( 16) Doctor Who - Warriors of the Deep, by Terrance Dicks )
( 17) Doctor Who - The Awakening, by Eric Pringle )
( 18) Doctor Who - Frontios, by Christopher H. Bidmead )
( 19) Doctor Who - Resurrection of the Daleks, by Paul Scoones )
( 20) Doctor Who - Planet of Fire, by Peter Grimwade )

( Tegan )

( Turlough )

And, since I read Terrance Dicks' rather flat adaptation of The Caves of Androzani a year ago, that takes me to the end of the Fifth Doctor's run as well. My two polls on the best and worst stories of each Doctor's era (full analysis coming soon) were pretty emphatic in their choices here, and I agree with the conventional wisdom: The Caves of Androzani was the best, and Time Flight the worst. The others that I enjoyed were Castrovalva, The Visitation, Snakedance, Enlightenment and The Five Doctors (though the last much more for the nostalgia value than for any artistic merit). But the lows were much lower than for any previous Doctor. Time Flight has particularly poor production values and plotting, but it just happens to be the worst of a generally poor bunch. If I had to sum it up, I would say that this was when Doctor Who started to look cheap rather than magical.

( more on the Fifth Doctor )

Previous summary posts: the Fourth Doctor, Third Doctor novels, Second Doctor novels, First Doctor novels, the first three Doctors on screen.

Well, this week my commuting reading has been the eight novelisations of stories featuring Lalla Ward as the second incarnation of Romanadvoratrelundar. As so often, a somewhat mixed bag.

( 25) Doctor Who and the Destiny of the Daleks, by Terrance Dicks - standard stuff )
( Doctor Who and the City of Death, by David Lawrence - not a review )
( 26) Doctor Who and the Creature from the Pit, by David Fisher - fun )
( 27) Doctor Who and the Nightmare of Eden, by Terrance Dicks - surprisingly good )
( 28) Doctor Who and the Horns of Nimon, by Terrance Dicks - unexciting )
( 29) Doctor Who and Shada, by Paul Scoones - another missing novel from New Zealand )
( 30) Doctor Who - Meglos, by Terrance Dicks - an improvement )
( 31) Doctor Who - Full Circle, by Andrew Smith )
( 32) Doctor Who and Warrior's Gate, by John Lydecker )

So, in summary, Doctor Who and Warrior's Gate, Doctor Who and the Nightmare of Eden, and the two David Fisher books are the ones to look out for from the Romana II set. She herself comes over rather better as a character than Romana I - I think partly because Terrance Dicks wrote relatively fewer of these novelisations, and did them relatively better. Certainly the character arc of her reluctance to return to Gallifrey is well conveyed in the later books, and her banter with the Doctor reads cutely in most of the earlier ones. Though it is a bit irritating that Dicks likes to describe her as "small" - compared to Zoe she is a giant, surely?

Right, only two more Fourth Doctor books left; but they will have to wait until next week.

I wrote up both Doctor Who and the Deadly Assassin and the Leela novelisations some time back, and Doctor Who and the Ribos Operation is one of the Ian Marter novels, so that brings me to the rest of the Season 16 Key To Time sequence. The first of these is an unofficial fan novelisation; the other four are by the inevitable Terrance Dicks. None of them, I'm afraid, is particularly outstanding.

( 16) Doctor Who and the Pirate Planet, by David Bishop with Paul Scoones - the one with the robot parrot )
( 17) Doctor Who and the Stones of Blood, by Terrance Dicks - the one with the maneating megaliths )
( 18) Doctor Who and the Androids of Tara, by Terrance Dicks - the one that is a ripoff of The Prisoner of Zenda )
( 19) Doctor Who and the Power of Kroll, by Terrance Dicks - the one with the unconvincing giant squid )
( 20) Doctor Who and the Armageddon Factor, by Terrance Dicks )

The biggest disappointment of this run is that Mary Tamm's elegant, smart Romana doesn't come across as especially interesting on the printed page. This is no doubt due to a combination of factors - the general phenomenon where the brainy companions seem to come across less well in novelisations than the screamy ones, the fact that we're now in the period when Terrance Dicks was churning the books out at a rate of one a month or so, and perhaps the very visual presence of Mary Tamm - it seems to me a bigger contrast between impact on screen and on paper than for any character since the First Doctor.

Anyway, on to Romana II now. (And I am past the two-thirds mark for this insane project.)