Gareth's Reviews > Doctor Who: Divided Loyalties

Gary Russell finds different uses for continuity here, some of them good (trawling through the companions’ pasts to help clarify their journey through the series) and some not so good (there’s a lengthy section set in the Doctor’s youth, ostensibly to explain the plot but it’s also there to gratuitously tie together a bunch of familiar stuff). The pacing suffers for all that navel-gazing, leaving the finale — a battle against the Celestial Toymaker — to spend most of its time hurriedly explaining itself.

This isn’t quite the stinker of fan legend, and I think it’s really trying to do something with the companions, but the novel’s choices ultimately make it unworkable.