A novel of the second Doctor. Even for a Who novelization this one is pretty bad. the characters are pure cardboard, the plot is non-existent and I doubt that a species could achieve both space and time travel and not understand continental drift.
This is a part of my project to re-read old books off the shelves but I am not sure I finished reading it the first time. Probably with god reason.

re-read 6/23/2023 ( )

2,5 ( )

This is a muddled and strange Second Doctor adventure that takes place between “The Power of the Daleks” and “The Highlanders”. In it, the Earth has been invaded by, yes, cat people, who are intending to destroy Earth and harness the resulting energy. They will be aided in this work by the previous set of extraterrestrial invaders, a few of whom were stranded on Earth 40,000 years ago.

I had a hard time keeping track of who was who, particularly for the group in 1994 (the main time period of the book). The plot also had a lot of weird mystical elements, such as tarot and ley lines, and it wasn’t that compelling for me. I liked the first set of extraterrestrial invaders—immortal, or basically immortal species make for a challenging set of characters—but the cat people were just silly, especially the way they were designed on the cover.

This was OK, but it took a while to get up to OK. ( )

Good characterization for Polly. Russell poignantly shows the effects of traveling has had on Ben and Polly, however the plot runs out of steam mid-story. Great cover. ( )

http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/1942887.html

this early Missing Adventure is not a hit. Aliens who look exactly like cats plan to tear the earth in half, as you do, but are stymied by the fact that continental drift has moved crucial equipment out of alignment over a few dozen millennia (when continents would only have drifted by about a kilometre). Some nice descriptive passages, especially about Cumbria and Polly, admitted by the author to be particular interests in the foreword, but otherwise the narrative is confused and cluttered. ( )