The Dead Beat by Cody James – review

In the wake of Punked Books’ English Slacker making it onto the Not the Booker Prize shortlist, some of the other small independents involved have decided to get together to create more awareness of our publications, as they’re rarely (if ever) featured in the national press. As a result of this, I have decided to write a review of one of the other Not the Booker shortlisted titles, The Dead Beat by Cody James, which is published by Eight Cuts Gallery.
The Dead Beat is set in San Francisco in 1997, at a time when the comet Hale Bopp is very prominent in the night sky. Cody James reminds us of the hysteria that this celestial body caused in some quarters when she mentions the mass suicide undertaken by members of the Heaven’s Gate cult in nearby San Diego, as they thought that this would be their only means of transporting themselves to the alien space craft that they believed was travelling in the comet’s wake. The Dead Beat‘s Xavi (like many then and since) finds their sacrifice to be ridiculous, especially with regards to their pop cultural references to Star Trek, as they each wore “Away Team” armbands when they committed suicide. Suicide is rather a fundamental theme in the book, as several of the characters are afflicted with suicidal tendencies. For instance, we’re told that Adam’s mother tried to commit suicide before she was institutionalised, while Xavi takes an overdose of sedatives, and Sean has tried to kill himself on several occasions. Dan Holloway, the publisher of The Dead Beat, addresses this theme in his introduction to the book when he states that Cody James has attempted suicide four times. So, one can very much believe Cody James when she states in the interview that opens the book that “The truth is that three of the main characters are me”, as she is obviously following that authorial mantra of writing what she knows about from her own life. Most of The Dead Beat‘s characters are male, and for much of the novella, Cody James does a brilliant job at portraying the male psyche, although some readers may well flinch at the violent emotions that Ginny arouses in Adam. The only time when I thought that Cody’s depiction of Adam wasn’t convincing was when he inflicted cigarette burns on his body, as I thought that this kind of self-harm was mainly restricted to women (although I’ve just done a bit of research online, and found that this isn’t the case). Dan Holloway’s introduction states that Cody’s representation of women is sometimes regarded as being misogynistic; however, I think Adam’s violence towards Ginny and his self-harm are more likely to be examples of where Cody’s intermittent self-hatred has spilled over into the text.
Yet The Dead Beat is far from just being a manifestation of various parts of Cody James’ character, since I also regard it as being a portrait of the city in which it is set. The novella’s protagonists are the grandchildren of the Beat generation, who are still wasted from the excesses of the Summer of Love, and although they’re suicidal, they’re more into the Cure than the Grateful Dead. The house in which Adam and his friends live is very much an embodiment of this decay, especially since it provides a welcome home to a multitude of cockroaches (and thus is not an ideal environment for Xavi, who’s obsessed with cleanliness, especially when high). Obviously, this is just one aspect of San Francisco that we’re looking at, albeit rather decrepit (I have a couple of San Franciscan friends who are very house-proud, although they’ve admittedly got far better jobs than any of the characters in The Dead Beat). Readers wanting to check out more fictional portraits of San Francisco would do well to check out one of our titles: Abattoir Jack by Christopher Neilan, another author who’s been very much influenced by the Beat generation (although Christopher’s British, you wouldn’t be able to tell this from the text, as his voice is very authentic).
There are a few typos in the edition of The Dead Beat that I read, which were probably to due with its conversion to  pdf, especially with regards to several instances where an em dash has turned into a square box (likewise there’s a minor error in the free pdf that I created to promote Chris Morton’s English Slacker during the Not the Booker Prize, in that I accidentally deleted the page numbers from the final chapter – however, since this error doesn’t occur in the print edition of the book, it doesn’t really matter). Also, I very much suspect that The Dead Beat doesn’t quite fit the Not the Booker Prize criteria of being a full-length novel written by a Commonwealth citizen. However, not allowing American authors to compete for the Man Booker prize has always been a moot point, and besides, it’s far too late for The Dead Beat to be withdrawn from the Not the Booker prize for these minor technicalities. Sam Jordison certainly doesn’t take any prisoners, and I thought his review of The Dead Beat, along with some of the other reader comments, to be quite harsh (especially from those who hadn’t bothered to read it!). I, for one, very much enjoyed Cody James’ voice in The Dead Beat, and very much welcome her participation in the prize for affording this opportunity for me to read her work.
Kevin Mahoney
Publisher and Founder of Punked Books

Can a publisher ever be justified in responding to a negative review?

When one of our novels, English Slacker (by debut novelist Chris Morton), was shortlisted for the Not the Booker Prize recently, I was ecstatic, especially as this literary award is voted for by the public. Admittedly, it had only taken 17 votes to get on to the shortlist, but we tallied more votes than many well-established authors such as David Baddiel, Greg Egan, Anne Enright, Linda Grant, Philip Hensher, Richard Mason, China Mieville, Magnus Mills, Steve Mosby, and ooh err Jilly Cooper. The shortlisting was great also because the Not the Booker Prize is run by The Guardian, and as a small publisher, I’d previously experienced great difficulty getting any attention for my publications from the national media. In the light of this, it was splendid to see that all the other shortlisted novels came from small publishing houses like mine (although one independent, Eight Cuts Gallery Press later pulled their title, The Dead Beat, from the competition, to be replaced by Sherry Cracker Gets Normal by DJ Connell, which is published by Blue Door, a HarperCollins imprint).

However, I was still wary, as I knew that Sam Jordison (who runs the Not the Booker Prize for The Guardian) was going to review each novel, and having read his previous reviews, I had pretty quickly gathered that he takes no prisoners whatsoever, and I warned my author of this. Despite this, I was hoping that Sam would post a positive review of English Slacker. But alas! It was not to be. A couple of the commentators on Sam’s review exclaimed “Ouch!”, as they thought that Sam’s argument was pretty damning, and concluded that English Slacker wouldn’t be worth reading.

Yet I wasn’t really upset by Sam’s review, as, having read his comments on some of the other shortlisted books, I’d been expecting much worse. (Indeed, I thought that his review was quite a funny parody of the narrative style that Chris Morton had employed throughout English Slacker.) So, I regarded Sam’s main criticisms as being cheeky jabs, rather than the swift upper cuts that I’d been expecting. In my experience, criticism that is truthful hurts way more than that which is inaccurate. Sam certainly didn’t like the dialect that Chris used for his main character, Chambers, and the fact that he was a very unreliable narrator.  A couple of other regular commentators on Guardian blog posts agreed with Sam. However, I was reassured by the fact that several other commentators came to Chris Morton’s defence, and argued that they did find Chambers’ voice to be quite authentic.

I held back from commentating myself, as I wanted to see what the general public had to say about English Slacker, and also because there had previously been a debate following the reviews of some of the other shortlisted titles as to whether the authors/publishers should respond, with the sentiment being that once a novel has been published, the authors and publishers should effectively let go of it, to allow the public to form their own opinion.

Despite the fact that one of the commentators believed that Sam’s review of English Slacker was “arguably mean-spirited”, I was also mindful of the recent furore that surrounded the British author Jacqueline Howlett when she responded very vigorously to a negative review of her ebook The Greek Seaman (Bullet Reviews have a splendid overview of this controversy on their website), and so I wanted to avoid making an angry, knee-jerk reaction (especially since I didn’t feel particularly angry). However, even a seasoned publisher such as Patrick Janson-Smith felt compelled to exclaim the following in reaction to Sam Jordison’s similarly negative review of Sherry Cracker Gets Normal: “This, from the co-author of CRAP TOWNS. Enough said“, along with, ”Let’s face it, Sam Jordison, yours is just a thoroughly unpleasant piece of work, with no thought given to an author’s feelings“.

Although I thought that Sam Jordison’s review of English Slacker was quite a funny parody of the narrative voice, I too was expecting a much deeper level of insight from him, as his review could have been written by a nonchalant GCSE English student (which in turn would not have been marked very highly by his examiners). To be fair to him, Sam is also employed to stir up debate, and this is something he does splendidly well. As I noted above, there are others readers who share Sam’s dislike of Chambers’ narrative voice, which is fair enough, as it’s not to everyone’s taste. Yet I think that literary criticism is as much an art form as literature itself, and so I had been expecting Sam to delve far deeper into the text than the casual reader. As it is, Sam Jordison’s claim that English Slacker is “boring and repetitive” leaps out at you from the review’s high ranking on Google, to such an extent that it appears that this label may well be indelibly attached to the novel.

A few days after Sam Jordison’s review had been published, I felt a clamour within myself to defend English Slacker, for if I wasn’t going to do it, then who else would? Debut novels like English Slacker have such a short shelf life as it is, and I didn’t want Chris Morton’s literary career to end abruptly due to Sam Jordison’s unjust condemnation. Besides, for every commentator such as John Self who wanted the authors and the publishers to let their books go, there were others on the Guardian site who very much wanted us to defend English Slacker, and my decision to nominate it for the Not the Booker Prize. And so I wrote, and wrote, and ended up with a 2,500 word essay entitled “In defence of English Slacker“, which you can access here:

http://authortrek.com/punked-books/2011/09/28/english-slacker-defence/

Although I was fairly critical of Sam Jordison’s review of English Slacker, Sam’s response was to write: “I’m sure most writers would kill to have a publisher write such an eloquent and passionate defence of their work… Kudos to Punked books on that score“. I don’t think I’ve changed his mind about English Slacker, but a fair few people have read the essay, so at least I’ve shown that there is a far more positive reading to be made of Chris Mortison’s subtle and intelligent debut.

In a way, Sam Jordison has done me favour by so unfairly reviewing English Slacker, as he forced me to defend it. Since I run Punked Books all by myself, I never had to get the agreement to publish English Slacker from say, the Sales or Marketing departments, as I would have done if I worked in a big conglomerate publishing company. I’d thought I’d published a great book, but now thanks to Sam Jordison’s bad review of English Slacker, I know for sure I have.

So, could other publishers defend their books in such a manner? The publishing conglomerates would probably be wary about doing so, for fear of offending their colleagues in the reviewing fraternity. However, if the book in question is one that the publisher feels passionately about (and one that isn’t scheduled to be rescued by a big marketing budget), then why not try? It would certainly make publishing company blogs a lot more interesting! I think that if you make your arguments in a logical, imaginative, and coherent way (rather than as an immediate angry response), then you may well win your literary debate (as hopefully I will do so with regards to English Slacker).

Kevin Mahoney
Publisher and Founder of Punked Books

Chick-lit isn’t as dead as a dodo – it’s just flown off to a new platform

I’ve been reading a great deal recently about how chick-lit has gone into decline. Firstly, The Bookseller reported that there’d been a 10% fall in sales of chick-lit, and secondly, there have recently been quite a few prominent critiques of chick-lit as a genre (such as Polly Courtney’s decision to leave HarperCollins after they kept branding her books as chick-lit). Yet I’m not too sure that we’re actually witnessing a mass extinction here.

I recently discussed this issue with romantic fiction author Talli Roland at the launch of  21st Century Dodos (a rather fitting occasion, as Steve Stack’s book is all about cultural items which, like chick-lit, are supposedly under the threat of extinction). However, both of us were rather puzzled by the reports of chick-lit being in decline, as we have first hand evidence that it’s positively thriving on the Kindle. Admittedly, The Bookseller‘s report was no doubt hampered by Amazon’s legendary reluctance to discuss sales figures, yet it seemed quite clear to both Talli and I that chick-lit wasn’t declining, but thriving via the Kindle. So, we came to the conclusion that the drop in sales of women’s commercial fiction that The Bookseller reported on in September was most likely due to women readers switching from paper books to the Kindle in large numbers.

My evidence comes from Punked Books’ only commercial women’s title, Without Alice by D. J. Kirkby, sales of which have been considerably higher ever since Amazon.co.uk introduced the new £89 Kindle. Having written that, Without Alice‘s author, Denyse, ascribes the sudden rise of e-book sales to her giving away a free Kindle on her website.

You may have noticed that I restrained myself from calling Without Alice “chick-lit”, because it’s not the kind of book that I usually ascribe to this label. “Chick-lit” makes me think of light frothy books with luminous pink covers about young women in the media industry who have somewhat troubled relationships with bastard boyfriends (who are typically Hollywood producers). True enough, Stephen, the anti-hero of Without Alice, is a bit of a bastard also (and so D. J. Kirkby’s novel does follow a fairly well-established route in women’s fiction in which the reader discovers the reasons for his unsavoury nature). However, the novel is related in a highly realistic manner throughout, to the point where one blogger felt that she could not continue reading Without Alice due to some early scenes that featured complications in childbirth. (Most other reviewers have raved about the novel, as you can see via Without Alice‘s Amazon.co.uk reviews). However, Without Alice‘s cover (which features a handsome blonde man being embraced by a woman) probably does appeal to chick-lit readers, especially with regards to the cover’s pink background (this was a last minute addition, as the original cover, which featured the photo alone, just didn’t work, and so I had to frame the photo, utilising the model’s skin tone as the inspiration for the pink background).
So, I’m in agreement with Elizabeth Day and Tasmina Perry that “chick-lit” isn’t a very satisfactory term, and that it can be quite derogatory. I can also well understand authors such as Polly Courtney getting upset when their books are inappropriately branded as chick-lit due to their publishers’ blindly following publishing trends. However, I do think that there is still a huge market out there for escapist, frothy romantic fiction, and that this market is currently booming on the Kindle, as women can now far more happily lose themselves in these  stories since they’re no longer being made uncomfortable in public by having to read paper books with the luminous pink covers beloved of chick-lit publishers.
Kevin Mahoney
Punked Books Publisher and Founder
- p.s. I’m going to be attending Melville House’s celebration of the Not the Booker Prize on Thursday November 10th, since Punked Books’ English Slacker was shortlisted for this prize.

Stonehenge by Rosemary Hill

This is a fascinating account of Stonehenge’s grip on the public imagination.  Having recently wandered into The Circus, the circular street designed by John Wood in Bath, I was fascinated to discover that it had been influenced by the ancient monument, and that Wood’s work in turn influenced Oxford Circus and Piccadilly Circus.  In addition to this, after recently reading Dan Brown’s The Lost Symbol (which explores Freemasonry in depth), I was intrigued to read that Inigo Jones believed that all classical architecture (such as Stonehenge) was derived from King Solomon’s Temple in Jerusalem, since this is the building that Freemasons venerate above all others.  Since I also lived in Milton Keynes for a few years, I was amazed to find out just how much the building of this new city was influenced by Stonehenge.  There are a great many other fascinating revelations to be found within the pages of Rosemary Hill’s Stonehenge, such as the fact that many previous commentators on the site mistakenly came to the conclusion that the momument must have been post Roman, simply because the Romans never mentioned it!  Or at least, the Romans never mentioned Stonehenge as far as we know, as they may have written about it in an account which was lost, in the same way that the name of Boudicca was lost in the annals of British history until the rediscovery of Roman accounts during the Renaissance.  Rosemary Hill also relates how the story of the Wicker Man became entwined with Stonehenge’s history, along with the Druids.  The story of how modern man has tried and failed to replicate the transportation of the stones is most amusing!  Rosemary Hill’s Stonehenge is a really great exposition of the monument, and very much stands comparison with Mary Beard’s recent account of Pompeii.

Bodies by Susie Orbach

It’s very true that men as well as women nowadays feel pressured to attain the ‘perfect’ body, doubtlessly egged on by countless airbrushed images of models.  Indeed, I have sometimes perhaps overdone it in the gym in my desire to improve my physical well being.  However, there is a health aspect to gym going which Susie Orbach seems to rather overlook in Bodies, since a ‘healthy body makes a healthy mind’ doesn’t seem to be one of her mantras.  As a psychotherapist, Susan Orbach is more interested in the ‘talking cure’, and would appear to think it is the norm for the humanity to be quite inactive.  While it may be part the culture of the day for people to be physically unfit, this wasn’t so in the past, when there was a preponderance of manual labour.  In some ways, I think Bodies could be quite a dangerous book, in that it downplays the fears of a developing ‘obesity epidemic’.  While the levels of obesity may not reach the levels predicted in this current moral panic, there surely can’t be any harm in ensuring that the youth of today are more active.  Indeed, it’s only by having informed discussions about nutrition that we may finally be able to escape the vicious circle of a daughter being overly influenced in her eating by a mother’s constant dieting.  Susie Orbach does provide some fascinating case studies of individuals who have taken to sculpting their bodies to extremes (such as the former soldier who was convinced that life would be far better if his legs were removed below the knees, a case that could not be cured by talking).  Yet she doesn’t always provide the whole story, so we are left wandering what happened to many of the individuals in such circumstances.  Much of Bodies is quite repetitive, and I felt that it would have been a lot more concise and powerful if Orbach’s main points had been restricted to a long article rather than a book, as its current format did not sufficiently engage me.

It’s very true that men as well as women nowadays feel pressured to attain the ‘perfect’ body, doubtlessly egged on by countless airbrushed images of models.  Indeed, I have sometimes perhaps overdone it in the gym in my desire to improve my physical well being.  However, there is a health aspect to gym going which Susie Orbach seems to rather overlook in Bodies, since a ‘healthy body makes a healthy mind’ doesn’t seem to be one of her mantras.  As a psychotherapist, Susan Orbach is more interested in the ‘talking cure’, and would appear to think it is the norm for the humanity to be quite inactive.  While it may be part the culture of the day for people to be physically unfit, this wasn’t so in the past, when there was a preponderance of manual labour.  In some ways, I think Bodies could be quite a dangerous book, in that it downplays the fears of a developing ‘obesity epidemic’.  While the levels of obesity may not reach the levels predicted in this current moral panic, there surely can’t be any harm in ensuring that the youth of today are more active.  Indeed, it’s only by having informed discussions about nutrition that we may finally be able to escape the vicious circle of a daughter being overly influenced in her eating by a mother’s constant dieting.  Susie Orbach does provide some fascinating case studies of individuals who have taken to sculpting their bodies to extremes (such as the former soldier who was convinced that life would be far better if his legs were removed below the knees, a case that could not be cured by talking).  Yet she doesn’t always provide the whole story, so we are left wandering what happened to many of the individuals in such circumstances.  Much of Bodies is quite repetitive, and I felt that it would have been a lot more concise and powerful if Orbach’s main points had been restricted to a long article rather than a book, as its current format did not sufficiently engage me.

Now You See Him by Eli Gottlieb

This is a fascinating novel by Eli Gottlieb.  Nick Framingham is coming to terms with the death of his best friend, Rob Castor, who had seemed to have a stellar career in New York as an author.  Not only has Rob committed suicide, but he also murdered his ex-girlfriend Kate Pierce.  That would be traumatic for anyone, but Rob’s death is just the first in the series of dominoes that shatters Nick’s life.  Lucy, Nick’s wife, has problems with the fact that Nick seems to be absenting himself away from her and the children in the wake of his grief, and is none too impressed when he meets Belinda again, since Belinda was Nick’s first love, as well as Rob’s sister.  As his marriage disintegrates, Nick tries to engage with his children, but seems unable to loosen their bond to their mother in any way.  This stokes up memories of the distant relationship that he had with his own father.  The decline of Nick’s marriage is superbly dealt with by Eli Gottlieb as he takes Nick and Lucy on an all-too familiar journey.  As painful as their imminent separation is to Nick, this is nothing compared to the ghosts that rise up from his childhood, as old family secrets seem to threaten his whole concept of identity…  This is a beautifully related narrative, although one would have thought that one of the secrets concerning Nick’s past would have been revealed when he first started dating Belinda.  There’s much drama to be had in this novel from the death of the prudish conventions that were observed by the previous generation.  I found the scene that depicted Kate’s murder to be suitably poetic (since it involved writers as both assailant and victim).  Now You See Him is a very compelling novel that never fails to surprise in its relation of Nick’s deepest dark secrets…

Black Rock by Amanda Smyth

I was very surprised to discover that Black Rock is a debut novel, for I consider it to be a highly impressive composition.  There is perhaps an echo of The Color Purple here, as Smyth’s heroine, ‘Celia’, has a quite similar name to that of Alice Walker’s protagonist, ‘Celie’, and she is also violated by a very unsavoury male relative.   However, taking inspiration from Alice Walker’s masterpiece ain’t no bad thing in my opinion, and besides, Celia’s voice is quite different from Celie’s, as Smyth’s heroine is far more educated than the latter (not that this prevents her from making some calamitous errors as she tries to find her place in the world).  Smyth’s setting is also quite different from Alice Walker’s, as Black Rock is set in Trinidad and Tobago rather than the Deep South.  Since Amanda Smyth is of Irish-Trinidadian descent, she is well placed to bring this locale alive.  Yet Amanda Smyth has commendably gone beyond her own experience to set Black Rock fifty years ago, to what would, on the surface, appear to be a much more ‘innocent’ time…  The few white characters in The Color Purple were physically and sexually violent to their black peers, so the whites in Black Rock seem rather more genteel in appearance, if still quite severe, when one considers the example of Joseph Carr Brown, who employs Celia’s aunt Sula on his plantation.  Ali Smith has compared Black Rock favourably with the works of Jean Rhys.  However, I’m afraid that Wild Sargasso Sea left me cold, and I’m pleased to report that I found Black Rock to be a far warmer and richer narrative than that of its illustrious predecessor, despite the various tribulations that Celia faces.  Celia is the result of the union between a white man from Southampton and a Tobagan woman, who died during childbirth.  Despite this, Celia has a moderately comfortable upbringing with her Aunt Tassi.  Unfortunately for Celia, Tassi has married a vile man, Roman, and it’s he who forces her to flee after he has violated her.  She escapes to Trinidad, and, falling into a fever on the boat, she is taken care of by the kindly (yet plain) young man, William.  As Celia’s fever takes hold, William’s mother shelters her and calls for the doctor, one Emmanuel Rodriguez, who will later take her into his employ, to look after the children that his depressive English wife has borne him, after the previous nanny mysteriously left him in the lurch…  As she is still a teenager, Celia still has a lot of growing up to do.  She often comes across as being quite self-centred (but then, who isn’t?).  And it is perhaps her hormones that lead her into developing a passion for someone who is very much the wrong man (although, maybe it’s genetics, as her older aunt Tassi also fell for the wrong man, in the form of the repugnant Roman).  Still, if things get too stressful for Celia, then she always has the escape route of visiting her aunt on the plantation.  So wrapped up is Celia in her own world and troubles, that she doesn’t begin to question why Joseph Carr Brown treats his employee with such respect, or to even ask what her job on the plantation is…  However, even this much-needed escape route would appear to be closing as her aunt falls desperately ill…  After having read the brilliant Black Rock, I’m not surprised to learn that the film options have been snapped up.  Since Amanda Smyth is writing the screenplay herself, I’m sure that any resulting movie will prove to be as excellent as the novel is, and just as classic as any of the movies that Celia herself sees throughout the book as a cover for her ongoing affair…

Born to Run by Christopher McDougall

Christopher McDougall, a sports writer for Runner’s World, was frustrated by the large number of injuries that he sustained while running. Born to Run is his account of how his running style was completely rebuilt from scratch from a study of possibly the world’s greatest runners, a Mexican tribe called the Tarahumara. While visiting the Tarahumara, McDougall comes across the strange figure of Caballo Blanco (the ‘White Horse’), who some of the Tarahumara believe to be a ghost… This strange American outcast recruits McDougall to help fulfil his dream of putting on a most extraordinary race in the hellish Copper Canyon (if the snakes don’t get you, then exposure or the local drug runners possibly will…) McDougall, even although he’s previously found it impossible to run even moderate distances, signs up for this incredible endurance race. However, he’s not the only one, as several stars from the world of ultrarunning decide to trust the strange Caballo… And yet, Caballo might have more of a problem persuading the Tarahumara to participate, despite the fact that he’s lived amongst them for many years…
Along the way, McDougall has a great many fascinating asides about life and death in the Copper Canyons, and from the history of ultrarunning. McDougall has some surprising revelations: apparently, women cope far better with running long distances than men do, with many more times of the latter dropping out before the end of a ultramarathon. In addition to this, McDougall convincingly argues that the plethora of modern running injuries may solely be due to the invention of the running shoe in the late 60s. Even more surprising is his argument that the more cushioning a running shoe has, the more likely it is to injure you, and regales us with much evidence that running with less high tech shoes seems to be better. Indeed, many Olympic athletes have benefited from barefoot training, although none of them take it to the extreme that the loquacious ‘Barefoot Ted’ (one of Born to Run‘s great characters) takes it in this book. So convincing was McDougall that I have now taken to wandering around the house in bare feet in order to toughen them up, although I have shied away from running with them unshod as yet… I did seem to run with more spring in my step after this. Having written that, I did pick a minor ankle injury soon after, although this may have been due to my wearing poor running shoes as I hurriedly posted mail on a couple of days… I do have sore knees from running on concrete, so now only run on grass, so many aspects of McDougall’s book appealed to me, especially since my knees were sore from running on the concrete-like grass during the earlier drought this Summer. A few months ago, I saw an extraordinary documentary that showed the Maasai hunting antelope by running after them and exhausting their prey. So, contrary to what seems common sense, i.e. that humans aren’t running machines in the mode of cheetahs say, McDougall convincingly argues that we may indeed have been born to run after all, but that we’re built for endurance running rather than speed. Born to Run is an endlessly fascinating book and an instant classic.

Memoirs of a Geezer by Jah Wobble

I must admit that I’d never heard of Jah Wobble before Serpents Tail sent me a review copy of Memoirs of a Geezer, although I do have some passing knowing of Public Image Ltd (aka PiL), the band founded by John Lydon (aka Johnny Rotten) after he left the Sex Pistols. ‘Jah Wobble’ is also a stage name that was given to John Wardle by Sid Vicious (aka John Simon Rithchie). At one point, this band of friends was called “The Four Johns” (since another of Wobble’s friends was John Gray), although Wobble asserts that they didn’t actually hang out together much. Jah had known Lydon since school, and thus became one of the candidates to succeed the Pistols’ bassist, Glen Matlock. However, Sid Vicious was chosen ahead of him, despite being unable to play. Wobble’s account of his encounters with Sid Vicious form some of the most poignant parts of the book, and he provides a very convincing portrait of this troubled individual. Wardle went onto to learn the bass, and to become a very distinguished master of this instrument. Despite his disdain for the drug problems that the other members of PiL suffered from, Wobble was not without his own problems, and did become an alcoholic for several years. He was also very apt to defend himself with his fists, although this was mostly in self defence. On a lighter note, Wobble is also a very able practitioner of the practical joke, and I was laughing out loud on the train while reading about one such stunt that he pulled on his wife. Another very compelling part of the book is Wobble’s sober view of how the East End has changed over his lifetime, due to several waves of immigration. Beyond the Sex Pistols, there are also Wobble’s impressions of meeting other well-known members of the music trade, such as Richard Branson, and a beseiged Peter Gabriel at the height of his fame. However, some of the best portraits are of other, lesser known folk, who plied their way in the trade, along with an improbable number of ex-public schoolboys. Once I got over the shock of the bright orange of the inside cover, I found Memoirs of a Geezer to be a very splendid read indeed, as Jah Wobble is a great raconteur.

Devil in a Blue Dress by Walter Mosley

Devil in a Blue Dress is Walter Mosley’s debut novel, and it’s recently been republished as part of the Serpent’s Tail Classics series. I’ve seen at least one documentary about Mosley’s work, so although I’ve never read any of his books before, or seen the Denzel Washington movie, the world of Easy Rawlins was quite familiar to me, and I knew enough to recognise that Mouse Alexander would be a significant character before he made an appearance. Possibly influenced by this documentary, I very much read Easy’s narration in the dulcet tones of Denzel Washington. Devil in a Blue Dress starts off in an easygoing kind of way, which is appropriate enough given the name of Mosley’s hero. Easy Rawlins is a bit down on his luck, having recently been fired from the skilled job that paid his mortgage. Knowing this, a friend of his who owns a bar, Joppy, introduces Easy to DeWitt Albright, an unscrupulous man who is looking for a white woman who likes to hang out with African Americans. Despite not having any experience at investigation work, Easy takes the job on. However, he’s soon regretting the decision as he’s pulled in by the cops after a woman he recently slept with, Coretta James, is found murdered… Trouble is, the missing white woman, Daphne Monet, hangs out with the gangster Frank Green, who doesn’t take too kindly to people asking questions about him… Easy Rawlins is basically a decent, honest guy, so you really do fear for him when he gets involved with such dangerous people, despite the fact that he acquitted himself well as a soldier in combat during World War II. Most dangerous of all is Easy’s flirtation with Daphne Monet when he finally catches up with her, especially so since this involves another death… However, Easy Rawlins is fortunate enough to have a friend like Mouse Alexander, who’s more than ready to kill on Easy’s behalf, not that Easy ever asks him to. Indeed, in some ways, Mouse is like a Diabolus ex Machina, who pops up to save the day for Easy on more than one occasion in a manner that is far from satisfactory, as it makes life far too easy for Rawlins. From a straightforward start, the novel then descends into the complex shenanigans beloved of Raymond Chandler, and I, for one, rather missed the earlier easygoing tone. Indeed, the beginning of the novel does fit the ‘classic’ tag in terms of the superiority of Mosley’s prose. But then the messy plot rather gets in the way, and the revelations about Daphne’s true origins at the end don’t seem that revolutionary. Devil in a Blue Dress is a good debut, although one does rather hope that Mosley kept to the stronger aspects of his writing, such as the beguiling tone, characterisation and atmosphere of the first part of the novel, in his later works.

Ellipsis by Nikki Dudley – review

Ellipsis is a brilliant debut novel by the co-editor of Streetcake magazine, Nikki Dudley. The novel begins in a dreamlike fashion as Alice, our heroine, pushes a young man to his death in front of a London underground train at Highbury and Islington. The only thing that perplexes Alice about this rather violent act is the fact that the young man, a stranger to her, breathed the words “Right on time” at her as she pushed him under, and he wasn’t referring to the arrival of the train. Having stalked her victim for several weeks, Alice now begins to hang around the home of his family, in search of the reason for his beguiling last message. Of course, Daniel Mansen’s family is suffering in the aftermath of their bereavement, but Daniel’s cousin, Thom seems to be feeling it more than than Daniel’s own brother. However, Thom is further shocked when he discovers a piece of paper in Daniel’s room that details the exact time and place of his death, which would tend to add weight to the theory that Daniel may have committed suicide, along with the fact that his room is bizarrely empty of his possessions. Thom is compelled to investigate further, and discovers that the mysterious woman at the reading of Daniel’s will had personally been invited to attend by Daniel prior to his death… Thom then literally runs into Alice in his front garden, which eventually leads him into inviting her to stay with the family, as she tells him that she’s been having problems with her landlord and can’t go home. The first of many lies that Alice tells Thom is that her name is ‘Sarah’. However, it turns out that she’s not the only liar… As Alice slowly begins to recover from her mental trauma, so Thom gradually becomes more and more unhinged… The title of the novel, Ellipsis, refers to things that are ‘left out’, and thus both Thom and Alice are haunted by the lies of their own families. And both have good reason to be traumatised… Ellipsis is a very stylish, compelling read that will stay with you for a long time, and Sparkling Books have very much lived up to their name in their presentation of this title. Nikki Dudley has a burgeoning literary career that should go on from strength to strength following the publication of the magnificent Ellipsis. I look forward to reading more works by this great writer.

Doctor Who Nuclear Time by Oli Smith

The Doctor lands the TARDIS in a small Colorado town in 1981. Everything looks nice and neat on the surface, yet the Doctor soon discovers that there’s something wrong. For instance, why do these houses have fake TVs and taps with no plumbing attached? It’s not long before the time travellers find out that they would appear to have stepped out onto the set of The Stepford Wives, although even the guys here are androids… Killer androids… While Amy and Rory do everything in their power to avoid being killed, the Doctor attempts to dissipate the explosion of a nuclear bomb without causing an international incident.
I think Nuclear Time would have worked better as a TV episode, as it involves a rather convoluted temporal theory that does not come over too well on the printed page, as it involves the Doctor travelling back over his own timeline. It certainly would have been neat to see the Doctor bicycling backwards! The relationship between Albert, the scientist who invented the androids, and Geoff, the Colonel who kidnapped him to ensure his work was carried out in secret, seems rather oddly informal. Perhaps Oli Smith was trying to avoid the usual cliche of having such characters as antagonists, or it could be that Albert is suffering from Stockholm Syndrome. All the same, their relationship was far more bizarre than Albert’s love for his robotic creation, Isley. The setting of the late 70s/early 80s allows Oli Smith to indulge in some harmless nostalgia, with several references to Star Wars. However, Amy and Rory are pretty much disposed with for much of the novel by being stuck in a burning house, probably because Oli Smith could not have seen them on screen prior to writing Nuclear Time, so he was possibly unsure of the faithfulness of his characterisation of them. Having written that, the character of the Doctor does not really ring true either, especially since Oli Smith spends some time mentioning what effects the temporal disturbance is having on the Doctor’s body. I’m not really used to reading descriptions of what the Doctor’s, say, stomach felt like. Although we have seen the Doctor eating and drinking, his alien body is usually not described in quite so human terms. Much like the adventure itself, Nuclear Time is a bit of a muddle.

Doctor Who The King’s Dragon by Una McCormack

I once met and chatted with Una McCormack in the late lamented Page’s Bar, so I decided to read The King’s Dragon before any other of the latest Doctor Who releases.  At first, I was a bit disappointed, as the font used in the book was quite a bit larger than the last BBC book release that I read a couple of years ago, and the text more juvenile.  Not that these are Una’s fault, as this is, of course, very much the default style for the current books (although one suspects that Michael Moorcock might well have been let off the leash a tad more with his upcoming Doctor Who novel The Coming of the Terraphiles).  However, as I cast my mind back as to how the Target novelizations of the classic series read, I must admit that I was disappointed that The King’s Dragon was not written in the same style.  Yet, now that I have finished reading The King’s Dragon, and have grown to love it, I appreciate that it’s a much different beast from the Target books of yore, very much due to the fact that it isn’t based upon a TV serial that featured regular cliffhangers (although the title is perhaps a nod back to the Peter Davison adventure The King’s Demons).  No, The King’s Dragon is, by contrast, a much more measured piece that Una McCormack builds up gradually.  Una does a splendid job of capturing Matt Smith’s new incarnation of the Doctor, along with Amy and Rory, which can’t have been easy, as she could not have based her characterisation upon seeing completed episodes (although the very fact that Rory’s involved so prominently in the book and the cover does tend to give the game away that he’ll be returning from the dead in the series, even though this book is set before Cold Blood).  The Doctor takes Amy and Rory to the City of Geath (possibly named thus after one of Tom Baker’s best adventures, The City of Death), which is famed for its hospitality.  However, although the citizens are not openly hostile to the time travellers, they are more wary than their reputation suggests.  Amy soon discovers that even the humblest domicile is furnished with gold.  It’s not long before they’re invited to meet the king, although, according to the Doctor, Geath has always been a staunchly democratic republic.  The Doctor is also suspicious due to the large quantity of gold on display, as there shouldn’t be any on the planet.  It could therefore be a flaw in the plot for the people of Geath to be so jealous of their horde of gold, if they have only recently been aware of its existence, never mind its value.  Yet, as the Doctor soon explains, this substance that Amy, Rory, and even the Doctor have been taken to pilfering, is not gold, but the illegal material Enamour, which entrances all before its thrall.  So, the time travellers decide to examine the mysterious gold dragon that resides in the king’s hall, and discover it to be the source of the Enamour (although it never rears up threateningly, as the front cover suggests).  As the Doctor points out, Enamour is an alien technology far in advance of that of the local inhabitants, so how did it arrive on Geath?  And who are the monstrous apparitions that are intent on getting Enamour back?  Una McCormack is excellent at plotting, and characterisation, so much so, that you do really feel for the the main protagonists on Geath: King Beol, the Teller (despite the fact that he is basically a spin meister), and Hilthe, the former leader of Geath who was usurped by Beol, even although most of these characters do very much turn on our heroes at various parts of the story.  The Doctor tasks himself with the role of deciding with whom the Enamour should reside, a job that is not so easy when they are alien spaceships blasting bits out of the city…  Contrary to my initial fears that The King’s Dragon would be too juvenile, it turns out that Una McCormack has delivered a very thoughtful, mature, and stimulating Doctor Who adventure, and I look forward to reading more of her splendid work.

Seconds Out by Martin Kohan review

Seconds Out is a very detailed account of the 1923 world heavyweight championship fight between the Argentinian Luis Angel Firpo (nicknamed the Wild Bull of the Pampas) and the American title holder, Jack Dempsey. The novel specifically focuses on the 17 seconds that Jack Dempsey was out of the fight, knocked out of the ring by Firpo (who’d previously been knocked down himself). Now, providing an extensive account of something that happened in such a short frame of time really shouldn’t work, but Martin Kohan pulls it off here with aplomb. It helps that the participants involved are such vivid characters, such as the referee, Jack Gallagher, who’s haunted by the woman who left him for another boxer when it was clear that he could no longer pursue his boxing career. Thus his becoming a referee, surrounded eternally by boxers, seems very much akin to self-flagellation. There is also the photographer on whom Jack Dempsey lands, Donald Mitchell, who purloined his family’s savings to buy his camera. And then there is the figure of Jack Dempsey, who, like Icarus, seems to take a very long time in falling. However, unlike Daedalus’ boy, Jack Dempsey does very much manage to get back on his feet, albeit very controversially. It seems here that Kohan is utilising the common perception that time seems to slow down during an accident. Seconds Out is also a great account of the unexpected repercussions that can occur due to an unprecedented incident in sport.
The fight also provides some focus for a group of Argentinian journalists celebrating the 50th anniversary of their newspaper, founded in the same year as their compatriot’s fight against Dempsey. However, the sports journalist, Verani, is much more fixated on the story of a mysterious man found dead in a Buenos Aires hotel on the same night. Further investigation reveals that he was a cellist in Richard Strauss’ orchestra, who were there to perform Mahler’s First Symphony. Instead of a blow-by-blow account of the actual fight, what we get instead is a kind of verbal sparring between Verani and the paper’s more cultured journalist, Ledesma, as the latter tries to convince the former that Mahler had a genius that transcended ordinary mortals. Despite the notorious events of the fight still presenting a hot topic of conversation 50 years later, it is that mysterious death in the hotel room that haunts, especially since Verani and Ledesma become convinced that it was somehow connected to the fight. However, it’s left to the junior journalist, and sometime narrator, Roque, to finally uncover the truth… Seconds Out is a brilliantly composed novel, where every word is savoured – the skillful translation by Nick Caistor reads very smoothly indeed, with never a dull word. It’s quite a philosophical novel, with many engrossing narratives, such as that regarding the complicated interdependency that existed between Richard Strauss and Gustav Mahler. Seconds Out is, in short, a sublime novel.

Taj Mahal by Giles Tillotson review

This is a splendid and very readable introduction to the Taj Mahal. Giles Tillotson’s research cuts away at the various myths that have surrounded this supreme structure, such as the idea that it was designed by a European, or that Shah Jahan, the builder of the Taj, intended to construct another Taj across the river as his tomb, which would have been black in contrast to the Taj Mahal’s startling whiteness. Indeed, a lot of myths have built up about the Taj, usually born to serve the prejudices of each particular author, such as P. N. Oak, who claimed that the Taj had been built by a previous Hindu ruler rather than the Muslim Shah Jahan. Tillotson reveals how the Taj has been viewed in the past by quoting by historical accounts of the building, many of which aptly claim to be unable to convey its majesty. Tillotson shows how the treatment of the Taj by the British very much changed from the early nineteenth century, when colonials tended to graffiti and steal pieces from the monument, to later in the century, when Viceroy Lord Curzon empowered efforts to conserve Indian monuments through law (although even he was not adverse to embellishing the Taj with foreign objects, such as a lamp from Cairo). Furthermore, Tillotson relates how the Taj still influences modern architects today, since a replica has recently been built in Dubai. The question of who should care for the Taj on behalf of the Indian nation is still a hot political potato, as Tillotson reports, and there are worries that the building may one day be targeted by Al Qaeda. However, the many excellent illustrations within this book, combined with the views of numerous travellers throughout the centuries, should be enough to compel anyone to visit this fantastic monument, which has been very fittingly described as one of the New Seven Wonders of the World.

The Only Good Dalek by Justin Richards and Mike Collins – review

Justin Richards and Mike Collins know their Doctor Who history inside and out. The opening pages of The Only Good Dalek are a visual treat for longtime fans, with the various Dalek environments on Station 7 providing a great excuse to revisit old stories, such as The Dalek Invasion of Earth (which, like the Robomen, featured the monstrous Slyther), and even a petrified beast from the original 1963 dalek adventure. Conventions established by the Doctor’s Marvel adventures are also adhered to here, as the daleks’ speech is represented in the same lettering as in those earlier strips, while the Tardis makes the comic ‘vworp vworp’ noise upon arrival.
Station 7 is run by the Special Space Security force that first featured in 1966′s The Dalek Masterplan. There’s also the odd Ogron hanging around. The human scientists on the station think that they have discovered a way to tame the daleks. Yet the chief scientist recently vanished, and his deputy has just been killed… The Doctor and the station chief, Tranter, don’t believe that the daleks can be tamed. However, they are forced to resort to their tame daleks when the station comes under attack by the real daleks…  The Doctor’s distrust of such ‘tame daleks’ ultimately derives from 1966′s The Power of the Daleks, as well as this year’s encounter with Winston Churchill in Victory of the Daleks. Indeed, not all of the nostalgia is decades’ old here, as there are also reflections of 2007′s The Daleks in Manhattan. Yet The Only Good Dalek is not just a nostalgia fest, it’s also a fast paced rollicking adventure. At times though, it is a bit wordy with too many speech bubbles littering the illustrations. However, the new daleks, roughly hewn as they are by Mike Collins here, come across at their most menacing. There is a note of optimism at the end, which is swiftly crushed by the ever present need for the Doctor to face the daleks in battle again. One can’t help thinking that humanity’s greatest weakness in fighting the daleks is that they are presented as being incredibly thick here. And yet, as the title suggests, the ‘only good dalek’ may not be a dead one…

Bedazzled: Stephenie Meyer and the Twilight Phenomenon

I must admit that I was fairly disappointed in Bedazzled, as it provides no great insight or commentary on the works of Stephenie Meyer.  George Beahm’s explanation for providing no critical insight of the Twilight books is that Stephenie Meyers intends to publish the definitive guide to the world of Edward and Bella herself.  However, this really shouldn’t have stopped Beahm from adding his tuppence worth of opinion.  The only commentary he provides merely proves that Beahm has had a correspondence with the great Ray Bradbury rather than adding anything of particular relevance to the Twilight saga.  Much of the material of the book consists of interviews, mainly with Stephenie Meyer and the stars of the movie adaptations.  These could have been edited better, as there is a great deal of repetition (I got fed up of reading about Meyer’s protestation that she was never a fan of vampire movies, since this is often referred to in the book).  To be fair to Beahm, he does write that Bedazzled was devised as a book that you can dip into, rather than reading it from cover to cover.  I suspect that fans of the movies will be most satisfied with Bedazzled, due to the numerous interviews featuring Rob Pattinson, Kristen Stewart, and Taylor Lautner et al.  Fans wanting to visit locations featured in Twilight will also be well served by the guidance this book provides.  However, a lot of the book’s material does appear to have been derived from the Internet, but is still peculiarly colourless, maybe because Beahm has played it too safe with this book?  The illustrations, aside from the cover, are also nothing to write home about.  However, as noted above, the real problem of this book is a near complete absence of an author’s voice, which is strange, since this book is a celebration of one of the world’s most popular writers.

A Russian Novel by Emmanuel Carrere review

This is an intriguing and playful novel by the French author and director Emmanuel Carrere, which is semi-autobiographical. An assignment to film a documentary about a recently discovered Hungarian prisoner of war still living in confused circumstances in Russia leads Carrere to confront the mystery surrounding the disappearance of his own Russian grandfather in 1944, who was presumably shot after being accused of being a collaborator. The institution in which the Hungarian POW lived is in the small Russian town of Kotelnich, a place that been bypassed by modernity in more ways than one. Despite its deprivation, Carrere becomes obsessed by Kotelnich, not least because his great-grand-uncle, Count Victor Komarovsky, was vice-governor of the region in pre-Soviet times. Such is his interest in the place, that he proposes that his film crew return there with a vague idea of capturing what everyday life there is like. On the lookout for local characters, the film crew encounter the local FSB agent and his entrancing French speaking girlfriend. Things are just as complicated back home, as his mother is quite resistant to Carrere’s exploration of what happened to her father, which she regards as her story rather than history. Meanwhile, Carrere has a rocky relationship with a younger woman which culminates in his composition of a real-time erotic love story for Le Monde… As this erotic story proves, Carrere is a writer of real talent, with a powerful imagination well served by fiendish devices. However, Carrere, like any other character in this novel, is not in charge of his own destiny, and the book also details the most wretched and squalid murder… Although (thankfully) shorter than most classic Russian novels, Emmanuel Carrere’s creation is just as powerful and thought-provoking.

Doctor Who The Coming of the Terraphiles by Michael Moorcock review

I’m rather ashamed to admit that, prior to The Coming of the Terraphiles, I’d never read a Michael Moorcock novel. The sheer body of work from this prolific author was one reason why I was afraid of tackling him. Another was due to a Michael Moorcock short story that I’d read, which seemed to be doing a million things at once, with the narrative branching off into innumerable tangents. This impression of Michael Moorcock was rather reinforced by the opening of The Coming of The Terraphiles, since the narrative also seemed to be doing a million things at once at this point. However, I persevered, as Michael Moorcock does have rather a brilliant reputation, much like the other famous writers recently attracted to Doctor Who, such as Richard Curtis and Neil Gaiman.
Michael Moorcock does appear to be very well versed in the Doctor Who universe, with various Judoon making an appearance as minor characters. Moorcock’s complex, jocular style is very fitting for Matt Smith, and so his portrait of the current Doctor is spot on. However, Michael Moorcock’s characterisation of Amy isn’t quite so good, and you get the feeling that her role here could have been played by any of the Doctor’s other companions.
While The Coming of the Terraphiles is very much fitting as a literary Doctor Who (with the plot being too complex and rambling to have ever worked on screen), it would also appear to derive much from Michael Moorcock’s previous works. Take, for instance, the mysterious figure of Captain Cornelius, who would appear to be a representation of Moorcock’s most famous character, Jerry Cornelius… The plot of The Coming of the Terraphiles is quite farcical in nature, with much turning upon the theft of a hat that rather resembles a spider… However, there is a real danger to be faced, even if the forces of antimatter seem to be quite clownish in nature… The Terraphiles themselves are fans of classic Earth (i.e. of our era) who have adopted traditional English sports, such as cricket, albeit with a few twists arising from mistakes in translation. This reminds me of a task set by an English teacher at school to depict football through the eyes of an alien, which resulted in many of us being admonished for the misapprehension of said alien that we were playing football with severed heads… Michael Moorcock can count himself fortunate that he did not have the same English teacher as me, as he gets away with several similar misapprehensions on behalf of these people from our distant future. The plot has several cliches that feature in many another Doctor Who novel. However, they’re encircled by Michael Moorcock’s own inimitable style, and once the narrative gets going, The Coming of the Terraphiles does become a very gripping read. Thus have the BBC added a most distinguished writer to their Doctor Who books (with the added aplomb of first publication in hardback format). Michael Moorcock should also have the added bonus of gaining a lot more readers for his other works following this highly successful crossover.

They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? by Horace McCoy

They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? is a book title that I have always been familiar with, despite having no idea as to what the plot might contain. I probably avoided it when I was younger, as I wasn’t really into ‘horsey’, ‘girly’ fiction, as that’s what I judged it to be from the title alone. A brief look at the book when it first arrived from Serpent’s Tail gave me the idea that Horace McCoy’s novel was hardboiled American crime fiction. However, the recent death of Susannah York led to a BBC2 showing of Sydney Pollack’s 1969 adaptation, for which she was nominated for an Oscar. Although it was on late on a Friday night, my wife and I were mesmerised watching it, as we were previously unaware that such gruelling dance marathons had occurred during the 1930s depression. It appears that they were a much more emotionally draining kind of X-Factor type reality show. This is especially since both Robert and Gloria have somewhat unrealistic dreams of Hollywood stardom, which are only boosted whenever a tinseltown starlet happens to make an appearance at the marathon. Thus McCoy’s short novel (stretching to only about 120 pages in the Serpent’s Tail edition) became the next title on my reading list.
Since They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? (and other works of this ilk) have undoubtedly influenced modern writing styles, it’s hard to see why the French existentialists were so excited about this book, since so many other similar novels have followed in its wake. Having written that, a great many postmodernist authors could learn a thing or two from McCoy’s brevity and the clarity of his prose. Sydney Pollack’s film remained true to the spirit of McCoy’s book, while taking several liberties with its plot. In McCoy’s original, it’s not Robert and Gloria who are chosen to add to the spectacle by getting married during the marathon (although this does also cause some upset in the book, as the proposed couple are given a great deal of leeway by Rocky when they come last in one of the knockout derbies). In addition to this, Mrs. Layden isn’t accidentally shot in the film, and the novel makes it clearer that she was an early kind of cougar, with Robert very much in her sights. Although the film still centres on Robert and Gloria, the film (fairly sensibly) widens the ensemble by also focusing much more on Alice LeBlanc (who eventually suffers a severe psychological trauma), and Harry Kline, who very publicly has a heart attack and dies while being carried by Gloria during one of the derbies. However, the film does retain McCoy’s flashforwards of the court scenes. Perhaps it was a mistake to read the book so soon after seeing the film, as I’m sure Pollack’s adaptation will last longer in my memory, as I found it far more vivid than McCoy’s novel. Indeed, one could argue that the movie is probably a half-forgotten classic that could do with a revival, as I don’t think it’s one that is often shown on TV (and is thus somewhat divorced from popular culture).
Throughout both narratives, one is puzzled as to how the mild-mannered Robert could ever be a murderer, until one gets to the finale with its famous showpiece line. A death sentence for assisted suicide seems incredibly harsh nowadays, especially if the court had accepted Robert’s submission that it was a mercy killing. So, there could be a double irony operating here, with the justice system acting in exactly in the same manner as Robert, by putting him out of his misery also.

The Brilliant Book of Doctor Who 2011 by Clayton Hickman et al

Although the title appears quite boastful, this is indeed a rather splendid guide to series 5 of the revived Doctor Who. Each page is lavishly illustrated, and very well designed by Paul Lang. Doctor Who fans of a nostalgic nature (of which there are very many!) will no doubt be pleased that the illustrations that accompany Brian Aldiss’ story are much akin to those that graced the old Doctor Who annuals. Although it’s a real coup to have such a distinguished SF author contribute to this book, Brain Aldiss’ short story is nothing to write home about. Much more successful is David Llewellyn’s mini prequel to Chris Chibnall’s The Hungry Earth/Cold Blood. Of course, the reason why the Silurians hibernated beneath the Earth is a load of codswallop, since the Moon came into orbit long before life appeared on Earth (and indeed may have contributed to the development of life). However, Llewellyn can’t be blamed for this, as the very confused origins of the Silurians were first postulated in the Classic Series.
I really disliked the redesign of the TARDIS for the 5th series, and the lavish illustrations of the original concept aren’t enough to win me over. In addition to this, I hated the redesign of the Daleks, as they now look too plasticky and hunchbacked (according to The Brilliant Book, that additional panel on their back conceals extra weapons, not that we saw any of these during Victory of the Daleks!). The book also reveals that the new Daleks would have been scarier if they’d had the fleshy internal eye that was originally devised for them, but this feature was felt by the production team to be too scary for kids, so it was dropped. This is quite a shame, especially as the Eknodine’s eyes in Amy’s Choice look quite similar. During an interview in the book, Steven Moffat dismisses the criticisms of the new Daleks by saying that they’re just “props”. However, many critics have just pointed out that the new Daleks look too toy-like, with the suspicion being that the redesign came about mainly from a desire to sell new Doctor Who toys. So, it would appear that Steven Moffat has discovered that you mess around with such icons at your peril, as it’s noticeable that when a new Dalek showed up in The Big Bang, it looked far more effective when covered in crud. More successful is the discussion of the work that went into recreating the Silurians, and the image featuring Millennium FX’s original concept looks suitably scary and imposing. However, this excellent piece of work had to be set aside, as the new Silurians were far more vocal than before, and so needed more flexible prosthetics that would not require a red flashing light in the forehead to indicate which of the homo reptilia were speaking at any one time.
There are many moments of great wit throughout the book. I especially liked the representation of Rory’s social networking page, and the fact that it was called ‘Twitbook’. There are also many other great details, such as the fact that someone has gone to the trouble of crediting one ‘Amelia Pond’ on the contents page with the images of the Raggedy Doctor on page 21. It’s also nice that even minor details from the series are highlighted, such as that weird portrait in Craig Owen’s hallway from The Lodger (the Brilliant Book reveals that this is none other than the Oligarch of Lammasteen). Such was the brilliant attention to detail during Series 5, that I wouldn’t be surprised if the Oligarch were to make an appearance in a future story…
There are a couple of mistakes, such as the Aplans’ home planet being named as ‘Alfalfa Metraxis’ rather than ‘Alfava Metraxis’ (however, Matt Smith did appear to say ‘Alfalfa Metraxis’ onscreen). The Brilliant Book also explicitly displays what liberties the production team took with their presentation of Vincent Van Gogh by presenting an elegantly written mini-biography of him. Then again, as Steven Moffat said in the accompanying episode of Doctor Who Confidential, the production team’s main aim was to present the essence of the artist, rather than the real man sans ear. Indeed, much like Series 5 itself, the Brilliant Book is quite educational, and provides an excellent behind-the-scenes look at the series.
This was by far the most intricate series of Doctor Who, and the Brilliant Book does a very good job at explaining aspects of the ‘crack in the universe’ story arc that might have been missed on first viewing. For instance, the book’s writers even go to the trouble of explaining River’s remark about all her encounters with the Doctor ending up with one of them in handcuffs in Flesh and Stone, as many viewers probably missed the full implications of this… The Brilliant Book also provides some tantalising teasers for events in series 6… Although it’s a shame that there wasn’t room for a mini-preview of A Christmas Carol – perhaps the festive episode will feature in next year’s Brilliant Book?

Doctor Who The Glamour Chase by Gary Russell

I’ve read a couple of Gary Russell Doctor Who novels before that haven’t impressed me a great deal, but I found The Glamour Chase to be an absolute delight from start to finish. Gary has the characterisation of Matt Smith’s Doctor spot on, and his portrayals of Amy and Rory are very convincing too. The story is very gripping also, with the depiction of a massacre in Little Cadthorpe being especially chilling. Although I’m not sure how the Doctor manages to fall into some sheep dip – he’s not usually that clumsy! Gary Russell has come up with some ingenious monsters for The Glamour Chase, especially the Weave, who seemed to be composed of some form of fibrous material like wool. Admittedly, their practice of shape shifting, which involves the kidnapping and imprisoning of the people they impersonate, is not particularly original, as the Zygons used this same method in the classic series (albeit for more devious purposes). The Glamour itself doesn’t appear to be too dissimilar to the Enamour that featured in Una McCormack’s recent Doctor Who book, The King’s Dragon. However, the fact that the two writers employed such similar devices is most likely down to coincidence, rather than collusion, and besides, both novels have rather different settings and stories otherwise. In the end, it’s a human threat that the Doctor has to deal with. The fact that the human at the centre of it is so likeable and compelling is a testament to how good a storyteller Gary Russell can be when he puts his mind to it.

Doctor Who The Way Through the Woods by Una McCormack

Una McCormack’s The Way Through the Woods unburies that old storytelling yore of the dark woods that seemingly swallows people whole, for all those who enter the woods will never be seen again… It’s a device that I myself have utilised in my own short stories. So, on first appearances, The Way Through the Woods appears quite hackneyed. Although men and women from the town of Foxton have vanished in the woods over the centuries, Una McCormack just concentrates on a few women who have disappeared in this manner, and to be honest, on first reading, I lost track of which woman was which, and wasn’t all that involved in the narrative. In addition to this, the story pivots around an abandoned and broken down spaceship, a motif that’s really been done to death in Steven Moffat’s Doctor Who. So, it seemed to me (on first impressions) that The Way Through the Woods was rather a let-down when compared to Una McCormack’s Doctor Who debut, The King’s Dragon, which was quite good.
Such was the quality of her Gallifreyan debut however, that I decided to give The Way Through the Woods a thorough re-read, and I’m very glad I did. For one thing, Una’s characterisation of Rory is spot on (the Doctor and Amy not quite so, but nearly), and for another, her references to the 2005 series of Doctor Who were very good (I particularly liked her cogent explanation of the fact that Rory both is and isn’t the Auton Roman centurion who guarded Amy while she was trapped in the Pandorica). There’s also a nice scene later on when an image of a Roman soldier causes Rory to blush (although he’s not quite sure why, as he’s lost his memories), as this is something will appeal to adult readers. The Way Through the Woods is also very educational; for instance, I’d never heard of the nickname ‘Conchie’ before reading this book (short for ‘conscientious objector’), and I’d previously thought that the pub closing hour introduced during World War I was 11pm (Una points outs that it was actually the far more restrictive 9.30pm). The theme of the First World War also runs through the narrative in a much more subtle way than in did in it did in the 2007 episode of Doctor Who called The Family of Blood. At first, I also thought the naming of the alien as a ‘Werefox’ to be quite old hat, and redolent of the overabundance of anthropomorphic creatures that have faced the Doctor in the recent past. However, I then read Una McCormack’s acknowledgement at the end of the book to Fairport Convention “for recording Reynardine”. Since ‘Reyn’ is the name of the aforementioned Werefox, I had to look this up, and discovered that there are actually ancient tales of a Werefox called Reynardine that steals away maidens to his castle in British folklore. This explains why so many women feature in this book – which, of course, is not a fault – the fact that I lost track of who was who was down to my not paying adequate attention when I first read The Way Through the Woods. So, if Una McCormack is guilty of anything with regards to this book, it’s that she’s perhaps a bit too subtle, and too modest to point out just how clever she’s been in this very good book.

Torchwood First Born by James Goss review

When BBC Books sent me the latest Torchwood novels, First Born leapt out at me because it was by James Goss, author of the recent excellent Doctor Who book Dead of Winter. Since this is a Miracle Day prequel, the novel opens with Gwen and Rhys on the run after the events of Children of Earth. Following the birth of Anwen, they end up in the North Wales village of Rawbone, staying in a Torchwood “safe house” (i.e. a decrepit caravan). It soon becomes clear that there was a reason for the Torchwood presence in the village, as Rawbone is peculiar for a number of reasons: firstly, because no children have been born there for over a decade, and the children that are there are frankly very weird. There’s also the fact that Gwen is soon having to fight off the lustful local men (despite not having quite got back into shape following her pregnancy), while Rhys is also attracting more than his fair share of admiring looks. All this nonsense seems quite harmless at first, until Gwen is physically attacked… And unlike the beginning of Miracle Day, Gwen and Rhys don’t have a huge arsenal of weapons with which to protect Arwen…
First Born is an appropriate follow-up to Children of Earth, as it’s also a very much child-centric story (well, I guess this was inevitable following the birth of Arwen). I’m not sure that James Goss is completely comfortable with describing the havoc that a newborn baby visits upon its parents, but he does a good enough job. Well, botched-up parenting is very much a central theme in this book. First Born, is of course, a Torchwood homage to John Wyndham’s novel The Midwich Cuckoos, and its equally famous film adaptation, The Village of the Damned. However, there are some differences: First Born‘s children grow very slowly, unlike the accelerated growth exhibited by their Midwich neighbours, and despite showing the same skill at telepathy, they are far less aggressive than John Wyndham’s creations (well, at least most of the time).
James Goss adopts the same tactic of having each chapter narrated by one of the protagonists in the first person, and this mostly works very well, although I don’t think his characterisation of Gwen and Rhys was quite as good as that of the TARDIS regulars in Dead of Winter. True to form though, Captain Jack Harkness does make a morally ambivalent flashback appearance. I didn’t think the story was as good as Dead of Winter either, but that’s probably due to its nature as a Torchwood narrative, since Gwen’s adventures have always deliberately been a bit more banal and less fantastical than the Doctor’s. You’ll be reassured to learn that the villains of the piece are just as incompetent and morally mixed up as they ever have been in Torchwood, with some rather topical government cuts leading to an escalation of the crisis… This is a torturous coming of age novel, Torchwood style, and it’s okay for all that.

Torchwood Long Time Dead by Sarah Pinborough review

I’ve never read Sarah Pinborough before, but I do know that she’s an up-and-coming horror writer who is currently being published by Gollancz. Indeed, the first few pages of Long Time Dead had me chuckling, as I saw that she’d named a couple of minor characters after members of the Gollancz team. So, hats off to BBC Books for getting another such accomplished author to write for their Doctor Who/Torchwood range.
Long Time Dead sees the very welcome return of Suzie Costello to the Torchwood world, and it’s not long before this revived bad girl is being very bad indeed… The last time we saw her, it looked as though Suzie had finally been killed off for good. However, despite having blown a sizeable hole through her own head, she’d already previously come back from the dead. Indeed, Torchwood creator Russell T Davies had apparently planned to resurrect  her occasionally, however this was scuppered when Indira Varma became pregnant prior to the filming of the second series. Now that she’s been seemingly regenerated in Long Time Dead, Suzie appears intent on adding as many people as she can to her previously deceased state…
However, following the destruction of the Hub at the end of Children of Earth, its wreckage is being extensively searched by the Department in their quest for any useful or dangerous alien technology that they can find. (In a nice tie-in with Miracle Day, one box of alien artefacts from the wreckage is labelled under the name of “Colasanto”, and there’s also a subtle reference to David Jones, Jo Grant’s beau from the classic Doctor Who adventure The Green Death amidst plenty of other Torchwood nostalgia). Once the bodies start piling up, the police inevitably get involved, allowing for a few nice cameos by a certain Andy Davidson. (In Long Time Dead, Andy suspects that his sudden promotion to sergeant may well have been down to the events he witnessed during Children of Earth, rather than due to his own inherent talent at police work.) As a sergeant though, Andy’s too junior to lead the police investigation, so this burden falls upon the troubled shoulders of DCI Tom Cutler.
The police are perplexed, as along with Suzie’s seemingly motiveless murderous spree, there are also a bout of suicides in Cardiff involving people that have no recent history of mental trauma. It turns out that something dark and truly fearful has escaped from the rift…
Like Bill Pulman’s character in Miracle Day, Oswald Danes, Suzie Costello starts out as a very unsympathetic character. However, such is Sarah Pinborough’s skill as a novelist, and her sublime characterisation and plotting, that you’ll be really rooting for Suzie at the end of Long Time Dead. Indeed, Long Time Dead is a lot better than many TV Torchwood adventures, so it would be great if Sarah Pinborough were ever given the opportunity to write for the small screen.

Doctor Who Borrowed Time by Naomi A. Alderman review

It wasn’t so long ago that BBC Books scored a coup by publishing a Michael Moorcock Doctor Who novel, The Coming of the Terraphiles. That was an okay book, but I was even more delighted when the latest load of Doctor Who review copies arrived, as one of the authors’ names really leapt out at me. Could ‘Naomi A. Alderman’ be the ‘Naomi Alderman’ who won the Orange Prize for New Writers with her debut novel Disobedience in 2007? A quick scan of the accompanying press release revealed that it was indeed so. Naomi Alderman was also named by Waterstones as one of their Writers for the Future in 2007. I find it really exciting that BBC Books are able to commission authors of such extraordinary calibre, following the lead of the TV show, which has recently called on the talents of Richard Curtis and Neil Gaiman. Could Doctor Who be in danger of becoming part of the literary establishment? I certainly hope so. To make things even more stellar, Borrowed Time is partly dedicated to Naomi Alderman’s cousin, Samuel West, who may or may not be the well-regarded actor of the same name who incredibly appeared in the lamentable Doctor Who/EastEnders crossover Dimensions in Time for Children in Need in 1993 only a couple of years after starring in Howards End, and who also played the Time Lord Morbius in a Big Finish audio adventure. Needless to say, all this pedigree allowed Borrowed Time to jump quite a few places on my to-read list!
It takes Naomi Alderman a couple of chapters to get going, but once she does, she really hits the ground running. Her characterisation of the Doctor, Amy, and Rory are spot on. The henchmen Symington and Blenkinsop appear to have stepped right out of The Matrix (the Wachowski movie, rather than the Time Lord databank), especially when they become ‘duplicated’ and start hunting down the Doctor and his friends as a horde. However, Mr Symington and Mr Blenkinsop turn out to be quite literally loan ‘sharks’, with the added propensity of biting chunks out of anyone that gets in their way, and they’re a great example of how Naomi Alderman takes a simple idea to its logical (and somewhat surreal) extremes. The main plot is just as clever, featuring several employees of Lexington International Bank who have borrowed just a bit too much time from the aforementioned henchmen as they attempt to get at least one step ahead of their colleagues. Since time is the commodity that’s being traded, it’s not long before the Doctor becomes embroiled in the events at Lexington Bank. However, despite the fact that Amy knows the Doctor abhors dodgy dealings with time travel, she can’t help but take Symington and Blenkinsop up on their offer to allow her a rare opportunity of visiting her parents. Since the novel’s set in 2007, one would have thought that she’d run the risk of bumping into herself, but fortunately, the ‘real’ Amy appears to have spent a great deal of time away from home in Leadworth in 2007. It’s just as well that Symington & Blenkinsop’s watch has a Blinovitch Limitation Limitation though.
In some places, especially with regards to the explanation of compound interest, Borrowed Time comes dangerously close to following Doctor Who‘s original remit of being educational, to the extent that even a financial market is brought vividly to life (albeit a temporal one). Yet Alderman’s novel is also very much a thriller, and her well-thought-out plot will have keep you royally entertained as you rapidly flick through its pages. Borrowed Time is also very funny, and it’s very evident that Naomi Alderman knows her Doctor Who lore. As she writes in the acknowledgements, Naomi Alderman’s first exposure to Doctor Who was a video of The Robots of Death, and you can’t really go wrong with an introduction like that. To my delight, Naomi Alderman also utilises the vworp, vworp noise to representation the landing of the TARDIS, something she’s borrowed from the Doctor Who comic strips (if only the subtitles for the TV show would do the same!) Borrowed Time is a very clever satire on both our current 24 hours a day culture, and the 2007 banking crisis, since the novel’s events are set just before the beginnings of this calamity. Indeed, in my opinion, Borrowed Time could very well be the best novel written yet on the banking crisis!

Doctor Who Paradox Lost by George Mann

Paradox Lost is another one of those timey wimey narratives that have proliferated in Doctor Who novels of late. Having landed in the late 28th Century, the Doctor and his companions are confronted by the mangled body of an android, which has been in the Thames for a thousand years. The android warns the Doctor that he must stop Professor Gradius’ time experiments, or else a malevolent alien race called the Squall will consume the world. So, the Doctor decides that he must travel back to the early 20th Century to confront the Squall, while entrusting Amy and Rory to stop Gradius’ time experiments.
Although the Doctor receives help from a Professor ‘Angelchrist’, I don’t think that the plot of Paradox Lost has otherwise much to do with John Milton’s epic poem, Paradise Lost, from which George Mann has evidently derived his title. I suppose the demonic Squall could be regarded as being akin to rebel angels. However, since the Doctor is their main adversary, if George Mann was attempting a pastiche of Paradise Lost, then this would mean that the Doctor is a kind of messianic figure in this narrative. Indeed, it’s no doubt a truism that the Doctor is a kind of stand-in messiah in our secular age, a distinction that he shares with many other fantastic heroes (although I’d argue that the Doctor is by far the best role model). So although there is a bit of sacred imagery and metaphor employed here, Paradox Lost is by no means a religious narrative, despite the resurrection of one of the characters at the end.
George Mann, appropriately enough, is well versed in Doctor Who. For instance, there is the suggestion, at the end, that the Doctor has gone off on a short jaunt to Totter’s Lane to dump off some rubbish, which is a nice subtle reference to the very beginning of the Doctor’s televised adventures. In addition to this, there is a gentle hint to the devastation that will be caused by solar flares in the 29th Century, which has featured in several of the Doctor’s adventures. George Mann also does a nice line in speculation, as his theory as to why the TARDIS console is made up of bric-a-brac is due to the Doctor having to replace worn out parts with whatever junk he has to hand. Professor Angelchrist would appear to be an early prototype of the Doctor with regards to his UNIT role, albeit he is very much human. The Doctor soon appropriates his motor car however, in another reference to the Pertwee era, since this vehicle is quite akin to that incarnation’s favourite roadster, Bessie.
Paradox Lost starts off at a nice even pace, before the middle section really ramps up the action to a pleasing scale. However, I thought that the resolution was a bit uneven in places. The Squall are hell-bent on consuming the Doctor’s mind, much like at least one other alien entity in recent Doctor Who novels, so there is a bit of repetition from this point of view which the editor of the book could perhaps have pointed out, although this element is quite integral to the resolution of the plot. George Mann’s representation of the Doctor and his companions is mostly excellent and spot on. I very much liked the fact that this wasn’t a Star Trek style of temporal paradox narrative, as the great majority of the ‘people’ who die in the book do indeed stay dead (with one sentimental exception). Indeed, it was good to read Rory’s anguish at the devastation that he and Amy unwittingly wrought in the book. The paradox itself is of sufficient timey wimieness to satisfy even the most ardent Doctor Who fan.

Doctor Who The Dalek Handbook by Steve Tribe & James Goss

The Dalek Handbook is a very comprehensive guide to everyone’s favourite Skarosians. The Daleks have been ever-present during the near 50-year run of Doctor Who, firstly appearing in the Timelord’s second adventure, The Daleks. Of course, the famous story (retold in this book) is that Doctor Who‘s producers didn’t want BEMs (“Bug Eyed Monsters”) in the programme, but had to run with The Daleks as it was the only script ready for production, and thus the whole impetus of Doctor Who changed forever with their arrival.
Since the Daleks have been in the programme for 50 years, it can be quite difficult to present a coherent history for them. This is mostly due to the fact that the show’s original producers didn’t let continuity get in the way of a good story, and also because they had no idea that they had created such a long lasting institution. Steve Tribe and James Goss do a very good job of recounting this history, although I did take exception to their surmise that the race of Dals mentioned in the original story must have been usurped by the Kaleds (the race that created the Daleks in the later adventure Genesis of the Daleks), as I would have thought that this inconsistency could have been explained away by them just having two names, just as our enemies in the Second World War could either be called Nazis or Germans.
Steve Tribe and James Goss make it abundantly clear just how influenced Terry Nation was by Nazi Germany in his creation of the Daleks, as they were doing Nazi salutes with their plungers way back in their original adventure, long before Nyder sported an Iron Cross in Genesis of the Daleks (a medal which has Germanic, rather than Nazi origins, although overwhelmingly associated with the Nazis since Hitler reintroduced it as a decoration in the Second World War). Interestingly enough, the authors relate that Terry Nation’s original script featured a third alien race which had assaulted both the Dals and the Thals… However, this is very much a factual book, so criticism is very much on the back burner. Thus the similarities between The Daleks and George Pal’s 1960 adaptation of H. G. Wells’ The Time Machine are not brought to light (e.g. the word ‘Morlock’ is not a million miles away from ‘Dalek’, and the stolen fluid link is a rather obvious replacement for the purloined time machine of the film).
There are several splendid anecdotes, such as the time when Doctor Who‘s original producer, Verity Lambert, ran into the man who had the license to make Dalek merchandise, who was hence considerably far richer than her… There’s also the revelation (to me anyway) that Terry Nation’s plans for a US Dalek series were quite advanced, to the point that he’d written an actual script called The Destroyers (which was recently adapted into an audio adventure by Big Finish). It’s also great to see the sketches created in the wake of the 1996 Paul McGann Doctor Who TV movie, which envisaged a redesign of the Daleks far more radical than that of the current production team with their ‘new Dalek paradigm’ (one which I heartily criticise in Steven Moffat’s Doctor Who 2010). In addition to this, it’s very interesting to learn that Russell T Davies was planning to use the human spheres from The Sound of Drums (the Toclafane) instead of our favourite Skarosians in Robert Shearman’s 2005 script in case permission to utilise the Daleks didn’t come through in time for the revived series.
I found quite a few of the images of the classic series’ adventures to be very grainy, letting down what is otherwise a very lavishly illustrated book. I guess the editors of the book were attempting to get away from the more polished (but overly-familiar) publicity photos from these adventures by adding in many actual screenshots, but these screenshots could have done with a great deal of enhancement in order not to detract from the quality of the book. Steve Tribe has a great track record as an author of factual Doctor Who books, and James Goss (editor of the BBC’s Doctor Who website) similarly knows his stuff, but their prose is quite dry. Indeed, I feel that James Goss’ prose really comes to life when he’s writing fiction, especially his recent excellent Doctor Who novel, Dead of Winter. Yet you can’t beat a lovely dose of nostalgia, which this book provides in ample amounts, even to the point of recounting the Daleks’ many comic book adventures. Ah, for the days when Abslom Daak was wont to cut through the Daleks with a chainsaw!

Doctor Who Dead of Winter by James Goss review

Dead of Winter is one of the best Doctor Who books that I’ve ever come across. One of the first signs that something different is happening here is that a great many of the novel’s chapters are written in the first person, which provides an excellent insight into the minds of our favourite characters from an unusual perspective (with perplexing memory loss as an added ingredient for the TARDIS crew, a device that elegantly reduces the risk of any spoilers to zero). Dead of Winter is set in 18th century Italy, so it’s quite appropriate that much of the novel is written in the form of letters, as the epistolary novel was very much in vogue at this time. James Goss also makes full use of the fact that this is a novel to play a few tricks on us regarding the identity of various characters, which works very well in prose, but couldn’t happen on TV.
Once again, there’s an adrift alien at the heart of the mystery, which is a trope that Steven Moffat’s Doctor Who seems to like revisiting. Dead of Winter‘s also very much in keeping with the current run of Doctor Who novels with regards to its casual references to British popular culture, and for a having a child at the core of the story. There’s also a lovely nod to the TV series, as Dr. Smith tells Maria (the aforementioned child, who’s been abandoned by her mother) his secret name… Which all leads to a rather lovely and ingenious twist in the plot. James Goss also has some rather nice references to Amy Pond’s menage a trois with Rory and the Doctor in the TV series. Also, very much in keeping with my view of the current series, Rory expresses some misgivings about the Doctor’s methods, as he investigates just how Dr. Bloom is curing patients with TB over a century ahead of time…  In an addition to this, there’s quite a few doppelgangers hanging around, which adds to the drama and the mystery, although (fortunately enough) they’re not of the ‘ganger’ variety. There’s another echo with the current series with regards to a deadly incident that very much affects the Doctor… And,  I don’t know, with all the fog, the duplicates, and the sea, James Goss may also be harking back to the Horror of Fang Rock from the classic series of Doctor Who. James Goss certainly knows his stuff, as he should do, since he’s run the BBC’s Doctor Who website. However, there’s not a hint of nepotism in Albert DePetrillo’s commissioning of this book, since James Goss is a damn fine writer whose novel has been published on its own sublime literary merits. Indeed, James Goss’ Dead Air achieved the mighty accolade of Audiobook of the Year of the year in 2010, which is a very mighty achievement for a Doctor Who book. In addition to this, James Goss writes a blog called The Agatha Christie Reader, and his love of her work also finds its way into Dead of Winter via some subtle asides. What complicates things even further is the disappearance of the TARDIS, which turns out to be due to a little used facility of the Doctor’s time vessel… And there’s the rather neat revelation that the Doctor doesn’t actually speak English! Who are the mysterious ghostly figures that rise up from the sea and dance with the patients on the shore? And why does Prince Boris’ manservant have a habit of floating inches from the ground? You’ll find out all this and more in the rather excellent Dead of Winter, which is far more fantastically lively and thrilling than its title would suggest.