As of now, this is one of my favorite ever Doctor Who stories. I have absolutely nothing bad to say about this book, except that it sadly ends. Wanted to re-read it immediately.

Sam reached the planet Ha'olam after being forced to leave the Doctor behind at the end of 'Dreamstone Moon'. Feeling massively guilty about both about leaving him and about kissing him when he was near dead, and still more than a bit in love with him, she just wants to move on with her life and is resigned to never seeing him again. And so she does. With nothing on her name and only the clothes on her back, she builds herself up and grows up in the three years she ends up spending on Ha'olam. She gets a job, finds out what matters to her and who she wants to be, works towards it. Gets a few boyfriends, lets the Doctor move into her past as a sort of inspiration. Matures. It was a joy to see. Sam's characterization hasn't been consistent on the EDAs, but here, this Sam, that's who she's supposed to be, and she shines. At the end of this story, she's a 21yo who knows who she is, and I adore her.

The Doctor follows her to Ha'olam and does his utmost to find her. He's not sure what happened, why she left, so he wants to make sure she's leaving because that was her decision. He wants to know what happened, and he's worried about her. When he ends up in jail after getting caught stealing information from INC, a big corporation that has some very sus eye tech, we the readers smirk. 'Right. Jail,' we think. 'He'll be out in days'. 'I'll be out in days', the Doctor says, also smirking at us. But his escape plan fails. The desperation that sets in when they keep failing, one after the other, builds up inside of us just as much as they do inside of him. It's a nice jail, a humane jail, they are treating him well, but he's trapped and bored out of his mind and so, so incredibly frustrated it's painful to see. He's there for 3 years. The parasite thing the I (the aliens behind it all) put in his eye, spying on his every movement, reading some of his thoughts was icing on the cake of misery. Very nice to see something like this being treated seriously, having consequences. These 3 years break Eight, as they should! He’s impeccably characterized all throughout this book. He is movie!Eight through and through, in the best way possible.

I whooped out loud when Sam finds out he's imprisoned and decides to get friends together to break him out. The scenes in the TARDIS immediately afterwards were fantastic. She and her friends, incredibly uncomfortable in the console room, hearing his distant, echoing screams as he somehow gets the parasite spy out of his eye, Sam frustrated that they don't see who he is, what he is, how amazing he is, actually, trust her. Her conversation with the Doctor in the butterfly room afterwards is just beautiful.

So, Sam's feelings for him. Let's talk about that. As she puts it, it “was not some moony little teenage crush. This is a real life want to throw him on the floor and shag him till bits break off kind of problem. All right?”, and “Because I love him but not just because of his beautiful eyes. Because I love him because he’s a hero”. Like, damn, girl. So, she’s definitely sexually attracted, and definitely loves him. And yeah, you know, I 100% buy it. If the beautiful Eighth Doctor took me away to see the stars when I was 17 and repeatedly saved whole planets and also my life, yeah, it’d do a number on me too. I love the way her feelings are described throughout the book. It was in turns funny and heartfelt, which was a nice combination. Sam has been repressing those feelings for a long time now, but thanks to her growth, she manages, by the end of the book, to sort them out somewhat by finally, finally kissing him. The Doctor, of course, also loves her… but not in a sexual and/or romantic way, at least not in human terms, and at least not right now. He’s thrilled to have her back, and at this moment he really needs her to bring him back together. I really liked all of these developments, all these types of love that coexist in their relationship.

A couple of last things: I loved DOCTOR! What a cool idea. I hope it has fun in cyberspace! And the thread connecting their past adventures involving other evil corporations (TCC, DMMC) with INC was a very nice touch.

The Doctor goes through it in this one, so:

• Memory Loss:1 (in 'The Eight Doctors')
• Serious Injuries/Near Death Experience:5 (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 'Legacy of the Daleks')
• Torture:2 (in 'Genocide', 3 years in boring jail + evil eye implant must count as torture, right?)

Jo and the Doctor continue to have amazing chemistry. They go on a little trip to visit the Master in prison. The three of them talk for a little bit, everyone is very polite. And Jo Grant, who has been mind controlled and almost killed by the Master several times, smiles at him and waves goodbye when they leave, completely unironically. This girl has my entire heart. Someone please get her a sandwich, the Doctor ate all of hers :(

The whole plot is pretty good, the Sea Devils look amazing, all the side characters/villains are great, specially Capt. Hart and Blythe, the clever secretary. The pacing is also great, which is a must for a 6-parter. You can really tell the BBC was giddy with how much stuff the Navy was letting them use for this story: so many guns and boats of all types. The Master and the Doctor on little jet skiis. Jo Grant driving a motorcycle and that huge floater boat thing. 10/10.

The fencing fight is incredibly silly and instantly iconic. Jon Pertwee is chewing that sandwich as fast as he possible can to be on time for the cue for his next line. Amazing.

Oh, this one was a great time. Poor Jo missed out on her hot date with Mike Yates, but hey, she got to play princess and steal King Peladon's heart. This type of super fast romance is not something I usually like, because it tends to be too unbelievable. Here though? Those two were just so earnest and genuine (loved David Troughton's performance and fabulous outfit) that I actually do buy it. Thank God Jo has the mind to not stay in Peladon, though. She and the Doctor are such a fun team. There were a lot of great moments, from them improvising their roles as delegate and princess, to the Doctor's trial by combat where he just actually beats the guy up, no particular cleverness involved. Good side characters as well! Alpha Centauri, you're a star! The plot itself is kind of too easy to solve, and the person in a bear costume they used for Aggedor was pretty hard to swallow, but it was a nice location and setup. Oh, and all my love for the Venusian lullaby.

Things that made laugh: "King Peladon of Peladon"; Grun's face in all his reaction shots; the TARDIS dramatically falling down a cliff; the 'Federation' (I half expected Spock's dad to show up at any second).

A pretty solid story, and thank heavens, after the slogfest that was 'Legacy of the Daleks'.

Quite a few characters in this one, but all of them have a purpose in the story, are well used, and well characterized. The mystery of Dreamstone Moon (I kept forgetting in what order the words 'dream', 'stone', and 'moon' were supposed to go) was well done as well, meaning we can figure things out along with the characters, not be told what they have understood. The environmental message was nothing groundbreaking, a classic 'the moon's alive!', but it explored the politics behind protesting against mining corporations in a compelling way, specially through Aloisse (very good character) and Daniel. Xenophobia and (alien) racism were also big points explored mostly through Cleomides' interactions with Aloisse and the Doctor. It was a bit more clumsily done, not woven into the plot as well as the political discussion, but still interesting.

In terms of the general structure of the book, my only complaints were that 1) things are a bit too fast and confusing in the final act, when they go from the moon to the planet, 2) some descriptions of locations are kind of hard to follow (could be just a me problem, though), and 3) Sam almost dies way too many times. Seriously, I think she has 5 or 6 near death experiences, being saved at the last possible second.

I am happy to say Sam Jones is a proper character in this book! She has a good characterization, makes decisions, fights for what she believes in, tries to save people, screws up, gets saved, all of it! I spent the whole book on the edge of my proverbial seat waiting for her and the Doctor to reunite, as the writer no doubt intended. A bit frustrating how many times they find each other, but get immediately separated again. Sam is incredibly guilty for abandoning the Doctor for dead in 'Longest Day', even though it was absolutely not her fault. It was not even her decision to do so: she was in shock, Anstaar put her in a ship and sent her away. Similarly, Cleomides is the one that forces her to abandon him in Mu Camelopides VI. But now Sam thinks the Doctor must believe she's abandoning him on purpose. And yeah, he kinda does. It was very strange of him to consider not going to look for her in 'Legacy of the Daleks', as it was obvious he should at least make sure she was alright. He finds her here, but they only have two direct interactions in this story: when they see each other across the crowd in the moonbase, him yelling her name, her begging the soldiers not to shoot him; and through the shuttle radio at the final act, when she doesn't say a word to him because she's overwhelmed by emotions (guilt and love, mainly). So yeah, he has assured she's alright, but he doesn't know if this means he should scram. I would be mad if this wasn't so in character for Mr. Abandonment Issues. Paraphrasing Aloisse, 'Just go talk to the girl, mate, ffs'.

The list of bodily and mental harm remains unchanged. The Doctor does get shot in the leg, but this makes 0 difference during the story, so I'm not counting it. If this was Sam's list it would be 1382 points on Near Death Experience, though.

Hyped for 'Seeing I' next!

The boringest!!!! HOW can a book that has the Master, the Daleks, and Susan be so boring? Because it should be impossible. But this book does it. I honestly did not like anything in this story, but I'll highlight some things:

The Doctor is... strange in this. In the beginning, he's wondering whether he should go after Sam or not. Excuse me??? What did he think happened at the end of 'Longest Day', that Sam saw his dead body, gave him one last hug, shrugged and left the base happily? Of course she needs him to find her! She's 17 alone in space, impossibly far from home, ffs. I also didn't like the emphasis they put on the "the Doctor needs a companion because he needs an audience to his brilliance, plus he gets bored if he's alone" idea. I do believe that is part of why he has a companion, but that is far from the main reason! These people are his friends! He should want Sam back because she's probably lost and in danger, it's his fault, and he likes her, not because he's lonely and bored. He misses his friend!!! "If he really got bored this time he could always find someone else. Anyone else, really. TARDIS-fodder." What on Earth... On top of this, he felt off to me through the entire book. Telling Donna all about himself after just meeting her, like he was reading out of "What you should know about the Doctor before watching Doctor Who" article or something. He doesn't do anything overly OOC, but the voice was wrong in a way I can't pinpoint. And also boring. Cardinal sin right here, making the Doctor boring.

Susan's here, and for all they do for her, she would be better off not being here at all. Her marriage troubles with David make sense, but on God why did the author feel the need to say that she makes David forget about it by seducing him with her sexy forever young body? When the Master kills David, she gets revenge by torturing him, pretty much killing him, and stealing his TARDIS. Yes, exactly what I wanted from a "the Doctor goes back to visit Susan" story: kill her husband and make her kill the killer in revenge. Great. What 99.99% of people would actually want was for Susan to have a meaningful conversation with her grandfather, but they do not get a single scene together. Nothing! And he doesn't go after her once she gets the Master's TARDIS (nor does he go after the Master). Maybe he can't trace her, and that'd make sense, but he doesn't even try. Neither does she, because she thinks he's dead. Which makes no sense, because he got shot by 01 bullet: he would regenerate even if it had been fatal. So yeah, I felt very cheated.

The Master here is Delgado!Master (yes, we're breaking the laws of time a little bit), and thus has a silly Delgado-style 'destroy humankind, rule the universe' plan. Which is okay, his plan is very on par with the expected, but again, he's boring. Very few interaction with the Doctor, does not know who Susan is until the very end, doesn't even interact with the Daleks all that much. Waste of Master.

The Doctor's one-off companion here is Donna (hehe), a almost-princess turned knight. And guess what, she was violently abused and raped by one of the villains of the story. Not to worry though! Like Susan, she gets to kill the man who hurt her, and all is well. She then marries a less evil guy and gets to be queen!

The best word to describe both the character writing and plot of this book is 'amateurish'. Everything is presented like the author had to try real hard not to write it as bullet points. Feelings and reactions are over simplified and at the same time over-explained. The plot is not the riveting political drama it seems to think it is. The immense potential for character interactions between the Doctor, the Master, and Susan is wasted. We get the origin story for the crispy Master: Susan killed him. Yay?

Oh, the list, how could I forget:

• Memory Loss:1 (in 'The Eight Doctors')
• Serious Injuries/Near Death Experience:5 (gets vampired 'Vampire Science', nearly drowns in the Thames in 'The Bodysnatchers', bomb+fingers broken in 'Kursaal', electrocuted in 'Longest Day', gets shot and suffers from severe blood loss in this one)
• Torture:1 (in 'Genocide')

Boy, this one is dull. A very, very messy plot, weird characters... Just not good, sadly. We get a little explanation for why there were Dalek noises in 'Seasons of Fear', and we get some more information on the Web of Time problem at the end of story, but this story is not essential.

A perfectly well-rounded story. If this was your first ever Doctor Who story, sure, 10/10. But for anyone else, it's too basic and predictable. Still, solid! Everything with the Controller was great, especially his conversation with the Doctor.

Veeery funny to see the little montage with One and Two when the Daleks use a mindscanner thingy on the Doctor to check if he's really the Doctor. Like, yes, past Doctors!!! But there's only two of them. Makes you think about how much more Who is to come.

The Brigadier was talking on 3 phones at once at some point, poor guy. I hope one day he's allowed to use swear words. He deserves it. Also slap a politician. I'm sure he dreams of it.

AH! And! Doctor, I saw you!!! I saw you shooting those aliens and exploding them on purpose!!!!

Perfectly okay story, not super memorable. Nice Charley moments, especially her being pissed that Doctor is going to nobly offer himself up as a sacrifice out of guilt, which would leave her in 1)outer space 2)in the future 3)with people she's just met. The Doctor's mistake with lighting up the artificial suns ends up not being a mistake in the end, which felt like cop out, plotwise. And the Cimmerians were pretty chill about it anyways; the Doctor is like 'I'm ready for punishment :(' and they are 'oh, no, it's okay man, we all make mistakes :)'. Overall, the beginning of the story was great and scary (big fan of the Cimmerian's little whisper-y voices), but it got boring the longer it went on. ROSM was nice! The others were meh.

Not sure if this was a 2 star or a 2.5 star, but it's not like I'm consistent with these ratings anyways. The thing with this one is that I liked the story, but the way it was written didn't work well for me. Lemme break it into parts

The scifi concept was good: a planet divided into literal timezones that you can rent and do whatever you like with; like 'Kursaal', it was a very good setting. But with Hirath, the timezone planet here, the foundation for it was confusing. The Kusks' space-time probe crashed into Hirath. They sent a ship after it with a computer that could interface with it and control it. But the probe and the computer ended up corrupting each other. So now the ship, which turned into a base on the moon, was out of control because the computer was going bonkers, and the planet was also going bonkers because of the probe, and it was going to explode and time-kill half the galaxy. And then there was a second probe?? I don't know, man. The concepts were cool, but it was one of those stories where you just can't piece things together yourself, since the explanation depends on elements you had no way of knowing. The only way to understand the scifi aspects in this one is really waiting for the Doctor to figure it out and have him explain it to you in the dialogue. This made the story lose a lot of appeal to me.

The pacing was awkward at times. In the last book, 'Option Lock', there were some scenes with quick back-and-forth between a few characters/locations. It made sense then, because these things were quick actions which were taking place at the same time, and which were causing the reactions in the other POVs. There's a similar back-and-forth in this book throughout the second and third acts. It works great in the final act. But in the second act, it doesn't, because Sam and the Doctor are not reacting to what the other one is doing, and what is happening to each of them at that point is not going to affect the other either. What ends up happening is that the action is cut off too often, braking the flow of the narrative. It also gives the constant feeling that the Doctor is gonna show up and save Sam at any second. This works for a while, giving you that 'he's gonna save her now! wait... now!' feeling, but after pages and pages and pages, it just becomes pointless and, for me, annoying.

The characters: there's like a dozen of characters in this story. They are named, they get some characterization, they show up on a couple of scenes, and they die. I'm all for rich side characters, but if there's so many of them and they're just all going to die, a lot of it felt pointless. Nashaad has metal legs, is used as mostly as a prop, then dies. Vasid is there, is awful, then dies. Sost is there, is mean to Sam, and dies. Like, okay. Nice to meet you? RIP?

I have to talk about the way women and male character's interactions with women are written here. It sure felt like the author was trying to make a point, but I can't tell you what it was. Vasid, for instance. He's a complete scumbag, horrible, horrible, pathetic man. We're informed of this from the way he treats Anstaar, which includes telling us about all the times he sexually assaulted her, or tried to, and how he's obsessed with her. I don't need Anstaar to be treated like this to feel for her character, just like I don't need Vasid to be this level of awful to dislike his character. He dies so fast anyways!! It didn't matter that much that he was this awful. Similarly, there's the K'Arme commander that is constantly sexist towards the soldier woman Fettal. I don't need him to be explicitly sexist to understand him or her any better. Fettal is a horrible person, yes, but again, I don't need her to called a 'b*tch' multiple times by multiple characters to get that. And again, they all die very fast!!! I don't know if all this sexism was supposed to add flavor to the text, make it grimmer, make it more 'realistic' or whatever, but I can tell you that for me it just felt dated, tired, and mildly upsetting.

Sam goes through it in this one, by God. She's separated from the Doctor almost immediately and put in the middle of a complex situation in one of the prison sectors of Hirath. The plot with the rebels was very nice, by the way. But yeah, Sam is just crushed, physically and emotionally, throughout this story. Traumatizing a character is one of the easiest ways to make us care for them, that's true, and it did work. I wanted to climb into the book and save her myself. It was very effective seeing her confront her own naivety about morality from 'War of the Daleks'. More effective even was her relationship with Tanhith, and how it mirrored her relationship with the Doctor. She was projecting the Doctor on Tanhith, who she saw as a good person, a person who saved her life and who was fighting against a tyrant government. When Tanhith uses Fettal to distract the Kusks, killing her in the process, Sam's vision just shatters, and it's painful to see. This breaks the spell, because the Doctor would never. And it makes her realize what the Doctor means for her and what she feels for him. "Your friend on the moon, do you love him?" "Yes." Of course. Is she in love with him? I'm not sure. She's probably not sure either.

For all my complaints, the last part of this book was very cool. Sam's reaction to the Doctor's 'death' was so so so sad. I'm excited to see where things go from here, with the two of them separated, Sam believing he's dead, and him looking for her, hoping she's not.

On the Doctor's not-death: he really needs to tell companions about how very difficult he is to permanently kill. Even if the electric shock had killed him, he would still regenerate... Oh, and this goes on my list!

• Memory Loss:1 (in 'The Eight Doctors')
• Serious Injuries/Near Death Experience:4 (gets vampired 'Vampire Science', nearly drowns in the Thames in 'The Bodysnatchers', bomb+fingers broken in 'Kursaal', electrocuted -- he flatlines -- in this one)
• Torture:1 (in 'Genocide')

Enjoyable read!

The story overall was interesting. Alien ship feel to Earth ages ago and the consciousness of the aliens, the Khamerians, kind of lodged itself into the minds of 6 people. Due to this influence, these people's descendants over the years sought positions of power around the world. Their goal was to somehow get energy to power the "Philosopher's Stone" (actually a Khamerian artifact) to free their consciousness and revive them. The Doctor and Sam land close to the manor that's at center of all this, unknowingly powering up the stone with TARDIS energy which 1) leaves them stranded there until the TARDIS recharges and 2) speeds up the Khamerian's plan and set their final steps into motion. The plan? Trick Russians into launching a nuclear attack on the US so that the US reveals the existence of Station Nine, an orbital nuclear station. Once the Station is revealed, they arrange for one of their men to become its new commander. Then they trick everyone again into thinking the Chinese are attacking the US, so that they release the nuke codes to their guy on Station Nine so that their guy can bomb the manor in the UK, actually. The explosion would power up the Khamerians and they'd win. And most people in England would die.

It was pretty entertaining seeing the Doctor and Sam put these pieces together. And Sam has a proper subplot going on! I really liked her in this book! She gets to do stuff!!! Her relationship with Pickering (who was a good side character!) was nice to follow, and I was pretty sad with the way it ended. Between this and 'Kursaal', I'm finally getting the vibe of Sam and the Doctor's relationship and believing they are friends. The Doctor is delightful as always and gets to drive a car and a motorbike. Once again I profess my love for the Doctor's very capable but also unhinged driving skills. And once again suck it, psychic paper! He doesn't need you, he can use good old combination of lies, deception, knowledge and charisma to convince these people he and Sam are researchers that are very interested in this old manor. The Doctor does not get seriously injured this time. Good for him! But Sam gets brainwashed :( Doesn't last long, though.

Overall, I enjoyed this book. The whole running away/trying to get to the TARDIS/being captured/escaping again going on in the middle of the book was a bit convoluted, though. I also felt this book was longer than it needed to be. A bit bloated, at points. But fun anyways!