Something every schoolboy knows is that when an alien race notices its home planet will imminently disintegrate, then that race will inevitably - regardless of the climatic conditions they prefer - decide that the already over-populated planet Earth will provide the ideal adopted home.

Well, if alien races didn't make such dubiously convenient decisions, Doctor Who would have been rather less fun during it's UNIT-centred days of the early 1970s. And if such alien races didn't also decide, deliciously, that the best way to usurp ownership of the planet Earth is to infiltrate village fetes, then stories like Last of the Gaderene would be a lot less fun as well.

The opening act of Mark Gatiss' latest work doesn't bode terribly well - it's too obvious not only that this is yet another pulpy take on alien invasion, but that it will utilise covert alien infiltration of Earth society, and Doctor Who history is already over-populated with such B-movie nonsense. And since we are asked to familiarise ourselves with an abundance of local residents while the Doctor experiences a half-formed - and apparently disconnected - sub-Doctor Who Annual adventure, the prospects don't look good.

Thankfully, this author seems to have no truck with such over-analytical concerns and concentrates on that most important word from one of my earlier paragraphs: fun. So, although the first quarter of the novel consists entirely of short teaser scenes, the UNIT party are fairly leisurely in their investigations and the staff of "Legion Incorporated" are so offensive and suspicious in their behaviour it's astonishing the Brigadier didn't decide to stuff his orders and blow them off the face of the planet anyway, the middle section is a delight. Not since Marvel Comics' fourth Doctor boarded a London bus with a furry Meep have the little England sensibilities of the show been displayed so overtly and entertainingly. One gets the impression, following his recent work for the audio medium, that Gatiss can keep turning out such entertaining - if undeniably rather forgettable - stories until forcibly stopped.

And it's a third Doctor story. Just in case you were still wondering.