide'. Paul Cornell, the author, does his best in exploring the Brigadier's pain throughout the book, and although gloomy, this was one of the best parts of it. The Doctor and the Brigadier butt heads as never before, as the Brigadier kiiiinda starts a war with the fairy Silurians of Avalon, the Fair Folk. All their scenes together are quite good, as the Doctor is desperately trying to de-escalate the situation, while the Brigadier stoically insists there is no other solution.

The Doctor, in a sense, is in a similar position of despair as the Brigadier. The war breaks out, and he's stuck in Avalon, fighting with the Brigadier, and not knowing where Compassion and Fitz are, or if they're even alive. We know he gets antsy without the TARDIS, and he still has a lot on his mind from his recent encounters with Faction Paradox. He doesn't know what they did, but he knows they did something to him ('Interference'). 'While Faction Paradox existed, there was no reason for him to do anything', as they can change history around him and undermine all his efforts. The Doctor's feeling 'sick at heart, incapable', but he says he 'won't be distant from [himself]', and that he's going to find out whatever is hiding in Avalon, whatever must be found to stop the war, and save everyone. He makes a point in this story to interfere anyway and not let the possibility of Faction Paradox or whoever else changing history stop him from doing what he thinks must be done. By the end of the story, he's come to terms with it. As he puts it, 'Just because nothing is written in stone doesn't mean I can stop kicking over the statues!' So he will keep doing his bit, as always, no matter what.

I must say I do not vibe with mystical-fairy-Arthurian flavored fantasy in my Doctor Who. Avalon and its politics are incredibly simplistic, and I honestly could not get attached to any of the side characters in this book. Not Queen Mab, not her adviser, whatever his name was, not anyone. Yes, this book has the Doctor riding a dragon against fighter planes, and yet I was yawning. Mab's little insta-crush on the Brigadier was also quite strange. I'm glad he begins to heal by the end of this story, when he realizes things are only really worth something because they eventually end. He stays behind in Avalon; I hope he has a good holiday.

The big thing that happens in this book is Compassion turning into a TARDIS. Which is insane, by the way, but does make sense with everything that has happened recently. The TARDIS saying she could be so much more in 'Frontier Worlds', the scanner blowing up in 'Parallel 59', the war TARDISes and Marie recognizing her in 'The Taking of Planet 5'. Basically, it's the Doctor's fault. I don't think there was any way he could have possibly predicted this fantastic development, so I can't really blame him. They say it all started in the Obverse ('The Blue Angel'). The Remote absorb information, so filtering signals to Compassion's receiver through the TARDIS programmed her with 'everything about the TARDIS'. Now, this could all be fine (more or less), as Compassion is pretty okay with being a type 102 TARDIS once the change happens. The problem is that Romana III, President of Gallifrey, wants to breed her like a dog to make 103s (like Marie) for the war against the Enemy. Romana!!! Our friend Romana! I'm scandalized. She sent two agents to Avalon to make sure the change happened according to history and to bring Compassion back to Gallifrey, even if they had to off the Doctor to do it. I cannot express how much I hated Cavis and Gandar, the Time Lord interventionists. They were like a Gallifreyan Team Rocket, but more evil and extremely unfunny. They shall not be missed. The Doctor is obviously livid (due to plot reasons, he's yelling at her while soaking wet and shirtless, which made for a funnier scene than intended), so he does the good old trick of stealing a TARDIS and running away with his companions; it just so happens that one of said companions is a TARDIS. So now we're on the run from the Time Lords, and isn't it sad to have to think of Romana as an enemy...

Final thoughts: amazing developments for the story, massive change in the status-quo, but otherwise not the a very compelling story, and I frankly don't care for Avalon at all. The character bits with the Brig and the Doctor were quite good, but we got very little of Compassion, who is basically another person by the end of this book, and Fitz does and says next to nothing throughout.

There was one haunting line in this book that I have to point out. The Doctor is putting his life on the line to prove a point to the Brigadier, he's about to be shot down and thinks

Maybe next time he'll be someone who could control his destiny, and not have to make this gestures.

Knowing how Eight dies and who he becomes, this is heartbreaking.