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And now BELTEMPEST by Jim Mortimore. Jim's one of the more interesting Who authors, or at least one of the most recognisable. Huge scope, lots of deaths, idea after idea after idea, many about religion - that's Jim. Which sometimes works and sometimes doesn't. And, sadly, in this case it really

doesn't (a fact he recognised himself, when he issued a sort of Director's Cut of the book years later). For every reasonably good bit, there's another, worse bad bit - huge scope is often great, for instance, but in this case it just makes for a muddy, messy book, filled with many, many planets

called variations of Belliana II, II etc - and then he adds some more planets floating in from outer space. Elsewhere, he does something with Sam (which is a nice change), but what he does is a bit crap - turn her into a God or something, but one who has page after page of that naff, very 90s

THE JANUS CONNECTION is pretty good, solid space adventure stuff I suppose. I likes how Baxendale writes Sam and the radiation sickness soldiers are genuinely minging. There’s a couple of weird editorial decisions though -

the second massive space tunnel in three books, for one; having characters called Vatka, Vigo and - actually I forget the other one now, but it sounds very similar to those two - all in the space of a few pages,

On to Vanderdeken’s Children by Chris Bulis, never a writer I was very fond of at the time, but this starts with one of my favourite things - a bloody great mysterious object floating in space (shades of Rendezvous with Rama or Greg Bear’s brilliant Eon, though on a far smaller scale!).

I honestly can’t remember how the plot of this one goes, which is both worrying (how dull must it be) and great (nice to read an EDA as though for the first time!)

Bit of an odd one, this. It reminds me of Asimov, in the sense that it's by no means a great writer, with at best 2D characterisation, but with a plot that's never less than interesting. It's nearly excellent in fact, with a fascinating setting and plenty of well constructed surprises.

Onto Placebo Effect. Thirty pages in and I’ve remembered why I disliked this one first time round.

A pal who should know described PLACEBO EFFECT as 'ghastly' and he's not wrong, but I'm trying to be positive, so instead of mentioning the fact it's badly written, poorly edited and contains far too many characterless characters who seem only to exist so Russell can name check his pals - or (1/2)

any of the myriad other faults with the book - I'll just point out the happy fact that it was books like this one that caused me to set up @obversebooks.co.uk on the revolutionary basis of employing writers because they could write and not because they could commission you back. (2/2)

Back to Jon and Kate for SEEING I, another excellent at novel that manages to something interesting with one of the most - and not in a good way - limes from the show. Yes, the Mind Probe, frankly.

Paul Leonard’S DREAMSTONE MOON is fine but probably the author’s weakest Who novel. For a writer so full of imagination it seems lacking in the unexpected and unusual, falling back on the old Living Planet sf cliche and reduced to having Sam running out of air as the peril on 4 different occasions.

Nice for once to have no mentions of Sam’s boobs or underwear though.

So now we're back to more 'John Peel Writes the Daleks', and more memories of this book - LEGACY OF THE DALEKS - getting a kicking at the time. Thikning back, it feels like most of the backlash was a reaction to getting Dalek books which were very traditional, steeped in continuity...

All I could remember of <ahem> Michael Collier's LONGEST DAY was a weirdly filthy alien species and the fact I was convinced it was a Faction Paradox book at the time (well, Homeworlds, blood sacrifice and a planet fractured into different time zones sounds pretty Faction-y, in my defence)...

...But that does a huge dis-service. In fact, it's an excellent sf novel, a very good Doctor Who novel, and a better horror novel than THE BODYSNATCHERS. It also contains more and better characters than the previous two books combined...

... and is awash with cool ideas, both big and small. Pretty good going for an author who was also busy editing the entire range, I reckon. Not quite VAMPIREe SCEIENCE level good, but not far off - which came as a pretty damn massive surprise on this second reading of the EDAs.

OPTION LOCK by Justin Richards next. Quite a good plot, certainly bigger than the Small screen could manage and a nice mix of the high tech and the rural countryside. Sad then that it reads like a first draft, full of word repetition and redundant sentences …

Next up - KURSAAL by Peter Anghelides. The first of the Books By Mates which so annoyed me at the time, because none of them were very good. This one hasn't improved over time, but I wonder how much of that is down to the fact it needs a good copy edit? Everything is either 'grubby' or 'crumpled'...

But which is actually better than I remembered. It's not complicated or clever - and the drug stuff is very much an old man writing about things beyond his ken - but as an introduction to Doctor Who, it works pretty well.

Vampire Science on the other hand is exactly as good as I remembered: which is to say, as good as any Who novel ever. Absolutely superb - just when you think all the good bits you remember have happened, the squirrels turn up... Damn, but @kateorman.bsky.social and @jonblum.bsky.social are good.

And after one better than I remember and one just as brilliant as I remember, here comes one I didn't remember at all. And no wonder. THE BODYSNATCHERS is barely a story at all (Zygons try to take over a bit of London. Fail) and is just a ticklist of Who continuity (Litefoot, Zygons, Victoriana).

I don’t think that’s the Jon Blum you’re thinking of - @kateorman.bsky.social , care to comment?