Technically set at the very end of Rose, between the TARDIS vanishing and returning seconds later to take Rose Tyler away, we find the Doctor chasing Starmen; godlike beings which feed on stars. Can he neutralise them before they destroy another world, and will his new companion, Ali, help or hinder.
Higson writes the Ninth Doctor well, but there is a hiccup in the simple story here. Ali is, although concealed at first via the medium and reader expectations, a giant scorpion-creature with poisonous stingers and deadly, scything claws. She is obnoxiously bright, but also possessed of an instinctive defensive rage, and kills several people in her efforts to protect the Doctor. Regardless of species predisposition, it is hard to accept that the Doctor would be as okay with this as presented here.
This is a shame, because the book is otherwise well-written and the adventure rattles along nicely. The idea of exploring the Doctor's singular preference for human companions is an interesting one, but not quite explored enough, especially given the amount of treatment that the more vexed question of companions who kill have received through Leela and her spiritual successors.
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