Craig Hinton (1964–2006)

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A sequel to The Time Monster, featuring the Sixth Doctor, Mel and the Ainley!Master, and a host of other references to other Who stories, the epitome of "fanwank" (a term Hinton himself invented). Actually rather good fun, which is impressive given how awful the original story is, with a high point being the splintering of the narrative into various potential parallel realities where the history of the universe has worked out differently. Hinton also show more does a good job of capturing the Sixth Doctor. The Home Secretary has the same name as a prominent Doctor Who fan, but when I checked with her she thought it must be coincidence (because she was not yet prominent when this was written). Above average, I would say. show less

In humanity's 10th millennium the Crystal Bucephalus is a technological marvel: a restaurant that transports its elite patrons back in time and space so as to allow them to dine in the most culinarily famous places in history. When the head of the galaxy's main criminal syndicate is assassinated while eating there, the Doctor, Tegan, and Turlough are wrenched from the past and accused as his murderers. As they are drawn into the investigation, they find themselves in the middle of a show more conspiracy involving the kidnapping of a religious leader, dueling temporal scientists, and the efforts of a megalomaniac to cheat death and take over the universe in one fell swoop.

I must confess that I approached this book with a degree of ambivalence, as the idea of reading a Doctor Who novel that was premised on a minor gimmick adapted from Douglas Adams wasn't appealing to me. Yet while the idea of time traveling diners is one that can seem excessively ridiculous, Craig Hinton uses it to build one of the most breathtakingly ambitious novels in the Virgin Missing Adventures series. Key to this is his integration of time travel into the plot, which instead of being employed simply to transport the Doctor and his companions to some exotic locale is used as the main driver of events. These unfold over the course of the book to reveal a story of impressive complexity, albeit one dependent on hiding key details until late in the book in order to maintain a sense of mystery. This is a minor complaint, though, when weighed against Hinton's success in providing a multilayered adventure that comes together in an exciting conclusion to rank as among the best Doctor Who novels that I have read so far. show less

Excelis Decays is rather looked down on by fandom, but I think it is one of Sylvester McCoy's best performances, matched once again by Anthony Stewart Head and also Ian Collier, Mark Gatiss and Penelope MacDonald (sadly not so much by Yee Jee Tso). The Excelis sequence has done well on portraying settings, and the totalitarian militarised society is utterly convincing, as is the Doctor's outrage at the situation and his bleak acceptance of the generally tragic ending to the story, and the show more wrap-up to the overall plot arc. Somehow it really grabbed me; I find McCoy as beak!Doctor compelling. show less

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I had been puzzling over the title of this Fifth Doctor novel since I first heard of it; what gadget could conceivably be made of crystal and also named for Alexander the Great's horse? As it transpires there is a double explanation: there is a crystal statue of the horse, which turns out to have extra powers, but also the statue is located in a restaurant named after it. Rather oddly the Doctor turns out to be the owner of both statue and show more restaurant. Lots of similarly wacky (or wackier) nomenclature in the book, not all of which completely gels, though enough does to keep one going; I loved the idea of the Lazarus Intent, a religion combining a garbled Christianity with the monsters of the Whoniverse, and am impressed that Hilton found something useful to do with Kamelion. show less