Gareth

#24: Desperation by Stephen King. Good vs evil in a small town, with bodies everywhere. Nasty but compelling. www.goodreads.com/review/show/...

#23: The Slow Empire by Dave Stone. Typically silly space adventuring with the Sky Pirates! author, full of weird ideas and tangents. I had fun. www.goodreads.com/review/show/...

#22: Wintersmith by Terry Pratchett. Excellent coming of age story for Tiffany Aching. www.goodreads.com/review/show/...

#21: Superior Beings by Nick Walters. Grim sci-fi stuff about man-eating foxes and a planet controlled by plants. It’s readable but mostly just unpleasant. www.goodreads.com/review/show/...

#20: Five Rounds Rapid! The Autobiography of Nicholas Courtney, Doctor Who’s Brigadier. As the clunky title suggests it’s too Who-ish, but otherwise acquits itself quite well. www.goodreads.com/review/show/...

‪#19: The Year Of Intelligent Tigers by Kate Orman. A moody and characterful take on the “whose planet is it anyway” problem. www.goodreads.com/review/show/...

Doctor Who: The BBC Books #93 – The Year Of Intelligent Tigers by Kate Orman Doctor Who: The Eighth Doctor Adventures #46 The Year of Intelligent Tigers By Kate Orman She’s back! And — all together now — it’s about ti...

Kate Orman was a highlight of Virgin but I’ve found her to be downright load-bearing for BBC Books. (Honourable mention for Jon Blum, also contributing to the latter.) The Year Of Intelligent Tigers is another strong one. neilisthebestdalek.blogspot.com/2026/02/doct...

#18: Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis. A cynical and funny skewering of academia. www.goodreads.com/review/show/...

#17: Asylum by Peter Darvill-Evans. Solid historical adventure featuring the Fourth Doctor and Nyssa, though arguably it doesn’t make the most of certain ideas. www.goodreads.com/review/show/...

Doctor Who: The BBC Books #92 – Asylum by Peter Darvill-Evans Doctor Who: The Past Doctor Adventures #42 Asylum By Peter Darvill-Evans In his afterword Peter Darvill-Evans says he has “ tried to write s...

Peter Darvill-Evans is back with Asylum (probably wishes he could call it Sanctuary), a gentle medieval murder mystery that arguably sleeps on some of its bigger ideas, like the companion and the SF plot. neilisthebestdalek.blogspot.com/2026/02/doct...

#16: Dying Of Politeness: by Geena Davis. A superb memoir, full of idiosyncrasy and charm. www.goodreads.com/review/show/...

#15: Eater Of Wasps by Trevor Baxendale. A grisly but perhaps too straightforward monster story in a quaint setting. www.goodreads.com/review/show/...

#14: Holes by Louis Sachar. Deservedly renowned children’s book, full of cleverness, beauty and grossness. www.goodreads.com/review/show/...

#13: The Shadow In The Glass by Stephen Cole and Justin Richards. An enjoyably paranoid thriller that graduates from quaint to bleak in the end. www.goodreads.com/review/show/...

Doctor Who: The BBC Books #91 – Eater Of Wasps by Trevor Baxendale Doctor Who: The Eighth Doctor Adventures #45 Eater of Wasps By Trevor Baxendale Yuck, obviously. We’re three novels deep with Trevor Baxenda...

This book contains jaunty village scenes, a chase sequence out of Mission: Impossible and wisdom such as: wasps. Do not eat. neilisthebestdalek.blogspot.com/2026/02/doct...

Doctor Who: The BBC Books #90 – The Shadow In The Glass by Stephen Cole & Justin Richards Doctor Who: The Past Doctor Adventures #41 The Shadow in the Glass By Justin Richards and Stephen Cole NB: I read the 2015 reprint for this,...

Paranoia and Nazis abound in The Shadow In The Glass. Somehow it is also a romp. neilisthebestdalek.blogspot.com/2026/02/doct...

Foolishly allowed my phone to update to the latest iOS. Whoever came up with Liquid Glass, I wish you a very “need to read an important safety label in a room full of smoke and your glasses are fogged up.”

Gareth's review of If I Never Met You 4/5: This is another terrific story from Mhairi McFarlane. The hook is solid enough to be worth a movie: after her long term relationship suddenly ends, Laurie agrees to a mutually beneficial fake re...

#12: If I Never Met You by Mhairi McFarlane. Terrific what-to-do-after-a-horrific-break-up story. As funny and gutting as her best. www.goodreads.com/review/show/...

Gareth's review of Doctor Who 3/5: The Doctor, Anji and Fitz arrive on a planet with an actual God in residence but, perhaps more pressingly, a lot of prejudice, terrorism and kidnapping going on as well. Vanishing Point is actio...

#11: Vanishing Point by Stephen Cole. Action heavy story with some big ideas. Emphasis is on the car chase side of things. www.goodreads.com/review/show/...

Doctor Who: The BBC Books #89 – Vanishing Point by Stephen Cole Doctor Who: The Eighth Doctor Adventures #44 Vanishing Point By Stephen Cole Now that we’ve all settled into the new normal for the EDAs we ...

Vanishing Point is an interesting (but could be more interesting) bit of god-adjacent sci-fi action. neilisthebestdalek.blogspot.com/2026/01/doct...

Gareth's review of The Great Gatsby 5/5: I feel a little like a philistine. This was my first time reading F. Scott Fitzgerald’s popular classic, and apparently I’ve made it up to now without knowing the plot of The Great Gatsby. Apart ...

#10: The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Pretty darn good. Who knew? www.goodreads.com/review/show/...

Gareth's review of Doctor Who 3/5: This one is infamous for its violent scenes, and rightly so as there are a lot of them, with a possessed rock band inciting murders everywhere they go. There’s an undercurrent of repressed class ...

#9: Rags by Mick Lewis. Not as grotesque or as unusual as its reputation, but still a fair bit of both. It’s well written but short on plot, and unsure at times how to be a Doctor Who story. www.goodreads.com/review/show/...

Doctor Who: The BBC Books #88 – Rags by Mick Lewis Doctor Who: The Past Doctor Adventures #40 Rags By Mick Lewis Duck and cover, everyone. I’m doing  Rags . Doctor Who  novels are a niche wit...

One of the more controversial… I guess?… Doctor Who novels, Rags. Is it too violent? Is it *okay* to be too violent? neilisthebestdalek.blogspot.com/2026/01/doct...

Gareth's review of Hollywood a Go-Go. The True Story of The Cannon Film Empire 2/5: Cannon Films are famous (more accurately infamous) for their slate of schlocky films including Missing In Action and Masters Of The Universe, and even more so for the fact of their eventual colla...

#8: Hollywood A-Go-Go: The True Story of the Cannon Film Empire by Andrew Yule. There’s a good amount of detail here, but too much snark and not enough about the movies (like Superman IV) or the people. And it doesn’t cover the end of the company. www.goodreads.com/review/show/...

Gareth's review of Doctor Who 4/5: Scriptwriter, adapter and BBC Books editor Jacqueline Rayner began writing novels with EarthWorld, a light-hearted romp about a Westworld-style theme park based on Earth history that (naturally) ...

#7: EarthWorld by Jacqueline Rayner. A very funny character piece for the (then) new TARDIS team. A good reset for Anji in particular. www.goodreads.com/review/show/...

Doctor Who: The BBC Books #87 – EarthWorld by Jacqueline Rayner Doctor Who: The Eighth Doctor Adventures #43 EarthWorld By Jacqueline Rayner The EDAs are back on track at last. Earth, shmearth! Now let’s ...

Jacqueline Rayner’s first novel, EarthWorld, is a hoot that launches a new TARDIS team. I am now sold on Anji. neilisthebestdalek.blogspot.com/2026/01/doct...

Gareth's review of The Wild Robot Protects (The Wild Robot, #3) 4/5: An environmental theme has peeked through the previous two Wild Robot books (after all they are set in a world post-environmental collapse) but The Wild Robot Protects is the first one to make it...

#6: The Wild Robot Protects. Another great story about Roz, this time leaning into the environmental theme. This is a terrific series. www.goodreads.com/review/show/...

Gareth's review of Doctor Who 4/5: An intense historical adventure about the Mongol invasion of Kiev in 1240, this has only a little extra sci-fi in the form of a shape-changing alien assassin, perhaps to pacify the bug-eyed monst...

#5: Bunker Soldiers by Martin Day. A grim but compelling piece of history. With a monster in it. www.goodreads.com/review/show/...

Doctor Who: The BBC Books #86 – Bunker Soldiers by Martin Day Doctor Who: The Past Doctor Adventures #39 Bunker Soldiers By Martin Day Following The King Of Terror we’re now seeing the other side of th...

You can’t change history - but you should probably still give it a go under certain circumstances tbh, as Martin Day demonstrates in the vivid Bunker Soldiers. neilisthebestdalek.blogspot.com/2026/01/doct...

Gareth's review of The Wild Robot Escapes 4/5: The second Wild Robot book is particularly welcome where they have yet to announce a follow-up to the movie. (Please make this one as well, it would be a good film.) In The Wild Robot Escapes we...

#4: The Wild Robot Escapes by Peter Brown. An excellent sequel. I hope the movie happens but this is quite spectacular enough if not. www.goodreads.com/review/show/...