36) Doctor Who: the Visual Dictionary, by Andrew Darling, Kerrie Dougherty, David John, Simon Beecroft, and Amy Junor.
Back in my day, we had to be satisfied with the almost-all-text The Making of Doctor Who. Kids these days can get this brilliant Dorling Kindersley illustrated book all about the Doctor, and featuring all the monsters from the first and second seasons, plus the Judoon (but nothing else from Season Three as far as I noticed). Perfect gift for the young Who fan; maybe also for the less young Who fan. (And one of the labelled components in the Tardis console room is the “mercury fluid link”!!!)
Interesting indeed!
I haven’t got my notes with me so I can’t actually remember which is which in terms of the short stories and novelettes – I read them a while ago. I liked Troika a lot, it’ll probably get my vote for novella. (I liked Software Objects all the way through but was disappointed by the ending; I wasn’t as keen on Troika for most of it, but was blown away by the ending.)
I couldn’t get into The Lady Who Plucked at all, and the same with Dervish House, actually – I think because both of them had writing styles that struck me as LOOK HOW FOREIGN WE ARE. Might have to look at my own language-related xenophobia there, I don’t know!
Novel-wise, I liked Cryoburn enough to make me go and read the entire Vorkosigan saga, so that’s pretty good. But in terms of quality, I think Feed has it for me. (My order would be Feed, Cryoburn, Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, Blackout, Dervish House.)