Books: Doctor Who: Time Lord Victorious: All Flesh is Grass by Una McCormack (2020)

“Even a Time Lord can’t change the past. A wasteland. A dead world. No, there is a biodome rising from the ashes. Here, life teams and flourishes, with strange, lush plants and many-winged insects with bright carapaces- and one solitary sentient creature, who spends its days talking to the insects and tending this lonely garden. This is Inyit, the Last of the Kotturuh. The Tenth Doctor has sworn to stop the Kotturuh, ending death and bringing life to the universe. But his plan is unraveling – instead of bringing life, nothing has changed and all around him people are dying. Death is everywhere. Now he must confront his former selves –one in league with their greatest nemesis and the other manning a ship of the undead.”

All Flesh is Grass offers up high-octane resolution to the excellent setup. The book moves at a quick pace, providing all three different Doctors with plenty of things to do. McCormack keeps characterization of the Tenth Doctor mostly intact, I guess, but with the Eighth, he only has one movie and several dozen tie-in novels written by various authors, so it’s really hard to judge here. Same with the Ninth Doctor, who shined in his one season as the Doctor, but seems too much a mish-mash of other, better established versions. But again, this happens with all these media tie-in, no matter what sci-fi series you like. It’s one of the reasons I’m highly selective when it does some to reading Doctor Who, or Star Wars, or Star Trek.

The Tenth Doctor’s redemption is well handled, even if you knew it would by the end (another aspect of the modern series is how much they cover the Doctor’s guilt for letting so many die for him. This was something never really taken in account during the Classic Era). But both books in this Time Lord Victorious series are well written by two well established writers, so if you want well-oiled machine of action, humor, multiple Doctors, Daleks, and fate, then these books are for you!