Author: Rita Aguilar

Spacejack is the first of three YA novels by Terrance Dicks under the Star Quest umbrella. The novels feature three cousins Anna from Sweden, Jan from America and Kevin from England. The other books in the series are Roboworld (see review here) and Terrorsaur.

The three protagonists of the novel are familiar archetypes; the aggressive American Jan, the conservative intellectual from England Kevin and the demur Swede Anna. The novel is straightforward space opera with the three cousins getting involved with two warring alien factions at Stonehenge. Jan and Kevin get abducted by the evil Kaldor race while Anna is with the benevolent League of Sentient Life Forms. Dicks’ fast paced prose style brings them together at the conclusion of the novel. A time jump strands the kids leaving them in space for the next two novels. If you like Dicks’ Target Doctor Who novelizations you will like this 7 out of 10.

Josephine and the Argonauts is the fourth book in the Puffin Classics Crossover series of Doctor Who novels. This volume by Paul Magrs features the Third Doctor and Jo Grant with a cameo by the Brigadier and UNIT.

I am in a minority I quite like the Third Doctor but prefer the seventh and eleventh seasons.. I do not like the character of the master in any of his incarnations and Jo Grant is not a favorite companion. The novel attempts to make Jo an intelligent confident women who can take charge of a situation and lead a group of classic heroes. Jo’s strength was her humanity and compassion and not the characterization in this book. It just didn’t ring true. The book was well written and a smooth easy read by a prolific author. The Doctor takes a backseat to Jo for most of the novel. The appearance of the Master was expected and served the purpose as protagonist. 6 out of 10.

Terraqueous Distributors has been producing these unofficial annuals for several years now filling in the gaps missing from the original run of World Distributors annuals. This edition is the 1997 annual which would have followed the Paul McGann Eighth Doctor TV Movie. I suggest you follow Terraqueous on FaceBook and pick these up as they come out as they can be very expensive after initial publication.

There is a variety of text information pieces, short fiction, comics and artwork

These annuals are a great addition to any Doctor Who collection. Previous editions have featured the Third, Sixth and Seventh Doctors all in the same format. Featured companions in this edition are Stacy Townsend and The Ice Warrior Ssard. Stacy and Ssard were originally in the comic strips published in Radio Times and later appeared in the novel Placebo Effect. I very much like these little used companions and enjoyed their continued adventures here. As with any anthology the quality of the stories can vary but these were overall very good especially for a non-professional book, a very solid 8 out of 10.