This is a Fourth Doctor adventure that hits a lot of the "notes" of a good Doctor Who adventure: a mysterious planet, a melodramatically sinister villain, goofiness on the part of the Doctor, some shining moments on the part of the companion, and, if this were the TV version, delightfully cheesy special effects. It's very quick, rather painless, if a bit thin in comparison to Gareth Roberts' recent novelization of Shada (which was my most recent Doctor Who book before this one). But then, a lot of the early Target novelizations were known for being economical. It does what it does reliably well, and sometimes that's all you need. ( )

http://nhw.livejournal.com/1046178.html#cutid4

For once, Dicks rises to the challenge of adapting one of his own scripts for the printed page (perhaps because it had been substantially rewritten in the meantime). One of the few flaws of the original TV version is that Karn does look every now and then like a TV studio with funny lighting; of course, on the printed page you can depict whole landscapes rather less expensively. The whole thing seemed to me to work rather well. ( )