http://nhw.livejournal.com/1144412.html

Well, if I'm going to read more of the 8th Doctor novels at all, I'm going to have to start doing it in sequential order. Dipping into the series - in this case because I was interested to see a different treatment of the Princes in the Tower than we got in The Kingmaker - tends to confront me with characters (in this case Miranda and Sabbath) who clearly have deep significance for the author and for followers of the series but who are unknown to me. There are some vivid bits of description, and a twist at the end which I would have appreciated more if the whole book had not felt rather like fan-fiction in a canon I don't know much about. ( )

A turning point in the Eighth Doctor's adventures, this novel sees the end of the Sabbath story arc and the restoration of the multiverse (allowing for almost anything the reader didn't like over the last few years to be treated as happening in an alternative universe - a tool that Lance Parkin uses a few times in his Ahistory work). I happen to like playing with the conventions of canon so I appreciate the uncertainties that are introduced.

Having heard some of this book's reputation before reading it I was pleasantly surpised by the delicate way the thorny issues of creating an alterntive 'creation myth' for the Doctor in a universe without Gallifrey, and the deaths of various former companions, were handlded. And of course there's the cop-out clause I mentioned above. Justin Richards knows the novel range as well as anyone and he handles a continuity heavy story well. The plot itself is twisty but doesn't leave any obvious loose ends dangling.

Reading the book back-to-back with Emotional Chemstry I noticed that Trix was being written inconsistently. In EC she's smart and knowledgeable to keep up with most of the technobabble, but here's she's only sometimes just ahead of Fitz.

Overall, an enjoyable story with some genuine surprises. ( )