Fun and sweet! I mean, it's Susan!!! And a great-grandchild for the Doctor!!!

The story is nothing groundbreaking, and I'm not sure I like that a) Susan almost causes an alien invasion by naively asking random aliens for help and b) the way the xenophobes end up kind of having a point, as the aliens that answer Susan's call really are there to enslave and oppress them. Nevertheless, it is a much, much, much better reunion for Susan and the Doctor than the EDA 'Legacy of the Daleks', which is also based on the premise that the Doctor gets a distress signal from Susan and goes to 22nd century Earth to investigate.

They mention Susan looks older than the Doctor, so I guess she could somehow control her aging process? I was gonna say Alex is too bratty for my taste, but from his perspective, it really was a lot to take in: famous parents, dead dad, influential politician (?) mum, he gets manipulated by the xenophobic alien haters. Suddenly there's also this weird guy that keeps following him and saying strange things and that he knows his parents, and the guy's an alien! The xenophobes want him to shoot the aliens, but his mum calls the guy GRANDFATHER meaning his mum is an alien as well, making him HALF-ALIEN! And great-granddad has a time machine, and mum wants him to go to space college in their planet... Oof. I'd freak out as well.

Looking forward to seeing Susan and Alex again!

Not terrible by any means, but pretty uninteresting after the first two episodes. It didn't really offer anything new, and I've never cared much for stories involving the Thals. I would complain about Latep's instant crush on Jo, but she's just that lovable, I can believe a guy would fall for her in 12 hours of meeting her. Amazing fashion from the Doctor, a couple of very good lines about courage and about war. Jo's motormouth explanation to the Doctor of being saved by a Spiridon has THE funniest line: "it was terrible, and then I rescued by this bowl!!!" (since the Spiridons are invisible, and the bowl he was holding all she could see). Wait a minute, did she actually think Wester was a floating bowl? I'm very that the next serial is her goodbye, but I am super excited to see Sarah Jane next season.

What a wild ride. The TARDIS team goes to San Francisco to investigate some time weirdness. The find out that the Doctor's regeneration and the Master's meddling with the Eye of Harmony during the TV Movie left a nasty scar in space-time that is attracting a lot of unwanted attention. Sam falls into the scar is turns into the alternate version of herself we found out existed in her biodata in 'Alien Bodies', a dark-haired Sam that's a junkie and general nobody back in London. The Doctor uses the TARDIS to contain the scar while he figures out how to bring blonde Sam back. This is really, really, really bad for the TARDIS, though, and she'll die if she stays there too long. To make things worse, Faction Paradox is there, and there's a scientist from a higher dimension that wants to pin the Doctor, Sam and Fitz like butterflies, and also a Kraken. Yeah.

Dark-haired loser Sam, you're a star. Like, from her perspective, she's is told she has a 'good twin' who is best friends/maybe more with a hot time traveling alien, and he wants his Sam back. For that, she has to basically die, to 'change' into this blonde Sam. She gets her past rewritten many times, and tries to hold onto her sense of self with all her might. It's not even that she's a better character than our Sam (although the contrast really makes our Sam, blonde Sam, seem really boring and too much of a goodie two shoes), it's more that the conflict she's put into is more compelling than anything that has happened to our Sam in a long time.

It's a story about identity, about how and if your past really defines who you are. The ley lines and the scar are actually the Doctor's exposed biodata (hi, 'Alien Bodies'!), his history, his everything, vulnerable to 'edits' just as Sam's. Faction Paradox is here, but their presence, in the shape of an annoying as hell little boy with a knife, is not that threatening: he's mostly keeping an eye on things, being a nuisance, and stabbing the Doctor. The real danger to the Doctor's and Sam's biodata is Griffin, the higher dimensional scientist that wants to 'make sense' of them, prune the bits of their biodata that makes them too complicated.

For the Doctor, this means straightening out his conflicting backstories. Remember the 'I'm half-human on my mother's side' bit they did in the Movie? Well, it's one of his backstories now, it's the one Eight apparently believes is the truth, and the one Griffin sees in his biodata. And if his past was altered to make him half-human, if that was changed by someone, well, how would the Doctor even know? The Faction Paradox boy taunts the Doctor with this, and the Doctor's answer is a very good 'I don't care, I am who I am now, it doesn't matter if I was different yesterday or not'. I can't not think of the Timeless Child story arc, which resolves similarly when Thirteen (after considerable more angst than Eight) realises she doesn't want or need her memories from before the First Doctor to know who she is today. The whole 'conflicting backstories/memories can be due to malicious agents editing biodata' is a great concept overall, pretty much an in-universe retcon of retcons. A DeRetcon gun.

Dark-haired Sam speed runs Blonde Sam's 'crush on the Doctor' arc: she goes from 'he's insane' to 'still insane, but hot' to 'still hot, but too dangerous and alien to shag'. The Doctor takes it in stride, almost like he expected it. In the back massage scene (which was wooow, go Sam, get him), he's a little bit confused at the beginning, then just goes with it ('Defender of the Laws of Time, Protector of the Galaxy, and the biggest back-rub slut she's ever seen'). When she kisses him, he calmly slows her down and says he's very very old and very very dangerous, and that she should actually be afraid of what might happen to her because she's with him. She lets it go once she reaches the 'still hot, but too dangerous and alien to shag' bit of her development, after Kyra is killed. She ends up connecting (and sleeping) with Fitz then, who is just very human. He thinks that's not a great reason, but it is! She's not talking about biology, obviously. She's talking about emotional reactions, which Eight in particular has been known to 'miscalculate', in a sense. He cares, but he also moves on at breakneck speeds. It's why (spoiler for his BF audios) Charley leaves him. Fitz is a caring, vulnerable guy, and at that moment that counts for a lot.

Poor, poor TARDIS. The Doctor using her to plug the space-time-biodata scar is going to destroy her; it's so sad that he knows and did it deliberately, because he had no alternative if he wanted to save Sam and San Francisco. We're told he can hear her anguished cries of pain and confusion and betrayal throughout the whole story, and that just hurts my heart. If he lets her dies inside the scar, chances are she'll heal it and everything will be alright for the city. It's not 100% guaranteed, though. The Doctor ends up considering long and hard what his life would be like if he were to be stranded in SF in 2002. He can visualise a life, kind of similar to what he had during the UNIT years, with Sam and Fitz, with Grace. He thinks about how he considered it for a hot second in the Movie, when Grace asked him to stay with her. How it would be nice to really know a place completely, to go local like Prof. Joyce, to care about the small things. The idea is not wholly abhorrent, but it doesn't sit right with him, how 'easy' it would be. Moreover, the TARDIS is not just a ship. It's his home, his friend, part of him, as we were just told in 'Dominion'. So of course he wants to save her. The whole scene of them rushing to the alley in the Bug to be with her in what could be her final moments is painful. RIP to the Doctor's purple VW Bug, which gets knackered by the Doctor's absolutely unhinged driving. You were a good car.

As the plot gets closer and closer to a catastrophic end (as in, imminent Kraken attack), the Doctor gets ruthless. He can't sacrifice the TARDIS, getting her out of the rift and putting all his chips in the much riskier plan of using Griffin's collector's box to seal the it instead. Fitz is distraught that he'd chose to put so many people in danger just so he doesn't lose his freedom. The Doctor's answer is a chilling 'I will not be pinned down to one place and time. And I will not lose another friend. I don't have to. I'm the Doctor. I win.' Hi, Time Lord Victorious, good to see you so young! Dark Sam's internal comment to this line is that she's not sure if that means he did it in a moment of strength or a moment of weakness. Nice stuff. He also reduces FP boy to tears in his cold fury. And at the end there, with Griffin and the box? Did he say 'number 18' knowing dark Sam wouldn't know what it was and would have to change into blonde Sam (pretty much kill herself, eh?) to save the day? I honestly think he did, yeah. Cold. In the end, blonde Sam is back, with only a few memories of her time as dark-haired Sam, and the lesson of 'you are who you are at the moment, and you can make your own future'. Plus, she and Fitz are probably not going to go into the romance territory again, thankfully.

While this book was a great time, I do have some problems with the plot. There's always lot going on, a lot of getting captured and escaping, back and forth, a lot of problems jumbled together. It's the scar, it's FP, it's the Henches, it's Griffin, it's the goddamned Kraken. The whole thing with Prof. Joyce (who was this guy? He says he's not a Time Lord, but...) and the stabilizer gadget was a spanner in the works that was too (in)convenient and 'mysterious' too me.

Ah, and don't think I haven't noticed, Blum and Orman! Why did Griffin want Fitz as well as Sam and the Doctor? What was it in his biodata that didn't conform??? I'm also wondering if the reason the TARDIS tried to get rid of Sam in 'Dominion' was to avoid being hurt in this story...

The List of Pain is back! I'm gonna count what he goes through in this book as Torture and as Serious Injuries, as he gets stabbed like 3 times (2 by FP boy, another at the end by Griffin -- at least that's what I understood from all the blood in his shirt).

• Memory Loss:1 (in 'The Eight Doctors')
• Serious Injuries/Near Death Experience:8 (gets vampired 'Vampire Science', nearly drowns in the Thames in 'The Bodysnatchers', bomb+fingers broken in 'Kursaal', electrocuted in 'Longest Day', gets shot + severe blood loss in 'Legacy of the Daleks', nearly squashed by giant hydra in 'The Scarlet Empress', leg broken + slapped around by giant tentacled monster in 'The Face-Eater', stabbed in this one)
• Torture:3 (in 'Genocide', 'Seeing I', goes through a lot in this one)

The story picks up immediately after 'Revolution Man': Fitz is going back to Sam's room to apologise after their fight over his and the Doctor's role on Ed Hill's murder. He gets there just in time to see her and her whole room get swallowed by a vortex, as the TARDIS has been attacked by something. The Doctor manages to land and get himself and Fitz out before she goes straight into recovery mode (complete with turning back into a grey cube!), locking them out and stranding them in Sweden, 1999.

Sam's away for half the book. We get her POV in part 2, but frankly, I don't think the story would have changed at all if she'd just showed up at the end. The one thing she does is stop Itharquell from killing himself, a scene what was not really necessary. I don't dislike Sam, but this is book number 22, and I can only say I really liked her in maybe 8 of them. I guess she's just... boring, at this point. Reacts more than acts, follows more than leads, obeys more than questions. In any case, she's sidelined here to make room for Fitz and his relationship with the Doctor to develop more, as it is only his 4th book as a companion, and he was off the TARDIS for two years during 'Revolution Man'.

The Doctor is neurotic and disoriented for this entire story. Part of it we can assume is due to Ed Hill's murder, another part due to losing Sam and the TARDIS so suddenly. The TARDIS is so broken he can't even feel her in his mind, which we are told is Very Bad, and makes him 'incomplete'. He's not talking about her resources either, he's really talking about his ability to be himself, to be the Doctor. Huh. He freezes when they're attacked at Björn's farm and is told to use his gun to protect them all. He freaks out when he's taken into custody by UNIT/C19; he developed claustrophobia in 'Seeing I', but even so, he's been locked up a few times since, and in worse circumstances, and has managed to keep his cool better than he does here. He gets pretty panicky when he can't immediately figure out who's behind the kidnappings, shaking his fist at the sky, at a point in the story where things are nowhere near as dire as they tend to get for Eight. Basically, he's flip-flopping wildly between the man you can trust with your life (the hero) and a guy making things up as he goes with no back-up plan. Dr. Lindgard's death in his escape attempt is the encapsulation of this, an easy-peasy situation in any other circumstance, botched horribly. His state of mind being this strange is intentional. Thing is, I don't mind seeing the Doctor in a vulnerable position at all; I welcome it! But he was on the verge of looking incompetent, which is a step too far. He gets better as book goes on, though, and is in much better shape by the end of it.

Poor Fitz just got back from a year of being brainwashed by the Chinese government and is thrown into this mess. He gets to play investigator for a bit, is Kerstin's caretaker for most of the story, and (unlike Sam in most of her stories) gets to do big plot relevant things and makes his own, character-driven decisions. Good for him. He does have a tendency to develop instant crushes on every girl he meets, though, but he thankfully keeps most of it inside his own head. Sam being away means that for over half the book he's the Doctor's only companion. As the Doctor is acting off, Fitz (and Kerstin, to a lesser extent) is on a roller coaster of 'it's over' and 'we're so back' in regards to his trust in the Doctor and his ability to save the day and keep the moral high ground while doing so, and also in regards to whether or not he's going to keep traveling with him or not. 'Trust the Doctor' wins out, as the Doctor saves him, Sam, Kerstin, and the T'hiili from certain death, specially when he realises his own original plan would have actually killed the T'hiili, due to his ignorance of their biology.

I have to discuss Kerstin Bergman. I feel so, so, so sorry for this girl. Boyfriend kidnapped by aliens, boyfriend returned only to be 'Alien'-ed right in front of her eyes, goes to another universe, is the only reason the Doctor manages to save the day, as she's the one that opens the TARDIS for him, goes through a whole internal journey of grief and growth in the span of a couple of days, realises she wants to travel with the Doctor, asks to stay...... AND IS TOLD 'NO'. He looks the girl in the eyes and says that she can't travel with them, that she's gonna have a good normal life, that she needs to process her grief. Rich, considering how Fitz came on board! I'd be absolutely, utterly devastated if this happened to me, asking to be a companion and getting a 'no' so callously. Big, big ouch.

The Dominion as a setting had some interesting ideas, but I'll be damned if I understood the mechanics of the sky-sea things and the interconnected caverns. I also kept confusing which aliens were the Ruin and which were the Bane. Sam's whole 200 page journey there didn't do much for me, and it's honestly ridiculous how Fitz ended up getting so much more to do there in only about 20 pages: he meets the queen and invents fire, for God's sake! The most interesting thing about the wormhole is that the Doctor mentions that the TARDIS 'wanted it' to affect her, meaning she let herself be breached so Sam would be snatched up. Hmmmmmm. Prof. Nagle and Major Wolstencroft were the tired old 'mad scientist that refuses to see the danger of their experiments' and 'military that distrusts aliens (particularly the Doctor) and science in general'. Even the Doctor says something to the effect of 'why does every military lock me up when I need to fix the Problem Machine of the Day'? I quite liked Inspector Nordenstam, but he vanishes completely from the plot after Johan's death by 'Alien'.

Nothing for the List of Pain this time. The Doctor gets shot (in a very 'what are you gonna do, shoot me?' *gets shot* scene), but it's only a tranquiliser gun. What he does get is 02 kisses!!! He kisses Fitz out of pure joy when Fitz says something clever, and is kissed by Sam when they were about to maybe die at the end of the story. It's very funny to me that Sam's the one kissing him in all their 3 kisses ('Longest Day', 'Seeing I' and here), while he's the one to kiss Fitz. It's like Eleven with Amy and Rory! Another funny thing is how multiple people include in their internal monologue how beautiful Eight is. They are, of course, correct. I liked the Doctor's conversation with Björn, when he uses his often forgotten Future Sight (which is soon proven to be unreliable), and pretty much all of Fitz's conversations with Kerstin. I also liked how he has a couple of moments of being a bit envious of the Doctor: once when he manages to get Kerstin to open up to him almost instantly, and another at the end when he saves them all and 'gets all the glory'. It makes sense, since Fitz has moments of feeling inadequate even without a Time Lord to compare himself to.

After the fun of 'Demontage', 'Revolution Man' is a slap in the face. In the same fashion as Paul Leonard's 2 previous EDAs, 'Genocide' and 'Dreamstone Moon', this is a quite bleak adventure, and probably the darkest of the three. The story begins very fast, no time for fun and games: the Doctor detects an anomaly in the vortex rooted in the late 60's, changing history. Unless they put things back into place, the Earth will be destroyed in an atomic WW3. It's a pretty simple plot, actually, and effective. A group of (mostly?) well-meaning flower-child revolutionaries got a hold of a mysterious plant in Nepal. The plant, Om-Tsor, gives them near unlimited, god-like power, including mind control. The group, under the lead of the 'Revolution Man', start using these powers to attack major powers, leading to world to the brink of war as everyone starts blaming everyone else for the attacks. The book uses this to be very critical of the revolutionaries of the 60's and their naivety and unfocused, self-centered efforts.

All this right up Sam's alley. I like the way Leonard writes her, as he actually does something with her political beliefs and activism. These traits are the core of her character, and it's good to see them appear prominently in the plot and drive her actions. She's deeply dismayed by the methods of the Revolution Man and his followers, and annoyed by their aimless and rash protests. Sam's quite in control here, which is a nice change.

The Doctor is almost a specter in the story, giving Sam and Fitz directions, but staying out of the center of things, mostly just showing up for major rescues and the big finale. I'm pretty sure he stole that motorbike, by the way. Dick move, Doctor, I hope you payed for it later, at least.

A big theme going on here is the Doctor's different relationships with Sam and Fitz. He and Sam have been traveling together for so long now that things come easy, and her trust in him is absolute (more on this later). Fitz is still very much the new guy, and he's a needy guy to boot. He's feeling a bit left out, and unsure if he actually wants to keep up the life of danger of a full-time companion. He does trust the Doctor and relies on him, and is rewarded for this when the Doctor brings Maddie back from the brink of death, but he's still not full on on board.

It's crazy convenient that they pretty much randomly meet Maddie, the one person who can tell them more about Om-Tsor and Ed Hill. Even more convenient is how Fitz immediately attaches himself to her, basically just because she's pretty. If he hadn't decided to pursue her, the Earth would be in shambles, I guess. In an incredibly hasty decision, he leaves the TARDIS to stay with Maddie, a girl he met 1 day ago. And he stays gone for two years! I don't think this was necessary at all for his development as character, but okay, I guess. The only reason we get him back is because, since he stayed behind to be with Maddie (who he literally just met!!!), who is deeply involved with the Revolution Man, the Doctor leaves him with a special call card to the TARDIS (I've never come across this call card business before). When Fitz and Maddie go to Nepal to track the source of Om-Tsor, he gets kidnapped by the Chinese army, and is brainwashed, I believe, for a whole year. Maddie calls the Doctor, and agrees to help him and Sam investigate the Revolution Man cult, gets brainwashed.

The TARDIS keeps skidding around in time because of the mess in the time vortex, so whole team (Sam, Fitz, Maddie and the Doctor) only really get all together for the grand confrontation with Ed Hill/Revolution Man. This is where all goes to sh*t. Both Maddie and Fitz are still out of sorts due to the brainwashing, Sam's being held back by Ed's followers, and it's 1 minute before the bombs hit and WW3 begins, and ends everything. The Doctor needs to get to the Om-Tsor, but Ed, all powerful, won't let him. Ed's messing with the Eye of Harmony in the TARDIS, which adds another layer of 'the Earth will be destroyed if we don't stop him now'. Then he's in Fitz's face and is 100% going to kill him, so Fitz shoots the guy in the face. But he's still in god mode, only making even more of a mess because, well, bullet to the brain will mess you up, won't it. There's seconds to go. So the Doctor takes he gun and shots Ed in the head again to finish him off, takes a looot of the drug, and saves the day. I guess he stops the bombs and contains the damage to the TARDIS. The news reports in the following pages indicate that he does not erase the Revolution Man from history, but all international powers somehow calm down enough to not go into war anymore.

But yeah, let's go back to that point where the Doctor shoots a man in the head to save the day. Like, wow. He's very distraught at this, of course, and it really seems like there was no alternative, but damn. Moving to the real world for a sec, this was bold choice for Paul Leonard. Let's not delude ourselves: we've seen the Doctor kill plenty of people before. But like this, gun in his hand, point blank shooting a guy, blood splattering on his face, 'there was no alternative'? Oof. Thankfully, he is very affected by it, along with Sam and Fitz, even in the next book, 'Dominion'.

Back to the finale, Sam's in shock, angry at the Doctor, and he's trying to rationalize things, to explain, rambling, mostly to make sense of things for himself. Paul McGann would have acted the sh*t out of this scene, by the way. A while later, in the TARDIS, she's discussing this with Fitz. While the Doctor is clearly very upset about what happened, apparently mopping somewhere in the TARDIS, Fitz is more defensive. He shot Ed because he was on him and he panicked, and while he's not happy about it, he can't really regret it either. Sam's interesting in this scene. Ed's murder shocked her, but when she starts yelling at Fitz we can see that the crux of her issue is actually that Fitz made the Doctor finish the job. Fitz argues that she can't put the whole blame on him, because the Doctor did have a choice in the matter. But for her, the Doctor 'is a hero, and he never never never does anything wrong, you don't understand!', so blaming Fitz completely is the easy way out. Sam Sam Sam, careful with that absolute trust and devotion! Fitz, on the other hand, is shaken and isn't sure if he wants to really go back to traveling in the TARDIS. This was not a fun time for anyone. There's no happy moment. Even Fitz's normal year with Maddie is tainted. There's a point where someone offers Sam a pistachio ice cream, in Rome, and she declines. No happiness whatsoever.

So, did I like it? I'm not sure! I liked Sam, I liked Fitz (even though I don't see why they chose to give him this timeskip, as he just joined the team). The true alien origin of Om-Tsor is never revealed, and I don't really see how exactly the Doctor puts things to right after the geopolitical mess the Revolution Man caused. And Maddie just goes bonkers at the end. As I said, the Doctor is in the background for most of the story, and mostly in control, and then shows up and kills a guy. I think it was interesting and shocking. I've already read 'Dominion', the next book, and I do think what happens here is a big influence on how he's acting there, so the ending wasn't just for shock value, which I appreciate. It also served to highlight both how Sam's got the Doctor firmly on a pedestal (worrying!!!), and how Fitz's opinion of him is still uncertain. So, all in all, it's interesting and well written book, and I was engaged throughout. Let's see how things develop from here!

This serial had the obvious problem of the Doctor and Jo being captured and escaping way too many times. However, it was a lot of fun and the political intrigue was compelling. Jo is great in this one, specially in their escape from the Master's cell in the ship. Then she resists his hypnosis! And escapes using a spoon!!! It was part of the Master's plan, but still she one ups him by stealing the mind control thingy. I just really like Jo. And hey, the Master's back! Very good to see him again, and I love the twist when he shows up, and the twist that he's working for the Daleks (gasp!)

Some other minor comments: loved the look of the Draconians, loved the cliffhanger of having the Doctor call the Time Lords for help at the end (we know it's serious when he calls Gallifrey). They used the building of the Brazilian national congress as a stand in for the Earth Presidential Palace and wow, that was a huge surprise for me, as a Brazilian. It really is a very cool looking building.

The Doctor, Sam, and new companion Fitz Kreiner go to a space casino called Vega (hilarious) and get caught in the middle of a complicated web of intrigue that involves a hired assassin, conspiring politicians, spies, hairy monsters, art dealers, and forgers. With a setup like this, it could not have gone wrong. And it doesn't: this book slaps. It's has lot of twists and turns, it's full of colorful characters, has a pretty solid plot, and it was funny!

The cast is large, but the characters are, thankfully, all 1) necessary, 2) very well outlined and 3) interesting. Some are better than than others, but everyone that has a name has a reason to be named, and something to do in the plot. Hazard was effortlessly cool and badass, Vermillion was compelling, Bigdog Caruso was awesome, etc. etc. Special mention to Forster and Rappare, scheming, cheating (married? they were to me) old men, who were a delight in every scene.

The plot keeps you guessing in a good way, like a good mystery should. The whole gotcha with the paintings was super cool to piece together, and so was Martinique's identity. The Doctor having won so much money at the casino years ago (back when he was the Fourth Doctor) that he basically owns the whole place and the manager wants to kill him was goooold. I love it when he gets to play cards, by the way; poker fiend fits him better than chessmaster any day. How the Doctor was not affected by Martinique's scanner is not explained, but I assume it's his multi-dimensional nature as Time Lord doing its magic, which was also very cool.

I have to talk about Fitz. This idiot has my whole heart. His personality is very well delineated already; it's really incredible just how well I can say I know him after just 2 books, specially considering how long it took for Sam to become a defined character in this series. He challenges the Doctor to see who can win more in the casino, which only a new companion would do. He dresses up as James Bond, bets and loses all his cash in the first game he plays. He is too embarrassed to admit it, so he just lounges at the bar and pretends to have a plan. He orders martinis "shaken, not stirred". He accidentally gets hired to kill the Doctor. How can anyone not like this character, it's impossible. He's incredibly entertaining, and you can tell Justin Richards, the author, agrees, giving him a lot of great moments.

One of the good things of having Fitz around is that Sam has someone more on her level to bounce of off. She rolls her eyes at his stupid jokes and gets to hold her superior understanding of space stuff and adventuring with the Doctor over his head a bit. She is the one that connects them to the plot regarding the Martinique exposition. However, she doesn't get nearly as many cool moments as Fitz. She gets stuck in a painting for a bit and is kind of sidelined, while he gets to scheme with the Doctor and have run ins with Hazard, Bigdog, and the Devourer. But all in all, it was nice to see that this new TARDIS team in action, and it was particularly nice to see how much Fitz already cares for Sam. They are giving 'loser older brother with intimidating younger sister' energy, a dynamic leagues more in line with their characters than their poor attempt at romance in 'The Taint'. I hope they keep this vibe going forward.

The Doctor escaped unscratched from this adventure (doesn't even faint!), and got a life-sized painting of himself as a souvenir. I mean, they send an assassin to kill him, but he doesn't actually get hurt, which is a massive win for him. Congrats, babe!

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.

This book had potential, but it doesn't deliver. Not a bad read, but very meh.

The premise is simple: the Doctor and Sam answer a distress signal sent from Proxima 2, humanity's first ever colony outside the Solar system. There's been several murders, and Chief of Police Ben Fuller thinks the killer is not a simple human colonist. The beginning of the book reads like a noir mystery novel, but In Space, as we follow the POV of some of the colonists. It takes quite a few chapters for the Doctor and Sam to show up, in fact. Once they arrive and are appraised of the situation, they obviously offer to help in the investigation, with the Doctor handily producing some documents proving they are professionals (real documents!). The leader of the colony, Helen Percival, is very sus, though. Apart from the titular Face-Eater, she's the main villain here and, by God, she sucks. Not a single redeeming quality, just evil. The Face-Eater's telepathic power is putting everyone in the colony a bit on edge, but she's just off the rails 100% of the time. Decides early on that she doesn't trust the Doctor or her own Chief of Police, and just absolutely loathes Sam on sight. The other characters are a mixed bag: some had potential, like Lopez and Joan, but they die super quickly. Ben Fuller, hot and troubled detective, has a whole 'The Mentalist' backstory, but also dies at around half the book, and Jake Leary only really shows up on the third act.

Sam begins the story wanting to make sure that the nanites that overtook her in 'Beltempest' are truly gone and that she's 100% herself again. This is mentioned a few times, but it's not a great source of angst or reflection; this is more of a plot book than a character book. By the end, we and Sam can be sure there's no nanites left, since she gets horribly hurt and almost dies twice: has a bomb explode on her (thanks, Percival) and is in a car crash (that she herself has to cause to get rid of one of the Face-Eaters). She had a some rapport with Fuller until he dies, and then connects with Leary, but it's a short-lived collaboration. She and Doctor spend most of the story separated, again. They split up for the investigation when they arrive, Sam with Fuller, the Doctor with Joan, and only meet again at the very end. The Doctor's part of the investigation takes him to the Proximans, kind of chipmunk/rat telepathic little creatures that I unfortunately spent the whole book picturing as 'Alvin and Chipmunks' from the movie. Yes, with the sweaters. Anyway. They kind of telepathically tell him that the Face-Eater(s) lives in the mountains and that it, not Jake Leary, is the responsible for the murders. One of the things attack him and Joan, she dies, he gets hurt and then disappears for half the book.

Part one is mostly about the investigation. In part two the focus shifts to Percival's paranoia leading to a manhunt for Sam and Fuller, and to riots in the streets. The Doctor is nowhere to be found, but washes up with a broken leg after a few days. Except it isn't the Doctor, it's one of the Face-Eaters! Gasp! The author doesn't want us to know that, though. We get his POV and he's mostly thinking things and saying things the Doctor would think and say, but there's something a bit off. He makes some mistakes, he doesn't anticipate some things he should, is too desperate when he talks to Sam in the hospital. Buuut I don't know, the twist wasn't constructed as well as I'd have liked. I particularly didn't like that it wasn't Sam to figure out it wasn't really him; the real Doctor sent Leary with the message to her and Percival. It would have been so cool to have Sam confront a fake Doctor, to have her realise it wasn't him by some small thing only a long time companion would have noticed! But no, Sam can't get a win like that, apparently. All her plans, as it more often than not happens in these books, are either failures (getting Leary's file from Percival's office -- Ben dies before they do anything with the info, the Doctor meets Leary himself) or inconsequential (trying to stop Percival from setting off the nuclear bomb -- Horton already did it). Her big win in this one was the car crash, poor Sam.

Part three is a whoooole mess. Giant tentacle monster attack mess. We get the real Doctor's POV on what happened and how he met Leary, then he goes to confront the main Face-Eater along with one of the chipmunk thingies. The only reason he doesn't die is because these books are called 'The Eighth Doctor Adventures'. He bluffs and confuses the Face-Eater a bit, but if it wasn't for the Proximans we'd be meeting John Hurt here. He gets thrown around and smacked a lot, and is nearly mind raped; he even says he 'thinks he might regenerate from bruising alone', my poor guy.

The day is... saved, ish, although a lot of people died, the colony is mostly destroyed, and the Proximans doomed themselves to extinction when they 'deactivated' the Face-Eater. A horrible week for all involved, Sam and the Doctor just want to get out of there and never think of any of this ever again. Fair.

Guess who's back? The list! Leary kiiiind of tortures/interrogates him, but his discomfort is mostly due to the broken leg, so I'm only counting that, and the Face-Eater doesn't quite get inside his head enough to count as torture (given that this is the Doctor we're talking about).

• Memory Loss:1 (in 'The Eight Doctors')
• Serious Injuries/Near Death Experience:7 (gets vampired 'Vampire Science', nearly drowns in the Thames in 'The Bodysnatchers', bomb+fingers broken in 'Kursaal', electrocuted in 'Longest Day', gets shot + severe blood loss in 'Legacy of the Daleks', nearly squashed by giant hydra in 'The Scarlet Empress', leg broken + slapped around by giant tentacled monster here)
• Torture:2 (in 'Genocide', 'Seeing I')

Charming, but a bit too slow for my taste. Nothing very deep or complex, mostly comedic. The ending was lackluster, but it was a lighthearted story anyways.