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gervase_fenMarcus Sedgwick's The Spear of Destiny is a fun read, getting the characters spot on and with some nice jokes gently woven into the story for hardcore fans. If the author got hit by a time storm and had been able to pitch this to Terrance and Barry, then it might well have been made - and if it hadn't Big Finish would have adapted it from the draft scripts in the last couple of years.
Philip Reeve's note perfect pastiche of season 15 Doctor Who, The Roots of Evil, is pacy, witty, confident and engaging - I particularly liked the description of "one of those twenty-fourth-century computers with the big dials and buttons" which describes any number of pieces of high tech kit on view in 1970s SF TV. It's "The Face of Evil" re-worked with touches of Brian Aldiss' "Hothouse" and Robert Heinlein's "Orphans of the Sky", executed with an enviable lightness of touch.
Patrick Ness' Tip of the Tongue is a departure for this series - a Doctor Who story which barely features the character. It works on its own merits as a 1940s set tale of adolescence / of being an outsider. It reminded me a lot of Philip K Dick's early short SF, with dash of Stephen King's small town settings for characters being evilly vindictive to each other ("Needful Things" particularly.) Includes the glorious line "The sheepfish looked sheepish".
Richelle Mead's Something Borrowed is a notch down from the previous three entries - still perfectly acceptable, and having Peri as narrator lifts a slightly predictable story. Not one to return to though.
Philip Reeve's note perfect pastiche of season 15 Doctor Who, The Roots of Evil, is pacy, witty, confident and engaging - I particularly liked the description of "one of those twenty-fourth-century computers with the big dials and buttons" which describes any number of pieces of high tech kit on view in 1970s SF TV. It's "The Face of Evil" re-worked with touches of Brian Aldiss' "Hothouse" and Robert Heinlein's "Orphans of the Sky", executed with an enviable lightness of touch.
Patrick Ness' Tip of the Tongue is a departure for this series - a Doctor Who story which barely features the character. It works on its own merits as a 1940s set tale of adolescence / of being an outsider. It reminded me a lot of Philip K Dick's early short SF, with dash of Stephen King's small town settings for characters being evilly vindictive to each other ("Needful Things" particularly.) Includes the glorious line "The sheepfish looked sheepish".
Richelle Mead's Something Borrowed is a notch down from the previous three entries - still perfectly acceptable, and having Peri as narrator lifts a slightly predictable story. Not one to return to though.
