BASIC PLOT
When a diamond-mining operation goes wrong in the orbit of Saturn, the Doctor and Bill must deal with saboteurs, corruption, pirates and a new alien race.

DOCTOR
Twelfth.

COMPANIONS
Bill Potts.

MATERIALISATION CIRCUIT
Pg 31In a vault on the Kollo-Zarnista Mining Facility 27, the 51st century.

Pg 184 Alongside the Ba-El Cratt ship, in Saturn's rings.

Pg 207 In the corner of the control room on the Kollo-Zarnista Mining Facility.

PREPARATORY READING
None.

CONTINUITY REFERENCES
Pg 7 "That had meant dealing with an Ogron incursion into Federation space" Day of the Daleks et al.

Pgs 10-11 "I was a volunteer aboard one of the construction tugs assigned to the reconstruction of the Titan refuelling platform after the great fire of 5012." The Invisible Enemy.

Pg 32 "Only recently she had been stalked by emoticon robots on a distant planet in the far future and nearly eaten by an alien fish in Victorian London." Smile, Thin Ice.

"Nardole is going to give you a right ticking off when he finds out." The Husbands of River Song et al.

Pg 35 "Laura wasn't sure how her meagre security detail would cope with a concerted attack from someone allied to the likes of Rohm-Dutt or Sharaz Jek..." The Power of Kroll, The Caves of Androzani.

Pg 37 "He'd put away his sonic sunglasses and was now prodding at the door with the sonic screwdriver instead." The Magician's Apprentice et al, Fury From the Deep et al.

Pg 45 "She'd be able to move out of that room at Moira's" The Pilot.

Pg 65 "I could threaten to shoot myself I suppose - I've tried that before with reasonable success - but it's me! I can't go around shooting me." The Telemovie.

Pg 67 "I have actually shot a friend once. But there were extenuating circumstances. And it was on Gallifrey. And he got better." Hell Bent.

Pg 89 For the first time in millennia, the Doctor took a moment to check on the status of the TARDIS's gravitic anomaliser." The Horns of Nimon.

Pgs 105-106 "My sister, my older sister, did her medical training at the Bi-Al Foundation, a Centre for Alien Biomorphology in the asteroid belt. She was seconded to a Professor Marius." We get a lengthy summary of The Invisible Enemy (complete with footnote) for no readily apparent reason.

Pg 106 "Ever since he had started his new life cycle, ever since Trenzalore, he found it harder and harder to make those connections." Time of the Doctor.

Pg 111 "Sinuous shapes with gnashing teeth writhed beneath crackling ice, robots with smiley faces reached out for her with grasping hands, alien war machines with harsh grating voices slid through roaring flames, her friend Heather stared into her eyes, water pouring down her face..." Thin Ice, Smile, Friend From the Future, The pilot.

"Without the Doctor, she was trapped in a school canteen, in Moira's flat" The Pilot.

Pg 129 "It reminded her of a submarine movie that she had watched on Netflix round at Shireen's flat a few nights ago." Knock Knock.

Pg 138 "What do you think, Claire, can you see me cutting down trees on Androzani Major?" The Caves of Androzani and The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe.

Pg 169 "It reminded Bill of the shed belonging to Graham, Moira's next-door-neighbour." The Pilot.

Pg 183 "Laura watched in disbelief as the Doctor emerged from the bowels of his spacecraft with a couple of orange spacesuits bundled up in his arms." The Impossible Planet et al.

Pg 191 "I've been in enough bio-mechanical ships to recognise a control cabin when I see one. Zygon ships. Axon ships." Terror of the Zygons, The Claws of Axos.

Pg 220 "I invoke Article 15 of the Shadow Proc-" First mentioned in Rose and first seen inThe Stolen Earth.

Pg 227 "It ends with you being shipped off to one of the penal colonies, and I really have no intention of spending the rest of my life digging ore on Cygnus-A or Varos." Vengeance on Varos.

Pg 249 "When we do get back home, please don't mention any of this to Nardole." The Husbands of River Song et al.

OLD FRIENDS AND OLD ENEMIES
None.

NEW FRIENDS AND NEW ENEMIES
Laura Palmer, Jorgen Delitsky, Jo Teske, Nettleman, Rince, Tobins, Jenny Flowers, Claire Robbins.

CONTINUITY COCK-UPS

• Pg 32 "Satisfied that he had landed in the correct location, he stepped out of the TARDIS, and calling back over his shoulder." What? Surely, this should be "called"?

PLUGGING THE HOLES [Fan-wank theorizing of how to fix continuity cock-ups]

• Because the Doctor is calling back into a time machine, it momentarily moves into the present tense.

FEATURED ALIEN RACES
Pg 21 The Cancri, who are short. Despite being a major player in the book, we get no other description of them.

Pgs 147/238-239 The Ba-El Cratt. They are gaseous entities, who live in deep pressure.In their natural state they're fluid and black, with iridescent skin.

FEATURED LOCATIONS
Pg 16 The transport shuttle Glamorgan. It's a few years after The Invisible Enemy, which is dated to 5012 (Page 11). The back cover says that the crew has been operating for over 15 years, so it's probably around 5027.

Pg 19 Kollo-Zarnista Mining Facility 27, in orbit around Saturn.

Pg 189 The Ba-El Cratt ship.

IN SUMMARY - Robert Smith?
That wasn't too bad! The setup of diamond mining on board a rig orbiting Saturn is quite good, and there's actually some character work put into some of the minor characters, a rarity for these books. The Doctor is decent, although Bill barely asks any questions, suggesting that this is not the same person who travelled on board the TARDIS. There are some dodgy bits: we're told that the pirates will risk anything to get the diamonds, except they apparently abandon them entirely to become a new ring of Saturn at the end (something you'd think would make for very easy pickings afterwards, but no one seems particularly concerned with that). And the identity of one of the saboteurs is so poorly hidden that you wonder if it wasn't meant to be a double bluff that went wrong. The Cancri - one of two alien races and a major faction in the book - are never described aside from being short. How many limbs do they have? What colour are they? Do they have fur? We'll never know. But there are also some utter gems, like the sequence of the Doctor taking Bill hostage to fool the security orbs. In short: not perfect, but you could do a lot worse.