Enemies & Allies by Kevin J. Anderson
(A selection offered via the LibraryThing Early Reviewers program)

Let me start by warning of my bias: in the circles I frequent, Kevin J. Anderson has a reputation for mediocre prose and character sabotage.  So much so, that when I finished this novel and offered it around to a few local readers groups, no one was interested.  I requested the title in spite of myself, just to see what could be done with an old standby.  Unfortunately, I didn't get anything new, or even a new take on an old idea.

Doctor Who: The Nightmare of Black Island by Mike Tucker. When Rose and the TARDIS start having the same dreams about a shadowy welsh coastal town, Ten decides to touch down and investigate. What they find is a town plagued by nighttime monsters and a mysterious cabal who seem to be controlling the whole thing. A bit too predictable, but it is in keeping with the spirit of some old-school Who episodes, particularly those of Four.

Doctor Who: Stealers of Dreams by Steve Lyons. 

Jack makes an appearance in this Series 1 tie-in, becoming known as the 'armoured shark liar' on a world where fiction is outlawed. In an Orwellian colony world where reality television and news broadcasts are all the legal entertainment, a pirate station called Static begins to screw with the minds of loyal colonists, causing hallucinations that require drastic medical excision. As usual, it's up to the Doctor, Rose and Jack to save the day, even while they battle the mental ghosts themselves. A nice, if rather predictably didactic entry to the book series.

Torchwood: Slow Decay by Andy Lane.  While the story title, and the introductory subplot involve a strange alien communication device (akin to series 1's 'ghost machine'), the real focus of this tie-in is a sinister weight loss clinic that makes people deadly cannibals. Rhys and Gwen are once again having relationship problems (but when aren't they?) because of Gwen's involvement with Torchwood, and Rhys decides he could do to lose a bit of weight himself.. It's an extremely light and silly pulp entry to what little there is of the Torchwood canon, and it does fit with what I've seen of the series thus far, so I can't complain too much.

Doctor Who: Sting of the Zygons by Stephen Cole.   Martha gets a good deal more to do in this novel when she and The Doctor are transported back to the early days of motoring and 'dinosaurs' in the English countryside. Turns out that the Doctor's seen these sort of metal monsters before, and where they roam, the Zygons follow. A fun period romp.

 

Doctor Who: The Resurrection Casket by Justin Richards.
In yet another case of a series doing a tongue-in-cheek ripoff of a classic, The Resurrection Casket is basically Treasure Island in space, with extra crispy robotic villians. Ten and Rose find themselves stuck on a planet with a constant EMP, making TARDIS travel impossible, so must take the backing of an eccentric billionaire to seek the treasure of immortality in deep space. A good laugh, made better by not taking itself too seriously.

 

Doctor Who: Monsters Inside by Stephen Cole.  An earlier tie-in from the days of Nine and Rose, Monsters Inside revists one of Series 1's most famous body snatchers, now carrying on some dastardly deeds at a 'retro-themed' prison colony. The Doctor's corralled into a think-tank, while Rose does some hard juvie time behind bars. It's nice fun for those tweens who can't have high school happen soon enough, but it doesn't add much to the series mythology.

 

Torchwood: Border Princes by Dan Abnett. Abnett is no stranger to the tie-in market, and in Border Princes, he just barely pulls off a passable story that could work in almost any universe, which slightly diminishes its effectiveness. It's long been my rule in evaluating media tie-ins that a good novel should fit into the established continuity, approximate an average episode, and, if it's really stellar, elevate the mythology of the show. What Border Princes offers is a Dawn; Like in Season 5 of the Buffyverse, the book opens with a character called 'James' established and interacting with the Torchwood cast as if he'd always been there. A thin plot device involving an alien sudoku and Gwen leaving Rhys once again (her long-suffering live-in seems the collective punching bag for the show's writer's and the media authors) is strung along just adequately enough to keep the reader waiting for the other shoe to drop. Which it finally, and a bit anticlimactically does – I just have to wonder how Jack didn't see it coming.

Doctor Who : Forever Autumn by Mark Morris.  A pretty basic Halloweeny Who episode, this one features Tennant's Doctor in a small town pulled in by a very old evil. Blackwood Falls is the name of a village where everything is as Bradbury imagined childhood – except for the alien spaceship lurking under the ground whose workings follow a sort of Carrionite magic (“The Shakespeare Code”)

It's light, thoroughly PG-rated fun, with forgettable principles and Martha filling in mostly as background to The Doctor's antics.

The God Machine (Hellboy) by Thomas Sniegoski.  I picked this up on a whim via Bookmooch, after having read Sniegoski's wonderful collaborative series with Christopher Golden, The Menangerie, still not expecting an awful lot from a tie-in novel.  The good news is there's quite a lot to be pleasantly surprised by.  I count myself among the many casual Hellboy fans - I dig Mignola's art style and find the blend of humor, heroism, and arcane obscure references to literature hard to resist.  Even so, it had been awhile since I'd picked up even a B.P.R.D comic, and even longer since I'd read the start of the Hellboy saga.