The Missy Chronicles

Various authors
BBC Books
Buy it here

Know your frenemy.
‘I’ve had adventures too. My whole life doesn’t revolve around you, you know.’
When she's not busy amassing armies of Cybermen, or manipulating the Doctor and his companions, Missy has plenty of time to kill (literally). In this all new collection of stories about the renegade Time Lord we all love to hate, you'll discover just some of the mad and malevolent activities Missy gets up to while she isn't distracted by the Doctor.
So please try to keep up.

After many, many years and having filled several bookcases I think I've finally...mostly...almost - there still a few Targets and a couple of annuals I'd like to find - broken my Doctor Who book addiction but I couldn't resist one last bit of fun with this anthology of stories featuring the fabulous Missy and it was worth it.

The book contains six stories by various Who alumni including James Goss, Paul Magrs and Jacqueline Rayner and is pretty much all excellent fun particularly when it's flying it's own flag in a story not beholden to the parent series.

James Goss writes about a post regeneration Missy taking gleeful revenge on a club full of misogynist scoundrels, Cavan Scott takes her off on a mission for the Time Lords, Magrs has her playing the long game with the aid of a TARDIS and a magic teddy bear, Peter Anghelides doesn't quite nail it with a time hopping romp around Venice, Rayner gives us a fun series of email exchanges between Nardole, The Doctor and, eventually, the captive Missy and finally Richard Dinnick does an OK job with the two incarnations of the Master on the giant Cyberman riddled spaceship but it feels out of place here amongst the snappier less canonical pieces.

Like I said earlier I'm very glad I broke my embargo for one last Who book as this proved to be a fine and fun way to spend an afternoon.

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Doctor Who: In the Blood

Jenny T. Colgan
BBC Books

All over the world, people are venting their fury at one another on social media. Dropping their friends, giving vent to their hatred, and everywhere behaving with incredible cruelty. Even Donna has found that her friend Hettie, with her seemingly perfect life and fancy house, has unfriended her. And now, all over the world, internet trolls are dying...
As more and more people give in to this wave of bitterness and aggression, it's clear this is no simple case of modern living. This is unkindness as a plague.
From the streets of London to the web cafes of South Korea and the deepest darkest forests of Rio, can the Doctor and Donna find the cause of this unhappiness before it's too late?

Colgan has got to play in the Doctor Who sandpit a few times now, most notably with her 11th Doctor novel 'Dark Horizons' which had it's charms but if a good Viking story exists I've yet to read one. This time out though you can tell she's living the dream and getting to play with her favourites, the 10th and Donna Noble. Right from the off you can feel Colgan's enjoyment of these particular characters; their voices are perfect and Donna especially seems made for Colgan's pen.

Plot wise an alien conspiracy that is pushing internet trolls to greater and greater levels of vitriol is pretty silly but no more so than that episode about the Adipose that brought Donna back to the series after ' The Runaway Bride'.  What we get is a globe trotting romp - minus the TARDIS - with much banter and bluster which seems to lose focus as it progresses into it's fairly overblown final third.

I'm not entirely sure I was the target audience for this book. I've always preferred the more gothic end of the Doctor Who spectrum and the Tennant / Tate era was never a favourite but it's an OK and occasionally amusing read that very much revives that era and I'm sure it's fans will find much to like here.

Buy it here:  Doctor Who: In the Blood

Doctor Who: The Shining Man / Diamond Dogs / Plague City

So, to accompany Peter Capaldi's last series as the Doctor BBC Books have released another 3 of their series of hardback adventures, These things, which they've been doing with increasing irregularity since the arrival of the 9th, are usually a bit of a wobbly assortment but there's often 1 or sometimes even 2 that are a bit of fun and Doctor Who books are a bit of an addiction with me.

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Doctor Who: The Shining Man
Cavan Scott
BBC Books

“Being scared is the least of your worries.”
The Shining Men are everywhere. You spot them out of the corner of your eye. Abnormally tall, with long lank hair, blank faces and blazing eyes. If they catch you, they’ll drag you away to who knows where. No one is safe. They’re on every street corner. Waiting. Watching. Shining bright.
Of course it’s a hoax. It has to be, right? It started as a joke, a prank for Halloween. Then it went viral. Idiots dressing up as monsters. Giving folk a scare. Silly masks and fright wigs. No one gets hurt. Because bogeymen aren’t real.
Until people start going missing and lights burn in the darkness. Burning like eyes.
But help is on its way, in the form of a strange man called the Doctor and his friend, Bill. The Doctor will keep us safe. The Doctor will stop the monsters. Unless the monsters stop the Doctor first.

Cavan Scott is a new name to me but here he's jumped into the world of the Doctor with both feet. It's not often that Doctor Who goes fully fantasy, usually there's some sort of alien doohickey, thingamabob or race behind the happenings but here we get a full on fairyland extravaganza filled with folkloric traps, supernatural critters and other realms.

Scott has reproduced the Doctor and Bill very well - although the Doctor being outfoxed by cloud storage seems unlikely - but with what must have been only a cursory peek at a couple of the early episodes he has nailed the interaction between the two which is testimony I suppose to just how effective a character Bill Potts was.

As is always the case with these books it's a pretty quick read both in terms of pace and page count which suits me down to the ground as I can read them in an afternoon and get my doctor fix. They're not always entirely satisfying but sometimes, like here, they're often, at the very least, fun.

Buy it here:  Doctor Who: The Shining Man

Doctor Who: Diamond Dogs
Mike Tucker
BBC Books

“Here on Saturn, it literally rains diamonds.”
For over fifteen years the crew of Kollo-Zarnista Mining Facility 27 has been extracting diamonds from deep within the atmosphere of Saturn, diamonds that help to fund the ever-expanding Human Empire. But when a mining operation goes wrong, a rescue mission must be launched to save a worker lost overboard, a worker who claims that he has seen something amongst the swirling clouds. Something that can’t possibly exist.
When the Doctor and Bill arrive, they immediately find themselves caught between hostile miners, suspicious security guards and corrupt company officials as they face accusations of sabotage and diamond theft.
And below them, in the crushing atmosphere of the gas giant, something is starting to rise.

The second - that I read but I suspect it's meant to be the first in the trio - of this years hardbacks is a Who by numbers romp for the 12th and Bill.

The Doctor takes a flying visit to a diamond mine in the atmosphere of Saturn in order to nick a diamond suitable to keep Nardole in biscuits. They are,of course, soon discovered, captured and inevitably find themselves embroiled in some sort of intergalactic incident that will erupt into all out war unless the Doctor does his usual thing.

There's nothing here that we haven't seen many, many times before and the whole thing feels rather tired. I was glad to be finished with this one.

Buy it here:  Doctor Who: Diamond Dogs

Doctor Who: Plague City
Jonathan Morris
BBC Books

The year is 1645, and Edinburgh is in the grip of the worst plague in its history. Nobody knows who will be the next to succumb – nobody except the Night Doctor, a masked figure that stalks the streets, seeking out those who will not live to see another day.
But death is not the end. The Doctor, Bill and Nardole discover that the living are being haunted by the recently departed – by ghosts that do not know they are dead. And there are other creatures lurking in the shadows, slithering, creeping creatures filled with an insatiable hunger.
The Doctor and his friends must face the terrifying secret of the Street of Sorrows – that something which has lain dormant for two hundred million years is due to destroy the entire city.

This third of the latest trio of NSA Who books is an improvement on the last one but still a fairly uninspiring read.

Morris is a regular Who scribe so knows his way around the Doctor and his crew and here he places them in the middle of a plague epidemic in Edinburgh of 1645 alongside a mysterious 'plague doctor' who seemingly knows when someone will die and the ghosts of those who have succumbed to the disease. He really piles it on does Mr. Morris and that's most of the problem.

The Doctor and Bill running around doing their investigating thing, meeting people and butting against authority figures is OK but increasingly it all gets a bit silly and with the arrival of the aliens and the volcano I pretty much gave up and just stumbled through to the end.

Buy it here:  Doctor Who: Plague City

Doctor Who: The Drosten's Curse

A.L. Kennedy
BBC Books

From award-winning author A.L. Kennedy, an original Doctor Who novel featuring the beloved Fourth Doctor, as played by Tom Baker.
“I shall make you the jewel at the heart of the universe.”
Something distinctly odd is going on in Arbroath. It could be to do with golfers being dragged down into the bunkers at the Fetch Brothers’ Golf Spa Hotel, never to be seen again. It might be related to the strange twin grandchildren of the equally strange Mrs Fetch--owner of the hotel and fascinated with octopuses. It could be the fact that people in the surrounding area suddenly know what others are thinking, without anyone saying a word. 

After a week of reading about old ghosts I thought it was time to head off into the great elsewhere for a change and so I grabbed this Who book off the shelf and dug in only to discover that it was set on a golf course in Arbroath which isn't quite as 'else' as the 'where' I was looking for but it'll do.

Kennedy here takes a solo 4th Doctor on an adventure filled with psychic shenanigans and running,  lots of running.  In Kennedy's hands 4 is all teeth and ego alternately charming and conceited, entirely certain of his own magnificence but at the same time entirely cognisant of the potentially catastrophic results of his actions.

The story is a fairly straightforward creature feature but the core cast and their interactions are the joy here between 4, Bryony, a bright but bored and underachieving Earth girl and Putta, a clumsy, depressed, love-struck alien.  There are a couple of lovely relationships developed and revealed over the course of the story - such as Bryony bonding with the TARDIS and especially that of the Bah-Sokhar (the problem at the heart of the tale) and the lovely old lady with the octopus obsession, Mrs Fetch - and in the end this is what the story is about, love and kindness being of far more value than hate and violence.

The book is possibly a tad too long and a little careful pruning could have made for a much tighter read as I thought much of the final section to be fairly superfluous, a tacked on action ending that felt out of place with the rest of the story.

On the whole though a really enjoyable read that made me chuckle more than a few times, smile often and generally enjoy being in it's company.  What more could you ask.

Buy it here -  Doctor Who: The Drosten's Curse (Dr Who)

Doctor Who: Heroes & Monsters Collection

Various authors
BBC Books

A new story collection featuring 26 adventures across time and space! The Heroes and Monsters Collection brings together our favourite short stories from the last ten years of Doctor Who. In these tales the Doctor and his companions face the Daleks, the Cybermen and many more terrifying foes. Also includes three brand-new stories for 2015, featuring the War Doctor, Clara and the Twelfth Doctor. With all the humour and thrilling action of the iconic television programme, the Heroes and Monsters Collection is a wonderful read for any Doctor Who fan. 

This one snuck by me when it came out and I found out about it by accident when looking up the new War Doctor audios from Big Finish.

What we have are a whole host of teeny shorts taken from 'The Doctor Who Files' and from the annuals along with 3 new tales, one of which features the War Doctor and opens the book with aplomb.

There's not been nearly enough made of this mostly unknown incarnation with the one novel being a little disappointing.  This one though is a lovely piece of myth building that fits particularly well with the way the Gallifreyan soldiers reacted to the Doctor in the final episode of the current series, 'Hell Bent'.

The rest of the book is, for the most part, a series of fun little shorts featuring various characters both heroic and less so.  We get to see Dalek's victorious, K9 depowered, Capt Jack in the Victorian era, Amy in a bun fight, the TARDIS up for auction and lots, lots more.

In total there's some 26 stories here written by regular Doctor Who scribes such as Gary Russell, Stephen Cole, Justin Richards and others.  With each story being no more than a couple of pages long the whole thing absolutely rattles along and is just page after page of good geeky fun.

Doctor Who: The Glamour Chronicles

BBC Books

These fairly regular trios of 'New Series Adventures' hardbacks have become a real favourite of mine over the last few years.  I really like the design and the hand feel of them - hardbacks with printed covers - but equally they're a chance for a slightly longer and more outrageous Doctor story than the TV can provide yet they are less involved and embedded in the mythos than the old Virgin and BBC Books series were.  They do however tend to be a bit of a mixed bag but usually they're at worst readable and there's often at least one - the last set had two - that's just downright fun.

Royal Blood
Una McCormack

“The Grail is a story, a myth! It didn’t exist on your world! It can’t exist here!”
The city-state of Varuz is failing. Duke Aurelian is the last of his line, his capital is crumbling, and the armies of his enemy, Duke Conrad, are poised beyond the mountains to invade. Aurelian is preparing to gamble everything on one last battle. So when a holy man, the Doctor, comes to Varuz from beyond the mountains, Aurelian asks for his blessing in the war.
But all is not what it seems in Varuz. The city-guard have lasers for swords, and the halls are lit by electric candlelight. Aurelian’s beloved wife, Guena, and his most trusted knight, Bernhardt, seem to be plotting to overthrow their Duke, and Clara finds herself drawn into their intrigue...
Will the Doctor stop Aurelian from going to war? Will Clara’s involvement in the plot against the Duke be discovered? Why is Conrad’s ambassador so nervous? And who are the ancient and weary knights who arrive in Varuz claiming to be on a quest for the Holy Grail…?

I've read several of Ms McCormack' books before and they're usually a diverting enough read with a nice core concept.  This one though was decidedly weak throughout.

Knights and medieval castles are never going to particularly enamour me to a book and when you tie in King Arthur and the quest for the Grail I'm pretty much gone.  

What really let this one down though was some sloppy writing, plotting and editing.  The time frames are all over the place with, for instance, the questing knights travelling for three weeks over a distance that Clara and Emfil manage to subsequently travel in the turn of a page even though they're on the other side of the country.

This really should have been a lot better and a title like that could have sent the story to any number of interesting destinations but instead what we got was several strands of a story that failed to gel in any meaningful way.

Big Bang Generation
Gary Russell

“I'm an archaeologist, but probably not the one you were expecting.”
Christmas 2015, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.
Imagine everyone's surprise when a time portal opens up in Sydney Cove. Imagine their shock as a massive pyramid now sits beside the Harbour Bridge, inconveniently blocking Port Jackson and glowing with energy. Imagine their fear as Cyrrus "the mobster" Globb, Professor Horace Jaanson and an alien assassin called Kik arrive to claim the glowing pyramid. Finally imagine everyone's dismay when they are followed by a bunch of con artists out to spring their greatest grift yet.
This gang consists of Legs (the sexy comedian), Dog Boy (providing protection and firepower), Shortie (handling logistics), Da Trowel (in charge of excavation and history) and their leader, Doc (busy making sure the universe isn't destroyed in an explosion that makes the Big Bang look like a damp squib).
And when someone accidentally reawakens The Ancients of the Universe - which, Doc reckons, wasn't the wisest or best-judged of actions – things get a whole lot more complicated…

Gary Russell is a long term DW writer and aficionado with a plethora of novels and audio plays under his belt.  I've read and listened to a few and find them to be a bit of a hodgepodge in terms of quality.

As a writer he has a light, fluid and personable style, he's hugely knowledgeable on his subject and an easter egg spotters dream author (and for me the last two are a large part of the problem).  The plot of 'Big Bang Generations' is all of the above and makes for a heads down, see you at the finish ride as we watch the Doctor , an archaeologist friend and some others attempt to avoid the imminent destruction of Sydney followed closely by the universe.

There's a problem here though and it's a doozy.  Russell's version of the 12th is quite simply wrong;  it's just not him.  He's personable, likable, huggy, jocular, patient and wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong.  His version of 12 says things like, "Cold pizza. My favourite. Not." which I just can't imagine 12 ever saying.  I spent much of the book picturing the Doctor here as a 10th / 11th hybrid.  A big kid running around with his mates saving the universe. This may sound like a small thing, they're all the same person after all but getting the specific doctor right is fundamental and he didn't.

The book itself is a romp. It's entertaining enough and an ok place to visit but fortunately you don't have to stay too long.

Deep Time
Trevor Baxendale

"I do hope you’re all ready to be terrified!" 
The Phaeron disappeared from the universe over a million years ago. They travelled among the stars using roads made from time and space, but left only relics behind. But what actually happened to the Phaeron? Some believe they were they eradicated by a superior force… Others claim they destroyed themselves.
Or were they in fact the victims of an even more hideous fate?
In the far future, humans discover the location of the last Phaeron road – and the Doctor and Clara join the mission to see where the road leads.
Each member of the research team knows exactly what they’re looking for – but only the Doctor knows exactly what they’ll find.
Because only the Doctor knows the true secret of the Phaeron: a monstrous secret so terrible and powerful that it must be buried in the deepest grave imaginable…

There, I told you there'd be one.  'Deep Time' is fun one this time out.  It brings to a close the poorly conceived 'Glamour' storyline in a satisfying way.  

Unlike 'Royal Blood' it's tightly plotted and unlike 'Big Bang Generation' the Doctor (and Clara) is absolutely spot on.  The words feel like they are being spoken by Capaldi and his actions and reactions are true to the character.

The story is fairly straightforward as the Doctor and Clara join an expedition to investigate a deep space wormhole linked to the lost Phaeron race.  Joining them on board are a team of scientists, a rich adventurer and the four person crew of pilot, navigator and mechanics.  When everything inevitably goes wrong the crew find themselves stranded on a mysterious planet being periodically thrown further and further backwards in time as their numbers dwindle alarmingly and the Doctor frantically searches for the TARDIS whilst someone else in the crew searches for something else.

It was a delight to read. A big , fast, witty, Doctor Who romp that felt at home in the new series and also felt correct to the DW mythology without seeming to be slavishly mired in the history.  

I could happily read more like this and hope the next batch of three provides more of this and less of the others.

Doctor Who: Harvest of Time

Alastair Reynolds
BBC Books

Hard sci-fi writer (and scientist) Reynolds takes a turn at the Doctor during the era when the polarity of science was at it's most reversible and does a damn fine job of it.  He's obviously having a frankly ridiculous amount of fun playing with the third Doctor, Jo, the Brigadier and the Master.

As always during this time the Earth is being invaded by a vicious alien race, The Sild, who are appearing in force from the future.  Alongside this the various members of UNIT seem to be developing a problem with remembering the existence of the Master.

In their efforts to stop the invasion the Doctor and the Master head off into the far future only to discover that they themselves may actually be somewhat to blame for the situation.

It's all excellent fun.  It's a big budget version of a no budget TV show and is a blast all the way to the final page.  I love the way he's kept to the spirit of the age but has widescreened the whole thing.  The vibe is right, the characters are right and the whole thing absolutely romps along. 

Doctor Who: Tales of Trenzalore

Various authors
BBC Books

As it had been foretold, the armies of the Universe gathered at Trenzalore. Only one thing stood between the planet and destruction – the Doctor. For nine hundred years, he defended the planet, and the tiny town of Christmas, against the forces that would destroy it.
He never knew how long he could keep the peace. He never knew what creatures would emerge from the snowy night to threaten him next. He knew only that at the end he would die on Trenzalore.
Some of what happened during those terrible years is well documented. But most of it remains shrouded in mystery and darkness.
Until now.
This is a glimpse of just some of the terrors the people faced, the monstrous threats the Doctor defeated. These are the tales of the monsters who found themselves afraid - and of the one man who was not.
(Tales of Trenzalore documents four of the Doctor’s adventures from different periods during the Siege of Trenzalore and the ensuing battle:
Let it Snow by Justin Richards
An Apple a Day by George Mann
Strangers in the Outland by Paul Finch
The Dreaming by Mark Morris) 

Four short tales from the end of the 11th Doctors life and the 900 years he spends deending the town of Christmas.

Justin Richards pits him against the Ice Warriors in a nifty little story of clever word play and the power of sound.  George Mann proves himself a dab hand with the up-beat and perky Eleventh by pitting him and an eager child against the Krynnoids in a nice little tale. Paul Finch, the only author here I hadn't previously read, delivers an action tale against the Autons before finally the book ends with Mark Morris absolutely nailing the Eleventh's voice, mannerisms and idiosyncracies with the arrival of the Mara.

A really quick read - an afternoon - but a fun one.  Not really a book to be savoured but one to be enjoyed as a good time filler.

Doctor Who: Engines of War

George Mann
BBC Books

"The death of billions is as nothing to us Doctor, if it helps defeat the Daleks."
The Great Time War has raged for centuries, ravaging the universe. Scores of human colony planets are now overrun by Dalek occupation forces. A weary, angry Doctor leads a flotilla of Battle TARDISes against the Dalek stronghold but in the midst of the carnage, the Doctor's TARDIS crashes to a planet below: Moldox.
As the Doctor is trapped in an apocalyptic landscape, Dalek patrols roam amongst the wreckage, rounding up the remaining civilians. But why haven't the Daleks simply killed the humans?
Searching for answers the Doctor meets 'Cinder', a young Dalek hunter. Their struggles to discover the Dalek plan take them from the ruins of Moldox to the halls of Gallifrey, and set in motion a chain of events that will change everything. And everyone.
An epic novel of the Great Time War featuring the War Doctor as played by John Hurt.

I was so excited when I heard about this book. The War Doctor was such an intriguing character and John Hurt brought him to life so perfectly that this was a delicious prospect.  Add into the mix an author whose work I've enjoyed in the past and I was pretty stoked.

It didn't really live up to it's promise.  The book is an enjoyable enough Who tale but, with one exception where he uses the TARDIS as a bullet he is the same Doctor he's always been.  He's meant to be the one that's willing to go to places his other regenerations wouldn't but he just doesn't come across as such; he's too caring, he's too considerate, he's too Doctor.  If anything I kept picturing him as a slightly world weary second Doctor roped into fighting on behalf of the Time Lords prior to his enforced regeneration.  He just seemed, well, nice.

One of the main problems is that the dialogue given him simply doesn't sound like John Hurt.  The man is in many of my favourite films so his voice resonates in my head but - with one exception at the bottom of page 120 - I just can't hear him speaking the words he's given.

I'm not panning it; I enjoyed it.  It's a light and readable Who novel and that's perfectly fine but it isn't the darker hued, battle hardened, grizzly veteran, gravelly grandad one I hoped it would be.

Doctor Who: Shada

Douglas Adams & Gareth Roberts

BBC Books

Inside this book is another book - the strangest, most important and most dangerous book in the entire universe.
"The Worshipful and Ancient Law of Gallifrey" is one of the Artefacts, dating from dark days of Rassilon. It wields enormous power, and it must not be allowed to fall into the wrong hands.
Skagra - who believes he should be God and permits himself only two smiles per day - most definitely has the wrong hands.
Beware Skagra. Beware the Sphere. Beware Shada.

Back in 1979/80 a strike at the BBC meant that the Douglas Adams penned Doctor Who story, Shada, never got completed.  A few scenes were shot but after the stoppage the team decided not to go back and finish it.  a small scene from it was used to cover Tom Baker's refusal to appear in the 5 Doctors and in 1992 it was released in a truly dreadful version with linking commentary from Baker.  Both BIg Finish and Ian Levine have made versions - audio (featuring the 8th Doctor) and animated - but both are really rather poor.

This one however is rather fantastic.  This is Gareth Roberts, a Who regular, novelising Adams' script for the episode, much of which Adams reworked into the first Dirk Gently novel.

Here Professor Chronotis is a retired Time Lord at the end of his regenerations who has opted to spend the remainder of his existence surrounded by his books in the anonymity of Cambridge academia.  Into this idyllic dotage comes the Doctor and Romana, answering a distress call that Chronotis doesn't remember sending, and also Skagra, a petulant young man with designs on godhood for which he needs one of Chronotis' books which will allow him access to the Time Lord prison of Shada and the key to success in his plan.

It is a rollicking good read.  Funny and pacey and typically Adams.  Kudos to Roberts as he kept himself as quiet as possible, which can't have been easy.  There's a joke in Gallifreyan and a frankly horrendous (and wonderful) Latin pun so tremendous that whoever thought of it ought to be both pilloried for it and fed cakes by the nubiles of their choice.

I absolutely loved this book.

Buy it here -  Doctor Who: Shada