This Doctor Who New Series Adventure anthology tells the story of Martha Jones during "The Year That Never Was", the gap between "The Sound of Drums" and "Last of the Time Lords". There's a frame story with what Martha's up to, and then there's four flashbacks to her days traveling with the Doctor, these being the inspirational stories she tell all those she meets. It's not as good as it should be. The frame is very good in some parts, but being half of a YA novel trying to cover a year in someone's life, it rather overreaches itself, and the end gets bogged down with some new and rather uninteresting alien villains. Your main character is trying to take down the Master, who has established his dominion over the entire planet! Why do you need this? The stories themselves are all pretty forgettable, with the exception of Rob Shearman's usual brilliant contribution, and most of them are more melancholy and end with things not quite resolved for the best, which is all right on its own, but not as tales supposed to inspire an entire planet with faith in the Doctor. Nothing about this book is bad-- and the first half of the frame are Shearman's story are both quite good-- but a book with this premise should be more than not bad.

I watch "Doctor Who" and thought the premise of this book was interesting - the Doctor's companion Martha's activities during what ultimately become the "year that never was" (and if I was her, I'd have been really annoyed about that after all the effort I put in). Anyway, it's something I've taken to reading while commuting to decompress, and so far, it is serving its purpose quite nicely. However, I don't suspect I will be reading any other DW books in the foreseeable future - but never say never! ( )