Michael Holt

A lot of effort seems to have been put into this Doctor Who book that nobody needed or wanted.
A typical example of a stocking filler from 1983 for the booming Doctor Who franchise; and the popularity of Peter Davison's more friendly and approachable Doctor.

Premise: re-engineer a standard puzzle book containing optical illusions, matchstick tricks, and close-up magic; add the current characters from the fifth incarnation of the Doctor into the text:

"Nyssa had a trick. 'You'll like it, Tegan. Here is a fish made out of matchsticks''
'Fish sticks!' Chortled Tegan.
'Can you make it swim the other way - left or right? You can only move the eye - the broken-off match head - and three matches.'

There is one longer, 3 page mini story. An explanation of Houdini's sawing a woman in half trick with the Doctor and his companions in the audience, which throws in a short biography of the great man (for educational content).

The book is illustrated (with quick line drawings) and is 95 pages long.
Its a basic 'rainy day book'. If you already own it from your childhood - fair enough; but, I wouldn't go out looking for it to add to your collection unless you are obsessed with collecting everything on Doctor Who - even when it has nothing to do with Doctor Who. :/… (meer)

https://nwhyte.livejournal.com/3060478.html

A rather odd little book from 1982, featuring the Fifth Doctor, Nyssa and Tegan, woefully characterised and going on an exciting educational journey to learn about extinct animals and early humans. (Why Nyssa should have any interest in some other planet's prehistory or paleontology is not addressed.) The dinosaurs of the title occupy only the first eight pages of ninety or so. The author also wrote one of the less impressive of the 1985/6 game books. There are illustrations by Rowan Barnes-Murphy.… (meer)

http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/2274954.html

This is the only one of the books written by someone who didn't write for the TV series, though Holt did write several Doctor Who quiz books. The protagonist, again "you" but also named as "Chris", joins forces with the Doctor, Peri and (anachronistically) Turlough to prevent the villainous Garth Hadeez from destroying the Solar System. The writing is really excruciatingly badly pitched, with Peri and Turlough making horrible and inappropriate puns on every page, and characters routinely bursting into song (ie doggerel).

Which is a shame because the narrative structure is rather interesting - there are two different happy endings, one of which comes from a plot set entirely in 17th century Prague and the other on Mars and Phobos (though it turns out not to actually be Phobos as we know it) with also the option of time-slipping from Phobos to Prague for an epic story. There's also one number puzzle which is fair and actually plot-relevant. It's a shame that the originality of the path structure was not matched by appropriate restraint in the writing.… (meer)