I really liked this story. It was the last book in The Glamour Chronicles. I feel that Trevor Baxendale portrayed The 12th Doctor and Clara Brilliantly! I love how he kept describing the Doctors eyebrows lol. I loved the fact that when the Alexandria lands on the lost planet in the void that they kept falling back in time along that planets timeline. We also come across an ancient alien species called the Phaeron who are described as looking like the plague doctors from the time of the Black Plague.

This story is well written and has a bitter sweet ending but I won’t tell you what “spoilers” ( )

3.5/5 stars.
[I received this book free from NetGalley in exchange for an unbiased review.] ( )

http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/2563480.html

A decent start, with some homage to Alien, the Doctor and Clara joining a mixed crew taking their ship to solve a historical mystery, and discovering that the problem they face is much worse than they imagined; there is a good who's-the-real-monster subtheme. The first couple of chapters feel a bit self-consciously written for younger readers, but then it settles down. Clara doesn't get to do much other than sass the Doctor; the Doctor however is in good form, and this reflects the new confidence the TV show seems to have found of late. ( )

It’s a testament to the relative quality of this set of books that I’m holding up a Baxendale book as the best of the three. Baxendale’s never been in the first rank of Who novelists; he’s more in line with Christopher Bulis from the 1990s in that he’ll turn out a solid novel that won’t leave a hole in the schedule. You know exactly what you’ll get from him. Solid, dependable, reliable; he’s an editor’s best friend.

And Deep Time is precisely what you’d expect from a Baxendale book. It’s an old favourite plot of his; a journey through a hostile environment in which some fairly well developed supporting characters die in reasonably inventive and gruesome ways. The big trouble is that this gives the Doctor no-one to play off; there’s no real foil for him here bar Clara and no opposition to provide a big showdown. We’re therefore simply reduced to waiting to see how the Doctor’s going to overcome the next obstacle (because, being the Doctor, he obviously will. Frankly nature’s not bright enough to get close to him). As a result it falls into an old fault of the quest plot and often ends up plodding through an obstacle course instead of being the fabulous adventure a Doctor Who story should be (and which this starts out as), particularly once they make planetfall.

There are also a number of massively convenient plot contrivances; just when everyone’s stranded on a planet inhospitable to human life and running out of oxygen and water a timeshift takes them to a point in history they don’t need spacesuits. Then, at the end, when everything’s neatly resolved, the TARDIS suddenly becomes able to transport them off-planet. It wouldn’t be so bad given the resolution of the book’s plot revealing these shifts as deliberate, but if you’re going to save people with such a shift, why then transport them to another severely dangerous place? There might be a handwave about the TARDIS being unable to penetrate timefields but when a ship is crashing on a planet where survival is unlikely the Doctor not letting everyone ride out the crash in the TARDIS frankly makes him look a bit of a suicidal dick, and frankly extremely stupid. The book only lasts as long as it does through authorial fiat rather than because that’s how long the plot needs to be. But it’s at least a recognisable straightforward plot with a struggle for the protagonists to reach a goal, so that’s a pleasant surprise in this trilogy.

Another point in the book’s favour; although the Glamour element of this arc remains understated for much of the book it’s revealed to be driving the story and the author’s at least clear as to what it is and how it fits into the plot. The trouble is the idea really hasn’t merited a trilogy; its sheer fabulousness has been rhapsodised in all the books but its effectiveness has been a different thing entirely. This concept had fine potential; a trilogy of books about people being consumed with greed through the influence of a wondrous artefact, but that potential is rarely glimpsed. Which, given the nature of the Glamour, might actually be appropriate. None of these three books have really had a story to drive the; the courage to actually be about something in the way Borrowed Time or James Goss’s novels are. A solid, if unexciting, ending to a fairly limp trilogy. ( )

Doctor Who novels are generally a mixed bag. Many are lite fun that do a good enough job of representing the characters but there's not much memorable. Others are barely coherent junior novels that read like generic junk sci-fi with a character named The Doctor. But a select few transport you into the Doctor Who universe and are just as much fun as a good episode. Deep Time was one of those select few Doctor Who novels that I genuinely enjoyed reading and would recommend. There is an interesting new alien species, a few mysteries, wormhholes and a strange rogue planet. All a great recipe for an adventure with The Doctor. That being said, it did have a few issues.

This is not an example of great literature. I hope you wouldn't expect from this sort of book, but it should be mentioned. Deep Time is an easy to read story that is written at a level that the average middle school student could grasp. While The Doctor does have his own surprises, there is very little as far as subtle foreshadowing and clever word plays. Its a straightforward read for a lazy afternoon.

My main gripe with the book is that there may have been 1 or 2 extra characters that made it complicated to follow the whole cast. Some of the characters could have been more interesting if there was more time to focus on them instead of tracking all of them. At least one of the characters (Tanya) seems to have been developed only to show how deadly a certain plant was. Otherwise her character was very uninteresting. For all the characters though, the author did a good job at helping us keep them straight.


*I was provided an ARC of Deep Time by NetGalley and Broadway Books in exchange for an honest review ( )