God this book was so good. Really incredible insight into Donna’s family, her relationships, and how the Doctor fits into her life. The Doctor and Donna are written beautifully in this book. The side characters all shine as well, including Wilf and, surprisingly, Sylvia. Netty, who’s introduced in this book, owns my whole heart. This book has the same type of crazy alien shenanigans most Doctor Who has, but it was also a lot more down to earth. Everything going on was really just an excuse to do a bit of character study, and it works wonderfully. This is hands down one of my favorite Doctor Who books.

It's a testament to this book that when you read it, you feel like you're reading a missing episode from the RTD Era. Beautiful Chaos, a book republished as part of the 50th anniversary paperback collection, successfully manages to capture the tone and feel of this era of the show. And it does this within it's first few pages.

Beautiful Chaos sees the Doctor dropping Donna back home to comfort her mum Sylvia on the anniversary of Geoff's(Donna's Dad)death. This is cleverly framed by two chapters intended to take place after the climax of series 4 and directly mirrors the use of the telescope in both this book and series 4. The mirroring really allows us to get to know and understand the character of Wilfred Mott more and his feelings and attitudes towards the Doctor and his secret crush Netty.

Netty is another interesting character in that she directly mirrors Donna's memory loss at the end of series 4. Netty has alzheimer's disease and plays a important part throughout the book. She is shown to be a incredibly likeable character, making it even more tragic that she has such a terrible mental condition. Gary Russell's writing makes us care for this character; she is written strongly throughout and instantly becomes the best original character to be introduced in the book range.

Beautiful Chaos also sees the return of a classic series villain. Specifically the Mandagora Helix. I haven't seen The Masque of Mandagora but here this entity proves to be a fascinating villain who really makes you question our faith in the latest technology.

So overall, this is a great book that successfully captures the tone of the RTD era and offers a interesting returning villain that many Whovians will enjoy. However, you don't need to be a Whovian to enjoy this. Prior knowledge about the Mandagora Helix is not necessary.