Doctor Who: All-Consuming Fire

Andy Lane
Virgin Books

Landing in Victorian London, the TARDIS crew is surprised to meet up with Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson.

And so we arrive at the single geekiest thing in the known universe. A meeting between the Seventh Doctor (along with Ace and Bernice Summerfield) teams up with Sherlock Holmes and John Watson to combat the agents of H.P. Lovecraft’s elder gods.

The two groups come together over a set of missing books from the Vatican’s secret library of banned books, The Library of St. John the Beheaded.

Thanks to Mycroft and the Diogenes Club (via a cameo from the Third Doctor, a mention of Kim Newman’s Charles Beauregard character and an even elder Holmes brother and an alien of his acquaintance) they find themselves travelling to India in order to stop an invasion of the alien’s world by nasty brutish humans.

If this all seems a little pat then you’d be correct and things soon take a turn for the malign as plans within plans are exposed.

Lane has a nice touch. The plot is speedy and he handles the variety and volume of principles well. The dialogue is spritely, especially between Bernice and Watson as they flirt with each other. There were things I didn’t like, primarily the addition of the elder brother, but they certainly didn’t spoil my enjoyment of the book.