Good book, though as we all know by now, viruses mutate more when they are actually spreading, not when they lack hosts to spread through. ( )

The 12th Doctor is in prison on an asteroid repurposed as a facility for the most dangerous of criminals. The prison governor does not understand why “Prisoner 428” keeps trying to escape, or what the story is with the girl who keeps showing up on the launch pad of the asteroid to protest for the Doctor’s release. “Free the Doctor or the killings will start” seems like quite the threat — but then the killings do start, and the governor needs to trust that the Doctor has his best interests at heart.

This was an OK story, although personally I find Clara incredibly annoying, so any story where she plays a pivotal role I am bound to be at least partly grumpy about. I *was* properly surprised by some of the information revealed in Disc 4, and I did laugh out loud in a few places. However, audio does bring to light repetitive elements that the reader can gloss over on the page: for example, the Doctor gets nearly throttled a LOT by Bentley in this story, rather too much in my opinion, and some of the scenes where rapid-fire dialogue is presented in script form becomes monotonous to listen to when the narrator is repeating the character names before each bit of dialogue. I was also mentally yelling at the characters when they encounter one character in a wheelchair and push the chair around to get the character where they needed to go, but they didn’t ask the person in the wheelchair if they could touch the wheelchair! Argh.

As for the audio production, the narrator, Colin McFarlane, was a fine choice to portray the prison governor. He did do a few voices, putting on Scottish for the Doctor, an American one for one of the prisoners who was a former mercenary, and a sort of lighter voice for Clara. It was all fine, I guess, although these days I greatly prefer full-cast dramatizations, unless the single narrator is Peter Capaldi. ( )

A Doctor Who novel featuring the Twelfth Doctor and Clara Oswald. This one sees the Doctor being held in a prison on a remote asteroid, where dangerous power failures are increasing in frequency, and there may be something nasty stalking the corridors.

Very unusually, it's told entirely from the point of view of a guest character, the governor of the prison, who, while he is not exactly a villain, isn't a particularly good person, either. But the shades of gray present in all human beings is a bit of a theme here, which is a nice contrast to some of Who's more two-dimensional bad guys. Also, towards the end, there is some stuff about plagues, anti-vaccine movements, and dirty elections that seems eerily prescient in its topicality, given that this was published in 2014. It's a bit arguable just how substantial the plot is and how well it all hangs together in a coherent way, but that's often true of the show, too, and, as is also often true of the show, I think this novel does enough interesting things to get away with it. Among other things, there are some fun scenes between the Doctor and Clara, even if they do spend much of the story separated. Overall, I found it enjoyable, and appreciated it as an interesting departure from the norm. ( )

I have been very bad with watching Doctor Who since they change the Doctor. Not that I didn't mind the change. I like Peter Capaldi as the Doctor; I just haven't had time to watch it. But among my countless ebooks did I find this book that I had requested from NetGalley and since I felt that I needed to get through some Netgalley books and since the book wasn't thick (a plus, take easy thin books first before the ones with many pages) did I feel that did was a good choice. Also, the book was interesting from the start, that's a plus.

I liked the story; I liked the fast-paced style of the book. I breezed through in a day and that felt good. The story was intriguing, why was the Doctor a prisoner, what was wrong with the prison? The ending was the only thing I felt didn't belong in a Doctor Who story. It was a lot more gruesome than I have ever experienced when it comes the show. Not bad, just yikes...

3.5 stars

I received this copy from the publisher through NetGalley in return for an honest review!

Review also posted on And Now for Something Completely Different and It's a Mad Mad World ( )

I have been very bad with watching Doctor Who since they change the Doctor. Not that I didn't mind the change. I like Peter Capaldi as the Doctor; I just haven't had time to watch it. But among my countless ebooks did I find this book that I had requested from NetGalley and since I felt that I needed to get through some Netgalley books and since the book wasn't thick (a plus, take easy thin books first before the ones with many pages) did I feel that did was a good choice. Also, the book was interesting from the start, that's a plus.

I liked the story; I liked the fast-paced style of the book. I breezed through in a day and that felt good. The story was intriguing, why was the Doctor a prisoner, what was wrong with the prison? The ending was the only thing I felt didn't belong in a Doctor Who story. It was a lot more gruesome than I have ever experienced when it comes the show. Not bad, just yikes...

3.5 stars

I received this copy from the publisher through NetGalley in return for an honest review!

Review also posted on And Now for Something Completely Different and It's a Mad Mad World ( )