Product Description

An adventure featuring the eighth Doctor Who, Fitz and Sam. The TARDIS travels through a worm-hole in space and time that leaves it nearly dead in a present-day Swedish forest. The Doctor reasons that one end of the worm-hole originates from here - but where does it lead to?

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #427143 in Books
• Published on: 1999-05-10
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• 278 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
This is a fantastic novel. Nick Walters has taken all the elements which made Doctor Who great on television and has crafted a novel which rattles along at breakneck speed with some brilliant characters and some seriously well-realised alien settings and which also allows us insights into Fitz and Sam--and even the Doctor--along the way.

We open in Sweden with a great teaser. Then the questions: where have the people gone? What is taking great chunks out of houses and forest? Where are the apparently alien creatures coming from? We are introduced to Kerstin, a kind of Sam-replacement for the first half of the book and an excellent personality in her own right. This is necessary as Sam is enjoying adventures of her own in an alien environment which really had me hooked. Walters leaves none of the five senses unaffected in his ability to depict the alien place in which Sam finds herself. It's thought-provoking stuff: through all this action and adventure emerges a classic Doctor Who tale of scientists dabbling in things they shouldn't, people in danger, companions coming through and the Doctor managing to appear ever more vulnerable and human while just about maintaining the upper hand.

The contrast between the verdant forests of Sweden and the alien landscape of the T'hiili's world works especially well, and the characters are so well defined and described that you never lose track of who is meant to be who along the way.

The novel is spot on in characterisation and plot and there are no loose ends. The ending is particularly good and is likely to bring a lump to many readers' throats. It's a brilliant, brilliant novel and an excellent slice of what 90s Doctor Who is all about. More please. --David J Howe

Customer Reviews

Superb!
Wow! This is bar far the best Doctor Who book of the entire Eigth Doctor range, even beating Lawrence Miles Alien Bodies!

For someone who has never penned a Doctor Who novel before, Nick Walters begins startlingly well. The book is extremely easy to read without being simple, and I was drawn into the story within the first few pages.

I don't want to say too much about the content of this novel as I wouldn't want to give too much away - enough to say that you feel Walters understands the Eighth Doctor better than most other writers for the range. He writes him as a far more vunerable Doctor without compromising the character that we know and love from the TV series. This book could not have been written for any other Doctor other than the eighth, and serves as an example as to how future books of this range should be written. Even the blatent rip-off of Alien in one scene cannot persuade me to dock a star - this book had me feeling a way that no other book in this series has achieved - I laughed out loud on the train when reading the Doctor making piggie noises and welled up on reading the final page.

Someone commission this Nick Walters guy to write another novel - and soon!

Good start
This is a bright beginning for Nick Walters. The TARDIS has landed in Sweden in 1999, near the epicentre of a wormhole which has already invaded the ship, taking Sam with it. But Sam is not the only missing person who has disappeared in mysterious circumstances. The Doctor and Fitz help the Swedish police, who puzzle over the equally strange appearance of alien bodies.

Who on Earth has created the wormhole? What has happened to Sam? These are the challenges facing the Doctor. However, with the absence of the TARDIS' telepathic circuits, the Doctor is incomplete, unprepared to face the reappearance of a familiar force... In creating the world of the Dominion, Nick Walters has certainly been creative, as this is one of the most fascinating arenas in any Doctor Who story. Despite such innovative elements, the novel does seem a bit too long, as it forces Walters to rely on a lot of clichés. At times, the plot is quite reminiscent of 'Terminus' and 'Alien', and he could have been a bit more original with the naming of the 'Dominion', and the way characters constantly change their minds is quite irritating. But Walters proves that he does have the scope to create powerful new worlds.

Enter the Dominion.
This book is split into two sections. Any thing with the Doctor in is brilliant and anything in the Dominion is boring. Fortunatly we see more of the Doctor than we do the Dominion. From the dramatic and breathtaking first scene in the TARDIS to the Doctor hurridly setting course for San Fransisco, Nick Walters writing never falters. The Doctor justs jumps off the page with his boyish enthusiasm. Walters has nailed the character of the Doctor more than any other writer, and is clearly enjoying writng for the Eighth Doctor. I look forward to reading more from Walters.