Conundrum

While reading CONUNDRUM, I honestly couldn't tell who had the most fun -- the reader or the writer. Most of the jokes that Steve Lyons comes up with are of the type that instantly provides us with an image of the author racing through pulp and dime novels gleefully looking for conventions to subvert. One imagines that he also rewatched and reread several earlier Doctor Who adventures, as there are one or two knowing winks to standard formulas.What starts off as a relatively typical murder/mystery/vampire story (they're more common than you think), thankfully, becomes a much more bizarre tale. "Thankfully", because a) the original story isn't all the great to begin with and b) the tale that follows makes the beginning portions of the book much more interesting and (more importantly) funny in retrospect. The humor is very clever and is never anything less than charming. It makes the entire story engaging and engrossing. In many places the plot is secondary to the fun, but since it is undoubtedly effective, there's no problem with that.There's something about Steve Lyon's prose that I find really appealing. It's not especially poetic, but there is a certain flair to the writing. It has the quality that makes it appear to have been effortless to write; whether this is true, I don't have any way of knowing, but it's certainly effortless to read. The characters are all deliberately a bit vague and stereotypical, but this is obviously done on purpose and Lyons plays a lot with the audience expectations.One of the more enjoyable NAs in the series, CONUNDRUM has held up very well since its publication. A handful of later books would attempt a similar breaking down of the fourth wall, but none of them would be as entertaining. A great book, and one that kept me guessing all the way through.

Best Sequel The problem with writing a sequel to a classic, any classic, is that your work will be judged by the merits of the original. This story holds up well to "The Mind Robber" and in some ways surpasses it. At first it seems like a simple murder mystery in a small village called Arandale, but as events unfold it's clear there is alot more than meets the eye. The story has several different subplots, one for Ace, one for Benny and one where the Master(No not that one!) talks to the fellow who set up this big charade. That allows it to work like a TV story and helps give a clue as to what is really going on. When the Doctor finally reveals what is going on it virtually takes you by surprise. From there on it continues to change as fiction is replaced by reality. Highlights: The second look at the control center. The Dredlox(Once guess who they are supposed to be) The return of the two companions from the Doctor WHo Comic Strips The only low point I can think of is that Jamie and Zoe weren't represented, only mentioned. The potential for them to turn up and try to confuse the Sventh Doctor was there all along but never realized. All in all the best book in the Altered-Past Cycle