by Stephen Gallagher

BBC Books, out 13 July

The TARDIS is caught in a collapsing void between two different universes – and the Fourth Doctor, Romana and Adric must enter a dangerous alliance with a race of enslaved, time-sensitive aliens.

As a 12-year-old I struggled with Warriors’ Gate when it was first transmitted – I just didn’t ‘get’ it. When the Target novelisation was released the following year, it didn’t add much to the experience, and so for nearly 40 years the story was consigned to my discard pile. Then in 2019, BBC Audio issued an extended version of the story restored from an unpublished manuscript, and it transformed the experience.

That extended version appears here in book form for the first time, still in continuous prose rather than punctuated by chapter breaks, and it’s a cracking read. Author Stephen Gallagher is of course a fine writer (he originally wrote under the pseudonym John Lydecker) and I’m thrilled to have finally grown into his story. As a bonus, 2021 audio adventure The Kairos Ring is included in the book – it follows Romana and Laszlo’s further adventures in the time winds – as well as a new Eighth Doctor short story, The Little Book of Fate.

Verdict: The definitive version of Warriors’ Gate, with a couple of welcome extras. An excellent package. 9/10

Nick Joy

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