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So Vile a Sin is a notorious novel in Doctor Who circles, partly for being the climactic entry of the long Virgin New Adventures continuity arc and partly because the original manuscript was famously lost in a hard-drive crash and had to be reconstructed by Aaronovitch and Kate Orman together. The reconstruction shows in places (the prose is unevenly polished) but the ambition is fully intact.
The plot is a galactic-empire space opera in which a future-Earth dynasty is collapsing, a Time Lord conspiracy is converging, and the Doctor's companion Roz Forrester returns to her own future Earth to find that her family is at the center of the political crisis. The Seventh Doctor is at his most opaque. The Bernice Summerfield subplot is one of the best things the New Adventures line produced.
Four stars. Not recommended as an entry point. For long-term New Adventures readers, this is essential, and it earns its weight.
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