Wednesday 13 September 2017

Doctor Who: Myths and Legends by Richard Dinnick - Review





There've been several Doctor Who books in this mould lately - Time Lord Fairy Tales, The Twelve Doctors of Christmas - all beautifully presented and illustrated hardback books which look just gorgeous on the shelf and are equally enjoyable to read. I imagine the physical copy of Myths and Legends will be the same - hence it does lose something in the ebook format, but the stories themselves are equally fun to read.

There are fourteen stories here, subtitled "Epic Tales from Alien Worlds" and written by Richard Dinnick. While they clearly take place within the Doctor Who universe (there's an introduction by Chancellor Drakirid, Historian to the Bureau of Ancient Records on Gallifrey), the Doctor himself pops up only occasionally in different incarnations and is never named as such. There are plenty of familiar friends and enemies, though - including the Doctor's best frenemy in various guises! - and well known figures from Gallifreyan history.

The stories vary in length and tone, and the book is easy to dip in and out of.

Rather like the previous Time Lord Fairy Tales, a number of stories are clearly based on familiar tales - often this is obvious from the titles (e.g. Jorus and the Voganauts, The Vardon Horse). Quite a few also fit neatly into Time Lord history and fill in some gaps in interesting ways - the last one, Pandoric's Box, being particularly notable in this regard, with one particular much-missed face making an appearance.

All in all, despite the main man (soon to be woman!) being mainly absent, this was a fun read, and yes, I will probably buy the hardback....

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