* Timewyrm: Genesys (Ace)

Mesopotamia - the cradle of civilization. In the fertile crescent of land on the banks of the rivers Tigris and Euphrates, mankind is turning from hunter gatherer into farmer, and from farmer into city-dweller.  Gilgamesh, the first hero-king, rules the city of Urak. An equally legendary figure arrives, in a police telephone box: the TARDIS has brought the Doctor and his companion Ace to witness the first steps of mankind's long progress to the stars.  And from somewhere amid those distant points of light an evil sentience has tumbled. To her followers in the city of Kish she is known as Ishtar the goddess; to the Doctor's forebears on ancient Gallifrey she was a mythical terror - the Timewyrm.

My Review:  Where to start? The story itself is simplistically simple, the Doctor defeats an insane maniac and the rest of the book is given over to the morality of child rape and public nudity. It's filled with mysogonistic murderers gripped with blood lust getting drunk and getting in fights and taking advantage of married women and that's the alleged hero of the book! This isn't so much a Doctor Who story as something that should be referred to the Vice Squad!!! Also the regulars didn't appear in the book, just people who looked like them...

* Timewyrm: Exodus (Ace)

The pursuit of the Timewyrm leads the Doctor and Ace to London, 1951, and the Festival of Britain - a celebration of the achievements of this small country, this insignificant corner of the glorious Thousand Year Reich.  Someone - or something - has been interfering with the time lines, and in order to investigate, the Doctor travels further back in time to the very dawn of the Nazi evil. In the heart of the Germany of the Third Reich, he finds that this little band of thugs and misfits did not take over half the world unaided.  History must be restored to its proper course, and in his attempt to repair the time lines, the Doctor faces the most terrible dilemma he has ever known...

My Review:  A really good story, lots of twists and turns as the story unfolds across a revised timeline which the Doctor and Ace get caught up in and nearly get killed in. The image of Nazi Britain is horribly visualised and I mean horrible as in disturbingly very well done. The terrible thought that things could have gone so differently and brought out the worst in people instead of the best is a hard thing to do but here it adds an extra oomph to the proceedings before the action switches back in time when the Doctor tries to undo the meddling and nearly makes things worse in the process. This really is a great story, well written and highlights the author's skill and ability to make the unrealistic all too realistic...

* Timewyrm: Apocalypse (Ace)

The TARDIS has tracked the Timewyrm to the edge of the Universe and the end of time - to the lush planet Kirith, a paradise inhabited by a physically perfect race.  Ace is not impressed. Kirith has all the appeal of a wet weekend in Margate, and its inhabitants look like third-rate Aussie soap stars.  The Doctor is troubled, too: If the Timewyrm is here, why can't he find her? Why have the elite Panjistri lied consistently to the Kirithons they govern? And is it possible that the catastrophe that he feels impending is the result of his own past actions?

My Review:  An interesting tale and the first non-Earth adventure of the range. It's a tale of monstous steps taken to preserve life and in doing terrible acts it raises many issues of morality and concience. Can you do evil acts to achieve a greater good? One life for all of existance? The Timewyrm is again reduced to a cameo appearance but make up for it with some nice posturing and she gets her come-uppance in the end. All in all a good story.

* Timewyrm: Revelation (Ace)

The parishioners of Cheldon Bonniface walk to church on the Sunday before Christmas, 1992. Snow is in the air, or is it the threat of something else? The Reverend Trelaw has a premonition, too, and discusses it with the spirit that inhabits his church. Perhaps the Doctor is about to visit them again?  Some years earlier, in a playground in Perivale, Chad Boyle picks up a half-brick. He's going to get that creepy Dorothy who says she wants to be an astronaut. The weapon falls, splitting Dorothy's skull. She dies instantly.  The Doctor has pursued the Timewyrm from prehistoric Mesopotamia to Nazi Germany, and then to the end of the universe. He has tracked down the creature again: but what trans-temporal trap has the Timewyrm prepared for their final confrontation?

My Review:  Whereas the previous 3 stories were action/adventure this one is more of a psychological thriller as the Doctor and the Timewyrm match wills inside the Doctor's mental landscape for control of his mind. Featuring cameos by the 3rd, 4th and 5th Doctors too. The Timewyrm here is reduced to the status of a viral infection and dealt with accordingly and there's the usual angsty trauma for Ace to endure too.

* Cat's Cradle: Time's Crucible (Ace)

The TARDIS is invaded by an alien presence, and is then destroyed. The Doctor disappears.  Ace, lost and alone, finds herself in a bizarre deserted city ruled by the tyrannical, leech-like monster known as the Process. Lost voyagers drawn forward from Ancient Gallifrey perform obsessive rituals in the ruins.  The strands of time are tangled in a cat's cradle of dimensions. Only the Doctor can challenge the rule of the Process and restore the stolen Future.  But the Doctor was destroyed long ago, before Time began.

My Review:  How much do I hate this fan wank? Let me count the ways? It is a human number, it's number is six hundred and sixty six. This is the antichrist of novels, the blasphamous lie, the falsehood that so much work was forced to be based on and thus become apocryphul themselves. A cheap sexist sci-fi show hires mainly male stars, that must mean there's no children and no women in the universe, lets perpetrate that sexism and justify it's existance in books that are suppossed to be bigger than that, better than that. This is a gross slap in the face to sufferage and a callous betrayal of everything that the show is supposed to stand for. Also it's too damn long, only taking breaks to watch episodes of 24 helped me through this book without screaming bloody murder at times, it's so painfully numbing to endure.

* Cat's Cradle: Warhead (Ace)

The place is Earth. The time is the near future - all too near.  Industrial development has accelerated out of all control, spawning dangerous new technologies and laying the planet to waste. While the inner cities collapse in guerilla warfare, a dark age of superstition dawns.  As destruction of the environment reaches the point of no return, multinational corporations and super-rich individuals unite in a last desperate effort - not to save humankind, but to buy themselves immortality in a poisoned world.  If Earth is to survive, somebody has to stop them.  From London to New York to Turkey, Ace follows the Doctor as he prepares, finally, to strike back.

My Review:  There's no link with the previous book in the trilogy and there's no warhead in the story either. However these are the least of the complaints about the story. It's surely a parody of Doctor Who, a violent, depressing, downbeat parody, more akin to Blade Runner than teatime BBC sci-fi. There's nothing of redeeming value in the story, at every turn the author makes sure to bring out the worst in the characters and when that fails he throws confused and garbled visuals to confuse and distract from the hollow storyline that fails to tap any sort of meaning or sense of the characters and events. I'd rather re-read War of the Daleks than this book everytime...

* Cat's Cradle: Witchmark (Ace)

A coach crashes on the M40. All the passengers are killed. The bodies carry no identification; they are all wearing similar new clothes. And each has a suitcase full of banknotes.  A country vet delivers a foal. The mare has a deep wound in her forehead. In the straw, the vet finds a tapered horn.  In the darkening and doomed world known to its inhabitants as Tir na n-Og, he besieged humans defend the walls of their citadel Dinorben against mythical beasts and demons.  The TARDIS's link with the Eye of Harmony is becoming ever more tenuous and is in urgent need of repair. But the time machine takes the Doctor and Ace to a village in rural Wales, and a gateway to another world.

My Review:  A simple story over-stuffed with padding and unnecessary characters. The long tracts of meaningless nothings really get in the way of what could have been a really great story. Alas something about everything is wrong, either the wrong emphasis is used, or the wrong character gets a back story info-dump or the action switches to the wrong scene at the wrong time. With a more confident editor this book would have been something special, alas it’s nothing remarkable.

* Nightshade (Ace)

Ace has never known the Doctor so withdrawn and melancholic. He is avoiding her company, seeking solace in the forgotten rooms and labyrinthine passages of his ancient time machine.  Perhaps he will find the peace he years for on his favourite planet, Earth, in the second half of the twentieth century - in the isolated village of Crook Marsham, to be precise, in 1968, the year of peace, love and understanding.  But one by one the villagers are being killed. The Doctor has to act, but for once he seems helpless, indecisive, powerless.  What are the signals from space that are bombarding the radio telescope on the moor? What is the significance of the local legends from the Civil War? And what is the aeons-old power that the Doctor is unable to resist?

My Reviews:  A very quick read but enjoyable and fun. I've never been a big fan of Quatermass but this pastiche makes it seem better than I remember it being. Also throw in an adult relationship for Ace and some emotional scenes for the Doctor with the sudden reappearnace of Susan and there's added depth to the story. The main villain is a pretty bland mind eater type, very common in sci-fi and this one shows nothing unique except by the way it feeds, by stirring up emotions in its victims as a way of getting inside of their heads. The prelude doesn't add much and neither does the coda at the end, both both serve their functions well.

* Independance Day (Ace)

Freedom. Liberty. Free Will. Independence. Choice. Everyone wants to be free. But at what point does freedom become irresponsibility? What happens when one person's choice causes another's oppression?  The Doctor's on a simple mission to return a communications device he borrowed years previously. Being a Time Lord, he can return it before anyone misses it.  But events in the Mendeb system have moved more quickly than the Doctor estimated, and he lands in the ruins of a civilisation devastated by mysterious invaders.

* Atom Bomb Blues (Ace)

Los Alamos, 1944. In the American desert the race is on to build an atomic bomb. The Seventh Doctor arrives, posing as a nuclear scientist. Someone, or something, is trying to alter the course of history. As the minutes tick away to the world's first atom bomb test, the Doctor and Ace find themselves up to their necks in spies, aliens (the flying saucer variety) and some very nasty saboteurs from another dimension.

* Love and War  (Ace & Benny)

Heaven is a paradise for both humans and Draconians - a place of rest in more ways than one. The Doctor comes here on a trivial mission - to find a book, or so he says - and Ace, wandering alone in the city, becomes involved with a charismatic Traveller called Jan.  But the Doctor is strenuously opposed to the romance. what is he trying to prevent? Is he planning some more deadly game connected with the mysterious objects causing the military forces of Heaven such concern?  Archaeologist Bernice Summerfield thinks so. Her destiny is inextricably linked with that of the Doctor, but even she may not be able to save Ace from the Time Lord's plans.  This time, has the Doctor gone too far?

My Review:  An interesting book, that I first read a couple of years after publication and read a very different story to the one I read over the last couple of days. The memory may cheat, lie and steal but the story doesn't, everything feels earned, the relationship deteriation between Ace and the Doctor, the threat of the Hoothi, the nature of the trap and the introduction of Benny, they all come across as feeling right. Benny is a breath of whisky-drinker's air, full of fresh problems and character quirks and possibilities and the insufferable Ace is booted out at last and good ridance to her. Things are looking up for the range at last.

* Transit (Benny)

It's the ultimate in mass transit systems, a network of interstitial tunnels that bind the planets of the solar system together. Earth to Pluto in forty minutes with a supersave non-premium off-peak travelcard.  But something is living in the network, chewing its way to the very heart of the system and leaving a trail of death and mutation behind it.  Once again a reluctant Doctor is dragged into human history. Back down amongst the joyboys, freesurfers, chessfans, politicians and floozies, where friends are more dangerous than enemies and one man's human being is another's psychotic killing machine.  Once again the Doctor is all that stands between humanity and its own mistakes.

My Review:  It felt like a lifetime since I started reading it, but it's only been 8 days on and off. The story itself is like a cheap budget version of Terminator 3, without any of the plot, character or excitement. Rather it's a dull story full of swearing because it can be and not because it adds anything. In fact the whole story adds nothing at all to what we already know about the Doctor and Benny, and so it can be safely ignored.

* The Highest Science (Benny)

Many legends speak of this world, home of an ancient empire destroyed by its own greatest achievement: the Highest Science, the pinnacle of technological discovery.  When the TARDIS alerts the Doctor and Bernice to the presence of an enormous temporal fluctuation on a large, green, unremarkable planet, they are not to know of any connection with the legend.  But the connection is there, and it will lead them into conflict with the monstrous Chelonians, with their contempt for human parasites; into adventure with a group of youngsters whose musical taste has suddenly become dangerously significant; and will force them to face Sheldukher, the most wanted criminal in the galaxy.

My Review:  An interesting story with lots of hooks to draw the reader in, but alas they're all too easy to wriggle off of as they've very tenious and prone to breaking easily and the ending is far too safe and dull. The whole basis of the story being a trap for the most unlikely character is a good one, but alas it isn't followed up and is thrown aside when other ideas seem to have come along, weakening the story as a result. The regulars are pretty well drawn, although the Doctor seems to have some sort of personal force shield that's never been seen before or seen again (afaik anyway) and Benny's pretty well detailed, although she spends most of the story recovering from a drug addiction rather than a monumental hangover...

* The Pit (Benny)

In an attempt to lift the Doctor out of his irritable and erratic mood, Bernice suggests he investigates the mystery of the Seven Planets - an entire planetary system that disappeared without trace several decades before Bernice was born.  One of the Seven Planets is a nameless giant, quarantined against all intruders. But when the TARDIS materializes, it becomes clear that the plane has other visitors: a hit-squad of killer androids; a trespassing scientist and his wife; and two shape-changing criminals with their team of slaves.  As riot and anarchy spread on the system's colonized worlds, the Doctor is flung into another universe while Bernice closes in on the horror that is about to be unleashed - a horror that comes from a terrible secret in the Time Lords' past.

My Review:  Ancient enemies of the Time Lords from another universe, an amnaesiac Doctor, people tortured for the author's delight, I had to keep stopping to make sure I was reading a NA and not an 8DA! Much of what's in this book is recycled into much of the 8th Doctor's run of books, but somehow they work better with the devious 7th Doctor rather than the touchy-feely 8th Doctor. Some elements work better than others, Benny trapped with a mad android was good, the Doctor trapped in a dream world with William Blake - not so much. Also the 'unstoppable' Gallifreyan warrior idea is at odds with the mastermind concept of the 7th Doctor, who should have beaten Kopyion in about 2 seconds in any other book in the series. Here though the 7th Doctor's made to look more like the Master, much to the detriment of the character and the series.

* Deceit (Ace & Benny)

The middle of the twenty-fifth century. The Dalek war is drawing to an untidy close. Earth's Office of External Operation is trying to extend its influence over the corporations that have controlled human-occupied space since man first ventured to the stars.  Agent Isabelle Defries is leading one expedition. Among her barely-controllable squad is an explosives expert who calls herself Ace. Their destination: Arcadia.  A non-technological paradise? A living laboratory for a centuries-long experiment? Fuel for a super-being? Even when Ace and Benny discover the truth, the Doctor refuses to listen to them.

My Review:  An interesting book, if steeped a little too much in series continuity for the sake of it rather than to help advance the story or develop the characters. The central idea is nothing new, insane meglomaniac grasping for power, the only difference this time is it's a bunch of brains in a bucket rather than a mental machine. The return of Ace is handled well, giving her a sizable slice of the book to show how different she isn't to before she left. The Doctor is pushed to the side a bit, even though the book has more room than usual to get him involved but this just adds to the 'dark' persona he's developing. All in all it could have been a lot, lot worse.

* Lucifer Rising (Ace & Benny)

Ace is back. And she's not in a good mood.  Bernice has asked the Doctor to bring the TARDIS to the planet Lucifer, site of a scientific expedition. It's history to her: the exploration of alien artifacts on Lucifer came to an abrupt halt three centuries before she was born, and she's always wondered why.  Uncovering the answer involves the Doctor, Bernice and Ace in sabotage, murder, and the resurrection of eons-old alien powers.  Are there Angels on Lucifer? And what does it all have to do with Ace?

My Review:  This is the book that wouldn't die! It seemed to take an eternity to read, I think I lost the will to live at one point I think and overdosed on an easter egg to try and take the pain away.  A great story but far, far, far, far, far, far too long.  Both authors have gone on to write more and better books than this, but after such a good debut, they had a lot to live up to...

* White Darkness (Ace & Benny)

The Doctor's last three visits to the scattered human colonies of the third millennium have not been entirely successful. And now that Ace has rejoined him and Bernice, life of board the TARDIS is getting pretty stressful. The Doctor yearns for a simpler time and place: Earth, the tropics, the early twentieth century.  The TARDIS lands in Haiti in the early years of the First World War. and the Doctor, Bernice and Ace land in a murderous plot involving voodoo, violent death, Zombies and German spies. and perhaps something else - something far, far worse.

My Review: Fantastic!  The best book in the range so far. I loved the mix of sci-fi, zombies and the Cthulhu mythos of HP Lovecraft. The historical setting worked well to counterpoint the more fantastic elements of the story as well as add extra menace and evil nasties. All in all this is a book I'd recommend that everyone should read at some point

* Shadowmind (Ace & Benny)

Arden.  A planet of hills and streams and forests.  Peaceful.  Friendly.  'There is no indigenous intelligent life there.' 'What is there then?' the Doctor said. 'It's a new colony world, Doctor. We started developing it three years ago.'  But there is something on Arden.  Something that steals minds and memories. Something that is growing stronger. Something that can reach out to the regional stellar capital, Tairngaire -- where the newest exhibit in the sculpture park is a blue box surmounted by a flashing light.

My Review:  An interesting story, albiet populated by a few too many characters which dilutes the plot just a little too much. The concept of the duplicates is handled quite well I think and having 2 factions just adds to the tension as not only do you have to worry about who is a duplicate but then who's on which side. The idea of Umbra almost spoils things really, the duplicates are enough on their own without another threat being added.

* Birthright (Ace & Benny)

The TARDIS has died. Stranded in early twentieth-century London, Bernice can only stand and watch as it slowly disintegrates.  In the East End a series of grisly murders has been committed. Is this the work of the ghostly Springheel Jack or, as Bernice suspects something even more sinister?  In a tiny shop in Bloomsbury, the master of a grand order of sorcerers is nearing the end of a seven-hundred year quest for a fabled magic wand.  And on a barren world in the far-distant future the Queen of a dying race pleads for the help of an old hermit named Muldwych, while Ace leads a group of guerrillas in a desperate struggle against their alien oppressors.  These events are related. Perhaps the Doctor knows how. But the Doctor has gone away.

My Review:   A quick and easy read that focuses on Benny and Ace, but with the unseen hand of the Doctor felt throughout. It's a fairly interesting take on the BEM story, unfortunatly Virgin's insistance that their stories have a clearly defined antagonist figure kind of gets in the way as he's a terribly cliched 2-d character and the story would be much better served without him.

* Iceberg

In 2006 the world is about to be overwhelmed by a disaster that might destroy human civilisation: the inversion of the Earth's magnetic field. Deep in an Antarctic base, the FLIPback team is frantically devising a system to reverse the change in polarity.  Above them, the SS Elysium carries its jet-set passengers on the ultimate cruise. On board is Ruby Duvall, a journalist sent to record the FLIPback moment. Instead she finds a man called the Doctor, who is locked out of the strange green box he says is merely a part of his time machine. And she finds old enemies of the Doctor: silver giants at work beneath the ice.

My Review:   The first Cyberstory of the Virgin era is something of a wasted opportunity, given that the Doctor doesn't appear properly until half way into the book and the Cybermen several chapters later. Still the lack of Cybermen gives the story room to let the real heroine of the book Ruby develop and become a character to identify with. When the Cybermen do appear they're even nastier and more ruthless than ever before. Now they're slice and dice fast freeze enthusiasts ruler by a megalomaniacal calculator. Reading the book in 2006, the year the book is set, and seeing all the failed predictions of social development is a bit of a let down as it edges the book out of gritty reality and into cheesy fantasy and the pointless continuity references to The Tenth Planet, The Invasion and Revenge of the Cybermen get tiresome after a while, there are other Cyberstories. I for one would have liked at least a nod to Earthshock and Silver Nemesis.

* Blood Heat (The Brigadier, Benton, Liz, Jo, Mike, Ace & Benny)

The TARDIS is attacked by an alien force; Bernice is flung into the Vortex; and the Doctor and Ace crash-land on Earth.  An attack by dinosaurs convinces the Doctor that he and Ace have arrived in the Jurassic Era. But when they find a woman being hunted by intelligent reptiles, he begins to suspect that something is very wrong.  Then they meet the embittered Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart, leading the remnants of UNIT in a hopeless fight against the Silurians who rule his world. and they find out that it all began when the Doctor died...

My Review:   An interesting 'what if' senario. What if the Silurians had won? We get to see some of the season 7 regulars too: The Brig, Liz, Benton and a brief appearance by Jo Grant, before the Brig kills her. The concept of only one main universe has always felt wrong to me, given the events of Inferno when the Doctor implies that there are an infinite number of parallell universes. I like this idea more, it adds a certain number of possiblities to the series. Plus we'll see another one next week in the new series, so that makes the one universe idea redundant anyway, so that's something to be greatful for.  Also the main body of text is another, great characterisations, plotting and a vivid Jurassic Park in the East End fell about the whole thing makes this book stand out as a memorable and enjoyable book.

* The Dimension Riders (Ace & Benny)

Abandoning a holiday in Oxford, the Doctor travels to Space Station Q4, where something is seriously wrong. Ghostly soldiers from the future watch from the shadows among the dead. Soon, the Doctor is trapped in the past, Ace is fighting for her life, and Bernice is uncovering deceit among the college cloisters.  What is the connection with a beautiful assassin in a black sports car? How can the Doctor's time machine be in Oxford when it is on board the space station? And what secrets are held by the library of the invaded TARDIS?  The Doctor quickly discovers he is facing another time-shattering enigma: a creature which he thought he had destroyed, and which it seems he is powerless to stop.

My Review:  A strange book that spends half the time trying to be Shada and the rest of the time trying to be a sequel to Shada. Sadly it never quite manages to be either and so comes across as a bit of a mess. The dead soldiers are an interesting idea but the book seems to spend far to much time trying to convince us they're a good idea, rather than showing us. After the splendid Blood Heat this is something of a climbdown in every sense of the word...

* The Left-Handed Hummingbird (Ace & Benny)

Each time, Cristian is there. Each time, he experiences the Blue, a traumatic psychic shock. Only the Doctor can help him - but the Doctor has problems of his own. Following the events of Blood Heat and The Dimension Riders, the Doctor knows that someone or something has been tinkering with time. Now he finds that events in his own past have been altered - and a lethal force from South America's prehistory has been released.  The Doctor, Ace and Bernice travel to the Aztec Empire in 1487, to London in the Swinging Sixties, and to the sinking of the Titanic as they attempt to rectify the temporal faults - and survive the attacks of the living god Huitzilin.

My Review:  A mildly interesting rewrite of The Aztecs with bits of Titanic and Woodstock thrown in to pad it out a bit. The Blue is an interesting enemy but could have been handled a lot better as it comes across as slighly less threatening or memorable than Alpha Centuri! There are worse books in the range, but many are better than this, which is a shame.

* Conundrum (Ace & Benny)

A killer is stalking the streets of the village of Arandale. The victims are found one each day, drained of blood. And if that seems strange, it's nothing compared to the town's inhabitants.  The Doctor, Ace and Bernice think they're investigating a murder mystery. But it's all much more bizarre than that. And much more dangerous.  Someone has interfered with the Doctor's past again, and he's landed in a place he knows he once destroyed. This time there can be no escape.

My Review:  And the rewrites go on. This time The Mind Robber is given the treatment and once again it fails badly. I can't wait for an original story again. This one is horribly dull, yet I liked it a lot when it was published, now 12 years on and there's nothing in it at all to entertain me.

* No Future (The Brigadier, Benton, Ace & Benny)

Somebody has been toying with the Doctor's past, testing him, threatening him, leading him on a chase that has brought the TARDIS to London in 1976 - where reality has been altered once again.  Black Star terrorists ferment riots in the streets. The Queen barely escapes assassination. A fearful tension is rising. something is going to happen. something bad.  Meanwhile, Benny's the lead singer in a punk band. Ace can't talk to her or the Doctor without an argument starting, so she's made murderous plans of her own. The Doctor's alone - he doesn't know who his enemy is, and even the Brigadier has disowned him.  As usual, it's up to the Doctor to protect the world. And he can't even protect himself.

My Review:  The best book of the rip off the past series of books and by far the best. Instead of rewriting one single story No Future instead remixes the UNIT era and comes up with an interesting mix of action, adventure and double-crossing. The Monk and the Vardens are not to most memorable villains the Doctor has ever faced but somehow they manage to muddle their way through the story as credible, if easily defeated, enemies and the ending is right out of The Time Monster, but with a slightly better resolution.

* Tragedy Day (Ace & Benny)

In Empire City on the planet Olleril, it's time for the annual Tragedy Day - when the privileged few celebrate their generosity to the masses.  But this year, something is different. Hideous creatures infest the waters around an island that doesn't officially exist. Assassins arrive to carry out a killing that may endanger the entire universe. A being known as the Supreme One tests horrific weapons. And a secret order of monks observes the growing chaos.  Five minutes after they arrive on Olleril, the TARDIS crew know they want to leave. But Ace is imprisoned in a sinister refugee camp, and Bernice and the Doctor are in the custody of a brutal police gang. There is no way out.

My Review:  A nice, pleasant, book to sink my teeth into after the recent run of below par releases. Now that things are looking outward again this is a breath of fresh air in so many ways. Good prose, good characters, good monsters and good villians make for an enjoyable romp in time and space. The Doctor manages to defeat so many different enemies at once that it's hard to remember how cool he really is when watching season 24. Benny as love interest is a neat twist too and I can feel her revulsion in every word she speaks. This book is a bright diamond in a tiara full of gems

* Legacy (Ace & Benny)

The Doctor is pursuing a master criminal. The trail leads to Peladon: a desolate world once home to a barbaric, feudal society. Now the Galactic Federation is attempting to bring prosperity and civilisation to the planet. But not all Pels support the changes, and when ancient relics are stolen from their Citadel, the representatives of the Federation are blamed. The Doctor suspects the Ice Warrior delegation, but before long the Time Lord himself is arrested for the crime - and sentenced to death.  Elsewhere, interplanetary mercenaries are bringing one of the galaxy's most evil artefacts to Peladon, apparently on the Doctor's instruction. Ace is pursuing a dangerous mission on another world and Bernice is getting friendly - perhaps too friendly - with the Ice Warriors she has studied for so long.  The players are making the final moves in a devious and lethal plan - but for once it isn't the Doctor's.

My Review:  An interesting finale to the Peladon saga begun in Jon Pertwee's reign as the Doctor. The 7th Doctor and Benny prove to be interesting adversaries to several political plots on the planet and another extra-extrodinary plot by a magic tiara. It's nice to see the Ice Warriors back after so long, although Alpha Centauri is much less animate than past stories show. Sidelining Ace for much of the story and then getting rid of her altogther is a bit of a waste imho as she could easily have been incorperated into the events, instead not using her sticks out as a failing of the book to maximise the available resources. Still in the end the Doctor defeats the bad guys and that's all you can ask of a book.  The interesting characters and sly continuity references are an added bonus.

* Theatre of War (Ace & Benny)

Five years ago, an archaeological expedition came to Menaxus to explore the ruins of an ancient theatre. All but one of the visitors died horribly, and the planet was abandoned, bathed in lethal radiation.  Now the only survivor has returned, determined to uncover the theatre's secrets whatever the cost. Among her archaeological team is a certain Professor Bernice Summerfield.  Soon the deaths begin again, while the front line of an interstellar war moves ever closer. Desperate for help, Bernice tries to summon her companions. But when the TARDIS lands on the planet, the Doctor finds himself participating in a frighteningly real performance of Shakespeare's greatest tragedy. And he begins to realise that the truth about Menaxus may be far stranger than anyone imagines.

My Review:  Very, very, very, very dull, maybe duller but I can't be bothered to go into any more detail of the dullality. Nothing happens until the penultimate chapter. It's 200+ pages of waffle and shouty people all going up their own backsides. If I could pick any one book to forget I wouldn't pick this one it's not even that memorable to forget. The Doctor and co are all their usual selves, which is something but it's not enough to fail to hang a plot on. I had more fun haveing a wisdom tooth removed I think. This is a book for completists and masochists only, I liked CC: Warhead more.

* All-Consuming Fire (Ace & Benny)

England, 1887. The secret library of St John the Beheaded has been robbed. The thief has taken forbidden books which tell of mythical beasts and gateways to other worlds. Only one team can be trusted to solve the crime: Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson.  As their investigation leads them to the dark underside of Victorian London, Holmes and Watson soon realise that someone else is following the same trail. Someone who has the power to kill with a glance. And they sense a strange, inhuman shape observing them from the shadows. Then they meet the mysterious traveller known only as the Doctor - the last person alive to read the stolen books.  While Bernice waits in nineteenth-century India, Ace is trapped on a bizarre alien world. And the Doctor finds himself unwillingly united with England's greatest consulting detective.

My Review:  After the last few books its refreshing to have something a little bit different than usual, mixing Sherlock Holes with Doctor Who and the Cthulu mythos is an inspired decision and the lavish attention to detail in the writing just adds the sumptiousness of the book. Unlike Legacy I didn't miss the absense of Benny or Ace at all, as there was so much else to whet the appetite. There's a lot of lavish imagrey too, the hidden library, the secret club with a cameo by the 3rd Doctor and the underground railway powered by blasts of air rather than coal. Such small treats are what seperates a good book from an average one. I heartily recommend this book to everyone, it's well worth it.

* The Shadow of the Scourge (Ace & Benny)

The Pinehill Crest Hotel in Kent is host to three very different events: a cross-stich convention, an experiment in time travel and... the summoning of the scourge.  The Doctor, Bernice and Ace find themselves dealing with a dead body that's come back to life, a mystical symbol that possesses its host, and a threat from another universe that's ready for every trick the Doctor's got up his sleeve.  This time, has the Doctor gone too far?

* The Dark Flame (Ace & Benny)

A thousand years ago, the evil Cult of the Dark Flame infiltrated every star system in the galaxy. In the history books the Cult is legendary, its despotic leader a terrible memory.  But for some the Dark Flame still burns.  For some, its horrifying power is the ultimate goal.  All that is required is for the right people to be in the wrong place and time.  An archaeologist and his robot are on the poisonous world of Sorus Alpha, where they will uncover a hideous relic. The Doctor and Ace are on their way to the deep space research centre Orbos, where Professor Bernice Summerfield is soon to start the countdown to universal Armageddon.  Four acolytes of Evil.  Three mad scientists.  Two companions.  One Doctor.

* Question-Mark Pyjamas (Ace & Benny)

The TARDIS materialises on a distant asteroid, where the Doctor is extremely surprised to find that his house from Kent has been uprooted and placed in a theme park. The Doctor confronts the park’s owner, Garpol, who is delighted to meet the house’s owners -- and uses his security robots to force them into the house, intending to make them live there as permanent on-site exhibits. The Doctor plays along with Garpol for the time being, and tells Ace a bedtime story about a girl who finds a magic ornament on the mantlepiece of her home’s fireplace. The next day, Ace finds a snowstorm paperweight on the mantlepiece. Garpol orders Ace to play in the yard like a good girl, and the Doctor sends her to the garden shed to fetch her bike -- which turns out to be a Harley-Davidson motorcycle. Ace uses the Harley to evade the robot guards and find her way back to the TARDIS, where she plugs the paperweight into a depression on the console. The Doctor, meanwhile, takes Benny into the wine cellars, ostensibly to fetch a bottle for lunch; in fact, the paperweight has opened a dimensional link between the cellars and the TARDIS, enabling them to walk straight to the console room. As the furious Garpol sends in his security robots, the Doctor deactivates the link, materialises the TARDIS around his house and returns to Earth, intending to inform Irving Braxiatel and have action taken against Garpol.

My Review: An interesting short tale which casts Benny as the Doctor's wife and Ace as their daughter! Ace's bike is a neat idea, but why would Brax be able to do something about Garpol?

* Blood Harvest (Ace & Benny)

Dekker is a private eye; an honest one. But when Al Capone hires him to investigate a new joint called 'Doc's', he knows this is one job he can't refuse. And just why are the Doctor and Ace selling illegal booze in a town full of murderous gangsters?  Meanwhile, Bernice has been abandoned on a vampire-infested planet outside normal space. There she meets a mysterious stranger called Romanadvoratrelundar - and discovers an ancient and malevolent power, linking 1929 Chicago with a lair of immortal evil.  The consequences of this story are inextricably linked to events in the Doctor's past...

My Review: This  starts off terribley slowly but soon builds up layer after layer of beautiful characterisation between chunks of badly massacred descriptions. The evental story is a cross between the film Scarface and TD's very own TV story State of Decay (to which this is a sequeL) and the mix is not done not in a good way imho (also TD later goes back and pre-seqels same TV story with a 'missing' except in The 8 Doctors retconning the 'extra' lords into existance after they were already written linierally but not temporally - now who know who taught Brannon Braga all he doesn't know about time travel!)

* Strange England (Ace & Benny)

When the TARDIS lands in the idyllic gardens of a Victorian country house, Ace knows that something terrible is bound to happen. The Doctor disagrees. Sometimes things really are as perfect as they seem.  Then they discover a young girl whose body has been possessed by a beautiful but lethal insect. And they meet the people of the House: innocents who have never known age, pain, or death - until now.  Now their rural paradise is turning into a world of nightmare. A world in which the familiar is being twisted into something evil and strange. A world ruled by the Quack, whose patent medicines are deadly poisons and whose aim is the total destruction of the Doctor.

My Review:  a simple story that starts off ok, gets bogged down in its own simplicity and massivly over-complicates itself as it tries to get out of it.

* First Frontier (Ace & Benny)

When Bernice asks to see the dawn of the space age, the Doctor takes the TARDIS to the United States of America in 1957 - and into the midst of distrust and paranoia. The Cold War is raging, bringing the world to the brink of atomic destruction.  But the threat facing America is far more deadly than Communist Russia. the militaristic Tzun Confederacy have made Earth their next target for conquest - and the aliens are already among us.  Two nuclear warheads have been stolen; there are traitors to the human species in the highest ranks of the army; and alien infiltrators have assumed human form. Only one person seems to know what's going on: the army's mysterious scientific adviser, the enigmatic Major Kreer.

My Review:  If its ever made into an e-book I demand Henry Van Staten getting the mileometer be put in as a coda and its great to see the Master again, although Kreer is a pretty naff nickname imho, then again JN-T already gave us the best ones, sigh.

* St. Anthony's Fire (Ace & Benny)

The Doctor and Bernice visit Betrushia, a planet famous for its beautiful ring system. They soon discover that the rain-drenched jungles are in turmoil. A vicious, genocidal war is raging between the lizard-like natives. the ground itself is wracked by mysterious earthquakes. And an unknown force is moving inexorably forwards, devastating everything in its path.  Ace wanted out; she's resting on a neighbouring world. But from the outer reaches of space, a far greater threat is approaching Betrushia, and even Ace may find it impossible to escape.  With time running out, the Doctor must save the people of Betrushia from their own terrible legacy before the wrath of St Anthony's Fire is visited upon them all.

My Review:  A bog standed mix of sci-fi classic, end of the world meets ruthless megalomaniac, I liked the mix better when it was made as a film called The Black Hole, as that at least had cute robots in it.

* Falls the Shadow (Ace & Benny)

The TARDIS is imprisoned in a house called Shadowfell, where a man is ready to commence the next phase of an experiment that will remake the world.  A stranger dressed in grey watches from a hillside, searching for the sinister powers growing within the house. A killer appears from the surrounding forest, determined to carry out her deadly instructions. In the cellar, something lingers, observing and influencing events, waiting to take on flesh and emerge. And trapped in alien darkness, the last survivor of a doomed race mourns for the lost planet Earth.

My Review:  A book I missed out on for some years, reading it now it seems quite fresh and intesting, even if it tries to ram in some bogus nonscenese about TOMTIT but refering to it in terms of The Tomorrow People story The Medusa Strain! At least the psychic contruct city was nice and original but seemed to evoke the first 2 Faction Paradox audios from BBV to me.

* Parasite (Ace & Benny)

The TARDIS has arrived in the Elysium system, lost colony of distant Earth and site of the Artefact: a world turned inside out, a world of horrific secrets.  For more than a century scientists have studied the ecosystem flourishing within the Artefact. Now the system is in collapse and even the humans trapped inside are changing into something new and strange.  With the members of one expedition murdered, those of another fighting for their lives and a solar system on the brink of civil war, can the Doctor, Ace and Benny survive a journey to the heart of the Artefact in their search for the truth?

My Review: A great story that is let down by Virgin's insistance that there be a central villain character to oppose the Doctor, it's just nott needed in this story and actually ruins the effectivness of the artifact by taking away much needed wow factor about it.  If there's ever an e-book I hope Jimbo can sort this out and turn this into a perfect masterpiece

* Warlock (Ace & Benny)

There's a strange new drug on the street. It's called warlock and some people say it's the creation of the devil. Others see it as the gateway to enlightenment.  Benny is working with an undercover cop, trying to track down its source. Ace is trapped in a horrific animal experimentation laboratory. But only the Doctor has begun to guess the terrible truth about warlock.  This disturbing sequel to Warhead moves beyond cyberpunk into a realm where reality is a question of brain chemistry and heaven or hell comes in the shape of a pill.

My review:  Better than CC: Warhead - but then what isn't? Instead of OTT cyberpunk we have animal right shoved down our throats non-stop, which raises the issue of whether this is ironic or unintended. Are we animals who have no choice but to listen to only one side of the debate or is it a send up, designed to add an extra layer of empathy to the plight of Chick and the other animals? In either event the story is well-written with the usual twists and turns and a well signposted non-surprise ending.

* Set Piece (Ace & Benny)

There's a rip in the fabric of space and time. Passenger ships are disappearing from the interstellar traffic lanes. In an attempt to find out who's behind the disappearances, the Doctor and Ace allow themselves to be captured. But when Bernice's rescue attempt goes terribly wrong, the time travellers find themselves scattered throughout history.  Ace, stranded in Ancient Egypt, struggles to survive in an environment as alien as a distant planet: the Earth 3,000 years before she was born. She manages to find employment as a nobleman's bodyguard. And then she comes face to face with the metal horrors which have pursued her through time - the creatures she saw kill the Doctor.

My Review: An ok story, the reduced page count is something of a relief after the last couple of over-written ones. The simple story carefully weaves three storylines together into one glorious whole and serves to suddenly write Ace out of the NA's with no prior warning at all in this book and only vague hints in the last couple. Still now that the irritating companion has gone we'll have the much more complex and intriging Benny as the sole companion, so we should be thankful for small mercies.