By Justin Richards and Jon Green

Puffin, out now

A collection of prime Doctor Who stories illustrated in many different styles.

Puffin Books’ Doctor Who coffee table-sized book this year picks up from the Illustrated Adventures competition held earlier in 2017. A list of a hundred Doctor Who stories was provided and artists could choose how they wanted to depict them, within the templates supplied. The parameters for the choices aren’t explained but the response was clearly large and what we have here is an enjoyable wander through the Time Lord’s travels from An Unearthly Child through to Smile.

You’re not really buying this book for the text, which provides the core broadcast information, along with a brief synopsis (although a few errors have crept in that can hopefully be sorted for a reprint e.g. Evil of the Daleks started in 1966, not 1967; Nyssa believed Castrovalva was in Andromeda, the galaxy, not on a planet by that name). You’re here for the pictures, and these are wonderfully diverse. There are serious character studies of the Doctor, while others are almost like cartoons. There are paintings, line drawings and every degree of scale that you could imagine; some show scenes from the episodes, others draw on the whole story or reimagine sequences. As with a similar set of reimaginings of Star Trek episodes recently, I can see these forming the basis for a future calendar – there’s some truly stunning work (the picture of Idris and the Doctor being a great piece of art).

Verdict: An eclectic and enjoyable celebration of the Doctor. 9/10

Paul Simpson