An unremarkable comic strip and seven pithy short stories that were not enhanced by their illustrations. One of the stories was undermined by an illustration that stole its punchline. Despite these flaws, the book made a pleasing light read and the diverse authors captured the character of the tenth Doctor. ( )

http://nhw.livejournal.com/1051912.html ( )

Its sort of customary to start reviews of the Dr Who storybooks by mentioning the totally bonkers Dr Who annuals of the 1970s but I figure most people reading here either know all about them or aren't terribly interested. Suffice it to say the storybooks are their successors both in content and, in some cases, bonkersness although the storybooks are bonkers (when they are bonkers) in a canonical way while the 70s Who annuals were mostly just bonkers.

The storybooks are really pretty decent stocking filler material and the 2008 version is no exception. The 2008 cover is by Alister Pearson, a frequently maligned Who artist of whose work I'm rather fond. Maybe I'm shallow but I've nothing against photo-realistic painting done well. I wasn't so fond of the artwork by Andy Walker for two of the internal stories and, I would judge on style, the contents page in which the Doctor is quite clearly making the most of a dramatic escape in order to cop a feel of Martha's breasts - I mean I know the current Doctor is inclined to snog his companions at the slightest pretence but this seemed a little... off... to me. However I liked the other illustrations, particularly Ben Willisher's bold and colourful pages for Paul Magrs frankly rather disappointing zombie tale. Its a perfectly good story, its just the last Paul Magrs book I read had talking poodles as villains, the Doctor's life was complicated by Noel Coward and his time travelling pinking shears and contained a scene where Ray Harryhausen tortures George Lucas with animated plasticene gorgons. It's called Mad Dogs and Englishmen but I don't recommend it to anyone who likes Tolkein. Zombie Motel is distinctly pedestrian by comparison although I guess if the editors were worrying about all those reviews which would start "In the 1970s the Dr Who annuals..." they may have warned Magrs off any temptation to introduce talking poodles. Actually, Tom MacRae's Cats and Dogs features a talking poodle so it must have been Noel Coward they were worried about.

The 2006 storybook gave us the original Sally Sparrow short story - which was as good as Blink though very different in most ways beyond the central conceit. There isn't anything as good here. The Box under the Tree by Rob Shearman probably comes closest in terms of clever ideas but it can't quite explain how it all links up with Dr Who as we know it. The best story, I thought, was Kiss of Life by the, in my opinion, much under-rated Justin Richards, telling a clever crossover between Cinderella and The Little Mermaid in a Doctor Who context. The worst was The Iron Circle by Nicholas Briggs (who gets to be the voice of the Daleks these days though I first encountered him playing the Doctor in a series of rather good fan produced audio adventures many of which have now been rewritten beyond recognition into Big Finish audio plays) which, among other things, is anxious to suggest that the Isle of Wight is the sort of place where in-bred natives wonder around saying "are you local?" or, at the very least, that mainlanders are better of in Burton-upon-Trent. I did mention, didn't I, that the storybooks are continuing the tradition of bonkersness. ( )