I fin­ished the book with the same feel­ing that I’ve felt after read­ing every other new adven­ture story so far (Winner Takes All, The Clock­wise Man, The Stone Rose, The Art of Destruc­tion, and The Night­mare of Black Island): Typ­i­cal. The Clock­wise is a pos­si­ble excep­tion, but not by much. All these sto­ries, though good, seem like they were rejects for the show for simply not exhibit­ing enough strength. They’re not bad by any means and I enjoyed each of them in dif­fer­ing ways. What I am saying is that I have yet to read a new adven­tures that can com­pare to the old series.

Maybe it’s unfair to com­pare these novels to the likes of “The Shad­ows of Avalon,” “Blue Angel” and the “Interference” duet. The prob­lem is that it’s gen­er­ally hard when you’ve read so many of them. I figure that they are toning these first ones down to help appeal to the younger audi­ence, and I can respect that. What I would like is just some­thing with a bit more soul. I’ve read books that have per­ma­nently changed the way I view the Doctor. None of the new ones have come close to that. They all seem like we’re watch­ing the sur­face façade of his char­ac­ter. The Price of Par­adise is no excep­tion to the rule, which dis­ap­pointed me somewhat.

It is a well-​written story, and I would totally sug­gest it for teach­ing lit­er­ary prac­tice, for a class to read, or to intro­duce Doctor Who novels to some­one. That’s about it though. There is no fore­shad­ow­ing, no deep secrets brought to light that we didn’t already know about.

6/10.