The Missing Adventures
Millennial Rites

Summary: 9 /10 The Sixth Doctor and Mel arrive in December 1999 to celebrate the last new years of the twentieth century. They meet up with old friends; Mel's old college friends and Anne Travers. To prevent a disaster, the Doctor will have to wrestle with the worst side of himself. Recommended.

A confession -- I like the Trial of a Time Lord, I like the Valeyard, and I like the Sixth Doctor. Mel can even be alright sometimes. So I thought Millennial Rites was great. It is very much a link between the "old" Doctor and the more manipulative seventh Doctor of the last two seasons and the New Adventures. As such, it's a good way to explore all of the opprotunities that both book series give to the Doctor Who universe.

The characters are all spot on -- the sixth Doctor's short fuse and personality is right on. Mel is finally allowed to be the genius she was supposed to be, but it was still in line with the personality given in the TV Show. (Well, except I don't think she screams very much here)

The cover for this book is way-cool: Colin in the Valeyard get up makes it clear that they should have gone for the all-black look for his Doctor like he supposedly wanted.

The book adds greater confusion to UNIT dating -- it has Travers as much more important a figure in UNIT history than I would think likely for her age when the NA and MA series usually presume to take place. Not a big deal, but a little annoying.

Also, this book gives a few spoilers away for Downtime -- if you can see that first, it would probably be better. It's not to terribly vital, but there is one important event that was spoiled.

On the weaknesses side, I'm not so sure about the overuse of the Cthulu mythos here -- it's one thing to have it as a throwaway joke in a book, but the Great Intelligence is refered to more often as Yog-Sothoth, which I thought was a bit much. The book probably would also make more sense if you were familiar with the seventh Doctor, as well as Trial of a Time Lord; I'm not sure if this would be an appropriate first book, and I don't think it would be as appropriate for someone who is reading the Missing Adventures because they don't like the NAs.

The Valeyard may still be on Virgin's no-no list, but this book shows that in the right hands, and the right approach, it can work from time to time. Craig Hinton did a nice job. 9/10