I was frustrated at the lack of explanation of how Jason was transported from 1996 to this alien planet.

Me too. He must be a Wolf of Fenric or
something, because with equal
miraculousness he transports himself from
Earth in 2003 (Eternity Weeps) to Dellah in the
twenty-sixth century (Beyond the Sun).

I thought it was pretty straightforward--he was caught in some sort of transporter beam when the evil alien was transported off Earth.

Frankly, the Jason/Benny relationship was too reminiscent of those cheesy romantic comedys that clog the theatres--"I hate you!" "I hate you!" "Let's kiss!"

On the good side, I'm starting to really become a Dave Stone fan. While the actual stories are pretty simple, the amazing amount of details about his alien races leaves me amazed.

Never having seen a romantic comedy, I enjoyed the Jason/Benny relationship.

A word of advice: if you want to continue being a Dave Stone fan, steer clear of Oblivion.

Or Sky Pirates! Pretty ugly stuff.

Sky Pirates was just confusing; for once, a Who author spent too much time building an alien society, instead of none at all. Also, I found it hard to share in the hilarity of Roz and Chris's unplanned drug addiction, just as Jason's confession about being a child abuse victim brought D&D's jocularity to a screaming halt.

Did anything think it odd that the Doctor seemed to have suddenly acquired a lot of miraculous abilities, like the ability to be in 3 places at once? Don't you all think that this would have been an incredibly useful ability in, say, every single previous adventure????

Huh. You just wait until you read Managra (on second thoughts - don't). The Doctor, in case you've never noticed, has the ability of mimesis - anything he writes in blood comes true. Well isn't THAT useful! How modest of him to keep it to himself all these centuries!

Actually I don't mind the odd hint that there's more to the Doctor than meets the eye. He's supposed to be a mysterious alien, we shouldn't feel we have him sussed out. As long as it's subtle and we can think up a non-mystical explanation (actually I'm not sure I CAN think one up for this three-places-at-once business, or the Doctor's apparent teleportation in Just War). I do like the hints (here and in Sky Pirates!) that he exists in more than the three dimensions that WE can see him in, and I absolutely love the implications about the TARDIS (even though I'm not sure how they'd fit in with Edge of Destruction, Taking of Planet 5, etc).

The one annoying phrase used far too often in this book was "years later XYZ remembered...". Now for a minor character that's OK but when it's used for *all* of the lead characters it sort of spoils any chance of suspense being built up that they may not make it to the end. How did I know Jason would survive this? Halfway through I learned that "years later he would look back on this".

Dave Stone probably thought his readers would adore Jason as much as he did, and decided to spare them any heart-rending fears that Jason might be about to meet an untimely demise. He may also have been trying to prevent later authors from terminating Benny's marriage via widowhood rather than divorce...

Hmm. Well, moderately enjoyed the reprise of Death and Diplomacy, as written from Jason's point of view, in the guise of The Two Jasons. Though I'm feeling kinda cheated that it never really answered the major question of why the hell Jason pretended not to be human. ('I think I was still in some form of shock. The fact of the girl raised so many issues and questions that I didn't feel up to dealing with them all at once...I really can't help it, sometimes, honestly. I only wish I had an idea why.')

Also enjoyed Dave Stone's justification: 'There's a gaping hole in that relationship so far as the Big Finish universe is concerned - i.e. What Benny Ever Saw in the Poor Sap in the First Place...And if you're gonna get new people on board, then telling them that things won't make true emotional sense unless you track down the ratty old out-of-print paperback from god knows where is the very kiss of death.' - Isn't he forgetting that the Virgin NAs will be e-books one day? (At least, I'm ASSUMING they will. The BBC couldn't be mean enough to forbid that? Though it'll be annoying, now that I've only got Dark Path to go...)

Like the idea that Death and Diplomacy was Dave Stone getting it into his head that he was going to try to write like Jane Austen. I wouldn't be as harsh as he is about D&D ('Oh, dear. Impenetrable isn't the word. Not a long, complicated and impenetrable enough word, certainly) but Jane Austen it ain't.

Bookwyrm:

'It mixes historical authenticity, Shakespearean tropes, science fiction and the diversity of human sexuality into one sublime distillation, as perfect a capstone to the story as Duggan's punch at the end of City of Death was' - NOTHING is as perfect as Duggan's Punch! Let alone a mere marriage. Even a three-way one.

'Chris and Roz are excised from the plot for having the audacity to be more interesting than the author wants them to be' - they're not THAT interesting, are they?