This book was good, but it got a bit too corny at times. ( )

This is another adventure for the amnesiac eighth Doctor with Fitz and Anji. Like Jacqueline Rayner (author of the last one I read, EarthWorld), Kate Orman is a deft hand when it comes to characterization, especially Anji; I also really liked Orman's eighth Doctor, who you can imagine as being played by Paul McGann, but who also does the kind of things that are unique to this prose version of the Doctor, a man obsessed but who also doesn't know his own past. I liked him on the music-obsessed space colony, trying to figure out a piece of music he could remember; the visual of the Doctor literally curling up with tigers and adopting cat body language is something one can't imagine the tv show actually being willing to do, but fits beautifully.

The story is a good one, with a human space colony discovering that native "tiger" life-forms they'd thought benign and nonsentient are actually intelligent and possess their own agenda; the Doctor and his friends must work to minimize loss of life and bring two sides together. Some good jokes, some beautiful prose, well written throughout. In general, I've picked and chosen from the post-Burning Eighth Doctor Adventures, but every one I have read shows off Doctor Who prose fiction at its best.

http://nhw.livejournal.com/993775.html

I enjoyed it. The amnesiac Eighth Doctor, with companions Fitz and Anji (who I previously encountered a few books later), is on an artistically inclined colony world where the indigenous large tiger-like fauna turn out to be more intelligent than their human neighbours had thought. Multiple narrative points of view, both human and tiger, vividly and credibly portrayed background scenery, and a very Doctor Who-ish, humanistic resolution to the conflict between the two races. Will look out for more by this author.

http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/2175302.html

not a lot more to add, except that I appreciated even more the side-step away from the usual adventure story into an exploration of art and innocence, which fits the Eighth Doctor in a way that the others wouldn't suit as well. ( )