January-February 2018 Number 191

Cover and illustrations by David L Russell Meetings:- St Augustine’s Anglican Chuch Hall, 100 Sydney Rd, Coburg, Vic.

Getting there: Tram No 19 North Coburg, from Elizabeth St in the city, or Tram no 8, Morland Rd from Glenferrie Rd, Toorak, to Stop 132. Upfield train line to Moreland Station.

On street parking. Space on the road next to it, which is closed to through driving. Melway Ref 29 H3. Cyclists can use the Upfield bicycle path. Discounts at selected Melbourne bookshops. Meetings of the Mel- Since 1952 bourne Science Fiction Club take place every third Friday Night. Unless The MSFC is a place where people who en- it is Good Friday. joy science fiction and fantasy meet to dis- cuss their love of books, TV, film and coffee. Most Club Nights - $2 for members, $5 for nonmembers. Some nights may cost an extra fee, such as Trivia Nights. Contacting the MSFC. Premises open at 8pm on the third Friday of the month, events start at General enquiries. 8.30pm. Lights out at 11pm. [email protected] Sustenance - Hot food, cold snacks, coffee and hot chocolate and Soft Magazine. Drinks are available. [email protected] Editor: Edward McArdle Members - club nights. Discounts for members [email protected] Website Annual membership: Show your MSFC membership card when asking for these ben- www.msfc.sf.org.au Single membership $35* efits. Family or household $45* Our website page: 20% discount with cash or Interstate Ethel the Aardvark https://www.facebook.com/ debit card, and 15% discount with groups/4658278007 subscription $25 cedit cards off all books at Sybers Books Postal address *plus $10 for interstate subscribers 38 Chapel St Windsor 3181 MSFC wishing a hardcopy Ethel subscrip- phone 9530 2222 tion. PO Box 110 668 Glenhuntly Rd Moonee Vale Vic 3055 All denominations are in Australian Caulfield 3161 dollars. Please send us Australian phone 9523 6686 currency or equivalent, able to be 2016 MSFC Committee contacts 5% off books and magazines President: Alison Barton banked in Australia. at Minotaur, 121 Elizabeth St Our treasurer will thank you. Melb 3000 Vice-president: Peter Jordan www.minotaur.com.au MSFC membership benefits phone 9670 5414

Secretary/ Public Officer 10% off all SF books at Clare Mcdonald-Sims A year-long subscription to this Dymocks Southland fanzine, Ethel the Aardvark, six shop 3067-68, Treasurer issues per year. Westfield Centre Mark Ford Cheltenham Discounts at selected Melbourne phone 9584 1245 Committee bookshops. Edward McArdle Eva Stein Voting rights at the Annual General LynC Meeting! If you are good you can actually stand for election! MSFC LIFE MEMBERS Alan Stewart Access to the MSFC email list. Bill Wright Bruce Gillespie The pleasure of being in a place Dick Jenssen aka Ditmar where people share your enjoyment Helena Binns of science fiction and fantasy. James Allen aka Jocko Lee Harding Merv Binns Page 2 Race Matthews Robin Johnson Krin Pender-Gunn Sydney Rd 2018

Our usual contingent turned up on 4th March in Sydney Rd. These photos are by LynC and Edward McArdle. They are just a glance, as OurEditor was not feeling 100%, but you get the idea. Others such as Sue-Ann and Trevor were also there, and probably a whole lot more! The elderly lady on the drums was probably a passerby, or she was trying to sell them. by David L Russell Bonfire, by Krysten Ritter. 2017. Reviewed by Edward McArdle. One of the curiosities of the writer’s style is that she writes in the present tense, which I don’t normallly This is a mystery novel, where the heroine battles like, but this one is written as if things are happening as against a powerful corporation. It is not science fiction, she writes, so she is never giving you a story where she but I have sneaked it in here because the writer is a suc- knows the answer! cessful actress, who is currently Jessica Jones. Previously I reviewed books by Amber Benson, which Beneath the Sugar Sky, by Seanan McGuire, 2017. were fantasy, and were equally well written! Possibly Reviewed by Edward McArdle. they have a lot of spare time sitting around the set. In this book the heroine fled from her (American) This is the third so far of thin books about Eleanor school, and found a different career, after the ritual West’s Home for Wayward Children. It is 174 pages, punishment from the school bullies, but she has come and brief. The second book won the Hugo in 2017. back to investigate the possible evils from the master My first reaction was that this reminded me of Enid corporation. This is a town you probably wouldn’t Blyton’s Faraway Tree series. The people at Miss West’s want to live in, but reading safely in your home it home have come from mysterious worlds, and mostly seems worth a visit. would like to go back, but if they have not gone back in a few years probably they never will. As a series the books vary in their seriousness. The second book was fairly down, this one seems a lot more cheerful. Seanan McGuire writes also as Mira Grant, perhaps because those books are more serious, or perhaps because she writes so many books that she needs to have various identities!

Page 4 At the February meeting of Austrek the main topics were (as usual) the gossip about what was happening in the Star Trek world, and a panel talk about the various incarnations of the Klingons!

As Worf said, “We don’t talk about it.” But curious minds want to know!

Star Trek, Star Wars and Dr Who clubs held a gettogether at the QV Strike Bowling Club in Little Lonsdale St, shown in the picture above. I was there only a while, because I am not too fit, but it is a pleasant place, with three sets of three lanes, so you can find your way there next time! And I have no idea how many people actually arrived! Page 5 Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter, The The Long Mars seems to be shorter, as it is in bigger print, although still 440 pages, and so it is easier to Long Earth. Reviewed by read. There seem to be two or three separate stories. In Edward McArdle. one the travelers go off to explore Mars, because there is a world with no earth, so for some reason the travel- This is the first of five books, The Long Earth, The Long ers can blast off without having to worry about earth’s War, The Long Mars, The Long Utopia and the Long Cos- gravity and another group’s peregrinations (I have mos. I happened upon two of them, big books reduced to always wanted to use that word) take them past earth $6, and one was in the library, so I lashed out and bought 17,297,031. But the Chinese have been there first. The the other. Russians have been wiped out because of Yellowstone, Stephen Baxter seems to have written a few books with but not the Chinese? others, Terry Pratchett and Arthur C Clarke, some alone, A group of superchildren appear, though they seem and I seem suddenly to have acquired a number! to be easily accounted for, and one of the ships gets to This first book starts off very matter-of-factly. Someone earth quarter-billion. discovers that he, and therefore others, can simply step This proves problematic from the storytelling point off in a different direction, and be on a parallel earth! So of view. They are supposedly flipping past worlds at everyone does it. twenty frames per second, but if there is an interesting This makes an enjoyable story, but is impossible. People world they can stop there for day, and leave explorers are stepping off one pace at a time and going through until they come back! And for some reason worlds are thousands of worlds. Great if you all want to be totally on various gradients - but why? There is no reason for alone on your own earth! But if a fairly small number step nearby worlds to be connected. off, everyone will be alone. Apparently there are a few For those who do not want to read the whole five other races around, over thousands of worlds, but mostly books, this is not a bad one to start with. There are it is just us! three main stories, and all are wound up. This first volume mainly focuses on Joshua, and his robot But there are still two books to go! sidekick, who is edging towards humanity. Joshua is one The second last book says goodbye to Terry Pratchett, of a tiny number who can just step off and be on a differ- so presumably he did not contribute too much to this ent world without any ill effects. There are also a small volume, but who knows? number who cannot step off at The Long Utopia seems to be a finale, but the whle all. By the end of the story he has series of five books seems to have been the aim. acquired another companion. The This seems to have been a whole book, as opposed to a finish of this odyssey is that there book wth general chapters. On one of the earths there is a world on which only one fear- are some creatures like beetles, and they are spreading. some entity exists. There are some goodbyes too, as some of the characters During the telling there are a few reach their grand finales. chapters which are simple stories There is, however, a long sequence of history with an which don’t amount to anything ancestor of Joshua’s, which fills in a lot, but seems un- much, but may impinge on later necessary to the overall story. books. At the end there is a cliff- hanger ending to start the second The last book is The Long Cosmos, and it winds up the book! tale very well. Our hero, Joshua, is sixty-seven, and still However, the next book starts - after a first chapter - stepping around. There are a group of advanced hered- fifteen years later! Joshua has married a woman who was ity who are all geniuses, and they despise us, and there barely mentioned if at all in the first book, and Sally has are more advanced beings who have led us to building been exploring all this time! She is a tough adventurer. supercomputers, so that we can JOIN THEM. The last book changes the plot a little, so we can now go any- The title of the second book is the Long War. The whole where, which seems a good place to stop! book is various adventures as people go wandering. At This is a very enjoyable series, perhaps best read in the end there is a face-off as the small sections. And you have to ignore anything you US army tries to conquer some might know about mathematics! people, but as they can step off into a billion worlds this proves difficult, and the war collapses. (This ignores the fact that you can step off into a total of two worlds). The whole basis of the story does not stand up, but it still makes an entertaining tale. At the end of book two there is a sudden crisis, which has been subtly bubbling in the background, so we can go to more books!

Page 6 Page 7 Yet another crostic puzzle!

Doctor Who: The Way through The Woods., by Una McCormack. BBC books, 2011. Reviewed by Edward McArdle.

I was drawn to this book because I have read Star Trek books by Una McCormack. Dr Una McCormack (born 1972) is a British-Irish academic and novelist who teaches at Anglia Ruskin University, as a lecturer in creative writing.She has written a lot of Trek books, and a couple of Dr Who. This one is fairly short, and features Amy and Rory. In fact the Doctor does not feature until the book is well on its way! There is a forest which nobody ever goes into, and people have been disappearing occasionally. The Tardis and its crew appear, and become involved, The February MSFC meeting included gossip and lead to the solution. Unusually, there is no vil- (as usual) and a showing of a science fiction lain. film! This is a very short read, but entertaining.

Page 8 Page 9 Once more with feeling, another crostic!

Page 10 G) is the English spelling! You know, “-re” not “-er”.

Page 11 Dr Who February meeting.

Which was all about board Games. It looked like being very quiet, when suddenly most people subsided into their tables. From then on the room was pre- occcupied with killings of Daleks, and other pleasantries!

I fitted in to one game, and Jason took the picture for me. It was a surprisingly fun game, although there were long periods where one did nothing, but gloat about the other players being exterminated.

Page 12 The Rapture of tthe Nerds, by Cory Doctorow The Atrocity Archives, The Fuller and Charles Stross. 2013. Memorandum, by Charled Stross, Reviewed by Edward McArdle.

I borrowed this from the Yarra Plenty library. I have been Reviewed by Edward McArdle. reading a lot of Charles Stross novels lately, and I have heard of Cory Doctorow, who has been very successful in I got carried away reading these novels, and start- publishing electronically! ed reading them in order. I had not realised that This is part of the group of novels about the really far future, they were written as if by various authors, possibly where we may be past the Singularity, and we are far beyond by Len Deighton, Ian Fleming, Howard Lovecraft, being able to write sensibly about what we know. In other words, etc. Eventually Stross abandons this system. the story is nonsense. It does not take long to get into the hang of The first in this series is the Atrocity Archives, it all, though, and this is a funny trip into the far future. and it is not very long. But then it is paired with a Hugo winning novella called The Concrete Jungle, One of the intriguing problems with these sorts of stories, as and the two stories are different. For one thing, usual, is who wrote what? Why would a competent author write someone who is close to death at the end of the part of a book? But it is certainly good fun. novel is back to life in the novella. The novella involves people who are destroying the Laundry from within! The novel introduces Bob Howard’s romantic love, Mo, and she becomes a regular, even though he is thrown into danger with other lovely ladies, but he stays constant. The story seems a bit slow-moving at first, but makes up for it by placing the universe in danger. The villain is an entity which consumes universes, but at the end of the story it is contained. Luckily, or we could not be reading the book!

The next book is The Fuller Memorandum. By not reading the books in order I recognised that the background characters are important, and apart from Mo the main character is Angleton, the mys- terious boss of the complex. There are other repeat- ing characters such as Andy, Brains and Pinky, but they are never as important as Angleton. The other think I must note, after reading several novels about Star Trek, is that the text is important. Stross’ writing is a pleasure. Perhaps he and others could be employed to write Star Wars, Dr Who or Star Trek novels!

The Austrek general meeting was not overwhelming, as the com- mittee was returned, a few short. One of those retiring was “Mr Vile”.who was thanked for his contribution, and urged to produce yet more paintings! Perhaps it should be noted that there are always pages where the heroes are disgusted and repelled because the villains kill off a school or other innocents!

Page 13 Third Crostic

Terminal Mind, Quintessence by David Walton. Reviewed by Edward McArdle

Terminal Mind was published in 2008, but is remem- bered because it won the Philip K Dick award for the year. I recently discovered David Walton’s books, and have been very impressed because they are intel- ligent, and are generally different, suggesting he is conversant in different sciences. This one involves babies being born as keystones of computer software. Not legally, you might note. The book starts with a paragraph which sets the scene. There are stratas of society, and we have people from both sides. There are a couple of really nasty villains, and we get to the end chapters with still some people Horizon, they are reduce to starvation, partly because dying, whether deservedly or not. they had to leave England in a hurry. After a terrible journey they reach Horizon, about half- Quintessence is a story from a different universe, way through the book, and all seems to be well... where physics and history are different. As well, But they have Spanish invaders who have followed the earth is actually a large cube, where ships care- them.. somehow. less enough will sail over the edge! Some captain I really enjoyed this book. It is not in a fictional past watched Christopher Columbus’ ships sail to where people do not know te laws of nature. In this destruction! universe the laws of nature are different! This is a vary interesting concept. The author has There is a followup novel, Quintessence Sky. to stick to whatever are the basic tenets of his book. There are mysterious beings, such as a manticore, a beetle, etc, which are bound by mysterious forces. As the ship they are on approaches the island of Page 14 page 15 The League of Regrettable Superheroes, and The Legion of Regrettable Super Villains, by Jon Morris. 2015 and 2016. MadHatters and March Hares, edited by Ellen Datlow. Reviewed by Edward McArdle. I spent about sixty years of my life building up a collec- tion of comics, until finally I was so overwhelmed that I When someone is putting together an anthology it can sold them, or gave them away, to Alternate Worlds. At last be quite tight, or it can be very vague. This is one of the I can relive some of them again! latter cases! These two books are just double pages about the most The request was for something related to the Alice in outlandish characters in these comics. Probably the Wonderland books. That’s it. compiler has not read them all, because I think that a few Some people read that as being based on the text, which of the heroes are in the villains book, and vice versa, but in my opinion gave us some uninspired pieces. Carroll who cares. wrote nonsense, and some authors interpreted that as These are not books to study. They are just a couple of writing pieces with “mome” and “outgrabe”, which I pages to memorialise each of the people to be remem- found totally uninteresting. bered. Then you put the books away for a week or two Others, however, wrote horror stories, or clever interpre- and look at them again. tations based on the Alice stories. Probably you do not really need to buy both books, but I This is a clever anthology, but if you get it start each wanted them! story, and if it is not interesting at the start, go on to the I bought one of these at Andrew’s Book shop in Ivanhoe, next story. but I got the other from the Book Depository at www.bookdepository.cm

Alien visitors, by Ian Gunn

page 16 Dichronauts, by Greg Egan. 2017, Nightshade books. Sort of reviewed by Edward McArdle.

I have enjoyed a number of books by Greg Egan, but I gave up on this one!

This involves a world where there are different rules of physics, and a group of people go out on some sort of mission. One might get a clue from the cover, where the world is some sort of hyperbolic ellipse. As this is presumably an impossible world everything else is impossible too. Star Wars Cantino Bight, stories by Saladin In addition, each individual, I think, only exists in Ahmed, Rae Carson, Mira Grant and John two dimensions, and can only look in one direction, Jackson Miller, reviewed by Edward unless they can invert their head! This may make something workable, but I couldn’t imagine it. I McArdle. gather one race of beings exists in other people’s Century Books, 2017. heads! This is a book with four novelettes, of 295 pages. I haven’t yet I was sufficiently intrigued that I looked up internet seen the movie, Last of the Jedi, but it is irrelevant to the book. places to read about the book, and a few others. Actually, have bought the DVD, but have onlt started it. The internet sites were more interesing than the book itself! I could understand them, and it ap- This is four stories about people to do with a casino. There is a peared that neither of the long reviews could bit of overlap, in that people from earlier stories get mentioned understand the book either. in later ones, and races from Star Wars are mentioned, such as a Hutt. It is, in fact, easier to look up sites reviewing the book! The first story is about a tourist, very naive, who crosses paths with an assassin, and there is some doubt (well, not much) Don’e be put off too much by this book, as most of about whether he may survive. Greg Egan’s novels are a lot easier to read than this. The second story involves a pair of con artists, and a woman And you may be a lot smarter than me! selling astonishingly expensive wines. There is also a human who becomes indebted to the pair of twins. Who will survive?

A retired assassin (they are all over the place) is forced into service when his adopted daughter is kidnapped, and finally another haunter of the games of chance is inveigled into what looks like his downfall when some brothers ignore the rules of chance.

Probably those with some knowledge of the rules of probability will appreciate the stories more, but all are good fun.

I have started the film, but it is so long that I am taking my time, and it is full of the same ingredients as the earlier episodes - but they were pretty interesting.

The length of the film has influenced me, as an older person, to wait and buy the film to show at home, so I can visit the toilet at regular intervals, as well as see the film at my leisure!

Also I like 3D, and this seems to be dying away!

Page 17 The Librarian’s column. New Editor required!

Did you hear about the NSW government’s proposal to demol- I am intending to retire as editor of Ethel, mainly ish two sports stadiums in Sydney and build new ones? It because I am getting too old. would cost $2 billion dollars but they would feature the latest The position is open for anyone who decides to tech and be more suitable than the thirty year old stadia make this their own place. The magazine is usu- currently being used to stage sporting events including Rugby ally twelve to twenty four pages, and usually page League games After a furore about the cost, the government two is fixed with all the life members, etc. Other- has backed off a bit and come up with a rebuild plan that wise you can do what you like. would cost only about $800 million. The NSW opposition is I have been amusing myself with (too many) cros- campaigning on the theme of “schools and hospitals first then tic puzzles, but pretty much it is what you want to sports”. Meanwhile we still have the club library stored away, make it. thanks to the generous donations of some anonomous mem- I have been wandering around the Doctor Who bers and continue to search for somewhere to rent where it can Club, and Austrek, and using pictures from there be set up again for members to use. Perhaps we should add an to make up pages; as well as ComicCon etc. F to our initialism and become The Melbourne Science Fiction My main problem is that I don’t like driving at and Farnarkling Club.(BTW, I quite like sport; I watch it, but night, so I am likely to be at few meetings. there are times when I despair about the hold it has over quite I also regularly lose the password for the Ethel a lot of Australian’s lives) email address, so things may have been accumu- lating there for years! I had a fine time at the Monash university Library Rare Book David Russell has contributed the cover for the collection event, which celebrated the donation of the MSFC next issue already, and then you may be creative! fanzine collection, The Geoff Allshorn collection and the Wright collection to Monash. As usual I struggled with the Also, anybody who is prepared to make a conribu- parking (Can anyone explain what i need to do to park tion can nominate for any position. There has been legally at Monash? They seem to have fees and fines, but I just a bit of an unfortunate tradition that the exiting don’t “get it” somehow.) It was also nice to see the display of committee suddenly flee, leaving the newcomers SF magazines and fanzines that was part of the event. I can to fend for themselves. If you are retiring, stay at see why the Rare book Librarian was pleased to have a Dune the meetings! movie tie-in pop up book. I never knew that there was such a thing, but it was rare and fabulous. (Imagine if it had a sound Man in the Empty Suit, by Sean Ferrell. 2013. 306 pages. chip, so that when Paul popped up the call of “Muad’dib” was Reviewed by Edward McArdle. heard.) I borrowed this because it had such a white cover! The I also had a good time at the Sydney Road street Festival. Nice story is of a man who was born with the ability to flip to see various club members at our annual stall. We managed through time, and has been through all of human his- to put Science Fiction into the hands of many attendees who tory. (I doubt that that is possible, because there is a lot came by and promoting the greatest genre of them all, is what to cover.) we are really about, isn’t it? He comes together with his past and future selves and has a party every year in an old hotel. But suddenly Congratulations to Edwina Harvey on being awarded the there is a murder to solve! 2018 A.Bertram Chandler award. You can read the citation at And it’s him! http://asff.org.au/new/awards/chandler-award/2018-ed- This progressively becomes odder and odder, because wina-harvey/ the number of past selves grows out of proportion! About halfway through the book there is a change in Cheerio Jocko cast. Instead of being almost entirely about him, sud- denly he travels through time way in the future, and there are a number of other people. (This part of the future seems not to have been a good idea. It is getting past liveable.) There are still not a lot of people, and he becomes fixated on a dying man, and the woman he has become involved with. I have to admit I lost track a bit, but I still enjoyed the book, because it made me think!

Page 18 Lost. six seasons. Viewed by Edward McArdle. Of interest, the second-last episode featured a standalone story about Jacob and “the smoke monster” I watched six seasons, and was baffled still. On And it gave no hint that Jacob’s brother was a bad the other hand, I enjoyed viewing it. person. But their mother WAS. The series began with a plane crash on a desert- The whole ending gave the impresion that they sud- ed island. They waited for rescue but none came. denly had to finish. And there is the statement that there But then it turned out they were not alone. The is no marriage in Heaven. After all, you can join anyone “others” attacked them occasionally. you like and live together for eterninty - then live with Adding to the mystery, some of the passengers anyone else you like for eternity - then live by yourself died, but those who survived only had a few as you explore the galaxy for eternity, etc. scratches! There are a few stories about the pas- sengers, and a few then actually die. Crostic solution: Lost is an American drama television series from As far as the public knows, the official secrets act only has 2004, to 2010, over six seasons, comprising a two sections. That’s because Section three is itself classified under the terms of the preceding sections and merely know- total of 121 episodes. ing about section three’s existence without having formally There are some characters who seem to be main signed it is a criminal offence. characters, but they are killed off suddenly. Presumably they had other commitments, or A) tarship Troopers. the writers did not know what to do with them! B) The Gate of Worlds. (But they came back for the finale.) Other charac- C) Reality Disfunction. ters appeared, but did not want to continue, and D) Oftentimes. disappeared. E) Stranger in a Strange Land. There are some discontinuities. Ben Linus seems F) Sensational She-Hulk. G) The Homecoming. to be the ultimate villain, but he suddenly turns J) Alias the Saint. good towards the end. R) As If At the end there is a funeral, where some people say goodbye. This does not mean they all died The first letters of the answers read: Stross: The Atrocity at once, because in the hereafter there is no time. Archives. But the writers had to turn handsprings at this stage. Jack, the hero, was married with a child, Another solution: but suddenly he is not, and characters realign. A) Jennifer Morgue Whaterever happened to the child? A couple of B) Eighth jib. C) Second Chances. the characters (Hurley and Desmond) suddenly D) Sins of the father. seem to be angels, leading people to where they E) I telephoned. should be. F) Catbird. In spite of these negative aspects, I really enjoyed H) Tased the show, and watched six seasons in a short L) Shadowhawk. time. T) Rosemary edghill. Now I have to watch Orphan Black, Roswell, The Gilmore Girls, etc.... TEXT: The boy landed with a thud next to Morrigan. He flicked his head back pushing a mop of thick brown curls out of his eyes and and adjusted his oversized jumper a huge blue knitted thing with a glittery cat pictured on the front.

The first letters read: Jessica Townsend, Nevermoor.

The third cryptic reads: A) Cold war. B) Hot times in Magma City. C) Attraction. D) Runaway Bride. F) Emotion.. G) Spectre of the Gun. H) Shanna the Shedevil. I) Tot.O) Mint L) Sharon Shinn. M) Stuffy. P) Pink

Brian the doctor with the sphygmomanometer and the anti- hypertensives was taciturn, “I’ll sign you off for decontamination when its back within sight of normal, but not a moment sooner.”

First letters read, Charles Stross, Empire Games. Page 19 Some stories about Dr Who, by Edward McArdle. I recommend this one.

Engines of War, by George Mann, 2014. This is one of the BBC books, featuring the Doctor played by John Two other novels have appeared lately. Both are from Hurt. screenplays by Douglas Adams, and are BBC books This book is very good, well-written, and features as well, in these cases with large type - good for me - the Time Wars. From the point of view of the reader and about 400 pages each. The books are from scripts, it is a little hard to relate to the Doctor, because most and written by other experienced Dr Who writers. of his adventures occurred off-screen. Usually we They are also large books. Adams died young, at have a picture in mind from a number of episodes, about 49 years. and we can say that the character was well written, Doctor Who and the Krikket Men is written as a novel but on this occasion the character was never por- by James Goss. Given that I thought the previous trayed except in passing in other people’s stories. novel by Goss was very good, I expected this one to However it features the Time Wars, and gives the be the same. It isn’t. author a chance to make things up from scratch! They are enjoyable if you like the style of Adams, One helpful opportunity is that the type is big! As an with his nonsequiturs, and random deflections of older reader I have to squint, but not here. There are plot, but the plots are nonsense. It seems that the epi- over three hundred pages, and a complex plot, and it sodes would be unfilmable, because they have such is easily readable. sudden and overwhelming changes of scenery (and One negative point is that the book leads us to the planet!) The Krikket Men were a race on a planet un- Time Wars being erased by this doctor. But in the se- detectable near the edge of the galaxy, then when they ries this does not happen, so there is a measly wind realised there was a galaxy they decided to destroy it up to the book, where it is not all resolved. Ignore all. And so they decided to inflict their cricket stumps this, and enjoy the book. on everyone!!! The Doctor and Romana decide to proselytise Krikkit, The Missy Chronicles, by various authors. 2018. which seems overzealous, but it all seems to go well! I was led to buy this because it was about one of the peripheral characters, and I wondered how well Shada is written by Gareth Roberts. she would be treated. As she is/was The Master I It reads a lot better than the Krikketmen, possibly suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that she is a totally because it is based on people. And I grasped the nasty character, killing at random. (I don’t know opportunity to buy the DVD as well! whether that is how the Master was envisaged.) I noticed that on referring to imdb, Lalla Ward This is another BBC book, and it consists of six sto- showed off her credentials for being a Time Lord ries. In one Missy is refused entry to a club because when she married Richard Dawkins, author of The she is a woman. So she wipes them out. This seems a Selfish Gene, etc. She is 66 now, way behind Tom bit unlikely, as she is not always a woman, but then Baker. But the DVDs of Shada also showed off by again she/he was a man for the entire history of he including a last scene of Shada which used a 90 year universe.... old Dr Who! These are quite good stories, and can be read sepa- The plot of Shada is also very clever. The Tv show rately. But do not do this at home. had to include a few moments which were never actually written, but between the book and the novel, The Feast of the Damned, by Stephen Cole. 2006. a very satisfactory show! Once again, a story of an invasion from Earth, just when the Doctor is around! This is the David Ten- nant Doctor, and features Rose and her family. The River Thames is rising up and enveloping passers- by, and rhe group are opposed to the invaders This is a reasonably short book, and suitable for reading on a bus or plane.

Dead of Winter, by James Goss. 2011. I really enjoyedthis one. The book is written as a number of chapters, from various characters. It begins, unusually, with the TARDIS being over- whelmed by some force, and the Doctor, Rory and Amy being dashed unconscious, and waking up in 1783 with their memories damaged. I don’t know how that works with established custom, but it is nicely done. This is a cleverly done mystery. We don’t know who or what is the villain, and it gets explained nicely as the chapters go on. Page 20.