Tip of the Tongue

Since I read this book, Patrick Ness was announced as the executive producer of the newest television Doctor Who spin-off, Class, which is going to be a YA show with supernatural goings-on. Based on the quality of this book, Class should be very good. Tip of the Tongue is told from the perspective of Jonny, a teenager in Temperance, Maine of 1945, where the newest fad is wearing Truth Tellers, creatures that speak the cruelest truth in social situations that normally no one dares say, like that everyone knows your wife is cheating on you, or that your butt does look big, or that you're gay. The fifth Doctor and Nyssa are minor, but well-depicted parts of this tale of the harsh realities of being a teenager. I really enjoyed it-- probably my favorite of this series thus far-- and it's this book more than anything else that has me looking forward to Class.

I am a soft touch for Doctor Who stories, and this delightful little treat from the Doctor Who box set is no exception. There may not be a whole lot going on in this story (it might not survive the transition to a longer novel or a TV episode), but Patrick Ness's writing is descriptive and deft, hitting exactly the right tone for a Doctor Who adventure. It was also interesting to have the Fifth Doctor in the United States, given that his cricket-uniform costume makes him look so quintessentially British.

The only downside to this story is that I would have liked Nyssa to have more to do. She's in the background for most of the action. On the plus side, she is at least not a helpless damsel in distress. ( )

Neither the worst of these 50th anniversary short stories -- that's "The Spear of Destiny" (and it will take a truly terrible hack job to come in below "Spear") -- nor the best of the ones I've read yet -- that's "The Roots of Evil" -- this one is a Doctor-lite story with a mildly interesting premise that, while I can't recommend it, I wouldn't bother trying to talk anyone out of reading it either. ( )

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These wee Puffin Doctor Who ebooks are having a good run right now. Here we have the celebrated Patrick Ness, delivering a very solid tale of two marginal teenagers in wartime Maine, finding themselves dealing with a peculiar fad for truth-telling gadgets which turn out to be alien tech, with a mysterious celery-wearing stranger and his scandalously dressed companion all mixed up with it as well. This is the first of the books in this series which is not told from the tight narrative viewpoint of Doctor or companion, and all the better for it. ( )