*taps mic* I like giant spiders a lot.

Very solid adventure that I really enjoyed. Much less ambitious than 'The Scarlet Empress', but it hit the mark for me: cool setting, good characters, giant spiders, weird disease, moral conflicts.

The TARDIS is pulled out of the vortex by a weird "fold" in space-time, landing the Doctor and Sam in Janus Prime. They are immediately shot at ("this must be a record even for you"; "well, there was one time in San Francisco...") and soon separated in a conflict between the soldiers working for Gustav Zemler and the colonists of Mendan, another planet on the system. The two planets are linked by... the Link, a weird thingy that can used as portal to jump between the planets. The Doctor is taken to Mendan, while Sam is captured by the soldiers. If she's not rescued soon, the radioactive nature of Janus Prime will kill her, just as it is killing the soldiers stranded there.

Sam, sadly, doesn't get many wins here. As I said, she's captured, shot, and spends most of the story getting sicker and sicker. At this point, I'm filing a missing person report for the Sam of 'Seeing I'. Like in the past 3 or so books, she doesn't get to do nearly anything of her own accord. She's either being pushed around or following someone else's plans. Honestly, I don't need much. If she had even a good moment of giving a rousing speech, or convincing someone of... something, anything, or a strong connection to one of the other characters, that would already be great. Just giving her one or two quips and an unwavering faith in the Doctor is not enough to make her a compelling character. The one scene worth noting here is when she uses the gun Lunder gave her, and starts feeling very guilty about it because Guns = Bad. She nearly kills the Doctor and Julya, and does kill most of the Janusians (the giant spiders <3), but she never learns this! Like in 'Kursaal', the Doctor decides not to tell her, making it more of a character moment for him than for her. Likewise, her death by radiation poisoning is another moment for the Doctor, as he refuses to accept it and bends the laws of time to give her the cure. How she feels about it, about being very sick and near death, is explored in a kind of basic and bland fashion, in a "I never thought I'd die in a hospital in another planet" way. Where's the "I'm never gonna see my parents again" angst? C'monnnn, give me more! Let me into her thoughts!

I did like the other characters. Lunder and Moslei were specially good, and Julya gets her moment when she decides to save Mendan at the cost of Janus Prime. Zemler was a weird villain; I get that the radiation poisoning was driving him crazy, but the reason for the fighting with the Mendans and for activating the doomsday device were not very solid. The Doctor was great and very Doctor-y the whole time. I love it when he puts the lives of weird/scary aliens on the same level as human lives, and he does that brilliantly from the very start here with the Janusians. His adversarial relationship with Lunder, big violent soldier man with a good heart, was a highlight for me. Nothing groundbreaking, sure, but it had a nice development, and I was very happy when Lunder went to Janus Prime to save him.

Bottom line, this was fun, and would make a very good episode on TV!

If you are the kind of person who likes militaristic action-adventure SF with two warring factions, gore, and a lot of nonsense technobabble, you would enjoy this book.

Generally, I am not that person. I prefer my SF a little more abstract, a little slower and more contemplative. That said, this is a solid book. There are a lot of characters to keep track of and unfortunately Sam yet again gets the short end of the 'why won't these writers give her a personality' stick and spends most of the story lying around dying, but it is what it is and it's a solid enough adventure. It clips through the plot nicely and doesn't feel too much like it's dragging.

If I'm honest, my favourite part was the Janusians, the spider inhabitants of the planet. I have to give Baxendale his due here - so often, bugs and spiders are the scary monsters, but the Doctor spends a long time treating them with sensitivity and humanity which was refreshing to me. There are a few places where the spider fear factor is played up, but the Doctor's outrage at the inhumane experiments performed on the Spidroids makes up for that for me.

One I'm not likely to visit again, but one I didn't hate, so that's a win to me.