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 Paul Saint is the lovely man behind this fast paced Third Doctor and Jo adventure and any praise he gets his undoubtedly deserved.
One of my main loves of this novel is that the narrative changes regularly, which makes it easier to read and more refreshing.
The characterization of the Doctor is superb and you can easily imagine Jon Pertwee doing this on TV, although in this novel he does say, "Good Grief!" far too often and 'rubs the back of his neck' that often that you start to worry he'll wear it down to the bone!
A nicely set piece is this too - on both Earth and Caresh, with some points which did make me giggle - like the bit where the TARDIS is moving and is straight on course to go straight through two men carrying a pane of glass between them.
As the cover suggests it would definitely be great to have seen Pertwee and Manning shave their heads bald if this was an original TV adventure.
Sadly it does get a bit dull and lacking in the last few chapters which makes you think that if this had indeed been on TV it would have been one of those long, drawn-out, six parters which were common of the early seventies.
All in all though it is well worth checking out and here's to us hearing from Mr Saint again!
» Review
by Andy Kitching,
Copyright 2002.
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