Book reviews
Written by Trevor Baxendale (Prisoner of the Daleks); Simon Guerrier (The Slitheen Excursion); Colin Brake (Judgement of the Judoon)
BBC Books hardback
Release date Out now

The Doctor faces some classic monster adversaries…

There’s always something quite exciting when old monsters are dusted down to do battle with the Doctor once again, and the current batch of titles do just that.

Trevor Baxendale’s Prisoner of the Daleks has the Doctor taking on a Dalek Empire after skipping a time track and winding up in a universe where the Daleks still exist in formidable numbers. He is eventually captured and taken before Dalek X to be tortured!

There is something very old fashioned about this tale. The Daleks' crazy plan to take over the universe feels typically Terry Nation-ish in tone, with the villains ‘speaking’ on the page in the classic TV21 font. There’s no Davros and the Nazi allusions run thick and fast.

Baxendale is clearly less interested in his human characters. They are all fairly stereotypical, which is not to say that they don’t suit this story perfectly. In fact, you can’t help but feel that is exactly what Terry Nation himself would have done.

Slightly less popular monsters, the Slitheen, return in The Slitheen Excursion, which places these farting monstrosities in ancient Greece. It’s easy to forget that the Tenth Doctor has never actually encountered them before. Here, they’ve set themselves up as time travel tour operators in this bright and throwaway tale.

Guerrier has fun with the period setting and has clearly done a lot of research to create a convincing historical setting. The Doctor’s companion for the story, a university student called June, is fine as a one-off and, of the books in this batch, this feels closest to an actual TV special.

The Judoon, not strictly speaking an old 'enemy’ are, unsurprisingly, the focus of Judgement of the Judoon, and it’s a fantastic yarn. A detective story that features the Doctor teaming up with a law-obsessed Judoon Commander and a human sidekick ought to be very funny indeed, and thankfully Brake’s up to the task.

But as well as the obvious humour, he finds really strong emotional character beats in the relationship between the three protagonists, and, while the actual mystery is rather weak, this is a warm, pleasing entry in a very good month for Doctor Who novels. Jonathan Wilkins

VERDICT
Prisoner of the Daleks: 9/10
The Slitheen Excursion: 8/10
Judgement of the Judoon: 8/10