Michael Collier's (a pseudonym for Stephen Cole) second entry in the EDAs has a lot of the same issues as his first, 'Longest Day', but also a lot of the same merits. The setup is nice and simple: a group of people suffering from a seemingly shared delusion in the 60s is under the care of the well-meaning and ambitious Dr. Roley, who wishes to understand their mental illness; aliens ensue. There are fewer characters than in 'Longest Day', but it took me until 70% of the book to be able to tell Russell, Watson, and Taylor apart, as I just kept messing up their names. My biggest issues are with the pacing of the third act, which is all over the place, and with action scenes that are quite difficult to picture (very weird use of the TARDIS, to move from one room to another???), and the way Cole writes his female characters and their interactions with the male characters.

Lucy and Nurse Maria Bulwell are completely defined by their sexual and romantic relationships with men. It's implied that Lucy's mental illness led her to be a sex worker (yikes), and her character falls neatly into the "crazy sexy and childish killer" trope. Like all of the other patients, Lucy is not developed beyond her f***ed up backstory, which is fine, but it does make her possessed/crazy sexy act seem even more dated. Bulwell is a cruel and bitter nurse who hates her patients, obsessed and fully devoted to the oblivious Dr. Roley; she's a bad person, not a bad character, but she is 100% defined by her pinning for Roley. Mrs. Kreiner, Fitz's mom, is a just a sweet little old lady whose job in the plot is to be just that, and to get possessed, so that's fine. And then there's Sam, who gets to make 01 decision (to go out with Fitz), and is immediately 1) sexually harassed, 2) nearly killed, 3) sexually harassed again, 4) kidnapped and infected with alien leech thing, and 5) sidelined until the Doctor cures her. Credit to Collier, he does, like in 'Longest Day', gives us insight into Sam's feelings and rationalizations, but she's just not a very active player in this story, and does not get to shine at any point. Nevertheless, he writes interesting scifi, with a cool concept that slowly comes together, even if the final act was messy.

The best part of the book, hands down, is the introduction of new companion Fitz Kreiner, a much needed shake up to the TARDIS team after 19 books. He comes to life already in his first scene, with an immediately apparent personality: he's a dreamer, a charmer, a loser, a quick thinker, clever, plays the guitar, and he's bit of a coward, but not as much as he thinks. And he's funny, which I really appreciate, given how unfunny Sam is (sorry, Sam). The one taint (ha!) in his character intro is in his interaction with Sam. I get it, I get it, he's a working class 27yo loser from 1963, not a gentleman. Sure, I get that he would spring a kiss on her after their "date"; not classy behaviour, but I get it. I don't get why on Earth he would strip naked to sleep next to a concussed, unconscious, semi-nude Sam. Make him a bit of a sexist, fine: I can deal with a character starting out as flawed, I welcome it! But c'mon, that was just straight up weird.

I did quite like the Doctor here, as he refuses to treat the Beasts as an evil that must be destroyed, and really tries to make all parties collaborate and understand each other. Doesn't really work because the possessed patients won't have it, but he does try. In the end, as the very last resort, he has to kill the patients (Mrs. Kreiner included), but it felt like there was no way out. He's very much not having Sam dying on him. That's come up in the last couple of books, how he's willing to bend rules and bargain with many people's lives to keep Sam safe; I'm sensing some light Charley and Clara vibes here. Bulwell notes this nicely when she says he's prioritizing Sam over the lives of everyone else, doing what's best for him. And yeah, he is, which is a choice I really like. Let the Doctor be a bit selfish and put his friends first! We know the narrative will punish him for it eventually. He also has a couple of very good and funny lines, in particular when he's terrorizing Fitz at their first meeting, and his little "Please can I have my robot back" near the end. Big hopes for a more fun TARDIS team dynamic in the next books!

The Doctor gets smacked around a bit and knocked out, but nothing really major or worthy of going into the List of Torture and Pain. Sam gets the short end of the stick again, and even mentions it herself. Shot on the same shoulder as in 'The Janus Conjunction'? Ouch.