Review: Revenge of the Judoon 

Once again, the Quick Reads range of 100-page novellas aimed at reluctant readers boasts a Doctor Who entry - and this year it's Revenge of the Judoon, by Who legend Terrance Dicks, author of countless novelisations and original adventures.

As the title suggests, this particular tale features the return of the rhino-featured aliens from the television episode Smith and Jones. The TARDIS materialises in Balmoral at the start of the twentieth century, and when the Doctor and Martha discover that the Castle has disappeared, they instantly realise who's involved, and that they have to be stopped.

If you're expecting a thrilling rematch with an angry army of Judoon, this isn't it; it's set prior to the TV episode, and reveals little in the way of new information about the species. The story itself is close to being a re-tread of Smith and Jones, replacing bits and bobs from that tale with new characters and locations, but Dicks keeps things fresh enough for the novella to remain interesting.

The Judoon themselves are used very sparingly in the adventure, making only a brief physical appearance, their main involvement being acting as catalysts for the plot. This isn't a problem as such, but it's debatable whether it really counts as a "Revenge", and it seems likely that many of the casual readers this series hopes to attract will be disappointed.

Like recent episodes such as Tooth and Claw and The Shakespeare Code, Revenge of the Judoon could be termed a "celebrity historical", as it features cameos from King Edward VII, Arthur Conan Doyle and Robert Baden-Powell. However, with such a small number of pages, neither of these appearances feels signigicant, and it seems like Dicks has thrown together these elements at random rather than giving their use any sort of meaning or purpose.

Revenge of the Judoon is by no means a bad book, trotting along at a good pace and engaging the reader reasonably well, but cramming so much into such a short space has caused many of the story's best features to become incidental. This is a story that's huge fun, but deserves to be a bit longer.