Always in good hands with Gareth Roberts. ( )

The Fourth Doctor and Romana II are very well known to me from the TV episodes. I remember Tom and Lalla so well the first time around and now get to revisit these old friends in book form. Gareth Roberts does a fantastic job here in capturing the Doctor and Romana as they find themselves embroiled in an investigation on a rocket powered asteroid called The Rock of Judgement. A humorous, run-around reminiscent of the classics that have the Doctor and co. 'running through corridors' and generally managing to engage the reader in a story that's smart and silly and everything in-between all at once. With never a dull moment(I won't count what amounts to a text-dump by the Doctor at one point in a bid to catch us all up on proceedings by 'telling' rather than 'showing') the pace keeps us on our toes and builds to a nice climax and a satisfying conclusion at the end.

Happily, the next one I've chosen to read is set directly after this one, even though it wasn't written until later in the Missing Adventure series. It's An English Way of Death and if it's only half as good as this, Ill be very, very happy.

Highly recommended.
( )

In the human-colonized Uva Beta Uva system, justice is dispensed from the Rock of Judgment, an asteroid converted into a roving courtroom in which cases are heard and sentences carried out. When the Doctor, Romana, and K-9 arrive, they quickly become entangled in an investigation by a newly-arrived lawman into suspicious activities on board. For despite all of the seeming normality aboard the Rock, events are unfolding that are tied to the inexplicable murder of a survey team on the eleventh planet, one that suggest the return of the most feared criminal in the history of the system — despite her execution aboard the Rock years before.

Gareth Roberts was at the beginning of a prolific career as a writer and contributor to the Doctor Who franchise when he wrote this novel, the first of four he would contribute to the Virgin Missing Adventures series. It is a work that evokes the "base-under-siege" trope familiar to fans of the franchise, albeit one that was less in use at this stage in the series. It helps that the base in the story is not the typical scientific station or military outpost but a floating courthouse, one that allows Roberts to draw upon his experience as a Court of Appeals clerk for an unusual setting for the franchise. Combined with a pair of narrative twists that keep the plot going in the later chapters, it all comes together to make for an entertaining adventure that fans of the characters will enjoy. ( )

http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/1208304.html

I liked this much more than the other Four / Romana II / K9 novel I've read, The Well-Mannered War, which as it happens is by the same author. Our heroes arrive on a sinister prison asteroid, where they find themselves at the centre of a plot involving miners, corrupt judges, criminal brothers based on the Krays, Ogrons, and a dead mind-stealing criminal. The Doctor accuses K9 of never knowing the answer when it's something important, a glorious reference to the famous Tom Baker out-take. It all pretty much hangs together, Russell juggling multiple viewpoint characters without losing track of the story. One of the good ones. ( )

http://mscongeniality.vox.com/library/post/reading-2007---april-15-30.html ( )