Product Description

The solar system is being spring cleaned. Under the supervision of celebrity planetary make-over decoratiste Arisotle Halcyon the number of moons of Jupiter is being brought down to an aesthetically pleasing level. But with eco-terrorists taking an active - and deadly - interest in the work, corrupt officials lining their own pockets, and incompetence leading to the demolition of the wrong moon, the Doctor and his companions realise that not everything as is aesthetic and innocent as it seems. Will the Doctor be able to stop dangerous experiments in genetic engineering and overturn a clandestine evil plan to conquer the solar system? Will Trix escape from the deadly space sheep? And will Fitz become the galaxy's next megastar designer on the future equivalent of 'Changing Planets'?

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #594688 in Books
• Published on: 2005-02-07
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 256 pages

Customer Reviews

Tedious.
The 72nd (and penultimate!) 8th Doctor novel features the Doctor, Fitz and Trix investigating mysteries surrounding the destruction of Jupiter's excess moons to improve its sheng fui. The novel starts amiably enough with the trio causing chaos on a space station, and with it's tongue in cheek parade of Who clichés reads like Season 17 - only without the jokes. Unfortunately a tedious overlong middle section drags the book down, with characters flying in space opera circles, all with hidden motives and a plot that Cole refuses to let the reader in on until the books three quarters over. The revealed central storyline concerning artificial hypnotic art-loving space-slugs is ridiculous, but Cole manages to at least give the book a good send off with some action packed exciting final scenes. All 3 leads get a good share of the book, though another doomed love affair for Fitz fails to convince as he's had so many of them in the past, and Trix's total lack of character background makes her a generic modern-female companion. A struggle.

tired
The last two eighth doctor books were so good, and had gotten the range back to basics, so I was really looking forward to one more adventure with this tardis crew before the end.

But what a disappointment this one was. A very tired book that just marks time before the impending end of the range. The tone of the writing shifts uneasily between comedy and very gory violence. Fitz has a doomed love affair. He's done that so many times before. Trix is very well characterised and fights the baddies well. But even so, it took me three days on and off to get through this one, and it didn't engage at all till the last fifty pages. And it all seems to have been written just to correct one minor scientific error in a 70's story! Did it really matter?

Maybe I'd have enjoyed it more if I hadn't known the end was nigh.