Doctor Who: The Chimes of Midnight
by Robert Shearman (Big Finish, 2002)
A dark yet sometimes funny, perfectly paced bottle-episode audio adventure that starts in total darkness and slowly reveals its grim premise, dropping clues that are best appreciated in retrospect. Paul McGann takes total ownership. What a TV story this would have made!
Doctor Who: The Thief Who Stole Time
by Marc Platt (Big Finish, 2017)
A wildly imaginative audio drama that successfully sacrifices exposition for immersion (assuming it is meant to stand alone). While Tom Baker cruises and Lalla Ward adds depth to Romana, Sartia (Joannah Tincey) emerges as one of the audio series’ more endearing villains.
Doctor Who: The Age of Endurance
by Nick Wallace (Big Finish, 2016)
This First Doctor audio drama evokes something of Warriors’ Gate, and again shows Nick Wallace to be one of Doctor Who’s most effective and talented writers. The scenario intrigues and the alien Shift would be brilliant on TV (as they are here).
Three to Conquer
by Eric Frank Russell (Avalon, 1956)
Russell selectively breeds two SF storylines — alien body snatchers and telepathic outsider — to produce a memorable invasion tale, told in the manner of hardboiled detective fiction (itself melding lone wolf with FBI manhunt). Cited for possible adaptation during Doctor Who’s planning stages.
Doctor Who: Landbound
by Selim Ulug; audiobook read by Nicholas Briggs (Big Finish, 2017)
While exiled on Earth, the Third Doctor crosses paths with a grounded sea captain. After an uninspiring beginning—a rather forced set-to wherein the Doctor can display his Venusian aikido—this develops into an apposite, rather wistful vignette, cathartic for both characters.
Doctor Who: Fury From the Deep
by Victor Pemberton (Target, 1986)
Having opened on a well-staged cliffhanger, Pemberton proceeds with a workmanlike retelling of this lost serial, contented more or less to prosify his own script. Off-screen as on-, his only feat of note is the puckish metatextualising of Doctor Who’s screaming companion.
The Doctor Who Audio Annual
(BBC, 2017)
Presented in chronological order (First to Sixth Doctors) and read mostly by erstwhile companions, this collection of stories from the old Doctor Who Annuals has a nostalgic appeal, capturing the tone of each era. Little surprise though that the authors were uncredited.
Doctor Who: Legends of Ashildr
by James Goss, David Llewellyn, Jenny T. Colgan & Justin Richards (BBC, 2015)
A shameless, mostly unreadable cash-in. Of the four stories in this collection, only Colgan’s could claim anything like independent worth. In the other tales, Ashildr is either unrecognisable (Goss), superfluous (Llewellyn), or bland (Richards). Uninspiring narratives that fritter away Ashildr’s unique potential.
Doctor Who: Forever Fallen
by Joshua Wanisko; audiobook read by Nicholas Briggs (Big Finish, 2016)
A nicely low-key story exploring one of Doctor Who’s great untapped questions: what would happen if the villain just stopped when given the chance to rethink his megalomaniacal scheme? Between them, Wanisko and Briggs capture some of the Seventh Doctor’s melancholic brooding.
Doctor Who: Match of the Day
by Chris Boucher (BBC Books, 2005)
Anyone considering this novel should take note that its strength lies entirely in the journey, not the destination. Boucher, who created the companion Leela, develops her (and the Doctor) with charming authenticity, but the scenario nosedives into a rushed, barely coherent ending.