This one was... weird. And it was definitely meant to be. Stylistically full of experimentation and metaphor and layers that contradicted each other. But blissfully it wasn't boring.

At its core, this story wants to tackle the complex ideas of what right one has to make a choice, and how faith can affect that. It wants to be a commentary on religion and human nature and free will. But it's trapped in the skin of a 90s Doctor Who novel and that means we have to sit through an entire extended metaphor which details the Doctor's c-section but actually he's just being possessed by a pregnant sun(?). This was the part to which I, aloud, said 'What is going on...'

If I'm honest, I'm not sure I fully understood the plot or the point Mortimore was actually trying to make. It feels like he was throwing his musings around in a sandbox and having fun playing with his dolls. This is, I accept, a valid approach, but not necessarily a sensical one. However, Sam did get something to do in this one, even if that was die horribly again and get possessed and have to deal with a cult leader. The usual for her. I'm not certain I understand if she's okay or not, honestly.

But! It did not bore me. It was strange and visceral, but I wasn't bored. That to me is a great big win.

0.5/5

I wasn’t sure if I wanted to even write a short review for this book really – 30 books into the series and this is the only one that I actively wouldn’t ever want to re-read.

Many events in this book carry themselves with an undeserved self-importance that is utterly cringeworthy and a struggle to read through. Main characters are entirely out of character throughout, while side characters are cliché roles with little personality.

Aside from there being very little of interest in this book, the worst thing about it actually is its actual construction; scenes and chapters do not flow into each other and reading it ends up feeling like watching a film with poor editing that makes the characters look like they’re teleporting round, appearing in places randomly to do things with no motive, or seemingly doing important things but in a cut segment only.

It was such a struggle to grasp what was happening scene to scene, page to page, in some sections that even on several re-reads of a paragraph or page things still wouldn’t be clear. In the last quarter of the book, I had stopped re-reading most scenes that weren’t clear to me, I just desperately wanted to finish the book so I could move onto something else.

At times I genuinely felt like this book was somehow gaslighting me into questioning my own literacy. I have read no book quite like this before.