Basically a fairly standard adventure of the Eighth Doctor and Sam Jones arriving in the middle of a conflict on an alien planet; time eddies and nasty villains complicate the situation (though some of the characters seem to have remarkable powers of surviving major injuries). Remarkable for insisting, more than I remember previous volumes doing, on Sam’s falling in love with the oblivious Doctor, which is of course now standard fare for New Who but was a new departure back them. And of course it turns out that this is a set-up for the ending when she and the Doctor are parted by circumstance, with several volumes to go before they are reunited.