That's right, the Thirteenth Doctor and the fam have ended up in the Land of Oz! Or some version of it, anyway.

I won't say this one is a huge standout among Doctor Who spinoff novels, but it's certainly entertaining enough. The Wizard of Oz elements combine in some fun ways with the Doctor Who elements, and there's some nice Classic Who continuity. (Enough so that people with a solid knowledge of old school Who can probably make a good guess as to which episode this romp in a fictional world is a sort of sequel to.) Aside from the fact that I have real trouble believing she's never read The Wizard of Oz, the Doctor's characterization feels very right, which is great. But her companions, for plot reasons, aren't really themselves for most of the story, which is too bad, as I'm someone for whom a lot of the appeal of these spinoff novels is seeing the author capture the characters' voices well. Also, I have to keep reminding myself that the modern-era Who novels are (reasonably enough) primarily aimed at children. I swear, every time I read one I experience a tiny surge of disappointment that the writing is simpler than that of the definitely-aimed-at-adults novels I remember from the 90s and early 2000s. But that's a me problem, and it didn't keep me from enjoying this.

It is pity about the giant spoiler on the front cover, but then it is the thing that got me interested in the book, so I guess I can't fault the marketing department too hard for it. ( )

(Well I read a Doctor Who book, I've now completely lost any self dignity I once had.)
I think this was quite well done, the characterisation was pretty good and I liked the writing style. The writing style was quite simple but the target audience is late primary school/early high school (is there a better name for this age group?). I haven't read the wizard of oz, and I found the setting and parallels of this interesting. Missy was on the cover so that doesn't really work as a reveal, as a lot of people have said, but considering it must be like that for a reason, maybe it wasn't intended as a reveal and the book works fine already knowing that. There was another reveal at the end of the book, the character Theodore is transgender, which was hinted at but I didn't get until about a page before it happened, despite being transgender myself. This was handled pretty well I think, although the character is referred to as he throughout most of the book including the parts from her perspective (which isn't really considered good etiquette for transgender people), this can be explained by the narration intentionally not showing everything and how she hadn't really accepted it herself and generally because it wouldn't work if you knew from the start (which might be obvious but I know some people might not like it written this way). A criticism I do have for the character is that although a lot of information and thoughts and feelings are shown, there isn't as much personality as such, although it is just one quite short book for younger readers so it doesn't matter that much.
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https://nwhyte.livejournal.com/3835390.html

A good Thirteenth Doctor novel by the experienced Jac Rayner, taking us into the world of L. Frank Baum's Oz, and neatly written on the assumption that the average reader will be half-familiar with the 1939 film but maybe less so with the 1900 book. K9 and a guest character, Theodore, bulk out the usual TARDIS crew (although two had been written out months before this book was published last summer); Graham, Yaz and Ryan recapitulate Dorothy's companions on her journey; and we get a bonus invocation of The Mind Robber (which I'll come to shortly). The worst thing about the book (and it is not all that bad) is that the question of Who Is Behind It All is thoroughly spoilered by the cover. Otherwise it's decently in the traditions of both Who and Oz, and I think would be accessible to fans of the one who don't know the other. ( )

In Jacqueline Rayner’s Doctor Who: The Wonderful Doctor of Oz, the Thirteenth Doctor and her companions Yaz, Ryan, and Graham travel to Los Angeles for the premiere of The Wizard of Oz in 1939, but find that no one has ever heard of the film or any of L. Frank Baum’s Oz books. As they begin to investigate, the Doctor’s copy of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz lodges itself in the TARDIS and takes the fam and a young boy named Theodore through a storm to a world that suspiciously resembles Oz. There, they encounter somewhat familiar creatures that stand in for some of Oz’s most famous residents, including a Cyber Tin-Man. The fam themselves become Dorothy’s companions as the Witch’s spell makes Graham “brainless,” Ryan “heartless,” and steals Yaz’s courage. Rounding out the group is K-9, filling the role of Toto. Along their journey, the fam even runs into L. Frank Baum, who helps to explain the strange world in which they find themselves.

As a fun note, the TARDIS runs out of mercury upon arriving in Oz, just as it did when first the Doctor encountered the Daleks. Further, the story references the Land of Fiction, a pocket universe which first appeared in the sixth series story The Mind Robber from 1968 featuring the Second Doctor. Drawing upon the metaphor of stories, Rayner explains how the Doctor perceives time and those she has met over her lifetimes, writing, “Being a time traveler meant that no one ever really died, because she could always go back to a time when they were alive. But it also meant that everyone was dead all the time, and that was much harder to bear. She didn’t like to check on people’s futures, because once she knew where and when that gravestone was, it made it real. You couldn’t live, knowing all that. And so every one of the billion people she’d ever met slept in the back of her mind, and when, every now and then, one woke up in her imagination, she was able to think of them as she’d last seen them – happy, hopefully, and with their life ahead of them” (pg. 206). Finally, Rayner engages with the differences between Baum’s original book and the 1939 film while also suggesting how events in the Doctor and fam’s adventure may have inspired the second book in Baum’s series, The Marvelous Land of Oz. ( )