This is the first Benny New Adventure where I've felt like the novel is superior to its audio adaptation, and given that I think the audio adaptation is excellent, that's saying quite a lot. It's the first book in the series to really get Benny, both as a character-- someone cynically struggling do to the right thing-- and as a premise-- in a universe far more unfriendly than the one that the Doctor inhabited. The two student characters and Jason Kane are also well-characterized, and the book manages to be both downbeat and uplifting, one coming as a result of the other. The range's first real triumph.

http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/1346818.html

I only realised after reading this that I had already heard the excellent audio adaptation which includes Sophie Aldred and Anneke Wills. The original book is very good too, and I think would be reasonably penetrable for someone who hadn't previously followed the Bernice Summerfield stories. Nicely observed emotional politics between and among Benny and her students, and the various aliens with whom Benny's ex gets them involved. To a certain extent I felt it was the story that Colony In Space should have been. A good one (only the second Benny novel I have read, the first being the equally enjoyable Walking to Babylon). ( )