Sams struggle to rebuild her life without the Doctor is similar to Ace's own efforts in Ancient Egypt. Both girls stuggle to find purpose, drifting into and out of relationships but afraid of fully committing themselves to their new life.

The Doctor also finds himself stuck in a prison from which he cannot escape.

These recycled theme take up most of the book, and not enought room is left to explore the potential of the new, more involving issues such as DOCTOR (an all too accurate simulation of the Doctor) and the corporate nature of the enemy.

The Doctor lacks any real enemy to fight. His captor is genuinely concerned for the Doctor's mental well being. When frustration leads one of the jailors to beat him, he is punished. This is one of several fasinating ideas that is inadequately developed.

In the end some good old fasioned bug eyed monsters appear from nowhere to bring the whole thing to a disatisfying climax.

As every, Orman's style is compelling and it is an entertaining read, but so many good ideas are wasted.


Seeing I to I   January 23, 1999
Seeing I is a character novel really, focusing on the Doctor's inner struggle at being unable to escape from a prison for over three years, and also on Sam's attempts to make a new life for herself on the planet Ha'olam at the turn of the twenty-third century. Both characters are portrayed very well, although my only criticism is that when they are reunited towards the end of the novel, it is almost as if nothing has happened between them most of the time, with only a couple of references thrown in that they have been separated for so long. The other theme of the novel is the danger of widespread corporate control, and this is handled well, although not fully utilised to its best capabilities, a character called DOCTOR in particular could have been explored in much more detail. The book misses out on it's fifth crown mainly because of the extremely hurried climax which seems to end the story a little prematurely, probably a case of being forced to edit down the word count without sacrificing any of Sam's thoughts. Overall however, this was a very enjoyable read and I look forward to sampling more of the work of the husband and wife partnership.


Beginning slow but reveals new detail of Doctor's personalit   January 20, 1999
The beginning does a good job of explaining how Sam, the Doctors traveling companion, goes about re-establishing a life after the TARDIS. Something we've all wondered about. A great deal of time passes, which the Doctor spends in a prison from which he can not escape. His trauma at being locked up reveals how dependant he really is on his companions and the thrill of adventure. We see the Doctor for the first time as helpless and depressed. The I, as villains go were not visious, merely uncaring for other species. Their murderous use of others to create new technology was greed based. In fact the corporation was probably more of a villian due to it's economic enslavement of the mass workforce and control over government to enforce it's rules. Not an entirely remote leap from the curent direction of most economic based governments today. The "torch" that Sam caries for the Doctor is a departure from the asexual nature of the Doctors in the BBC series but does reflect the characteristics of the eighth Doctor presented in the "made for TV" movie from FOX. I generally enjoyed the book. I was happy that the gruesome, sometimes psychotic villians found in other Who books was not the dominant theme here.....