The Eight Doctors starts off the EDAs with a great, semi-by the books story. The Master sets a trap for the Doctor and the novel is basically getting out of the trap.
The Doctor loses all his memories and he has to work his way from the beginning of his time stream to get all of it back, meeting all of his previous incarnations individually, restoring all memories up to that point in the time stream, its a simple idea that I don't think had been done before but Uncle Terrance takes full advantage of it. Although he is a bit cheeky by placing the events around mostly stories either he wrote or had some contribution towards (The War Games, The Daemons, The Sea Devils, State of Decay, The Five Doctors) and then having an original point for the Seventh Doctor, not to much before the events of the TV Movie.
I do enjoy all the nods and references to past stories and overall Who lore, and all the stuff set on Gallifrey about the CIA conspiracy that I hope the EDA range will delve into with further novels (currently starting the marathon :) ).
One of the only problems I had was some of the mini-adventures are too long, e.g the Fourth and Sixth Doctor, both have very interesting plot points within their chapters (SPOILER: The blood transfusion and 6's struggle to prove his innocence and his feelings are shown very nicely by Dick's: SPOILER ENDS), I don't feel that some parts are unnecessary, they just take away from the general fast pace of the novel; you'll be very excited and motivated by the references with the Second and Third Doctor chapters only to have some boring world building in the Fourth Doctor's chapters.
New companion Samantha Jones is briefly in the novel, at the start and conclusion, because this story is primarily about the Doctor.
In conclusion, this novel does start start off safe and it executes it very good, and is a great starting point for Doctor Who novels, and it sets up my anticipation for the EDAs very well.
Overall: 8/10