Doctor Who: To The Slaughter, is a book which continues the adventures of the Eighth Doctor. The setting is the outer planets of the solar system, the long abandoned, slightly worn, seat of Earth's empire. The Doctor and his two friends, Fitz and Trix, soon find that the moons and planets are either being moved or destroyed so improve its Feng Shui.
No, I'm not kidding. But as the Doctor, and gang, digs deeper they found out that somebody, is in fact, trying to hide the development of a deadly weapon. Then they find out that somebody is trying hard to hide the fact that no weapon was developed. Then they find out...you get the picture.
Giant industries, corrupt officials, hidden subsidiaries, terrorists, aliens and artists are just some of the players within the twisted knot called a plot. Or should I say plots. Dune or The Fellowship of the Ring was less complex. Which is good - I hate guessing within the first five pages what's going to happen in the next 200 and so pages.
I also had fun guessing two out of the three alien bidders. One was a Kroton and one was a Sontaren.
Now for the bad. I never saw the made for TV movie that launched the Eighth Doctor into the world and, even after reading a few of the books starring him, I don't know if I like him or not. His character is hard to pin down and seems to be all over the place.
Now for the Ugly. The whole book feels like the author was making a script for the Doctors of the 60's and 70's. As if he was working with the idea that he had a low budget. So not a lot of special effects, no costly aliens and not too many scenes outside the bland cockpitsof the ships, sterile science labs and carpeted business offices of the space stations and so on.
Also I went through much of the book wondering what life was like in the outer planets. What was the food like? Were all spaceships shaped like bullets? Did space suits smell? For a book with over 270 pages I came away with very little impressions in the way of the background. Once again, I got a generic feel from the setting. And there were some mistakes, as the sentences sometimes seemed to have words missing. Nice cover. Get it used.