Evolution

This story was weird and kind of creepy, but a quick read. Some real body horror with the notion of experimentation on humans, and a distressing storyline involving a girl named Lucy. The story is leavened a bit by introducing real-life historical figures Arthur Conan Doyle (teaming up with the Fourth Doctor to investigate the case and perhaps gaining some cheeky inspiration for The Hound of the Baskervilles) and Rudyard Kipling (as a teenager, hitting on at-least-a-decade-older Sarah Jane...talk about “never meet your heroes”, yikes). And Sarah Jane is rad, getting into the thick of the action and firing off quips as easily as the Doctor does.

As a follow-up to this book, I think I’ll re-read The Hound of the Baskervilles and pick show more up Kipling’s speculative fiction. show less

Just what I like in a Fourth Doctor story: six different kinds of horror mixed up with Victorian mad scientists and self-insert backstories for famous works of art.

This is the first of the Missing Adventure books I have read and I enjoyed it. The character of Sarah Jane is fleshed out, the author makes her more aggressive and violent then in the TV show. The only thing about the book that I would have changed would be a little more action for the 4th doctor.

Sarah Jane wants to meet Kipling but instead of India, the TARDIS materialises in Devon about ten years before the intended arrival time. They do meet Kipling - who is still at school - and get tangled in an investigation about a hound on the moors and strange underwater creatures in the bay. The investigation is joined by Arthur Conan Doyle, serving as a ship's surgeon, who, in the course of the story, gets one or two ideas for his stories from the Doctor.

http://nhw.livejournal.com/765775.html

A glorious Victorian romp featuring the young Arthur Conan Doyle (just after I discovered my own obscure family connection with him) and an even younger Rudyard Kipling, combined with affectionate references to those classic Fourth Doctor stories, "Horror of Fang Rock" and "The Talons of Weng-Chiang".