Easily the best of the alternate universe cycle so far, Kate orman makes her doctor who novel debut and comes in with a BANG, if this is supposedly her worst book I look forward to see how her future books are like, this book is a bit rough around the edges with the flow of the prose sometimes being a bit jump starty and perspectives changing to quick with no indicator as to when it occurred (this could also be a PDF error but I don’t think so) and if this is fixed I cannot wait to see ormans more character oriented stories (The room with no doors….) as the character stuff is amazing here, we get a really nice look and introspective into the status-quo of each of the tardis team and their relationships with each other, the trust between the doctor and ace is deteriorating rapidly and Benny is stuck in the middle of that unsure if she should leave, but can she leave the doctor and ace on their own? Ace feels connected to the doctor, like they’re one in the same but their actions and personalities differ so much to the point it causes strife between them, Benny puts it well when she says “'I guess you can't stuff three personalities this strong into a phone booth and not have some conflict.” The dynamic between the three of them is great and while I like the fact that these issues have been addressed in a clearer way than any other book with this trio so far has, I would 1) like to see more of Benny as much as she’s a player in this one I still feel that she’s sidelined compared to ace, and 2) is like to see a conclusion to this, we don’t need to solve the doctor and aces complex love for eachother yet but I’d like to see them come to some sort of getting along (similar to how they all were at the beggining of shadowmind) so the team doesn’t feel as toxic, or if not at least expand on it more like this novel… overall this is great, a great plot, setting and character work from orman. Can’t wait to read more!

I think this book takes a bit to find its legs. The first couple chapters had me in love instantly, but once they hopped backwards in time the first time I started having doubts. The chunk of the story taking place in Tenochtitlan (expectedly) border on orientalism, and I found myself a bit confused on what the gang was trying to accomplish on a scene-to-scene basis. That particular feeling didn't fully let up until the final act, but the character writing and overall vibe more than made up for it to me. Orman is, as always, a character writer. Between this, Vampire Science, and The Year of Intelligent Tigers, I've found that Orman's writing has such a clear understanding of the appeal of spending time with these characters. She understands our main crew well enough to use their emotional conflicts devastatingly, and, as usual, our newly introduced sort-of-audience-surrogate Cristián is immediately lovable. Hummingbird isn't quite as much of a winner as Orman's later contributions, but it still delivers the industrial-strength hurt/comfort Doctor torture she'd become known for.

If I was a more principled man this would probably be a 7.5/10. Fortunately, I have no backbone and am a massive sucker for Ace+Seven, their headbutting, and seeing my favorite guys get emotionally and physically destroyed. So I'm giving this one a 9/10. Happilyeverafter.

Incredible, incredible book. Just an insanely well-written fascinating meditation on violence. It occasionally verges on Von Dannikenism, but I think it mostly manages to avoid it. Very, very interesting, Kate Orman is just an incredibly good writer.