http://nhw.livejournal.com/763482.html

This is the novelisation of a rare two-part story, intended purely to introduce the first new companion to join the show since its beginning, Vicki - one of two survivors of a spaceship crash on an apparently hostile planet. I thought after watching it a few months ago that this was a plot which could manage a great deal of filling out of back-story; the Doctor's past relations with the natives of the planet, the story of what had actually happened to the human settlers. In fact Marter delivers much more than that. For once, the printed page is superior to the screen. The twenty-something Maureen O'Brien could never really pass as the young teenager that Vicki was meant to be; Marter is not restricted by the actor's appearance. The monsters of the planet were among the least compelling aspects of the original TV story; again Marter can just make them up and does indeed bring in at least one more. We get loads more banter between the Doctor and Ian, with Marter for once putting comic dialogue in rather than taking it out. And the entire story is topped and tailed by the rescue ship which is supposed to be coming for Vicki and her fellow-survivor, so that one feels that this planet is one that fits into a wider history. ( )