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Friday, July 4, 2014

Doctor Who Time Trips: Keeping Up With the Joneses by Nick Harkaway and Salt of the Earth by Trudi Canavan

I tackled two more Doctor Who Time Trips shorts in between my recent reads!

In Nick Harkaway's "Keeping Up With the Joneses" Doctor number ten (that's David Tennant's doctor) lands in what seems to be Jonestown, Wales. But the landing and arriving are quite bizarre. One minute he's in the TARDIS, which seems to have undergone some damage, and the next he's lounging in a B&B. There's something more strange than usual about this little town, too, the least of which is the fact that Christina de Souza (Planet of the Dead) runs the B&B.

This one was a fun concept - one I think I'd love to see as an actual episode! (Seeing more rooms in the TARDIS is always appealing.)

I'll admit I had to look up Christina de Souza - my memory is simply too Swiss cheese to have recalled that episode all on my own. It does make a scene later in the story that much more amusing, though, having realized who she is. 

Rating: 4/5

Trudi Canavan is the fourth author in the Time Trips series, bringing Doctor number three (Jon Pertwee) and his companion Jo Grant back for this particular adventure. 

The Doctor promised Jo a trip to the beach, but she didn't expect a salt lake in Australia. The year is 2028 and folks in the area have been going missing for some time. Sunny believes it's the "bad salt" but until the Doctor arrives no one really listens to her concerns. It helps that the Doctor and Jo both witness a strange statue of a man crumbling in the wind shortly after their arrival. 

This one might just be my favorite so far. I'm not sure exactly why - the setting, the premise, the characters... I've never actually seen Jon Pertwee's Doctor but the interplay between him and Jo here was a lot of fun. 

Rating: 5/5

Doctor Who returns in August and I can't wait! These Time Trips certainly help make the break between seasons (and Doctors) a bit more bearable. 

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