Signature Recognition

The latest Doctor Who Magazine has a very pleasing review by Matt Michael of Short Trips: Time Signature. I've been ambivalent about a previous review of Matt's, but this one lavishes Simon's anthology with well-deserved praise.

My favourite sentences are, predictably, these two:

"The Ruins of Time" by Philip Purser-Hallard has the First Doctor and his companions materialise on the planet Torcaldi, where time can be stolen as though it's a commodity, leaving burgled individuals frozen eternally. Purser-Hallard skilfully evokes the atmosphere of the early Hartnell episodes, where each new world is a dangerous and mysterious environment, and the result is quietly masterful.

Let's just read that last bit again, shall we?

...and the result is quietly masterful.

Yes, lets.

Matt is equally fulsome about some other stories in the collection, notably Ben Aaronivitch's "Gone Fishing", Jonathan Clements' "Second Contact" and Joff Brown's "Walking City Blues", all of which I too thought were excellent.

In the same issue Vanessa Bishop is also very positive about Collected Works, although at less length and with no direct mention of my quiet masterfulness. She seems to have liked the Quire, though.