This was the greatest example of a Doctor Who "EVERYBODY LIVES" story. That's not even a spoiler it happens so often here. ( )

Cheeky sci-fi with some goofy bits (e.g., badger-human pirates) that I enjoyed slightly more than watching an episode on TV. ( )

Another Doctor Who novel, this time featuring the Doctor in his Tenth incarnation with Martha. In this book, Martha persuades the Doctor to land on board the legendary Starship Brilliant, legendary because it disappeared and no one knows why.

It got a bit confusing from the word go, what with Martha being dead one chapter and alive the next, but once the reason for that was given, it made a lot more sense. There was a great deal of timey-wimey-ness in this book which meant that I did have to concentrate in some parts to keep up with when things were happening and how it all fitted it. It was very cleverly done though and certainly something different to most other Doctor Who books. The badger-faced space pirates struck me as bit a bit too silly initially, especially with their accents as well, but they were well written and quite cute considering. They're quite typical Who baddies in that respect: silly but loveable. A lot of this book reminded me in some ways of Douglas Adams because it was both clever and silly in equal parts, with lots of humour and sciency bits.

The characterisations of the Doctor and Martha are very good, the Doctor is twinkly and manic and brilliant, while Martha is clever and actually got to take part in a lot of the action. The secondary characters are well written as well, and several of them actually grow throughout the book which is impressive considering how short it is. It's a very enjoyable and quite pacy read, certainly more so than the previous Doctor Who book I'd read. The only thing I didn't like was the ending, it seemed to be a little too serious compared to the rest of the storyline and felt a bit heavy-handed, like a moral had been forced upon it. It wasn't too bad and certainly not worth avoiding the book for. ( )

I loved this one, I must say. The story was fun, quick-moving, and cleverly written.

The Doctor and Martha were characterized quite true to their TV counterparts, I felt. What I *really* liked was that in this story Martha actually got to take action - in a lot of books, I've noticed, she tends to just be along for the ride. Here she actually takes an interest in the situation and *does things.* For example, when the spaceship that she and the Doctor land on is boarded by pirates, with the Doctor nowhere in sight, she takes control of the situation and tries to resolve it instead of just waiting around like a helpless bit of set dressing. Guerrier also gives us little insights into what her home life was like before she met the Doctor; it really helps to deepen the character and I quite liked that.

For the plot, I felt the pacing worked well, which can be difficult in stories with temporal anomalies. The prose was very good, and I found myself giggling at some of the cleverer bits. I also really liked the aliens that the author created.

Quite an enjoyable read; I'd definitely recommend this one! ( )

http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/1396689.html

The Tenth Doctor and Martha find themselves on a luxury cruise spaceship under peculiar attack; a scenario which the TV version of Who did rather better a few months after this came out (though with Kylie Minogue instead of Freema). We know that the pirates are funny because they have working class accents and aren't very bright. Also they look like badgers. There is a reasonably neat time loop idea (the loop of the title) and a sort-of moral to the tale (neat bracketing of the Ood, the Monoids and the Vocs); would probably have made a slightly above average couple of TV episodes. ( )