Stuart Douglas (1)

The only thing with more random possibilities than a Doctor Who anthology is an Iris Wildthyme one. That's primarily thanks to the gin. For those who enjoy the transtemporal adventuress extraordinaire and her adventures on her bus that's smaller on the inside, there's nothing better than this. And though I'd never encountered the character of Panda before, I'm now a devoted fan. The book's start is a little rough-- "A Gamble with Wildthyme" by Steve Lyons is cute at best, "Sovereign" by Mags show more L Halliday never comes together, and "The Unhappy Medium" by Mark Wright and Cavan Scott is one joke stretched out beyond its breaking point, and it's an old joke at that-- but the book begins to sparkle with Stuart Douglas's "Future Legend", it shakes the sides with Philip Purser-Hallard's "Battleship Anathema" (guess what show's being parodied), and blows the mind with Cody Schell's "Iris Wildthyme y Señor Cientocinco contra Los Monstruos del Fiesta" (his first publication, the jerkface). And none of the stories are particularly bad, or even remotely bad, aside from Steven Wickham's "Not a Drop", which is a stretched-out joke that's old and unfunny. I also have to give my kudos to Steven Cole's "Only Living Girls", a suitably unsettling note on which to end a fantastic collection. show less

Unlike its parent series, Doctor Who, I don't know if Faction Paradox is very well suited for the short story format. At its best, Faction Paradox is weird and abstruse... and that can be demanding and unrewarding in a short story anthology, where as soon as you figure out what's going on, you're on to the next story. This is not light bedtime reading. But I'm very glad this book exists, and I very much look forward to reading the new Faction Paradox novels.

The last volume of the first year of Obverse Quarterly gives us a selection of stories about Monsieur Zenith, a supervillain who is apparently the archnemesis of Sexton Blake, a detective character I'd never heard of before, but was apparently continuously published from 1893 to 1978. Unfortunately, whatever appeal exists in the character of Monsieur Zenith is not really brought out by this collection, which mostly seems to depend on one's preexisting interest, I think.

"The Blood of Our show more Land" by Mark Hodder is the best of these, showing Zenith executing a heist that gets very complicated, very quickly-- though there are time it's a little rough, it displays why one might be interested in Zenith and his exploits. Michael Moorcock's "Curaré" is all right, but it's not really a Zenith story and more a story in which Zenith happens to appear; the focus is on the improbably named Seaton Begg and his delightful associate Yvette.

Weirdly, there are two stories that most serve to introduce a new nemesis for Zenith, George Mann's "The Albino's Shadow" and Stuart Douglas's "Zenith's End!" both end with Zenith getting a new lease on life by having a new good guy to fight. This makes neither particularly interesting as standalone pieces, especially as Mann's is a very weak story: basically Zenith threatens the Prime Minister, the protagonist asks people about him, the protagonist follows Zenith's henchman, Zenith decides that such skills will make him a delightful opponent. Skills? What skills?

There's also Paul Magrs's "All the Many Rooms," which again is not a Zenith story, but just a story Zenith is in, but even worse, is a complete jumble and total nonsense. show less

Book 1