Is there nothing more than this...?

Every now and then comes along a novel which so revitalises Doctor Who that the genre and the mythos seem fresh and invigorated and new and shiny, and we all feel able to look to the future of the franchise with some excitement and anticipation. Not every book could - or should - do this, of course. In between come the potboilers which, if executed well, are perfectly valid, so long as there is style in the storytelling, excitement in the action, humour in the prose... anything to keep the pages turning. The new second Doctor adventure Dying in the Sun strives hard to be such a solid instalment of a series - but is, sadly, one of the less inspiring examples.

There's little here that a half-attentive reader can't anticipate: it's set in Hollywood's "golden age", and about movies - so, obviously, it's structured into "reels". Some characters undergo changes of personality - so they'll have been subjected to some malign influence? Worst of all are the revelations as to the source and nature of the threat, which had me screaming "I know! This is a sci-fi series, for God's sake!" When the reader is checking boxes well before the author does, the intrinsic cosiness and predictability of Doctor Who's format have perhaps been stretched that little too far.

The text itself isn't wonderful either - on one early page, eight out of twelve consecutive sentences start with "he" followed by a verb. Such unimaginative stylistic clumsiness does die away, though, the regulars are accurately (and endearingly) depicted, and there are some evocative, disturbing and horrific images. Unfortunately, though, the Doctor and Ben in particular seem to swan through all this without ever being in any significant peril. There's no conviction to the events, no involvement or identification with our heroes... it's like seeing a predictable story from the wrong end of a powerful telescope. Or looking back at the history of the franchise with a feeling of having wasted one's time. Have we come so far, just for this?