Lucien Barnes
Thank God he's back. Lawrence Miles is great. There's no need for criticism. In some ways this book defies it.
Written like a history text book, it's not an easy read, but it's so rewarding. Each page practically pats you on the back for getting this far. The style is so clever, careful, and just so cool. Every paragraph assures you that you're reading A Really Good Book, Get On With It.
Of course, if you think about it at the crudest level, the plot is sheer marmalade. The Doctor becomes a pimp to fight off killer chimps from another dimension? But it's all done so well, and with careful referencing of all the right sources - Alexander Pope, Whig politics, Blackadder III - you name it, they're all there in this wonderfully complex work.
If every Doctor Who book was like this, the range would implode up its own fundament fairly quickly. But a work like this every now and then is vital to keeping the range on its toes.
And Sabbath is a brilliant creation. Or at least, written by Miles he is. I have the horrible feeling that, in the hands of other authors he'll become a fat bloke with sinister intentions.
Andrew Green
Sorry, but I hated this book.
The style takes some getting used to, but the main problem is that it is so boring. I couldn't empathise with the characters at all. The Doctor wasn't really the Doctor at all, and poor old Fitz and Anji were hardly in it! Better luck next time, Lawrence!
Lindale Thompson
Although at times this type of writing can be useful, I found in this case it made my reading of this particular installment of Doctor Who most unenjoyable. I enjoy the fact that authors try to experiment with different ways of approaching the Doctor Who adventures, but in this case it did not work.
Andy
This was boring and pretentious.
I'm all for experimentation with literary forms, but this exercise went way too far. I feel cheated because I may have missed important story-arc developments, since I was simply too bored by this drivelling and overlong effort at being a "great novelist".
It's Doctor Who, for crying out loud, it's supposed to be exciting, and should never be a chore.
Fitz M Kreiner
This is the most boring of the BBC Doctor Who books.
I normally leap through them but this one took me ages. The writing style did not lend itself well to Doctor Who. Please, no more like this in the future.
Plod
Unspeakable.
I've waded through enough obscure texts in my time without a Who novel masquerading as one. Much though I enjoy Miles' work stylistically, ideas never get resolved or explained here but just spin off into the vortex.
Derek Pike
An unusual addition to the Eighth Doctor's adventures and no mistake.
I'm still finding it difficult to cope with sex and swearing in the Doctor's world, but this is as far away from children's fiction as a Doctor Who novel can get. A bearded and bewildered Doctor has set up camp in a 17th Century London brothel and is battling with chimps, of all things. Excellent.
There are more improbabilities here than in any Doctor story I can recall, the Doctor preparing for marriage being the least of them, but this is such a wonderfully insane story that I was willing to believe anything and everything.
The marvellous writing style of Lawrence Miles elevates this book to a towering status.
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