A Bouquet, that is what it has. A beautiful bountiful ripe smelling bouquet quite unlike any other. That is what Paris has. Except after a heavy rainfall then it smells a bit like a drain. Unlike this adaption of Douglas Adams/David Fisher Doctor Who script the City of Death Which quite frankly comes up smelling of roses. Most writers would have felt daunted by the very notion of expanding on such a highly regarded and much cherished piece of work which all these years after its original transmission remains high on so many all time great lists. James Goss seems to have just embraced the terror of the notion and manfully revisited this diamond in the rough, paring at its surface, re-buffering the edges,creating a finish smooth enough to see our own grinning faces in . We are smiling as we read, reminded of halcyon days when two naughty time-lords traipsed through time and space armed only with their vast intelligence and wit and a sartorial eloquence that made their enemies almost expire under the weight of their own ennui. The Doctor and Romana, Tom and Lalla. Some people talk about the season this story took place in as something of a table wine at the feast, that old seventy nine. I would disagree, it tastes so much better than that, it being so much more play full on the palate, Impish but not sweet. I think if this wonderful season had ended as intended with the never completed story SHADA the whole era would be remembered with kinder eyes. It too resurfaced as a reworked novel version by Gareth Roberts(who by al accounts loved this period in Who history.) and a very wittily and fantastically performed reimagined version with Paul McGann and Lalla Ward for Big Finish.
You know I can remember the days when the novelisations of episodes was the closest one could get to reliving adventures again and again( whilst the rest of the world seemed to be out in the sun playing football....ah, those were the days.Poor pale old me...)This book seems so much more as James Goss grasps that lovingly seat of the pants created script and runs giddily through the streets of 1979 Paris dragging all who read the novel with him. It is so well written that I know after a couple of rereads I will be remembering his version as the televised version I watched on our families old black and white set. We did eventually got a colour television and I can truthfully say I never saw a bluer blue than the solid blue of the Tardis. It is still the colour of home to me.
Your bookshelf cheerily awaits a copy of this book.
