http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/2548834.html

This is one of those Who novels that could have made a good TV episode - indeed, it possibly did, with the central theme of children's nightmares becoming reality used twice that I can remember in New Who (Fear Her and Night Terrors). There's also a zombie character from the seventeenth century. It's solid stuff, well-written, giving the Doctor, companions Fitz and Trix, and the various incidental characters plenty to do and doing it interestingly. ( )

It's so relentless! So terrifying, but not scary so not terrifying. "I found a psychic blister in the cellar" has got to be my favorite line from the late EDAs. Very telegenic. I like Trix but she is a big nobody in this story, not helping her meta-case at all. Are there really gypsies/Roma living in mobile homes in the UK? & Baxendale might want to consult some burrowing animals about what it's really like underground in soft soil! Although for the buried-alive phobia he seems to have it about right. Feast or famine I guess. Oh, and the basic EDA plot is fine here as it's near the end of the massively long series and almost a tribute to itself - the Doctor can't manage to fix anything while all hell breaks lose for 90% of the story, and then at grave personal risk fixes everything, which just goes to show he couldn't have done much earlier, when of course he didn't know what was going on any more than we did. Which is an improvement over the 7th Doc Curse of Fenric "You always know!!1!1!" anticlimax Doctor. If it's not clear yet, I love the EDAs. Baxendale did a 5th Doc story (Fear of the Dark) which is more of a psychological piece, with many of the same terror motifs tho. Four S's in possession! ( )