Time Lord Victorious: All Flesh Is Grass Review

I didn’t realise is at first but as I flicked to the final pages of this book I knew this was the end of a chapter like no other.

Today I review the final part of the Time Lord Victorious.

Granted I know it’s not the last entry to be released but this is very much the end of this arc.

With that being said, All Flesh Is Grass has a number of things to accomplish.

The first is to be a follow up and conclusion to The Knight, The Fool and The Dead.

The second is make the tie in material relevant without alienating those that have not consumed those mediums.

And finally, this has to definitively end this arc whilst tying neatly into the Eighth, Ninth and Tenth’s collective timelines.

So, how well did Una McCormack do at these?

Pretty well, I won’t lie.

As a follow up this book does what it can to incorporate the narrative thread from that one tale and keep the heart of it alive.

The main issue is that a lot of this book can be considered standalone as well.

There were very few story points, besides from the Tenth’s actions in the previous novel, where I considered the previous book vital to understand them.

A lot of it can be picked up as you read along and that’s a problem for those that were fans of the previous novel, such as myself.

Another issue comes from the way this book is written. With no offence to McCormack, her style of writing and plotting is not the same as Steve Cole’s. As a continuation the tone can be a little inconsistent with the previous novel feeling like more of a Star Wars film with philosophical questions thrown in whereas All Flesh Is Grass opted for a much more somber approach.

Quality-wise, the writing is superb with all iterations of the Doctor featured feeling like their respective counterparts and their interactions with each other, along with their narrative entanglement to this story, feeling spot on.

The Daleks feel like they got the short end of the stick for this accumulation of these multiple side stories coming to an end but with my thoughts on their series clear, I didn’t like it, I’m not too disappointed.

My complaint for the Daleks’ story being the way it is stems from a much larger problem people may have with this novel and event as a whole.

In order to fully appreciate and understand what’s happening to every character in this book you have to have consumed all of the side content as well.

That means a lot of money for audio dramas, comics, magazines, escape rooms and action figures just to get the full context of this story.

I got this early so the context I was missing was from the audio drama Mutually Assured Destruction, which has now been released, and the final episode of Daleks!.

With that being said, questions such as “why is the Eighth Doctor working with Daleks?” or “why is the Ninth Doctor on a coffin ship filled with spaced vampires” are things that you won’t get answers too. You’ll get a nod but nothing in the form of a proper explanation.

I don’t blame McCormack for this but I do have to ponder what the BBC thought they were doing by including these things into the conclusion of this event, the one thing most people interested will go specifically towards.

The answer is of course money but that doesn’t excuse the sloppiness.

In terms of my opinions on the narrative, I found it to be a fun ride with a multi Doctor story like no other.

This isn’t a causal bump into each other. These guys collided and now they have to deal with the mess they caused.

I couldn’t help but think of A Christmas Carol when all three Doctors were in the room together with the younger and happier Eighth, the sorrowful yet hopeful Ninth and the absolute and angry Tenth. This is where their story lead and it’s not a happy one.

One is naive to his future whilst the other two are in the midst of the consequences that future brought.

At the end of the day these are the perfect three incarnations to focus on in a story about another Time War.

Having the story shared equally among them was also a pleasant thing to discover and driving point for me to see what each thought of the others and their actions.

All in all, this arc came to a fine end that managed to focus on the heart of this story perfectly, even if it feels like a second and third act with that first part missing.

8/10