Doctor Who Book Reviews: The Chimes of Midnight / Doctor Who Annual / Where's the Doctor

A few more recent Doctor Who titles to put through the review machine, and first out is The Chimes of Midnight by Robert Shearman. This was released in hardback along with another title called Jubilee and both are novelisations of audio adventures that Shearman wrote several years back. They have remained as popular audio releases and this is presumably why BBC Books has chosen them for release as novelisations. Jubilee formed the basis for the Doctor Who TV script that Shearman wrote in 2005, the story 'Dalek'.

The Chimes of Midnight is an eighth Doctor adventure, and the companion is Charley Pollard, a creation for the Big Finish audio adventures of that Doctor. As a novelisation, it works really well, and Shearman manages to create bags of atmosphere in a story which is redolent of past tales like 'The Celestial Toymaker' and 'The Space Museum', with tones of more recent fare like 'Ghost Light' and 'The Giggle' in there as well.

The Doctor and Charley find themselves at Christmas in an old house, where they seem to be at odds with reality in that they cannot interact with anything. As the clock chimes, so they find themselves faced with a murder, and the Doctor starts to investigate. But nothing is as it seems, and reality bends and twists around them, with the staff of the house behaving strangely, time speeding up, and the TARDIS blocked from them. It's a strange tale which maintains the mystery far beyond the half way point (when one might expect some answers to start to appear). 

I enjoyed the read, the text is eloquent and the characters all leap from the page. 

As an experiment to see if novelisations of the Big Finish audios might work, then it's a worthy start. After all there are rather a lot of those audios out there now to draw on in the future should BBC Books deem it worthwhile.

Also available is the traditional Doctor Who Annual, again written by Paul Lang, and this time with a story from Pete McTighe (a prequel to 'Lucky Day'). As with previous Annuals, we're following a tested format, and here there's an introduction from actress Varada Sethu who played Belinda Chandra, followed by pages looking at the various characters and stories from the last season (and the Christmas special which preceded it), the pantheon of powerful creatures (including the new-look Sutekh), some games and puzzles, a feature on Mrs Flood. a cartoon strip based on the animated sequence from 'Lux', a piece on Susan, the Doctor's granddaughter, and a spread from the colourised version of 'The Daleks'.

As mentioned in previous reviews, there's a lot that goes into the Annual to try and make it interesting and diverse for the younger reader, and the team have again done a sterling job. I do wonder what the 2027 annual might bring next year as there's no new Who on television for it to use as a backbone. Maybe a more general look back over the show's past?

Another 'new' title is Doctor Who: Where's The Doctor? which is a Where's Wally-type book with 14 spreads of detailed illustration in which you have to find the Doctor, plus various other elements (detailed at the back) which you can also look out for.

The illustrations by Pablo Gallego and Jorge Santillan are charming, and the book claims to draw on work previously published in When's the Doctor? (2012) and Find the Doctor (2013). The strange thing here is that Find the Doctor was actually a complete reprint of material from When's the Doctor? and Where's the Doctor? (2013) the latter of which featured illustrations from Jamie Smart, whose work is not included in this book. ('Shackleton's Expedition', 'Metebelis III', 'Ancient Egypt', 'Ancient Greek Olympics', 'The End of the World', 'TARDIS Graveyard' and 'Victorian London' are all taken from When's the Doctor and thus by Jorge Santillan. There are therefore eight new pieces by Pablo Gallego (presumably) in this book.) 

There's also an updated version of the Greatest Monsters book from a few years back available. Obviously reprinting, repackaging and updating of older material is the order of the day!

Doctor Who LPs from Demon

Demon Music Group started out as Demon Records, a British record label, founded in 1980 by former United Artists A&R executive Andrew Lauder and Jake Riviera (aka Andrew Jakeman), and also, possibly, Elvis Costello! In 1998, Demon was acquired by Crimson Productions and the record label was merged with its Westside Records operation. The date that BBC Studios acquired Demon Records/Crimson Records and their subsidiaries and labels is not recorded. 

As well as Doctor Who they also release many other items and specialise in the reissues of catalogue titles, with a focus on the various Record Store Days each year where many rare items are re-issued on vinyl specifically for sale at participating stores.

The Demon Records/BBC Doctor Who initiative came from Ben Stanley, Product Manager at Demon Records; their first Doctor Who release came in 2016 when they produced a new vinyl edition of the 'Genesis of the Daleks' adaptation (first issued in October 1979) for the April Record Store Day that year. They also put out 'The Tomb of the Cybermen' and 'City of Death' before Oink Creative and Michael Stevens came on board in 2019 to create a revamped look for 'The Daleks’ Master Plan' soundtrack release. 

As the years have gone by, the Doctor Who releases have become more elaborate and complex. From initial reissues of some of the single- and double-LP historic Doctor Who recordings, they moved into releasing LPs of the Doctor Who soundtracks in 2018 ... and have since augmented the range with some reissues of Big Finish's Doctor Who audios on LP as exclusives to certain retail stores.

The disks themselves are very nicely produced and packaged, and as the range has expanded, so various variants have been introduced. The soundtrack LP covers have been created by various artists at Oink Creative, including (but not limited to) Tom Fournier, Sam Goddard, John Conlon and Louise Barden. The packaging design is by Oink, based on art direction by Michael Stevens; Michael gives the team a detailed brief on each release and supplies photo assets, story detail, sleeve text and suggestions for key elements to illustrate. Michael and Oink decide the vinyl colours and effects between them and he then gives each one a story-appropriate name. 

The pressing plant they use for the LPs is a dab hand at creating all manner of different effects on the disks, which Michael names with suitably 'Who-ish' descriptions for the releases: 'Skaro swirl', 'Tibetan blizzard' and 'Animus splatter' among them ... and these are usually special releases exclusive to the online retailer Amazon.

Most of the Doctor Who soundtrack releases are re-issues of audio previously released on CD, with an overlaid narration from one of the actors from the show, but the release of  'The Web Planet' had not been previously made available and featured an all new narration from Maureen O'Brien. A CD release was subsequently made available the following year.

Looking at the most recent releases, and we have two soundtracks. One is a boxed set of three LPs covering 'The Sensorites', and the other is a two LP release covering 'The Celestial Toymaker'. Each 25 minute episode of the original show takes one LP side, so the number of LPs is dictated by the number of episodes. And the packaging too, to some extent, though the releases have settled into something of a 'format'. There is a box or gatefold case with stunning new artwork on the front, and then each LP has it's own slipcase with a standard design on one side (colour themed to whatever the colour palette of the release is), and the other containing the cast and credits details for that episode. The outer sleeves within the box sets also have imagery on each side which, when placed together, makes up a larger picture.

'The Sensorites' also comes with an embossed, frameable art print of the cover artwork and the Sense-Sphere blue marble vinyl LPs are presented in individual pockets which, when placed in order, reveal a double-sided composite illustration, again of the cover artwork. An accompanying booklet supplies cast and credits, and inner bags feature complete episode billings. It's an impressive package!

'The Celestial Toymaker' comes on red (king) and blue (queen) coloured LPs and is in a more simple gatefold packaging with inner bags.

If it's sheer luxury you want though, then the two LP boxed set releases of two of Paul Magrs' audio series for AudioGo really push the boat out.

Hornet's Nest and Demon Quest were two 2009 and 2010 five-part audio releases featuring Tom Baker as the Doctor, but strangely having adventures in England while living in a cottage with his housekeeper, Mrs Wibbsey. There is a third series of adventures called Serpent Crest, coming on 23 May 2023! The stories were typically Doctor Who, and Baker effortlessly fell back into his classic portrayal ... but here even more eccentric if that's possible!

For these special LP releases Demon Records have really gone the extra mile!  

For Hornet's Nest, the set comes with an exclusive, frameable portrait of the Fourth Doctor - every copy of which has been individually signed by Tom Baker himself. There's an impressive, die-cut removable outer sleeve housing a hornet-adorned lidded box, inside which are ten individual, alternating yellow and black vinyl LPs, within exquisitely illustrated LP sleeves featuring full cast and credits for each story. Also included is The Doctor’s Journal, a large 16-page full colour booklet detailing the Time Lord’s notes and illustrations from his battles against the hornets.

Demon Quest also has ten LP records, alternating red and black, each one containing one episode of the series. Every copy of the vinyl edition includes an exclusive, frameable portrait of the Fourth Doctor, again hand signed by Tom Baker himself. There's an intricately die-cut, removable outer sleeve revealing a demonic lidded box, inside which are ten individual illustrated LP sleeves featuring full cast and credits for each of the five stories. The Time Lord’s encounters with the mysterious demon are detailed in The Doctor’s Journal, a large 16-page full-colour booklet featuring notes and illustrations from this epic pursuit through time.

Each are superbly produced and are in themselves true works of art. Sadly the cost reflects this - they're not cheap, each retailing for around £190 each! But some outlets have them discounted ... so shop around! As a very special present for the Doctor Who fan in your life, they're probably hard to beat!

Released for Record Store Day 2023 (22 April) wasanother Demon release, this time of stories in part from The Amazing Worlds of Doctor Who hardback book, published in 1976 through a special promotion with TyPhoo teabags. The promotion included 12 collectible photo-cards given away with the boxes of tea, and a poster onto which they could be mounted.

This 2023 audio edition included 'The Sinister Sponge' (also in The Doctor Who Annual 1976, previously released on CD on The Sinister Sponge and Other Stories (2019)), 'The Vampires Of Crellium' (original to The Amazing World of Doctor Who), 'On The Slippery Trail' (original to The Amazing World of Doctor Who) and 'The Mission' (also in The Doctor Who Annual 1976). There are two stories not contained in the book The Amazing World of Doctor Who: 'A New Life' (from The Doctor Who Annual 1978) and 'Avast There' (from The Doctor Who Annual 1976). The release also contains audio adaptations of two comic stories: 'The Psychic Jungle' and 'Neuronic Nightmare' (both also in The Doctor Who Annual 1976). 

Dan Starkey (Strax), Louise Jameson (Leela) and Geoffrey Beevers (The Master) read these weird and wacky stories. Published in Doctor Who's 60th anniversary year, the 140g clear vinyl LPs are presented in a gatefold sleeve with illustrated inner bags. Chris Achilleos' iconic artwork for the original book provides a stunning front and back cover to the LP release.

Tom Baker signs copies of the Demon Quest print

The May 2023 Serpent Crest release follows the pattern of the two earlier box sets. This time the colour theme is green and black, and there's the usual quality booklet, art print personally signed by Tom Baker, ten LP records (alternating black and green) and artwork adorning the whole package. This time the slipcase has 'serpent scale' cutouts in the outer box and the whole package just screams 'luxury'.

Author Paul Magrs with his copy of the Serpent Crest LPs

15 September 2023 saw the release of a 4 LP set of stories featuring Tom Baker as the Doctor. Genesis of the Daleks, Doctor Who and  the Pescatons, Exploration Earth: The Time Machine and The State of Decay. Limited to 600 copies, the set comes with a personally signed picture of  Baker.

The Tom Baker Record Collection

Also an LP release in the DOOM'S DAY spin off series: Four For Doom's Day.

For the twin story release Pest Control/The Forever Trap, the set of LPs had an illustrated lift off lid, and features 6 x 140g vinyl LPs three in transparent red and three in transparent yellow each housed in a unique inner sleeve. A four page booklet features sleeve notes by authors Peter Anghelides and Dan Abnett, who reflect on the process of writing for the Tenth Doctor and Donna, and how they regard the stories 17 years later.

'The Edge of Destruction' features an impressive picture LP with the ormolu clock on one side and a TARDIS zoetrope on the other. The soundtrack, it's first audio release in any format, has narration from Carole Ann Ford, and also features an interview with Ford. 

'The Highlanders' was an exclusive vinyl for HMV, and released on 14th June 2024. Narration is by Frazer Hines. It boasts translucent red and blue disks, and the usual information on the slip sleeves.

The Jon Pertwee Collection brings together two of the audio novelisations readings that Pertwee did originally for cassette tape, along with several archival pieces. The box set comes with a print of Jon Pertwee.

LP 1 Side A Doctor Who and the Curse of PeladonPart One / Goodwood Races mini-drama

LP 1 Side B Doctor Who and the Curse of PeladonPart Two / Profile interview

LP 2 Side C Doctor Who and the Curse of PeladonPart Three / Newsbeat interview

LP 2 Side D Doctor Who and the Curse of PeladonPart Four / Simon Bates interview

LP 3 Side E Doctor Who and the Planet of the Daleks Part One / The Skivers comedy sketch

LP 3 Side F Doctor Who and the Planet of the Daleks Part Two / Local radio interview

LP 4 Side G Doctor Who and the Planet of the Daleks Part Three / Radio Lives tributes

LP 4 Side H Doctor Who and the Planet of the Daleks Part Four / Who Is The Doctor?

Here's the covers for further releases from Demon.

Here's a checklist of all the Doctor Who LPs that Demon Records have released so far ...

Doctor Who: Genesis of the Daleks 16/04/2016 DEMREC160

Doctor Who and the Pescatons (Victor Pemberton) / Doctor Who Sound Effects No 19 22/04/2017 DEMREC202

Doctor Who: City of Death 21/04/2018 green vinyl DEMREC254

Doctor Who: The Tomb of the Cybermen 21/04/2018 silver vinyl DEMREC253

Doctor Who: Cold Vengeance (Matt Fitton) 19/10/2018 DEMREC327

Doctor Who: Galaxy 4 13/04/2019 2x180g splatter vinyl DEMWHOLP001

Doctor Who: Destiny of the Daleks 13/04/2019 2x180g splatter vinyl DEMWHOLP002

Doctor Who: The Daleks' Master Plan 15/02/2019 6x180g translucent blue vinyl. DEMWHOBOX001

Doctor Who: The Daleks' Master Plan (Amazon) 15/02/2019 6x180g translucent 'splatter' vinyl. DEMWHOBOX001X

Doctor Who: The Creeping Death (Roy Gill) 24/05/2019 DEMREC433

Doctor Who: Wave of Destruction (Justin Richards) 02/08/2019 'ocean swirl' vinyl. DEMREC453

Doctor Who: The Evil of the Daleks 19/07/2019 translucent red vinyl. DEMWHOBOX002

Doctor Who: The Evil of the Daleks (Amazon) 19/07/2019 'Skaro swirl' vinyl. DEMWHOBOX002X

Doctor Who: Death and the Queen (James Goss) 06/09/2019 DEMREC370

Doctor Who: The Abominable Snowmen 27/09/2019 3x180g white vinyl DEMWHOBOX003

Doctor Who: The Abominable Snowmen (Amazon) 27/09/2019 3x180g 'Tibetan blizzard' vinyl DEMWHOBOX003X

Doctor Who: Max Warp (Jonathan Morris) 15/11/2019 DEMREC554

Doctor Who: The Web Planet 13/12/2019 180g pink vinyl. DEMWHOBOX004

Doctor Who: The Web Planet (Amazon) 13/12/2019 180g 'Animus splatter' vinyl. DEMWHOBOX004X

Doctor Who: The Paradise of Death & The Ghosts of N-Space (Barry Letts) 28/02/2020 3x180g blue vinyl & 3x180g yellow vinyl DEMWHOBOX005

Doctor Who: The Paradise of Death & The Ghosts of N-Space (Barry Letts) (Amazon) 28/02/2020 3x180g space world splatter vinyl and 3x180g spectral splatter vinyl DEMWHOBOX005X

Doctor Who: The Underwater Menace 06/07/2020 180g 'volcanic eruption' vinyl. DEMWHOLP004X

Doctor Who: The Massacre 29/08/2020 'Parisian blaze' vinyl DEMWHOLP003

Doctor Who: Marco Polo 11/09/2020 sandstorm vinyl DEMWHOBOX006X

Doctor Who: Time Lord Victorious: The Minds of Magnox (Darren Jones) 04/12/2020 DEMWHOLP005

Doctor Who: The Edge of Time (Richard Wilkinson) 22/01/2021 140g red and purple vinyl DEMREC713

Doctor Who: Horror of Fang Rock 19/02/2021 140g Rutan blob green vinyl DEMWHOLP006

Doctor Who: The Ice Warriors 04/06/2021 molten ice vinyl DEMWHOBOX007

Dalek Terror 12/06/2021 2x140g 'extermination splatter' vinyl DEMWHOLP007

Doctor Who: The Myth Makers 27/08/2021 'Trojan sunset' vinyl DEMWHOLP008

Doctor Who: The Pirate Planet 18/03/2022 'sky demon' splatter vinyl DEMWHOLP009

Doctor Who: Dead Air (James Goss) 23/04/2022 2x140g soundwave green vinyl. DEMWHOLP010

Doctor Who: Hornet's Nest: The Complete Series 06/05/2022 10x140g alternating yellow and black vinyl DEMWHOBOX009

Doctor Who: The Sensorites 22/07/2022 3x140g Sense-Sphere blue marble vinyl. DEMWHOBOX008

Doctor Who: The Celestial Toymaker 30/09/2022 2x140g king and queen (red and blue) vinyl DEMWHOLP011

Doctor Who: Demon Quest: The Complete Series 02/12/2022 10x140g alternating red and black vinyl DEMWHOBOX010

The Amazing World of Doctor Who 22/04/2023 2x140g red and orange vinyl REF: DEMWHOLP012

Doctor Who: Serpent Crest: The Complete Series 26/05/2023 10x140g alternating green and black vinyl DEMWHOBOX011

Doctor Who: The Tom Baker Record Collection 15/09/2023 4x140g orange, green, red and blue vinyl DEMWHOBOX012 (the label on the front has DEMRECBOX012)

Doom's Day: Four For Doom's Day 15/09/2023 2x140g translucent purple and blue vinyl DEMWHOLP013

Doctor Who: Pest Control / The Forever Trap 24/05/2024 6x140g translucent red and yellow vinyl DEMWHOBOX013

Doctor Who: The Edge of Destruction 24/04/2024 1x140g zoetrope picture disc vinyl DEMWHOREC1190

Doctor Who: The Highlanders 14/06/2024 2x140g translucent red and blue vinyl. DEMWHOLP014

Doctor Who: The Crusade 04/10/2024 2x140g translucent green and yellow vinyl. DEMWHOLP015

Doctor Who: The Tenth Planet 12/04/2025 2x140g white and silver vinyl. DEMWHOLP016

Doctor Who: The Jon Pertwee Collection 01/08/2025 4x140g Green and Blue vinyl. DEMWHOBOX014

Doctor Who: The Moonbase 19/09/2025 2x140g translucent 'blue moon' vinyl. DEMWHOLP017

Doctor Who: The Last Voyage 28/11/2025 2x translucent yellow vinyl. DEMWHOLP018

Doctor Who: The Wheel in Space 13/02/2026 3x translucent 'bernalium' blue vinyl. DEMWHOLP019

Review: Doctor Who: 1001 Nights In Time & Space

This is a strange one. It's simultaneously a novel and a short story collection, but it's actually far more the latter. From the title, one might expect that it's a riff on the old collection of Arabian folk tales 1001 Nights where Scheherazade tells unending stories to the King each night to stave off her execution ... but it's not really that.

Steve Cole and Paul Magrs have crafted a tale of a travelling storyteller who wanders the wastelands with his talking horse (Chuzzlewit - from the novel by Charles Dickens) and talking raven (Evermore - presumably from the bird in Edgar Allan Poe's 1845 poem, 'The Raven', which croaks 'Nevermore'). The storyteller tells stories and when he comes across another traveller (the 15th Doctor) sitting by a campfire, then he starts to tell tales about creatures this traveller has experienced.

Overall these stories are retellings of various Doctor Who adventures from the points of view of the aliens and creatures within them. So we get 'Robot' retold from the Robot's point of view, 'The Happiness Patrol' from Helen A's viewpoint, 'The Web Planet' from Nemini's perspective ... and so on through the Wirrn, one of the villagers of Devil's End, the Meep, Ohika, Condo ... and many more.

The problem really is that we know these stories - you just have to watch them on DVD or iPlayer - and the alternate viewpoint doesn't really add anything much. The best one for me is one which unexpectedly diverges from this format and has a tale of a Toymaker who's daughter is fascinated by his work. And when a life size Tin Soldier appears in the workshop, she is fascinated. The Soldier comes alive and they converse. This is actually a lone Cyberman left over from the battles in 'The Invasion' and it's a great little tale, probably because it doesn't just retell the story that we already know. I would have liked more like this.

The whole book is set during the period that Sutekh destroyed all life (during the 15th Doctor's first season), and there are interludes where the Storyteller and the Doctor ponder on the events. The conclusion is nice and life affirming with perhaps more than a hint that the old Storyteller is in fact the Doctor as well.

There are some of Paul Magrs' charming illustrations throughout the book, and as with all the BBC's Doctor Who related output at the moment, it's aimed young, so it's simple words and ideas and easily told.

Designed as a 'Christmas Book', I can see youngsters enjoying these retellings of some of the Doctor's adventures, and perhaps being intrigued enough to look up some of the more obscure ones (Visians anyone?), and as such it's a nice addition to the range.

Anti Spam Wordpress Plugin

Some folk might remember that Telos was struggling earlier in the year with various attacks by spam orders - basically some scrotes using the Telos site to verify card/PayPal information by firing orders at our payments hub to do the verification. A total pain and I tried everything I could to try and block the orders but to no avail. Nothing seemed to work, no plugin stopped them!

It went away for a bit but then the other week came back with a vengeance! I was searching the WordPress Plugins for anything that might work and came across Anti-Spam by CleanTalk, a spam prevention and firewall plugin, and it offered a free 7 day trial ... so I reasoned nothing to lose.

And it worked! Superbly it started to block all those spam orders ... as well as a multitude of bot activity and rogue comments and goodness knows what else!

After running it for a few days I could see that it was really doing the job! So we subscribed ... and it was not expensive at all! For a small publisher it's a real godsend ...

Here's a few screenshots showing the dashboard, how it displays what it's doing, and a sample shot of some of the spam it has prevented from getting to us ... Simply brilliant and I cannot recommend it highly enough. Available from https://cleantalk.org/

DASHBOARD

SUMMARY DISPLAY

DETAIL DISPLAY OF SPAM IT HAS BLOCKED

Review: New Doctor Who Activity books

 A trio of new activity books from the Doctor Who stable, and as usual with the officially published titles, they're aimed at the young and the very young.

First off is The Official Doctor Who Quiz Book by Beth Axford. Now Axford already published an Unofficial Doctor Who Quiz Book a few years back (from John Blake books) but now it seems she has gone legit and has a BBC one available. 

From the outset you can see the level at which this has been aimed, with a 'letter from the Doctor' opening proceedings in a flippant and very written down style and explaining that he has lost the TARDIS and his friend Belinda, and that the TARDIS databanks kept getting everything wrong - the information was being messed around with and rewritten ...  So the reader has to accept the mission to answer questions and to find him!

Immediately we get off to a worrying start with the first question asking which Earth Junkyard Susan and the Doctor lived in during the early sixties. The three options are: Totter's Yard, Totting's Junkyard, or Tottie's Yard. The problem is that none of these are actually the answer. The yard didn't have a name! The doors had the name: 'I M Foreman', the words 'Scrap Merchant', and the address: '76, Totter's Lane', written on. 'totter's yard' is just a description of what the place was. In 'Logopolis' the Doctor corrects Adric and says 'a totter's yard' and in 'The Devil's Chord', the Doctor explains: 'In the past, right now, I live in a place called Totter's Lane. 1963, I park the Tardis in a junkyard and live there with my granddaughter, Susan.' 'Totter's Yard' is intended to be the correct answer, even though it isn't. The closest might be 'I M Foreman's Scrap Yard', or 76 Totter's Lane.

Question 4 then brings up the sticky issue of the number of incarnations by asking who the first adversaries he came up against when he regenerated into his second incarnation. So, obviously they are taking the number as the order seen on television, so the answer would be the Daleks ... but of course Hartnell has has been established on screen as NOT being the first incarnation of the Doctor - The Renegade Doctor seems to pre-date him ... and depending on whether you believe the Timeless Child element, or the Morbius Doctors, there may have been many incarnations before Hartnell. 

Question 82 states that Polly Wright was one of the Doctor's companions, but her second name was never revealed on screen. 

The book as a whole tells a story of what has happened to the Doctor and the TARDIS and takes in a dizzying number of times and places with questions coming related to each. As such it's a fun and breezy book which Doctor Who obsessed kids should find fun to work through. I can't assert to the accuracy of the whole thing, and it's a shame that the very first question seems inaccurate, but overall it's not a bad attempt and much better than a dry as dust book of questions which many previous attempts have been.

Next up we have The Official Colouring Book and this does what it says on the cover. It's a collection of lovely black and white pages from the pen of Mike Collins, and covers all manner of imagery from classic to new, from Daleks to Haemovores, from bi-generation to the P'ting, from K9 to Davros and the Cybermen. Sensibly the pages are only printed on one side, so any colour bleedthrough from using felt pens won't spoil the pages.

It's an attractive book, and with the addition of a set of felt tip pens or coloured pencils, should keep the little ones occupied for a fair time.

The final title is one of the strangest I've seen for some time, perhaps since the Doctor Who Pattern Book (a knitting book by Joy Gammon) from 1984. This is AmiguWHOmi, an odd word that plays on the word 'amigurumi', a term for the Japanese art of knitting or crocheting small, stuffed, yarn creatures and dolls. This is a Doctor Who crochet book, with instructions as to how to make little crotchet dolls and figures of many characters from Doctor Who.

It kicks off with a sort of 'how to do crochet' chapter which shows with pictures and text how to start crocheting and how to do the stitches needed. This is all Greek to me, sadly, and the remainder of the book includes pictures and detailed instructions as to how to make items like coasters, a fez and bow tie, a Time Vortex blanket, as well as figures of the Doctors, K9, a TARDIS book sleeve and much more besides. I feel you need a certain dedication and skill to be able to make any of these things ... attributes which I don't possess, but then I'm certainly not the target audience here.

The issue is perhaps that it assumes there is an eager market for people who want to make their own crochet figures and so on using the techniques: and perhaps I am wrong and there is! I have seen sellers at various conventions selling things like this, and, indeed I have a bridal pair of crocheted Daleks somewhere, but it seems so specialist and niche that I wonder if the book will find a market. Especially as it is £20 for a full colour 192 page paperback.

And who is Liz Ward? There's no biography of her in the book ... she seems to be a York based UK crochet designer who has been creating original crochet patterns since 2011, and specialising in the amigurumi style. She also has a crochet-based podcast and seems to be something of an expert in the field. So the book has a good pedigree!

The book is nicely designed and illustrated, but for me is more of a curio as to the many ways that Doctor Who can be marketed and promoted. I can't see myself taking up crochet any time soon!

Review: Doctor Who Icons: Shirley Jackson and Fela Kuti

The latest two short novellas in the BBC's Doctor Who Icons series cover possibly two of the most obscure people they could have picked. My earlier complaints about this series remain: there is nothing in the books to explain what they are doing, or the themes they are playing with. I assume that in the days of the internet and Google, they expect readers to do their own research!

Shirley Jackson and the Chaos Box is up first, and Kalynn Bayron has delivered the slightest of tales which involves the fifteenth Doctor unexpectedly turning out to be a massive fan of the writer Shirley Jackson (who I have heard of!), and so taking Ruby to first see her house, and then back in time to meet the lady herself. 

It all revolves around Jackson's story The Lottery, which is explained at some length in the text, and, co-incidentally, there is a strange box in her past which may be the inspiration for the story. The text, however is slight, and, frankly, any horror writer could have been substituted and it would have made no difference. The sci-fi trappings involve a race of aliens who are nice to everyone, and a couple of them who decide that it would be better if everyone was angry and chaotic.

Sadly there's really not much more to say here. It's nicely written and takes place between 'The Devil's Chord' and 'Boom' on television ... and as such I didn't spot the appearance of a Susan Triad clone unless it's very well hidden!

The other title is One Night Only (A Fela Kuti Story) by Tade Thompson, and I had never heard of Fela Kuti and so needed to Google (he was a Nigerian musician and political activist). The story this time features the fourth Doctor, Sarah Jane Smith, Harry Sullivan and the Brigadier faced with an invasion of brain-tapping flying aliens. It's quite a fun little tale, but complex, and Fela Kuti ends up helping the team to solve the problem that is facing them. However as with the Jackson book, it could probably have been any musician.

The two books together I found somewhat unsatisfying. They are both very short (Jackson is 85 pages while Kuti is 94 pages) and the action whizzes past in a flash. Compared with the other Doctor Who series that BBC Children's Books has been running, where the books play homage to other works of literature (Dracula, Frankenstein, Alice in Wonderland and so on), these seem to be written for a much younger age group.

Doctor Who's original remit was to entertain and educate, and these two titles certainly do that. Hopefully they are finding readers among the younger set who are then inspired to go and find out more.

Review: Doctor Who Target Books: Empire of Death / The Robot Rebellion / Lux / The Well

Another batch of four novelisations of recent Doctor Who adventures in the revived Target range, and these seem to be doing well for the BBC as there are more in the pipeline. I do wonder if doing them in batches is the best marketing approach though?  I suppose it reduces the need to try and promote a book every month doing it this way, and it also means they're not working to such a schedule on them.  But I sort of miss the book-a-month schedule of the olden days - or a book every two months perhaps.

The odd thing about these recent adventures is that they're not (as yet) releasing ALL the stories, even though they are a linked narrative in each case. This means that the reader just gets part of the picture each time, and then the author has to fill in what detail is needed. For these titles these running themes are around the multiple appearances of Susan Triad in Empire of Death and the appearances of Mrs Flood in the others.

So to the individual books, and these have very individual styles.

Empire of Death is a novelisation by script editor Scott Handcock of the final two episodes of Ncuti Gatwa's first season as the Doctor, and as such it it is longer than the others. It follows the transmitted episodes fairly faithfully, but Handcock also adds in some material which was cut from the scripts for various reasons (which includes a rather nice, but probably very expensive to realise, sequence on the planet Vortis where we again see the giant ant-like Zarbi (first seen in the 1965 story 'The Web Planet' and never again!)).

There's more explanation of what is going on here, especially around why Susan Triad has been cropping up everywhere, but the book still doesn't quite explain how Sutekh has changed from being a powerful alien with delusions of grandeur into being an actual God of Death. The writing style is quite basic and thus the novelisation proceeds at a pace similar to the TV episodes, with the big climax and reveal of Sutekh coming around mid-way through. There's not much to explain the Doctor's sojourn in the dead and dying universe to find a spoon (a remaining piece of reality), or the - complete lack of - significance of Ruby's family and her being left by the church on Ruby Road and all the pointing and old VHS and Time Window mystery in the first half.

I quite liked that Sutekh's harbingers, and the Beast himself, had their dialogue in a different font. It brought to mind Terry Pratchett's Death who of course spoke in OMINOUS CAPITALS.

Overall I enjoyed the read and I feel that it acquitted itself nicely given that the story wraps up the whole season of stories which led to this.

Next up is The Robot Rebellion and I really enjoyed this one. It's possibly my favourite of the four. What author Una McCormack has done is filleted and deconstructed the events on screen and presented them in a slightly revised order and with additional material to fill in the elements missing from what we saw. Thus the inhabitants of Missbelindachandra One are more rounded and believable, and we understand more the timeline from their perspective, as well as from the perspective of Belinda herself. The Doctor too seems to be running around, in and out of scenes, just missing Belinda but being always on the periphery. 

It's an enjoyable and rollicking read and makes the most of the novelisation format to expand and explain more what happened on screen and to provide a rounded and enthralling read. I could see young readers loving this tale of robots and space queens and gunfights and battles and AI monsters and wanting to see the TV story after reading it.

Belinda is introduced well and I was interested to see that the revelations at the END of this season were not included in the novelisation, so what we are told and shown here is the same as in the televised version. Which is probably as it should be - leave it to the novelisations of 'Wish World' and 'The Reality War' to deal with those!

The third book is Lux by James Goss, and I assume they gave him this one as he made such a great job of The Giggle a few years back. Goss tries to repeat the magic here, but sadly for me it fell flat. There's not the same level of cleverness that can be brought here as offered by The Giggle. We do get a couple of pages told in animation (which are possibly screen grabs off the televised story - I'm not certain) and there's some imagery to support the sequence where the Doctor and Belinda have to literally pull themselves out of the frames of film, Looney Tunes style, in order to escape. The designer is also having fun playing with fonts too ... adding a sort of cartoonish element to the read.

The meta sequences with the Doctor Who fans are nicely done (and they get a prologue to themselves as well) but overall I found this book somewhat lacklustre. As though it was trying too hard and not quite hitting the target (excuse the pun).

It covers all the bases and includes the Mrs Flood cameo at the end (but does not explain or add to it) and overall was an okay read with not much added to the teleplay.

Finally we have The Well by Gareth L Powell, a name new to the Target novelisations, but Gareth has been writing Science Fiction for many years now and is very accomplished at it. This shows in the book as his writing is elegant and flows well, introducing us to our leads, and then the hapless space marines who have been assigned to find out what has happened on this strange planet.

The book, like the TV story, has more than a few allusions to the film Aliens and has a similar tense set-up and revelation. I found it exciting and well paced, with lots of backstory added to help readers identify with the marines. The situation they find themselves in seems hopeless but on this occasion the Doctor doesn't quite manage to win through!

One interesting element is that because the story to which this is a sequel has not (yet) been novelised, Powell has to fill in here what happened on that previous meeting, and this does open up a big question - as on television - as to why the creature's motivations and modus operandi has changed between then and now. There's sadly no answers in the book, so just go with it and enjoy the ride! This was my second favourite read of the four, managing to bring in a novelisation which worked as a book in itself rather than just a straight retelling of the TV script.

I'm not quite sure why the chapters are interspersed with Personnel File entries for the marines, except perhaps to add more backstory to them. My feeling was that this information, if relevant, would have been better served by being included in the narrative, rather than being placed in these segments. However these don't detract from the overall read which is fast and intriguing and more than a little scary.

It's nice and nostalgic to see that the books each identify who the Doctor is on the cover (for Lux this is amended to explain it's a cartoon version of the Doctor), but for the cover of The Well, there's actually six characters pictured, and the main one isn't the Doctor at all ... which could be somewhat confusing!

The next three novelisations in 2026 are for 'The Impossible Planet'/'The Satan Pit' (Matt Jones), 'The Time of Angels'/'Flesh and Stone' (Jenny Colgan) and 'Aliens of London'/'World War Three' (Joseph Lidster).

Review: Doctor Who: The Reality War

Sorry it's taken me a bit of time to get to reviewing the climax to the latest season of Doctor Who. Blame too much else happening in my life!

But here we are at last, and despite a couple of weeks wondering how to approach the review I'm still no closer, so I'm just going to start typing and see where it all takes me.

Fundamentally, the episode had too much to do. Russell T Davies had decided to try and bring together all the threads from Ncuti Gatwa's second season, but also to introduce aspects of his first season, and to try and bring together the concept of the 'Gods' which started in the 14th Doctor specials before that. And on top of all this, there was an apparent change of direction somewhere in there which meant that Gatwa was leaving and so the whole thing needed to end on the usual (traditional?) cliffhanger of a new Doctor coming in. That is a fair amount to try and juggle in about 66 minutes!

Sad to say that I don't think the final episode was wholly successful in its aims. There's just too much to try and sort out. There's too many hanging threads which were not addressed, and this is important as in this day and age of TV series apparently needing to have a 'season arc', if you're going to do that, then it's important that you actually complete the arc and have the whole thing making sense at the end. If you don't then you're going to alienate your audience who then may not come back for more the following season. These endings are important!

Thus not addressing who 'the Boss' is as referred to by the Meep way back, not addressing why the Doctor saw his granddaughter Susan in the episodes leading to the climax, not addressing how this Vindicator device, supposedly invented and built by the Doctor to triangulate routes back to the Earth, ends up being the perfect fit for a giant clock face that the Rani has built (and even has a hand which points the time), but then is also some sort of ultimate weapon thing which can fire power beams to force Omega back to his Underverse place. This was just so convenient that it beggared belief.

And what about all the 'clues' that the Doctor was not in the real world anymore? An entire episode about fiction and imagination 'The Story and the Machine' in which Mrs Flood and Poppy seemed to be stories. Mrs Flood breaking the fourth wall all the time and speaking to the audience ... nothing came of it all.

The Rani's plan, as discussed in my review of the previous episode, 'Wish World', also made no sense whatsoever. She wanted to create a world based on the wishes of Conrad (who we discover here learned from the Doctor's little lecture, and created the world were people were nice to each other) so that the Doctor could doubt it, and that doubt would crack reality and release Omega. And why did she want to release Omega? So that his DNA could be used to repopulate the Time Lord race as they are all infertile from the Genetic explosion during the Time War. Twice the Doctor refers to Omega as a Time Lord, but he was never this - he was a Stellar Engineer who detonated the black hole which then gave the Gallifreyans the power they needed to become Time Lords. Omega himself was thrown through the black hole into a universe of anti-matter where he stewed and plotted and lost who he was, becoming an entity of matter created by his own mind. He was not a Time Lord.

As someone in the episode commented, why not use the DNA you have: the Rani's and the Doctor's? But that wasn't going to work for some reason as they are sterile. But the Rani is a genetic scientist and genius (even if she seems to have inherited some of the Master's craziness here) and so couldn't she create Time Lord babies in test tubes if she had the DNA?

In and around all this jiggery pokery we have the mystery of Poppy - supposedly the child of the Doctor and Belinda while in Wish World (except that neither could actually remember having her or bringing her up - we just have to accept that this is the case) but then, because reality shatters, Poppy isn't the Doctor's child at all, and even though he gets Susan Triad to create a handy (and impossible) Zero Room at UNIT HQ and puts Belinda and Poppy in there so they don't get affected when the Wish is cancelled, Poppy still vanishes shortly after.

What I really didn't understand about this sequence was that everyone else remembered everything that had been the case, but that was now not the case (like the actor Ernest Borgnine not being dead), but could not remember Poppy being there, or anything related to her. And this included the Doctor (who usually can remember stuff from alternate timelines and so on as he's a Time Lord). Only Ruby could remember, but there's nothing to explain why this would be. It just is. So Ruby has to convince the Doctor that Poppy being missing is one of those 'glitches' and he decides to use his regeneration energy to force the universe to slip a gear and to set things back right again.

Of course once he does this, Poppy does now exist, but she's still not his child. She's Belinda's. And we further discover that she is the reason that Belinda wanted to come home on 24 May - as Poppy and Belinda's mum were waiting for her. This all seems a very weak and 'normal' reason. And it's backed up by lots of clips of Belinda explaining to the Doctor all about Poppy - clips that we didn't see in their respective stories. I wondered whether the clips were recorded at the same time as those stories which would mean that Davies had this ending in mind all along, or whether they were reset with the same costumes and CGI backgrounds and so on while the final episode was being recorded. I guess it doesn't really matter, but it was a nice way of showing how reality had shifted and that things were now not the same as before.

On this subject though, how many beings lost their lives or just ceased to exist because the Doctor jogged reality over a cog. Maybe more actors are now dead who were not before. Maybe more were alive who had been dead? The Doctor doesn't seem concerned about any of this.

His and Belinda's reactions too when Poppy is being erased and Ruby is trying to let them know seemed callous and harsh. Not like the Doctor at all. He and Belinda are just self-obsessed with where to travel to next, even ignoring Ruby and the obvious pain this was all causing her. 

There's just so many elements in the episode which don't make sense when you think about them. Kate uses a chip embedded in all the UNIT personnel to 'wake them up' and to bring them to UNIT HQ. But they are all in the Wish World. UNIT is only reverting back to the real reality because Anita is keeping the Time Hotel door open. So in the Wish World, why would these people have a UNIT chip? And why would it work? Shirley 'didn't exist' in the Wish World but she was obviously there and functioning, if not realising that she had been a UNIT officer. And Mel? Well she did exist in the Wish World ... and Rose (Donna's daughter), well she just appeared from nowhere as Conrad had literally made her vanish as she was trans. And how did Mel ride her scooter through London and up into UNIT HQ, up in the lifts (or did she take the stairs) and then drive straight into the main control room without anyone questioning it? Was it just the control room which reverted to real reality or the whole building? Didn't it have any security at the front entrance? How did she get it through the revolving doors and turnstiles? Too much is just handwaved away and shortcut in the narrative for it to really make sense. You just have to smile and move on - it's not meant to make sense, it's just nice and dramatic.

So opposite the giant clock in the Rani's bone palace we have a giant Gallifrey logo. Not sure why. And then it changes to the symbol that Omega had on his costume in 'Arc of Infinity'. And then it's a doorway to the Underverse. And then Omega is there, but rather than being a powerful and vengeful creature of thought, he's a giant CGI monster (as Sutekh was) and he's so big he can't even get through this doorway! They didn't think that through did they. So he scoops up and eats the Rani with no apparent ill or beneficial effects. The other Mrs Flood/Rani grabs the Time Ring (she never had a TARDIS, apparently the Doctor has the only one) and vanishes off somewhere else. I guess she lives to fight another day. 

But why was she swanning around dressing as all the Doctor's previous companions? Was this solely because in 'Time and the Rani' she pretended to be Mel to try and trick the newly regenerated Doctor who was confused at the time? There was a reason for it in that earlier story. I got that she was monitoring the Doctor and making sure the Vindicator thing was doing what it was supposed to, but why dress as his companions?

And if you've got a Time Ring that can apparently take you anywhere and anytime, then why do you need a TARDIS anyway? If you really want one then you could just use the Time Ring and go in time and space to somewhere where you knew there were operational TARDISes (the Master's? The Monk's? The War Lord's SIDRATs? The Doctor's? The Daleks'?) and just steal one? When you're talking about a Time Machine, how can there only be one left? Have all others been erased from all of time? If that happened then the whole of the Doctor's past history would be rewritten if there was no Master and no Dalek time machine etc etc ... so it doesn't seem likely.

And while we're back on the whole Rani plan thing, why, at the end of 'The Robot Revolution' did we see fragments of the Earth floating in space, suggesting that the Earth has been destroyed on the 24 May? The plot at the end suggested that the 24 May never came as the world 'reset' at the end of the 23 May and the only day they all ever lived in Wish World was the 23 May. Was this a suggestion that if Omega had emerged and run riot then the Earth would have been destroyed on the 24th? And the Doctor's actions stopped that happening and thus when the Wish ended, it all carried on (mostly) as it had been before, but then the Doctor jumped reality a little more ...

And then we get to the ending. There's lots of speculation online as to what happened, what the 'original' ending should have been - that it involved Susan and a party or something - that there were hasty remounts and material recorded late in the day ... all sorts of stuff. But of course we can only really judge on what we actually saw.

For reasons I can't recall, the 13th Doctor appears in the TARDIS and gives the 15th a bit of a talking to, advising him on how to make the regen energy into the TARDIS thing work, and then she vanishes off again. Then the Doctor fires his regeneration energy into the TARDIS which causes reality to skip. But then the Doctor is about to actually regenerate, so he puts it off so he can be sure that Poppy and Belinda are safe ... and then he's off in the TARDIS. He wants to have a witness to his regeneration and so turns to Joy - the lady from 'Joy to the World', the Christmas Special, who became a literal star - and he blasts his regeneration out into the universe of space (where does all this energy go I wonder. I thought the point was to turn it inward to make him regenerate, not to allow it all to escape ... but anyway) and he regenerates.

Next thing we have Billie Piper saying Hello! But the end credits don't credit her as the Doctor, just 'introducing'. What a strange way to end the episode. Especially when, if you can believe half of what is talked about on the interwebs, there is no interest from Disney in more Doctor Who, and the BBC is trying to find another partner to continue it.

Why do that? Why introduce an apparent new Doctor which a new production partner might not even want? It seems very strange. Unless of course the new Piper Doctor has a role in the forthcoming The War Between Land and Sea series? Or all this internet gossip is just that and there is a new season or Christmas Special in the offing and something will resolve there.

However on this occasion I doubt it. There are too many loose ends and elements introduced which are then skipped over for me to be wholly convinced that there is any game plan at work here. As I said at the start, for a series arc to work, it has to be an arc, it has to make sense in the end, and the season needs to come to a conclusion which is worked for and which doesn't feel like 'stuff happens because'. Sadly for the Gatwa years, this seems to be the main takeaway.

Looking back over the individual episodes though, for the most part I have enjoyed them all. There's lots to like, some great performances, good and interesting ideas, and some absolute standout drama. Possibly my least favourite was 'Rogue' as I just can't get on with the Doctor falling in love with someone he just met. Yes he can care about others, he can try and make things better for them. He obviously loves and cares for the people who travel with him as he develops a bond with them as a result - it would be hard not to care for someone you have so much shared experience with. But the Doctor going all googly eyed over someone he (or she) just met just didn't sit with me. I felt the same about 'The Girl in the Fireplace' where the Doctor falls for Madame de Pompadour.

I loved Gatwa as the Doctor. Bags of charisma and energy, and he seemed to put his all into playing the role with gusto. I enjoyed Ruby and Belinda, again great performances and the actresses were believable in their respective roles. Even if Ruby's story last season was a little too 'normal' as well. She found her mother ... nothing unusual ... the whole season-long mystery of who she was and why she was abandoned as a baby wasn't a mystery at all. It had nothing to do with anything.

And so we come to the end of another era in Doctor Who's long history. Another Doctor has come and gone ... maybe to come back as a surprise guest in a future story ... maybe not. I have no crystal ball to tell me what the next few years will bring. Maybe Doctor Who will be back with another streaming company (I've seen Amazon mentioned) with a new Doctor (maybe Billie Piper, maybe not). Maybe there will be another 'hiatus' and we won't have any more Doctor Who on television for the next few years (except maybe a made-for-preschoolers cartoon version, and I have no idea what the BBC is thinking on that score. I fear it will be dreadful with only the name and perhaps some characters in common with the show I love. It certainly won't get pre-schoolers wanting to watch the live action version, and if they do then they will be in for a shock!)

There will continue to be the fans of course, endlessly creating new audio dramas and books (for as long as the BBC wants to license them for). And even if the official licenses drop away, there will be fan produced adventures and books and audios and dramas. Technology is such that it's much easier to do all these things now than the last time the show went off air.

So it's probably going to be an interesting and exciting time ahead. I hope I manage to stay around to enjoy it!

***

And if you enjoy my ramblings, please check out a new book I have coming from Bedford Square Publishing on October 9. Called WHO ME! it's my Doctor Who Memoirs ... my life in Doctor Who!

Signed copies are available from me direct: https://samantha-lee-howe-ltd.sumupstore.com/product/who-me-david-j-howe-signed-hardback

And it's also on Amazon UK :)