When I first saw Masque of Mandragora twenty-plus years ago, I have to admit the resolution of the story confused me a bit. Part of it was the week before I hadn’t set my tape long enough and I’d underrun taping Seeds of Doom so I was suddenly vitally aware that Doctor Who stories could run up to six-parts and was always on the look out for the next six-part story. (This was pre-Internet and before I’d found my copy of The Programme Guide).

So, I have to admit as I watched episode four and the scene shifted to Mandragora consuming the moon, I figured we were in for another six-part story because I had no idea how the Doctor could disperse the Helix energy and defeat the cult in just six minutes. I watched it all unfold and when it wrapped up with the Doctor revealing he’d taken Hironymous’s place, I was a bit confused. But I was much younger than I am now and figured I’d just missed something.

Twenty years later, I’m still looking for that something.

Watching Masque again, I’m always impressed by how good the first three episodes are, but how rushed and disappointing the final episode turns out to be. The story is an interesting blend of historical drama with sci-fi elements. It’s at its best when concentrating on the period elements, especially the court drama of Guiliani and his uncle. The struggle for power and the back and forth is nicely done over the course of the first three episodes. As usual, Doctor Who shines when its re-creating an historical period.

The elements that don’t work are the Helix energy’s plan and why it’s chosen this time in history. The script tries to give us some idea as to why this time and place were chosen, but it never seems authentic. It feels almost forced at times and like the writing staff couldn’t find a good way to tie this whole thing together, so here’s the best explanation we could come up with. And from a script editor of Robert Holmes’ calibre, this gaping plot hole is too huge to overlook.

Also, the fourth episode makes little sense in how the energy is defeated. The Doctor uses some wire to do… what exactly? He uses the armor because…? He defeats Hironymous how exactly? And then the final scene with the energy… huh?

Like I said, a shame really. Because before all of this, the story was quite good.

It’s interesting to see Masque as the start to what is (arguably) one of the greatest seasons in Who’s run and probably the greatest season by this production staff. The show is finding a stride here and it’s obvious in Mandragora. Looking back, this is the start of a ramp-up to greatness the show will experience in the later stages of the season. It’s not a stumble, but you can see the show slowly getting up to speed.

So, taken for what it’s worth Masque is good but not great. It’s worth seeing and it’s got the production crew working like a well-oiled machine. It’s just the script itself that is lacking…

“The Double Bind” is one of those books that it’s almost impossible to talk about the novel without giving away the end. I went into the story blind, not knowing much about the story and I’m glad I had no idea what was coming. The twists and revelations of the final fifty pages of this book are some of the best I’ve seen in a novel in quite some time.

And since I read a lot, that’s really saying something.

Laurel is in her sophomore year at college when she goes out for a bicycle ride one Sunday afternoon. Two men in a van pull up and attack her. Laurel is able to avert the assualt by clinging to her bicycle and the fact that her attackers can’t get her feet out of her clipped in shoes.

But the attack leaves it marks on Laurel. Seven years later, she still has deep-seated issues, stemming from the attack. She works as an advocate for the homeless. In her work, she encounters a man who leaves behind a box of photos and negatives upon his death. Laurel is asked to look into them, thus beginning a spiral into obsession with the photos and the life of the photographer.

Chris Bojulan ties in one of his favorite novels, “The Great Gatsby” to the story, incorporating characters and elements from the American classic into his story.

After reading “The Double Bind”, I almost wanted to pick up Gatsy and read it again. Which is a great tribute to how well Bojulan writes because I was not a huge fan of Gatsby when I read it for English lit many, many moons ago.

The novel is a fascinating portrayal of obsession as Laurel slowly becomes more and more caught up in a desparate quest to find the truth. Where this investigation leads her—well, that’s the joy of the novel. And something I can’t and won’t ruin for you her.

But trust me, it’s a great twist and a superlative ending. The thing is—the story leading up to it is so good and engrossing that the great ending is only icing on the cake.

At this point, it’d almost be easy for Stephen King to go on auto-pilot, turn out a thriller and sit back and collect the huge checks. But yet, King has never seemed content to do that. Instead, he challenges himself as a writer and his readers with each new offering.

And ever since Bag of Bones, King has elevated his writing to another level.

As is the case here with Lisey’s Story.

Lisey Landon is the widow of prolific and successful writer, Scott Landon. Scott passed on two years before as the story begins. The story concerns an obsessed fan who wants Scott’s unpublished writings donated to a university and his attacks upon Lisey to make this happen. The story is told in typical King style with flashbacks to the days of Scott and Lisey’s lives and the events that shaped them. It’s almost like an episode of Lost, in a way.

Of course, this being a King book, some bad stuff has to happen to ordinary people and we see how they react to it. King’s story of Lisey Landon (and make no mistake, it is her story) is superbly told. Lisey feels authentic and you can feel her sorrow, grief and pain as she misses her husband. It’s the story of a life together and it’s told in King’s usual compulsively readable style.

Lisey’s Story stands alongside The Stand, It and Bag of Bones as classic King.

If you’ve seen “It’s a Wonderful Life” you’ve basically seen this one—well, minus a few fart gags and dogs humping things.

Adam Sandler is an overworked guy, trying to get ahead in the world. One night at Bed, Bath and Beyond, Christopher Walken gives him a universal remote that controls the universe. Sandler soon finds he can go back to any chapter of his life, as long as he was there. He can also fast-forward through the boring parts, which he does.

There is a catch. The remote learns what Sandler does and begins to work on its own. Soon, Sandler has fast forwarded through all of his life and missed the really important things.

Click has a few laughs, most of which we saw in the trailers. It’s predictable in a good way and Sandler does a decent job. But overall, it’s not great and while the ending is sappy and sentimental, it wrings hollow.

Here’s the thing—if you’re going to make a parody of all those bad romantic comedies out there, you should at least be, oh I don’t know, funny.

This movie wasn’t.

Don’t waste your time.

Season two of Buffy is, without a doubt, a masterpiece.

Cate Fante’s career is on the rise. As Dirty Blonde opens, Cate has just been appointed a federal judge. She has a great career, the great house, all the trappings of success. But Cate also has a little secret—she likes to stop in seedy bars, pick up random men and find the nearest hotel for a little bit of adult fun.

Six months later, Cate is the federal judge on an intellectual property right’s case about the hit drama Attorneys@Law. The defendent, Richard Martz is suing big Hollywood producer Art Simone for allegedly stealing the idea, character and concepts for the show. Cate reluctantly has to dismiss the case, but not before giving Simone her two cents on who he is and what he did. Martz doesn’t take the news well and before you know it, Simone is dead, Martz is the prime suspect and it looks like Cate could be next on the list for revenge.

That is only the beginning of Cate’s string of bad luck. Her proclivities come to light, her life is in danger, her best-friend is in danger and her love life is crashing down around her. Add in findng out a secret about her father from the past and you’ve got a lot happening to Cate in the course of just a couple of days.

While Lisa Scottoline is able to keep the pages breathlessly turning with one twist or big development after the next, this is a novel that is long on plot, short on character. Instead of really getting at why Cate picks up men for random sex but rejects a suitor who pampers her and declares his love for her, Dirty Blonde instead goes for more action and more twist and turns along the way. Sure, the pages turn, but at the end of the novel, I was left wanting more character exploration of Cate and what made her tick.

This problem extends to every other character in the book as well. Character traits and developments come fast and furious, serving little more purpose than to be yet another red herring or blind alley for the story to follow. That is, until we reach the inevitable unmasking of the person behind all of this—a twist that is trying so hard to be a twist, that it’s not convincingly set up. There is no foundation laid for it early in the story and it just doesn’t make a whole lot of sense when you give it any kind of scrutiny.

Keith Donohue’s debut novel The Stolen Child has generated a lot of praise and interest in the publishing community. After hearing the near unanimous praise for the novel, I was intrigued enough to pick it up and give it a try myself.

And was pleasantly surprised by the story.

The Stolen Child is a fairy tale for adults about two boys, both kidnapped by hobgoblins. The hobgoblins will target and kidnap a child, taking him or her into their community (think the Lost Boys from Peter Pan) who live in the woods, never again but awaiting their chance to be re-introduced to our world. When Henry Day is taken, another hobgoblin morphs himself to look like Henry and takes his place. The story then unfolds from the first-person perspective of both Henry Days as they struggle to find their way back into their respective societies and families.

As their stories unfold, the lives of the two Henry Days slowly begin to intersect.

One of the fascinating things about the novel is the back and forth structure of the narrative. Each chapter is told by one of the two Henry Days, relating the events of his life to that point. Even without the visual clue of the hobgoblin taken Henry’s chapters having an image of the forest before each chapter begins, Donahue distinguishes each character by his voice.

The novel is a good one, along the lines of the Time Traveller’s Wife where a sci-fi or fantasy element is used more as a spring-board for the greater human-element to the story than actually exploring the fantasy implications. Donahue’s story is one that will hit home and tug on the heart strings at times, all while having you on the edge of your seat at others. It’s an entertaining, worthwhile, complex and fascinating fantasy story that I highly recommend.

It’s only fitting that Lance Parkin, the first author to bring the eight Doctor to the printed page be the author who writes the coda to the eighth Doctor’s era. (Well, at least in print)

And with the sheer number of dangling plot threads from the BBC’s run of publishing on-going Doctor Who novels, the fact that the story is comprehensible in any way is nothing short of a miracle. Parkin has a lot of weight to life in this novel and he does it fairly well. But while the book is good, it still falls short.

One thing that really pushed me away from the BBC book line was the need in just about every book I picked up by the author to have some kind of homage to the classic show and some kind of running commentary on the fandom. Oh look, we’ve arrived on a world where everyone watches a show that is exactly like Dr Who. In The Gallifrey Chronicles Parkin at least tries to play with this assumption a bit, by having a character who has written down the entire history of Gallifrey in fictional form. It turns out to be essential to the plot in the later stages of the book but is it really worth it? Is it as clever as Parkin wants it to be?

The answer: not really.

Also, if you’re looking for a satisfying wrap-up of all the threads of the BBC books and tying them to the new series, you’re going to have to keep looking. We don’t see the regeneration happen in the novel but instead leave the door open to more future eighth Doctor novels. In a way, it opens the door to the books leading into the Big Finish continuity.

It the end, it’s not as satisfying an end of an era as it could have or should have been

Seeing the title of this story, you might be lead to believe this is a racy romance novel. It’s not.

Instead, the title refers to one hot summer in the life of Berry Jackson in Pinetta, Florida. Berry is entering her teens and the summers is unusually hot—both weatherwise and in the small town. The town is rocked by the scandal of a minister admitting an affair with a married woman, a hurricane and then her father (the school principle) apparently running off with an 18-year old girl who is being abused by her family.

While the first-person persepctive of Berry is well done and brings about comparisons to Scout from To Kill A Mockingbird, this story is no where near as rich or complex. I figured out the central twist of the novel very early on and while I was interested in the struggles of Berry’s family dynamic and her relationship with those around her, it wasn’t enough to sustain the interest for a long period of time. The clues to piece together what’s really going on behind the gossip in the small town are a bit too easy and too obvious and the overall book suffers as a result.