Doctor Who: Dominion

Eighth Doctor Adventures #22

by Nick Walters

When the Doctor loses both Sam and the TARDIS after an encounter with a mysterious dimensional anomaly, he finds himself affected in a very fundamental way, doubting his own powers and making crucial errors of judgment.

Stranded amongst the forests and lakes of southern Sweden in the summer of 1999, it quickly becomes clear to the Doctor and Fitz that something unusual — and dangerous — is afoot. Fitz finds himself acting the hero as the search for Sam gets them involved with investigations into strange disappearances — and manifestations of even stranger creatures.

Events quickly spiral out of control as the Doctor and Fitz become entangled with a secret deep beneath the forest, a secret which could save Sam and an entire doomed alien race — but destroy the Earth in the process.

Genres: Doctor Who, Science Fiction, Fiction, Ebooks, Fantasy

278 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published May 10, 1999

Reviews

[Ken · Rating 4 out of 5]

A really great traditional Who story that opens with an intriguing mystery.

With Sam being sucked out of the ship, The Doctor and Fitz arrive in Sweden to discover the TARDIS has been effected by the anomaly.

I really liked the setting of this story, the Scandinavian forest alongside a number of local residents disappearing really created a tense atmosphere.
With the TARDIS out of action it left the Doctor at a complete disadvantage, especially with the translation circuit no longer working, thankfully English is spoken in Sweden!

There’s plenty of fun scenes with The Doctor trying to convince the authorities that he’s associated with UNIT, with novice time traveler Fitz trying to bluff he’s way through makes it even more comedic.

The Sci-Fi element of the story really kicks in during the second part of the book. Revealing the mystery made the story drag slightly, but it still made for a satisfying fun read.
I really liked how it teased the next adventure right at the very end too!

[Natalie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dominion is a refreshing change from the last EDA, Revolution Man (low bar, but it's tough to not compare a DW novel to the previous one in the series). We've still got Sam wearing out her welcome, and Fitz is just getting into the swing of things in his role as a permanent member of the Tardis team. We're on Earth again for this installment (because of course we are; there's billions of planets out there but authors keep picking the same one), but at the very least we're somewhere other than the UK- we're just across the water, in Sweden. There's people disappearing, wormholes to other planets, narcissistic scientists, meat-headed UNIT soldiers, an insectoid race, a planet-ending blight, and of course, the Tardis is useless for 3/4 of the story. For the most part, the story bounces between the Dominion (the other world) and Sweden. The Doctor is heavily involved in the story, which is always a bonus, and he plays a major part in fixing the wormhole and saving the day. Walters has his character nailed down, and I could absolutely hear McGann's voice in my head speaking the dialogue. The story read decently quickly and overall, I had a good time with it. On to the next!

[Daniel Kukwa · Rating 3 out of 5]

I find this to be a mixed bag, but one I'd bump up to 3.5 stars. The best parts are to be found in the first third of the book, with the creepy forest mystery, the Scandi-noir feel, and the desperation of the Doctor & Fitz, cut off from the TARDIS. But I found the Sam side of the adventure didn't hold my interest, the UNIT Major didn't get the comeuppance I was hoping for, and the Doctor is characterized as a bit too feckless for my taste. It's a solid adventure, but in the end I feel that the recent episode "It Takes You Away" did all of this more evocatively, complete with an outrageous yet extremely satisfying ending.

[Evie · Rating 4 out of 5]

things that are great about this book:

1. an involving, intriguing plot, with rather magical, unique settings

2. fitz and the doctor KISS

3. I love the way this author writes the eighth doctor. he so gets him

4. similarly, really love how he writes sam and fitz, and their relationships to each other and the doctor

5. fitz and the doctor kiss!!!!!

6. there’s a lot of fun humour in this book which I always love (the doctor angrily punching a pillow and then apologising to it is a highlight, as well as just fitz…in general)

7. some side characters who I ended up really caring about and believing in

8. did I mention fitz and the doctor kiss?!!!!!

[Gareth · Rating 3 out of 5]

There’s some good character work for the Doctor and Fitz here — the former being out of sorts when the TARDIS is temporarily lost, the latter settling into his role as a companion at last — and there are some decent sci-fi set pieces, but Dominion is a bit of a slog with its stubborn military characters and aliens with little to say for themselves. It’s one of those Doctor Who stories that is just here to set up and then pack away a bit of sci-fi action.

2.5

[Macey · Rating 5 out of 5]

really good!! very good book! beautifully described & the dominion was really interesting as a concept & the t'viihili or however you spell it were vivid & also bisexual eighth doctor eightfitz moment <3

[Simon Curtis · Rating 3 out of 5]

I might be slightly biased, since I know Nick, but this I really enjoyed.

[Christopher Hatch · Rating 5 out of 5]

Easily one of the best EDAs so far. A classic style story that was a real page-turner.

[Hidekisohma · Rating 3 out of 5]

Another 8th doctor EDA in the bag and one step closer to never seeing Sam again. Yayyyyyyy.

This one comes off one i really didn't like "revolution man" and thankfully, it's not nearly as bad. Is it amazing? No. not by any means, but it's serviceable.

Doc and Fitz get separated from Sam who got sucked into a wormhole on the TARDIS and now they're running around Sweden trying to solve a mystery.

I have to say, after reading some of the reviews on here, I agree with the sentiment that the first third is pretty good. When they're trying to solve this mystery by running around the Swedish countryside. But then it goes into weird dimension territory and it isn't as good as the first 1/3. The introduction of some UNIT characters and a scientist really made me go "meh" more than anything.

One thing i'll say that's good about this is that Sam's not in it for a good 1/2 the book. Once she gets sucked away, it's really a bro trip with Fitz and the doc for a while. and that's kind of cool because we really didn't get to see Fitz and the doc alone very much in revolution man or Demontage. Fitz definitely had some moments where i actually laughed out loud and it was VERY nice to see someone be sarcastic to 8 rather than having a major lovey lovey crush.

The aliens they introduce were fine if not uninspired and served the story for what it needed. I didn't dislike them, but there really wasn't much to go off of as only 1 or 2 of them actually had some semblance of personality or even dialogue. We were with them for too short and could have used more time to shine.

The doc DOES act a little weird at times where it's almost as if the author isn't sure how to write him and he kind of feels all over the place. Not TERRIBLY out of character, but just inconsistent i would say. (the ending with the girl he met in Sweden felt really weird and off to me)

I would say that i got the same amount of enjoyment in this one that i did with "The Janus Conjunction." Not amazing, but not bad either. It was fine, and serviceable, and not nearly as stupid or painful as Revolution Man.

all in all, straight middle of the road 3 out of 5. Not bad, not great, just fine.

Yep, just fine. even 3/5.

[said · Rating 3 out of 5]

Following up the previous novel seamlessly with some added focus on Fitz and his continued feelings of dissociation makes this pretty average novel a lot better than I initially thought, and surprisingly it mimicked a lot of what the classic show essentially concentrated on: an alien environment with seemingly impossible odds to survive with the Doctor and his companions pulling through in the brink of time. This being Walter's first ever storyline in the series, he did better than some of the other authors in regards to prose and flow of the overarching story, although he wished he had stuck with the vision of earlier Fitz in ‘The Taint,’ for instance, but nevertheless a decent execution and deliverance of the themes he discussed. Fitz has mainly been the highlight through both this and the previous entry, which highlights the point of how major the next few storylines are going to be for him after section two of the EDA's.


What I find very intriguing is how much Fitz is slightly growing into his own these past few books, having always been stuck in unfortunate situations with either his family or suddenly escaping deadly happenstances with the tardis team, and him accepting that this life is a part of him now with no going back. He has always been a melancholic character with hints of ambiguity, and with these adventures where he encounters the possibility of potential love in either Maddie or Kerstin, it is possibly a way for his character to realize the fleetingness of these emotions, and that's why coming to terms with his current living situation is hard but eventually overcomable.

Heading towards the highly rated ‘Unnatural History’ tomorrow, which I'm incredibly excited for, is bound to be an all-timer story for me, considering Kate Orman is back to writing again. Overall, 'Dominion’ was a decent read that could've been better but was enjoyable at least.

𝐑𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠: 𝟔.𝟓-𝟕/𝟏𝟎

[Danny Welch · Rating 4 out of 5]

After the emotional and incredibly bleak novel that was Revolution Man, it was always going to be incredibly important to have a more traditional Doctor Who adventure but with added twists. I've never read a novel from Nick Walters before so this was always going to be an interesting experience for me!

A wormhole threatens the very fabric of reality and after an incident in The Tardis, Sam has gone straight down into it, Fitz and The Doctor are stranded with a time machine on the verge of dying. Where has this wormhole come from, where does it go to, who created it, and why? Trapped in Sweden, The Doctor and Fitz have to deal with a mystery involving a string of disappearances, mysterious creatures from another world, and a conspiracy. So much to deal with in so little time, the end is nigh.

Nick Walters has written a really engaging and decently well-written debut novel that is atmospheric, wonderfully imaginative, brutal, horrifying, and at times depressing. It's a fairly standard Doctor Who story but with a lot of different ingredients to make it stand out. It does have a few drawbacks, however, one being that a few characters introduced at the start of the novel aka the local authorities get forgotten about after the first 8 chapters and don't return. I found this to be a particularly odd and clumsy decision, especially since I feel there could have been a way to implement them further in the story.

Overall: It's a solid novel that unfortunately suffers from a couple of drawbacks, that prevent it from being one of this series' best. 8.5/10

[Michel Siskoid Albert · Rating 4 out of 5]

I quite enjoyed Nick Walter's Eighth Doctor Adventure, Dominion, which starts with a bang - a wormhole forms inside the TARDIS, whisks Sam away, and absolutely trashes the time machine - and then drops the Doctor and Fitz in rural Sweden, where experiments gone wrong have made Swiss cheese out of reality. Our gaze will eventually fall on the Dominion, a very weird little world that is sometimes hard to imagine, but I think Walters does his best. I've read more abstract descriptions in Doctor Who books, and the prose is straightforward enough that it's not really a problem here. For a first-time Doctor Who writer, Walters impresses. There are some lines in the novel that NuWho episodes would be lucky to have (I reference the post-2005 series because it often makes the same kind of evocative statements about the Doctor and his world), and some great chapter headings too. It's kind of too bad they didn't use the TARDIS' distress to change its interior though. I think after 22 books (plus a few NAs), and three years since the TV Movie, the old girl could have done with a makeover. Or perhaps I'm not that big a fan of the cathedral look.

[K · Rating 3 out of 5]

Revolution man"の直後からストーリーは始まる。ターディスを去ったこと、レボリューション•マンを殺したことでサムを怒らせてしまったフィズ。謝ろうと、ターディスの中のサムの部屋を訪れようとするが、激しい衝撃に見舞われ、続いてサムの悲鳴が部屋から聞こえる。フィズが扉を開けた時には、空間に発生した渦巻きにサムは部屋の家具や私物とともに吸い込まれてしまっていた。驚いたフィズはドクターの元へ。ドクターもターディスが内側から引き裂かれるような攻撃を受けたことにひどくショックを受けていた。原因を追求するべく外に出る2人。そこは1990年代末のスウェーデンの森の中だった。
その森の周辺の住民にも悲劇が起こっていた。サム同様、渦に飲み込まれ行方不明となってしまっていたのだ。クリスティンの彼氏も同様だった。そして不気味な怪物の死体が近辺で発見されており、地元警察も因果関係を調べていた。ドクターとフィズもサムを探すために捜査に協力しようとするが、ひどくダメージを受けたため、ターディスは自己修復モードに入り、ポリスボックスの形態をとることをやめ、ただの白いキューブに形を変え、扉はなく、ドクターは中に入ることができず、ターディスとのテレパシー的繋がりも遮断されてしまったことで、すっかり落ち込むドクター。
どんどん事態が悪化していく中、"ターディスがなければ私はダメなんだ"と弱音を吐くドクターに、フィズは不信感を抱き始める。


UNITから派生した組織で異星人が地球に残していったテクノロジーを研究する機関、C19。そこの研究員がワームホールを地球と別世界とターディスに繋げてしまったことが混乱の元で、世界が消滅するまえにワームホールの接続を切ろうとするが、ドクターの介入を地球の危機とみなすUNITの軍人に邪魔されまくり、ますます事態は悪化。

ドクターのおかげで危機的状況はかろうじて脱することができ、サムも無事に戻ってくるが、ターディスを襲った力は別のものと判明。
つきとめるため、8thドクターがリジェネレーションしたサンフランシスコへ向かうところで話は終わる。

[Allen · Rating 4 out of 5]

This felt like that this should be an episode of Doctor Who, it's well-paced, and quite thrilling as well, and really like the alien species in this book.

[Arrocete · Rating 1 out of 5]

Worst Dr Who fanfic I've ever read. I'm not even calling it a book.

[hp · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5

[Amanda · Rating 2 out of 5]

A Doctor Who novel featuring the Eighth Doctor, Sam Jones, and Fitz Kreiner. Sam disappears and the TARDIS is severely damaged after an encounter with a dimensional anomaly; the Doctor and Fitz get stuck in Sweden where there's been a rash of mysterious disappearances.

I didn't much care for this one as it's mostly just running from monsters and people shouting at each other. That sort of thing can work okay on screen, but reading nearly 300 pages of it gets old.

[Trin · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great relief after Doctor Who: Revolution Man, this feels like classic Who. Interesting aliens and sci-fi concepts; Fitz trying very very hard to be heroic and only failing some of the time (he still feels, texturally, like Julian Bashir to me); a beautiful scene with the Doctor, the TARDIS, and her butterflies; the Doctor kissing Fitz full on the mouth. (He "staggered back, overwhelmed...feeling himself blushing" and then is like haha...good thing I like women! Shh, you're doing great, buddy.) What more could you want?

The Eighth Doctor described as "tall": check! Though in fairness it's from Fitz's point of view, so he may just be deluding himself.

[Numa Parrott · Rating 4 out of 5]

A real page turner. Even after I finished it I moved straight on to the next book and completely forgot to write a review. Oops.

Overall, a reasonably well-paced story. It had some good action scenes and some great Doctor moments. The descriptions of 'the Dominion' did drag on a bit though. It all seemed a bit 'trippy,' which is getting to be quite normal for these 90's Who books. I feel like tapping the all authors on the shoulder and saying, "excuse me, but your decade is showing."

The story was a bit depressing, but I guess I'm deep because I liked it.
If you love the Doctor, check it out.

[Nicholas Whyte · Rating 3 out of 5]

http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/1798723...

An imaginative combination of the elements which make up a Who story: the Tardis, with Eight, Sam and Fitz, lands in Sweden in 1999, but an unstable wormhole is allowing nasties from a dying dimension through, and the Doctor has to save the nice aliens before it is too late, with no help from UNIT. Well described, and the nice aliens have an interesting biology. Though I was sorry that the nice Swedish girl didn't get to go with the Tardis at the end.

[Angela · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sam is taken from the Tardis by a wormhole. The Doctor and Fitz are then locked out of the Tardis after it lands in Sweden. Monsters are coming through wormholes and killing people. UNIT is trying to cover it all up. A good story that puts the TARDIS regulars through emotional hell. A good read.

[Andy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really felt like classic mid 70's Who, right up my street =)

[Peter Camenzind · Rating 5 out of 5]

https://peterswhoreviews.wordpress.co...