In the lead-up to Big Finish's The Dead Star back in 2023, I'd heard a lot of people talk about what a great writer Kate Orman is, and it wasn't until I'd read this book that I wholeheartedly agree. This is more a work of art than a book as the Doctor, Fitz and Anji have spent a few weeks relaxing on the planet Hitchemus and becoming a part of it's culture. The Doctor has taken up playing the violin and has formed a strong friendship with the conductor who seems to be developing strong feelings towards the Doctor. An unique factor of this world is that it's filled with tigers, though not quite the same tigers we get on Earth, in fact there's a great passage detailing what makes them biologically different from actual tigers. They look like tigers, they walk like tigers, behave like tigers, but they're actually much friendlier and nobody appears nervous around them. That is until one fateful day when the tigers launch a revolution, it seems that underneath their big cat exterior, the tigers are actually super intelligent and the answers lie in an ancient ruin.

This story bears a lot of resemblance to Doctor Who and the Silurians where the Doctor tries to mediate peace between the humans and tigers but it goes wrong very quickly with the humans opting for a more violent retaliation. Which prompts the Doctor to give up on the humans and go live amongst the tigers to try and understand them better.

The world building in this is some of Doctor Who's best, my favourite parts of book all centre on the tigers and their areas of the planet the goes to live among. It's a great twist at the halfway point where the Doctor after all the centuries of him trying and failing to broker peace between humans and another alien species, has finally had enough of the humans and goes to join "the other side". Its a story with no clear cut villains so to speak, just individuals on both sides who carry huge prejudice for one another and the Doctor is in the middle trying to prevent all out war, trying to understand what the tigers need and hoping for the best possible future between the two races. But his actions in doing so create distrust not just from the humans and tigers but from his own companions, particularly Anji who we learn from the beginning of the book already carries some unconscious distrust of the Doctor due to his alien nature.

This story really nails just how alien the Doctor is, we always expect him to defend the humans that we forget that he's not one himself, and when humans always revert to "us vs them" philosophy when encountering other species, the Doctor naturally gets frustrated and here his anger boils over causing him to join the aliens. But while he's more welcome with the tigers, he later has to accept he doesn't belong with them either. We also have his growing bond with conductor Karl which is perfectly handled and has a heartbreaking ending to it. The ending in particular is quite powerful, without going into spoilers it portrays a much darker side to the Doctor where in his effort to stop the war, the Doctor causes a disaster that leaves the planet worse off and the only way to save their planet is for the humans and tigers to work together. It's kind of reminded me of the ending of Watchmen where to prevent both sides killing each other in a terrible war after all attempts at peace have failed, the Doctor is pushed into doing something that could result in many more deaths down the line but has forced both sides into ending their conflict. Once again playing god with an entire world

This one's a fantastic book, probably the best Doctor Who book I've ever read, I haven't even touched on the theme of music which is worked so beautifully into not just the story, but the structure and how the book plays about with its chapters.