Product Description

In the eighth Doctor, Fitz and Compassion story, the Doctor materializes underground, where he and his companions are led to safety by a humanoid character, who explains that this is the planet Eskon.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #612520 in Books
• Published on: 2000-04-03
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• 277 pages

Customer Reviews

A very "Doctor Whoish" Doctor Who
I had very nearly given up on the BBC range. At around 30 books in I thought they were getting just a bit too "different", and for me, the rot had set in long before Interference. Doctor who is about a man who doesn't like seeing people eaten by monsters. It's about companions who get seperated so we can get both sides of the story. It's about misguided yet ultimately heroic high priests. It's about moments of horror interspersed with moments of humour (or is it the other way around). And, of course, it's about slime. At least that's what it's about to someone who was nine when Tom Baker took over and fifteen when he left. There were times when I was reading this book when I almost imagined Paul McGann in a hat and scarf and I'm sure Fitz called Compassion "Old Girl" at least once. This is the stuff that got me into Doctor Who as a child and so long as books like this are being published, I think I'll stay a while yet.

really bland, but oddly readable
Trevor Baxendale gives us a surprisingly well-defined alien race and a promisingly different start to a book.

Then it all becomes about tribe leaders, arguments, errant sons, impending catastrophy and all the other silly little things that run-of-the-mill Dr Who and the Monsters books are always about.

It plays itself entertainingly out (well, as entertainingly as any book about something-nasty-in-the-pipes can be), with the predictable deaths of vast numbers of characters we care nothing about.

The series has developed a boring preoccupation with quantity of death over quality. It seems as though we never meet an alien planet these days without vast amounts of death following swiftly on. If we cared, then so much the better - but we don't. The characters are never differentiated enough for us to feel anything other than a vague distaste (after all, it's so much easier to kill off lots of people in graphic ways than create one character who we really, really care about).

It just happens, which is the best thing that can be said about it.

Entertaining but too formulaic and predictable
Trevor Baxendale seems to like creating planets with unusual environments (see 'The Janus Conjuinction') and here he has created a very interesting culture on the planet Eskon to go with it. Unfortunately, other aspects of the story are somewhat less original and impressive, rather clearly showing its' roots in stock SF stories such as 'Alien' and 'Tremors'. The conclusion is rather unsatisfactory, and seems rushed and unlikely, with some problems -eg Slimers- seemingly unresolved. The story is never dull, but nor does it ever really shine. In my opinion, not as good as Trevor's earlier book.