‘You’re taking us to see the Vikings?’ asked Jo incredulously.
‘I know! Wonderful, isn’t it?’ said the Doctor with a grin.
For the first time this year, I am actually up to date with book-blogging. And you can’t be much more up to date than this; The Spear of Destiny was only published today, so I could hardly have written it up any sooner. The Doctor and Jo, somewhere in Season 10, are asked to investigate mysterious happenings around a spear held in a private museum, and go back to Sweden in the year 141 to find out what’s going on and to discover exactly which bearded villain is behind it all. It’s a bit reminiscent of The Time Monster, but a bit lighter (apart from the iconography of the Spear of Destiny, which is actually rather heavy stuff). Sedgwick doesn’t quite capture the TV Third Doctor, but then neither does Terrance Dicks if we’re honest, and if this wee book is a gateway to a new generation discovering that era of the show, it’s fine with me.
I’m an Ian Rankin fan (to the point where my other favourite crime writer, John Connolly, knows me as the Ian Rankin obsessive), and Doors Open is his weakest book, possibly even counting the early ones published under other names. Though that still makes it an above average effort, I’d not prioritise it.