Book review
Written by Justin Richards
BBC Books paperback
Release date 4 March 2010

Brainy Crisps – they do what they say on the packet. But what is their secret ingredient?

Going from infecting school chips to infecting potato crisps is a logical leap for the Krillitanes, last seen in the early 10th Doctor episode School Reunion, as they endeavour once more to use altered human brains for their calculations. Justin Richards drip feeds the revelations of their machinations through this short novel, keeping the reader adequately informed but still able to be admiring of the Doctor's genius.

Like the other Quick Reads, this has the air of a novelisation of a missing episode, but perhaps because a lot of this story is told as descriptive prose rather than through dialogue, there's a slightly stilted feel to it, as Richards accommodates his style to the restrictions of the range. To be fair, that's more apparent in the early stages as the Doctor is investigating the mystery than during the confrontations with the Krillitanes.

As with the 10th Doctor's appearance in the Sarah Jane Adventures, this is the Tennant incarnation done by the numbers, but this sort of "short sharp shot of adventure", as the back cover describes it, isn't the place for the navel-gazing of some of the recent Specials. Peter Quentin

VERDICT: 6/10
A fun, if slight, read.