Sezom's Bookcase

Posting write-ups of books someway within the Doctor Who universe: Zeroing in on things we like and think you might. "Begin at the beginning and end at the end". Thanks to Anthony Read for creating Sezom, Soldeed and Sorak. Thanks to all of the writers for all the wonderful books from which to choose. Screenshots randomly posted are for fun purposes only. The show’s property of the Beeb & all opinions expressed here are my own carrot juice. Land on our world if you're looking for book recs.

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“The Massacre” by John Lucarotti

A 1987 novelisation of a classic-era story that—at the risk of making the others on this bookshelf jealous—may be one of the best Target books bearing the tubal logo. The author’s postscript embellishments are a wonderful addition, and go far to make up for that the episodes of this TV broadcast are missing from BBC archives. Fresh off defeating the Daleks’ master plan, The Doctor’s in the thick of intra-Christian sectarian beef. Steven, the monarchy, a lookalike, the introduction of Dodo Chaplet, unalterable history crossed and dotted with a Lucarottian pen, all combo to take this fiction wrapped in fact up and away. The Massacre. Top shelf. Hear hear. 

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“At Childhood’s End” by Sophie Aldred

Ace! At Childhood’s End by Sophie Aldread with Steve Cole and Mike Tucker is the sweetest mix of classic and modern Doctor Who you can get your paw-prints on in book-form thus far. Yaz, Graham and Ryan hanging with Ace, who stepped off TV screens in 1989 with the Doctor and whose character became tectonic when the New Adventures novels started up a couple years later— in the now. Cole and Tucker have written a bunch for the BBC Past Doctor and New Series Adventures, so a mind-link with Aldred, who played Ace on the show, took the character to a powerplayer tech-hero level that this fan loved. With an infinite budget of imagination, worlds and scenes, monsters and bosses, a chirruping squidget—if you know a little or a lot about either era of Doctor Who you’ll be right in. These companion books are a great idea. Hang on to your Nitro-90 marbles.

For getting fully fanned out for A.C.E. be sure to check out the TV stories:

Dragonfire

Remembrance of the Daleks 

Survival

The Woman Who Fell to Earth

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And a Happy New Year

What the heck. Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, hope you got your shots. No review this month as we were all about tuning into Flux (still trying to figure out that Part 6—ha ha). Feel free to check our write-ups if you’re looking for Who novels to read. We’re #NowReading Deep Blue by Mark Morris. Shout out to the All-New Doctor Who Book Club (no affiliation) for the suggestion. 

Don’t drink and drive. Read and fly!

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“Torchwood - Into The Silence” by Sarah Pinborough

“Until the police could catch this killer, then someone had to be next. And no one wanted it to be them. But they all waited in anticipation of the next set of grisly details. There was nothing like a murder to make you feel alive, after all.”

We’d describe this one as a fantastical mystery wonderfully written by a fan of the franchise of which the anagram T o r c h w o o d is spun from. We get the casual yet macabre inside-voice of Gwen, with the helping heads of Ianto and Jack, as the team pieces together a disturbing string of murders where the victims’ vocal cords and larynx are removed by surgical force. Who, why? If you’re looking for a dark, Doctorless page-turner with tons of texture and a formidable monster, Into The Silence has something for the horror-heads, and not without heart—scary fun for mature fans of Doctor Who, or any show like Torchwood or The X-Files. It made just the right Halloweeny read for this Whovian. Thank you Sarah Pinborough.

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“Galaxy Four” by William Emms

4 Things about Galaxy Four

The Story

It’s a missing episode. WAS a missing episode (archivally irretrievable). An official animated completion of this mostly-missing serial debuts next month, complete with a showing on the big screen of BFI. There’s still plenty of time to read this 1985 Target version by the story’s originator, chock-full of retro charm à la four chapters—like the four televised parts— from Four Hundred Dawns to The Exploding Planet, unfolding with enough standalone enjoyment worthy of the legacy of this particular galaxy. What we imagine could come off as yummy cheese on screen reads nicely uncramped and upright philosophical—mostly downright doctorly throghout the 141 meaty pages.

The Doctor 

Our 1965 hero walks and thinks across the pages with the benefit of 1985 foresight and 20/20 hindsight. It was the early phase of the show, lore is still being built. We get a demonstration of the Imperviousness of the TARDIS lock, alongside a basking, bragging Doctor (on the strength of the TARDIS defenses) thought-checking Betrand Russell and letting slip some self-doubt—mostly about his physical state, which he ponders far beyond the scope of the show over 50 years ago. His companions— two rescued people Steven and Vicki—provide questions and concerns to the many actions cast by the other characters, with dashes of logic-puzzles and mystery. The Doctor cheerily delegates and prematurely ponders life beyond this one.

The Bad-gals 

When the crew lands in the middle of a big beef, it’s a malevolent humanoid Maaga and her gang of lookalike raygun-gripping covergirls—the Drahvins versus the giant telepathic Rills and their mechanical assistants, which Vicki nicknames..

The Chumblies 

This time the machine twittered at her; it seemed to be waiting. Waiting for what, she wondered. Should she do a soft-shoe shuffle and hope for the best, or perhaps give them a quick burst of Shakespearian oratory?

It’s a mistake to retrospectively suggest Galaxy Four’s robot co-stars are in any way poor-man’s Daleks. Everything about the words used to convey the variety of sounds they make is deployed with detail, care and originality. Thanks to William Emms, who’s a knack for forming four-dimensional sentences and jewel-like intro paragraphs, we get, on its own, a great serving of this story via written word. A bit gendered—with enough camp to cook marshmallows while smiling with friends—the sweet-spot Doctor Who that we all know and love shines through with formula-balanced sophistication high-fiving the past and future while delivering the finale with a bang. Galaxy Four. Been there, done that, got the book. Loved it lots. 

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“The Highest Science” by Gareth Roberts

What is The Highest Science? For one, it’s this 1993 Doctor Who New Adventures novel featuring the seventh Doctor and a streetwise Bernice Summerfield, who set out to track the source of a worrisome temporal flicker (a little nod to Time and the Rani we fancy), and cross paths with some galactically displaced music fans who do space drugs, some militarized alien psychos, a thing called the cell, and one extremely evil antagonist which the story folds around on a forsaken planet which houses the key to the novel’s title.

“The Doctor stared at her silently for a few seconds. ‘Bernice, you’re a pleasure to know,’ he said finally. She smiled. ‘Oh,’ she said, rather surprised. ‘Thank you Doctor.’ 

How’s the dialogue between Bernice and the Doctor? Very great. The story’s got serious edge, in which bipedal tortoises with a taskmaster-like focus on killing provide dashes of dark humor. The music fan characters allow for some ahead-of-its-time hipster/trendster critiques sure to produce a chuckle in anyone who’s ever over-thought about music scenes (every music fan ever). Top it off with a classy baddie and we have a well-balanced meal for every Doctor Who fan ever. Still fresh 28 years later. 

Favorite sentence: “The Constructs' legs crumbled like tofu beneath them.”

Favorite minor character: Postine

The HIghest Science by Gareth Roberts (his first novel !): Highly recommended 

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“Asylum” by Peter Darvill-Evans

Some of the neatest TV moments involve interactions with memorable old earth characters who don’t know Doc’s from space. Often goes something like: Doctor, what are you? Usually to great effect, from fear to friend, chiefly into what makes Who unique amongst time-travelling fictional tales. This 2001 novel is chock full of cool characters wrapped around a real person, Roger Bacon, and joined along by a very special companion from the show’s past (and future). You won’t want to leave the pre-Plague 1300s which sets those neat interactions forth with a tall Doctor in a very long scarf. Hang with the friars, feel for the knights, worry as our heroes deal delicately with dominant religions and crusty customs in search of..

After the epilogue, the author includes an afterstory essay with some overall thoughts on fact-versus-fiction in the context of pseudo-historicals such as this. A History of Errors and Falsifications: An article effectively, examining the eternal questions about, and the suspending of, disbelief in search of enjoyment in that writing thing. Reading for instance. Asylum—enjoyed it immensely! 

Canonically we humour to gather Asylum takes place between The Deadly Assassin and The Face of Evil, if not, then after The Invasion Of Time and before The Ribos Operation. 

Consider reading if you’re a fan of:

smarthomes

flowers 

mysteries 

criss-crossed timelines (think Mel Bush or River Song)

Consider reading if you’re a fan of TV stories: 

The Masque of Mandragora

The Keeper of Traken

Black Orchid

Terminus

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“Birth of a Renegade” by Eric Saward

Not a book. A magazine. A 20th anniversary special released by Starlog Press in 1983 that coincided with The Five Doctors. It features a short “new adventure” written by Eric Saward (with fab illustrations by Mark Thomas).

“Tegan and Turlough exchanged an embarrassed glance. They couldn’t believe their ears. Here they were surrounded by Cybermen, trapped in one of the most inhospitable places in the universe, listening to the Doctor argue with one of his oldest enemies about politics.”

This short story could have been something Saward — script editor of the show at the time — came up with on a whim. A little Tardisode of sorts. But it goes so into Gallifreyan history and hidden memories of the Doctor, that it reminded us an itty-bit of The Timeless Children. A light read with a heavy surprise. Now the nerd in me wants to check how much of this history matches up with established Time Lord lore. 

Nerd Notes

I was thrilled to run across this mag on eBay. I had a copy back when it was new that’s long since gone. When I picked it up as a wee lad in 1984 BC (before computers) it was my first window to information about the show, which at that time I only knew as Tom Baker’s. The Doctor was going to change? the show had been on since before I was born? Yep yep. 

It’s a wonderful time-capsule, with great photographs and features including a piece on missing episodes, an A-Z guide to companions, and a voyaging commentary from An Unearthly Child up to The Five Doctors. Colin Baker was just announced as the sixth Doctor and season 21 is written about in future tense.  

Although there’s no mention of Voxnic in Birth of a Renegade, it’s got good bits that still buzz 38 years later. Check it out if you can find it. 

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“The Myth Makers” by Donald Cotton

Mostly flawless. 

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“Mission: Impractical” by David A. McIntee

Sabalom Glitz, the freelance galactic rogue hustler first introduced in The Trial of a Time Lord, is in it. Ogrons, the ape-like space-beings who first appeared in the Day of the Daleks, are in it. That should be enough to hook you but wait — Frobisher, the shapeshifting alien Whifferdill who first appeared in the Doctor Who Magazine sixth Doctor comic strip is in it as the Doctor’s companion. They go see Star Wars together! If this sounds to you like a Doctor Who party on paper, you’re getting warm. In the brief introduction, the author admits this was written to cheer himself up after some grimmer numbers and to “check your brains at the door”. Done. Like all good parties though, there’s certainly danger, a cast of interesting characters, new cool aliens and — like the title suggests — a mission. Like any good life, there is death, criminality, laser blasts and space ships. It’s another ride in the mysterious period between The Trial of a Time Lord and Time and The Rani (perhaps the most fertile place from which such novels emerge). Who likes the sixth Doctor and also likes dangerous fun? This is a cool cocktail to add to your summer reading list filled with sweet GalSec flavors, pleasant speckles of the past, and (of course) a talking penguin to help it all go down. Our brain was where we left it by the door, but another 280 pages the funner.

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“And The Library of Time” by various authors

Before the internet, Doctor Who Magazine was one of the only ways to find out what was going on in the show in America. When we finally got our hands on issue 561, which came with a paperback book patterned after the classic Target novels we love so much, we read the novel cover to cover. The book contains a couple chapters from each story. The way we’ve been watching old episodes lately, sporadically, sometimes just pieces at a time, this vibed perfectly with our mindset and played a bit like a literary mixtape!

The Pirate Planet by James Goss

Pirate Planet was the first Doctor Who I remember seeing in America in 1984. Late at night on WGBY, part two — the Mentiads in the cave —  “Doctor we have come for you” The cliffhanger, the stinger and the end theme were emblazoned into my mind for good. Years later I would discover The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, and Douglas Adams (writer of the original Pirate Planet). Yes I will happily read two chapters of this, and think it’s a great one to start off the mix.

Eric Saward Of The Daleks 🙂

With Eric Saward novelisations, you can count on plenty of extra stuff — Resurrection, Revelation, and a little Voxnic to chase them both down. it’s lazy comparing Saward’s spec-fic comedy too closely to Douglas Adams. The novel ‘Slipback’ aside, Saward draws from the same far-out funny bone that all humorists hit off, but in a unique way, even getting (Robert) Holmesian at times. Both story bits have a little smile-inducing backstory additions. If you accept that Revelation is a dark comedy to begin with, it puts the high body count of Resurrection into a more comic book-like frame. Of the Daleks.

The TV Movie by Gary Russell 

Wow. Lots of extra stuff in this bit too. Definitely an expansion from what was on screen and definitely piques our interest to read the full novel at some point. 

Dalek by Robert Shearman 

Dark, brooding and heady, we get way more inside voice than the show showed. Probably the most serious of the segments. 

The Crimson Horror by Mark Gatiss 

We recently read “Last of the Gaderene” by Gatiss and liked it a lot. Continuing the theme of expansions, we get more, more!

The Witchfiners by Joy Wilkinson

“A ducking stool, designed to test whether the old woman was a witch or not. That was the stated purpose of the stool, but it proved way more effective at inflicting torture, instilling fear and providing lurid entertainment for the waiting crowd of onlookers”. Gee whiz, it’s a good thing there’s no modern version of this happening to women!

Can’t forget the friendly intro by Jonathan Morris, and if I may add a personal note: I brought this book with me when I went to get my first COVID-19 vaccination shot, read a little while waiting, and a little more waiting after. Thank you Doctors. Thank you authors. 

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“Molten Heart” by Una McCormack

Molten Heart at its core, is a family-friendly space adventure laced with geology vocabulary and introductions to skeptical thinking. From the outside in, it's an escape to a mysterious planetoid with the now bookended TARDIS team of Ryan, Graham and Yaz. The accessible trip harks back to the kind of trouble the Doctor, Barbara, Ian and Vicki may have gotten into on screen over 55 year ago. Another world, like ours, discords between science and fearful belief like ours, but different — optimally suited for the written word ― told omnipotently, but plentifully through the senses of young companions Yaz and Ryan, giving us a solid book-club book for a wide range of fans. Whether you’re 13, 31 or 103, a causation of reading enjoyment can certainly be correlated to the page turning of this 2018 thirteenth Doctor novel by Una McCormack. 

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“The Twin Dilemma” by Eric Saward

If we texted that The Twin Dilemma is a great Target novel, would you think it was a drunk text? Trust us. One more time, this time in book form: Perpugilliam Brown and the big bug of death. If you know all about classic Who — please wipe your minds at the door. Forget all about the what, whens and whys. You and we know how great Colin Baker’s portrayal of The Sixth Doctor is and was. Published in 1986, we guess the author snuck a bunch of stuff in like it’s your last day at work and you're drinking on lunch break. Each character’s thoughts and origins are embellished, a few which the tallness of tale will turn your frown upside down if you allow yourself a laugh. The Doctor is having a bad regeneration, but everyone in the story seems to have a bucket load of personal problems, save for our shadow hero Peri. There’s a walking stinkbug who can open the TARDIS using telepathy, and enter people’s minds via hologram like a forced video chat with camera and mic jammed on. Almost 300 years from now, everyone’s drinking Voxnic. 

“As Azmael downed his second beaker, the familiar glow the twins knew only too well from their father spread slowly across his face.”

Voxnic is an alcoholic beverage in Eric Saward’s literary universe that’s made from fermented viston seeds. Doubtless it’s a great fictional name for futuristic booze, Just about every character takes a swig of the beverage in The Twin Dilemma novelisation. Next to the inventor of the revitalising modulator, no one drinks more Voxnic than the father of the twins, Archie Sylvest, who’s also paranoid-stricken that his kids want to kill him. He smokes ‘specially made cigarettes’ with his psychiatrist. Later he buys large amounts of Voxnic to placate the husband of a female workmate who he bribes in order to dodge punishment for coveting the man’s wife. In the TV version, there is only a kooky scene where the twins tell the father that their mother is a fool, but the family drama is expanded upon here. The extreme genius of the twins has come with the bitter pill of being maladjusted pains-in-the-neck. Their absent mum coped by being away on her fifth PHD. Archie, an award-winning mathematician himself, harbors a noxious jealousy toward the kids and escapes by going out to Voxnic bars, often leaving the twins with an android babysitter.

“ The Doctor turned to Azmael who was about to slurp his way through a third beakerful of Voxnic ‘Think of the consequences old friend, if those planets should be brought into the same orbit as Jaconda’”

Castrovalva had the Master, Time and the Rani had The Rani, The Twin Dilemma presents The Professor. Edgeworth aka Azmael. Another Time Lord. Though on his last regeneration, and a prisoner of mind coercion by the main villain Mestor, he gets his backstory and it’s gloriously checkered and dangerous, if not a bit tall. The Time Lord High Council put a hit out on him once? We thought Maurice Denham’s on-screen portrayal of this new old Time Lord was a bright positive in the show. The more you thought so too, the more you’d enjoy this. Mestor has a Lord Nimon-like quality, but with much deadlier power. The cover image and your imagination can go far. The disorders of the other characters and the ruined worlds make the Doctor falling apart seem less outrageous. He slowly falls together. The novel has very different stuff happening that’s hard not to like. Psychotic psychiatry, soulful moments, short histories of asteroids and acids, why the silver jacket Hugo? That time by the fountain... this twin dilemma is bonkers.  

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“Sil and the Devil Seeds of Arodor” by Philip Martin

“... international police forces are seeking the alien known as Sil, believed to be the mastermind behind the smuggling of the deadly drug known as devil seed…”

We wouldn’t dare spoil Sil and the Devils Seeds of Arodor for you — haven’t seen it ourselves yet but we were compelled to cop the paperback version (2019 Telos Publishing) which expands upon the Reeltime Drama production, both written by Philp Martin. What is Thoros Betan culture like? Now pushing a custom floating chariot, the authoritarian, naked psychotic snail who frazzled the sixth Doctor over 30 years ago is mixed up in the interplanetary drug business. And though serious matters like our environmentally damaged planet, substance abuse, and talking birds surface, Arodor unfolds feather by feather — as fast, flipping fun. Some peekaboo family ties of the show’s Martin-written universe return with a wink, but no advanced knowledge is needed to get a kick out of Devil Seeds. Kingpins, courtrooms, and yes a femme fatale all await the fan-favorite alien slug. Let’s admit it’s a treat to root for the baddie sometimes, especially one as good as Sil. 

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Doctor Who Festival - King of Prussia, PA 1985

Right time and place and I lucked out 36 years ago when my mom and my aunt brought me to a Doctor Who convention in King of Prussia Pennsylvania. I was very young and don’t remember a heck of a lot. The few toys available in the exhibition area were very expensive. I stocked up on buttons, and maybe even a Target novel or a copy of Doctor Who Magazine or two. Colin Baker and John Nathan-Turner were the keynote speakers.

Gather I missed a few screenings earlier, but I remember Baker saying (paraphrasing here) that he hoped to remain playing the Doctor for as long or longer than another Doctor with the same last name. I first discovered Doctor Who the year before during a fourth Doctor run. At the time, my watching had reached the end of the Davison era and I was ultra-primed to be an American superfan. Our public television station WGBY (channel 57) switched to the third Doctor Jon Pertwee after Peter Davison. Our family moved. Doctor Who wasn’t on locally again until another run of Tom Baker and Peter Davison in the early 90s. I never got to see what happened after The Caves of Androzani in the 1980s!

Flyer image source <--

I’d been reading the magazines, had a poster of the sixth Doctor and Peri and enough buttons from the convention to cover a whole hat. I had no idea that only a few days later that Doctor Who would be put on an 18-month hiatus by the British Broadcasting Corporation. No one I knew liked Doctor Who and I never saw The Twin Dilemma until 2017 when Twitch did the (brilliant) classic marathon. I kept thinking I’d eventually see the sixth Doctor’s run on PBS back then, but after a few years, other interests stepped up to occupy the teenager. Only when the Internet became a thing in the early 1990s did I have the means to read up on what had happened with the series.

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“The Quantum Archangel” by Craig Hinton

     With Moore’s Law-breaking advancements and doomsday-level aftereffects, the Sixth Doctor revisits the Earth scientist from The Time Monster over thirty years later, as does The Master. Paradoxical multiversal endangerment ensues. An entirely new transcendental divinity comes into being and we’re taken way behind the curtain of life and time. Beyond the Gods, above the Guardians, and further than science is meant to know — the everything of infinite everythings starts to unravel and splinter into myriad timelines which become galactic birdseed for the time-eating Chronovores. 

     For best results, rewatch 1972’s The Time Monster prior to reading The Quantum Archangel. It is a direct sequel. Craig Hinton skyrockets the building blocks of Doctor Who into new and different realms of what-if and holy-cow. Melanie Bush is here. Stuart and TOMTIT are back. Classic fans will likely hear clapping in the theaters of their minds more than once throughout these 284 pages, and time again: The Doctor has no choice but to operate on the grandest of grand scales.

Consider checking out if you like:

The Trial of a Time Lord Part 13

Enlightenment

Logopolis

The Armageddon Factor

The War Games Episode 9

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Twenty Twenty One, Do you Read Me?

We’re aiming to post about a book the first Monday of each month that the show doesn’t air. Doctor Who: Revolution... drops tomorrow, January, so be sure to visit back on February 1st. We can’t wait to watch and absorb it either! We’ve been rewatching some older episodes to get psyched up. In 2021 Sezom shall expandify* our tumble through the Whoniverse by including writers and series that are unquestionably part of the Doctor Who universe though adjacently rather than directly: Authors like Douglas Adams, Andrew Cartmel for instance with Dirk Gently or The Vinyl Detective could make it in. We’ll do a few of the Target novelisations as well— to sort of cheat (though not of enjoyment). Because we can't be pressured to read one full-on novel each month. We have fun doing this blog and want to futureproof it from becoming a chore. A little now, a little then. You’ll see how we do it. Thanks to all the authors, who, with all the bookshops and other readers and fans keep this universe together. Sezom you next year.

* not a real word!! ha ha HaPpY nEw yEaR !!