Ah, yes, Transit. The book that caused the Great Fan Freakout of 1992.

When this thing was published a great pained howling arose from the fans, or at least from a few of the louder ones. You’d have thought that Ben Aaronovich had personally broken into their homes and relieved himself on their Target novels. Gary Russell wrote a mildly hysterical review in Doctor Who Magazine1 calling it, in addition to “convuluted [sic] and self-referential,” “the most purile, non-Doctor Who book it has ever been my misfortune to read.” And the letters pages were flat-out crazy. I’m embarassed to admit this, but at the time DWM actually dissuaded me from buying Transit. My book budget was limited as a teenager, and the magazine was my only contact with the collected wisdom [sic] of fandom, and I skipped several early NAs when the buzz wasn’t good. Not until I got on the internet and read the opinions of sane people did I go back to it.

I couldn’t figure out what everyone was so upset about. Continue reading Transit →

I never finished this review to my satisfaction, but here’s what I’ve got.

Doctor Who fans who’ve read Love and War probably remember it as the book in which Bernice Summerfield–the first series regular created just for the New Adventures–debuted, just as the Doctor’s partnership with Ace ended in an acrimonious break. (To recap: as part of an improvised plan to save a few million other lives, he’s taken advantage of the death of her lover. Ace seems to suspect that he deliberately engineered Jan’s death, or at least that he could have saved Jan but chose not to. I think some readers may have come to the same conclusion, as it takes close attention to work out what the Doctor knows and when he knows it. But more about that later. [Except I never finished this part.])

Continue reading Love and War →