Really enjoyed this book. A classic doctor (Sylvester McCoys 7th Doctor). With a classic villain the Sontarans. I loved how they included the ancient war between the Sontarans and the Rutans.

The story line was easy to follow even when it’s was jumping from Bernice Summerfield on Sentarion with the Harrubtii assassins and Sentarrii and Roz and Chris on on space station Alpha. Again this is the 2nd book I have read with the 7th Doctor and even though I have t watched his episodes I’m really linking him. Terrance Dicks did a fantastic job with this book! ( )

The seventh Doctor, Benny, Chris, and Roz encounter both the Sontarans and the Rutan in a cosmic plan of the Doctor's to make sure their war doesn't spill over into the rest of the galaxy. Like a lot of New Adventures, it follows a number of distinct threads: Chris and Roz chase a deranged serial killer on a noir planet, Benny investigates on a university planet, the crew of a space yacht has to contend with a Rutan stowaway and Sontaran boarding party, and the Doctor lurks at the margins. The best part is Chris and Roz; Dicks has a good handle on their voices, and you can tell he really loves this kind of corrupt city stuff. He did it well in Blood Harvest, and he would return to this same city-planet and some of its characters in Mean Streets. I really enjoyed all the stuff featuring them, from the stabby rat taxi driver to the charming Ogron police chief. On the other hand, I don't think Dicks has ever had a great handle on Benny. Did you know she is a professor and likes to drink? That seems to be about all he has ever figured out.

After a good opening and a decent middle (I didn't love the space yacht stuff, but it worked), it all fizzles out at the end. The Doctor having joined up with Chris and Roz, their plot ends up tying up with Benny's in a mind-boggling coincidence-- the serial killer they are chasing just happens to escape on a cruise liner going to the planet she is on! The planet is important to the plot, so I don't get why Dicks didn't have him just pick his destination. Once everyone converges on the planet, the way the Doctor saves the day is, to be frank, quite silly. I don't think it's meant to be comic, but it plays that way, and as if Dicks had no idea how to wrap it all up in the ten pages he had left.

I like the cover of my "Monster Collection" edition, very swish, but it was a bit incongruous that Dicks kept saying the Sontarans had red eyes and no lips, neither of which was true of the one on the cover!

Can you really have a Doctor Who story that is not about Doctor Who? Yes! In fact, this story is certainly better for having so little focus on the Doctor. ( )

http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/2156176.html

This New Adventure is an expanded novelisation of a 55-minute video made in 1994 and starring Jan Chappell (Cally from Blake's 7) as the captain of a space yacht whose crew includes Carole Ann Ford (Susan, the Doctor's granddaughter), Sophie Aldred (Ace), Brian Croucher (the second Travis from Blake's 7) and Michael Wisher (the original Davros) as well as a guy who can't act. The setting of the video is HMS Belfast which actually does rather a good job of conveying the cramped quarters of a small spaceship; the Sontarans and Rutans are (apparently for licensing reasons) a bit different to what we saw on the screen in Old Who, but well enough realised for a low-budget production; the worst bit about it is the guy who can't act trying to be Sophie Aldred's lover, and the second worst is the somewhat stereotypical roles given to her and Ford, but these are survivable flaws.

The novel compresses this to 60 pages in the second half of a 270-page book, apparently a partial sequel to David A. McIntee's Lords of the Storm which I read and enjoyed three years ago but now cannot remember much about. As usual, when Dicks lets himself run with an idea, he is a competent and solid writer, giving Benny some time alone in a murderous cult-ruled university, while the Doctor (with Roz and Chris, who get a bit marginalised) gets to grips with the Sontarans/Rutans problem with Jan Chappell and Brian Croucher's characters. It's a bit of a change of pace from the last two very colourful volumes in the New Adventures series, but it also ties the post-1989 Seventh Doctor a bit more firmly into the overall continuity. ( )