TITLE

The Crooked World

Reactions to the cover for this one demonstrate the difference between Doctor Who fans and, well, normal people. When it was first released, fans were up in arms about how silly they would look buying it in bookshops, but it is the only EDA that Mrs C has ever (based on the cover) expressed an interest in reading. Humans!

AUTHOR

Steve Lyons

PREVIOUS FORM

for the defence: Conundrum (NA); Head Games (NA); Salvation (PDA); The Space Age (EDA); and for that matter The Completely Useless Encyclopedia

for the prosecution: Impressively, nothing. The Crooked World is, apparently, Steve Lyons' tenth Doctor Who novel, yet he rarely figures on people's lists of the top Who novelists. Why this should be is beyond me (Salvation is one of the finest books across all the ranges) but for solid, traditional, well-written, thought-provoking Who, look no further than this guy - arguably the Malcolm Hulke of the novels.

WHAT'S IT ALL ABOUT ALFIE?

To be fair, the cover is a bit misleading. I don't think the book reads as a story in which the regulars actually become cartoon figures in an animated world - rather they arrive on a real, three-dimensional world, but one which is modelled on the rules of animation as established by Warner Bros et al. The Doctor, Anji and Fitz arrive, and in doing so they introduce free will and individual thought to a world which has previously done very well without...

THE 100 WORD REVIEW

What could have been a disaster (ooh, Doctor Who meets cartoons!) is in fact a thoroughly enjoyable book. As with The Space Age, Steve Lyons gives us an apparently absurd setting, and then proceeds to make it real. The final explanation is a bit weak, and I will admit that the ending confused me (I had to get somebody to explain it to me) but these are fairly minor problems. Playing to Doctor Who's strengths, the author makes us care about a cast of animated stereotypes, and along the way explores such topics as freedom of choice and individual responsibility.

THE C WORD

Not too much, as it happens. The somewhat similar concept of a world based on fairy tales (Grimm Reality) is referred to, as is the theme park colony of Earthworld.

Poor Fitz (again!) has one of those doomed relationships that it seems only he can have. If you thought the parasitic attentions of Carmodi Litian in the previous book were bad, well that was nothing compared to this. Here Fitz meets up with beautiful pink-clad racer Angel Falls (in all but name, the perpetually imperilled Penelope Pitstop) and after a rather confused and confusing courtship, he finally gets her out of her racing suit, only to discover that... Or rather, not to discover... Erm, you see what happens is... Well, ahem... Look - you know how 'unfinished' Action Man is in the groin area - well, cartoon characters are similarly lacking. Apparently. Poor Fitz.

Somewhat tenuous, but the title of this book lent its name to one of the forums on the Planet Skaro website - namely the one for things that are Random and Silly. That seems about right...

I - AM - THE - DOCTOR!

Steve Lyons has him spot on here - the Doctor is the first to realise what their arrival on this planet has done; and he instantly accepts responsibility for it. When they could very easily leave in the TARDIS, he instead insists that they should remain to help the inhabitants of the Crooked World come to terms with their new-found individuality. And he never treats them as anything less than real people; in one of this Doctor's finest moments, he acts as defence counsel for Jasper the cat (whose killing of Squeak the mouse is one of the most shocking moments ever in Doctor Who).

Anyone left with any lingering doubts about the quality of Steve Lyons' work need look no further than page 49, where he pins down the Doctor so beautifully: "It was sometimes easy to forget that the Doctor had lived many lives, seen many worlds and years, fought in many wars and borne many scars. He had forgotten so much himself, and he still approached the universe with a childlike enthusiasm. But then there were the other times, when Fitz looked into the infinite depths of his eyes and was sure that he could see every moment of experience, every piece of wisdom learned and every fragile mortal friend that this lonely wanderer had ever loved and been torn from by time."

What can I add to that?

MONEY IN THE BANK ZILDA!

This Book: Another Christmas, another present... I got this book last December, from Mrs C. So that's yet another whopping £5.99 saved - if I was an inhabitant of the Crooked World, I'd have pound signs flashing in my eyes at this point!

Running Score: £77.55 against RRP to date.