A Doctor who novel, telling an all new story not seen on tv. It features the Eleventh Doctor and Amy. Like the previous novels in this range featuring the ninth and tenth doctor it's suitable for all ages and runs for 246 pages or so. To differentiate it from those previous novels the size of the pages is slightly larger and the cover design is all new, but the word count, page count and chapter count are still pretty much the same.
The story involves the TARDIS landing on the gyre. A world composed of bits of spacejunk that have drifted together and formed into a planet. It's the home of a humanoid alien race. Who don't get along with a group of humans who live there. The latter are descendants of a spaceship crew that crashed there long before, and have developed their own weird civilsation with some rather individualistic beliefs.
But the gyre is facing impending danger and it could be about to be destroyed. In one of two different ways. With clashing civilisations, a race against time, a separated TARDIS crew and a human adventurer who might have a hidden agenda, it's a race against time for the doctor to save the day.
Book can create worlds that you couldn't see on tv because the words can fire your imagination to create visuals that wouldn't be possible on the small screen. And that covers over well here, the whole setting being very imaginative. It also touches on some high concepts in regards to faith and belief. The race against time nature of the plot does make for a page turning read. Some books in this range have started rather slowly, but this one never lets up for an instant.
Considering that this was written before the eleventh doctor had been seen on screen, the characterisation of the Doctor and Amy is pretty good, and I never had any problems imagining it was the characters as depicted on tv. That may be down to the fact that as viewers we're more used to them now we're well into the season than if I'd read this earlier.
But all in all a good bit of science fiction and a good doctor who story. An above average entry in the range.
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