Second paragraph of third story ("Six Impossible Things", by Simon Guerrier):He lay on the cool, hard floor, waiting for someone to make the obvious gag that their luck would have to change sometime. But no-one spoke and he couldn't hear them breathing. Just across from where he lay, something stank of burning flesh and plastic.
A collection of ( Read more... )

Second paragraph of third chapter: Benny was baffled. These were not academics; there were no tweed jackets with leather patches on the arms, all beards were neatly trimmed and the conversation was bawdily macho rather than shriekingly bitchy. As she waded into the decrepit melee, she looked around her for a flash of corduroy, a hint of brogue in ( Read more... )

Second paragraph of third story ("Reversal of Fortune", by Graeme Burk): Mikhail laughed so hard he began to cough. For an instant his vital signs became bee-bop-syncopation and arrhythmia.
The theme of this book is explorations of closed environments, and how the Doctor's arrival might change them (or not). I couldn't help but think that the steel ( Read more... )

I've fallen a bit behind with bookblogging again, so here's the start of an attempt to catch up before the end of the month/year. For the last few years, I've gradually and systematically working through the published Doctor Who novels; I had a lapse in writing them up at the height of Clarke Award concentration last year, but kept on reading. This ( Read more... )

Oh dear. I was actually on the verge of catching up with bookblogging here a week or so ago. but now it's the third last day of June, and I have a dozen unread books to write up here (plus another two that I won't). Time to crack on, then...

I am not always a big fan of Lance Parkin, but I rather enjoyed Trading Futures. Good old Anji, the longest ( Read more... )

At a quarter to seven on June twenty-eighth, the Germans attacked. I was there, most of us were. It was Friday, the warmest evening of the year. We were just coming back from church and Mayor Sherwill was making a speech on Smith Street, trying to reassure everyone. There was a droning noise, a squeal, and then a thud. We’d never heard a sound like ( Read more... )

"You have two hearts, you're stronger and fitter than other people, you've got greater mental capacity: better memory, faster responses. Have you ever wondered why you are different?"
Years before Georgia Moffett sprang from David Tennant's thigh (or wherever), the Eighth Doctor had an adopted daughter: Miranda Dawkins, lost scion of a imperial ( Read more... )

All three of these are rather good, and all seemed to me to succeed by not trying too hard. The Eyeless has the Doctor on his own, the other two feature Donna. In all three cases I listened to an abridged audio version, but I imagine that the full dead tree original is also worth picking up.

( August Books 32) The Eyeless, by Lance Parkin )

4) The Gallifrey Chronicles, by Lance Parkin

My decision to read the BBC's Eighth Doctor Adventures in a peculiar order has brought me to the end of the line, in internal chronology, after reading fewer than a tenth of them; so I could be filling in the gaps for some time to come.

( It's the end; but has the moment been prepared for? )

7) The Infinity Doctors, by Lance Parkin

( alternate Gallifrey )