The Eaters Of Light is a really good version of a somewhat underrated 12 episode by the wonderful Rona Munro (I’ve always loved Survival and its novel), it’s a pretty straightforward story of a hungry creature from another dimension escaping a gate during a battle between Romans and essentially Picts in second century Scotland, it must be herded back in and the gate must be sealed for good. But Rona does have a lovely way with her prose, she especially likes describing the community of birds in the air, and she takes every opportunity to expand our understanding of both the surviving Roman legionnaires and the surviving Picts, the characters are very fleshed out here. It also emphasizes for me just how much I love the 12th Doctor, he’s outwardly one of the most intense and severe but inwardly one of the sweetest and cuddliest, he’s done very well here, as are Bill and Nardole. Love this TARDIS team so much, I’d love further novels from this series, Oxygen would be amazing, I think we’d all love Steven to do World Enough And Time. I read this one more slowly than some of the others, it’s nicely written. 4/5

Still far from the strongest Doctor Who story, but the Target novelisation affords Rona Munro some added depth for the Ninth Legion characters. We get more of Kar's backstory, and the Picts and Legion's attempts to guard the portal, which means their decision to step through the portal to keep the titular monster at bay has more impact.

Bill comes across as weirdly confrontational in the way she's described in the text, particularly at the beginning, when challenging the Doctor's views on what happened to the missing Ninth Legion. Overall, however, this story works much  better in prose than it did as a TV episode.