DW: Plague of the Cybermen

Instead of small hardbacks, we have a set of mid size paperbacks. The first one is a about a dentistry practice, Justin Richards' Plaque of the Cybermen. Or something like that.

How many Cyberships landed on Earth over time? Remember when it was a big thing that Mondas turned up, the first time Cybermen met their counterparts? Now they are all over the place, and all over time. In this book, it is the 19th Century (as evidenced by the back cover, no mention is given to dates in the story itself), and strange things are happening to bodies... but it isn't long before the Doctor uncovers evidence of Cybermen (which is just as well, because their presence was given away in the book title, and it would have been annoying if they were kept back as a big surprise). And then there's a lot of running around until the Doctor comes up with some way to defeat them.

Another way to view this: throw in dashes of Tomb of the Cybermen, The Moonbase, The Invasion (and a moment of The Brain of Morbius), and mix tepidly. There is only really one actual original idea here, otherwise what isn't running around is rehashing ideas from other stories. Even the companion du livre only has characterisation of 'is a teacher' and that's about it. Don't even ask me how old she is, because I never got a good impression of it.

Justin hasn't been doing great work. He is definitely capable of it, but this isn't it.

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