If you’re a fan of classic series stories like The Sunmakers and The Pirate Planet, or their modern day equivalents such as Gridlock, The Beast Below or The End Of The World, then you’ll enjoy Moorcock’s tale. If you don’t, well, you’d probably be wise to give the book a wide berth.

The plot of the novel finds the Doctor and companion Amy Pond working undercover amongst a group of the aforementioned Terraphiles, dedicated followers of old Earth history and customs, who are taking part in the ‘Terraphile All-Galaxy Renaissance Re-enactments Interworld Series Tournament’, a sporting competition where teams of assorted Terraphiles compete against each other in a series of re-enacted old Earth ‘sports’ for the prize of the fabled Arrow of Artemis.

Unfortunately for the Doctor, some old enemies of his, the multiversal criminals Frank/Freddie Force and the Anti-Matter Men, want to steal the Arrow and use its power to destroy the multiverse forever. Inevitably, the question arises: can the Doctor and Amy stop them in time or will all of creation collapse under the weight of multiversal collapse? (I’ll let you guess the outcome.)

As entertaining, well written and amusing as Moorcock’s book is (and it is all of those things), the one nagging problem that lingers throughout is that this story doesn’t quite feel right. Undoubtedly, it’s a brave move to turn such a controlled and well-known property as Doctor Who over to such a big name author and to give him, within reason, a free hand with the story he’s telling, but certain things just don’t work.

For a start, Moorcock’s handling of both the Doctor and Amy is, to put it mildly, a little different to their TV personas. As written by Moorcock, the Eleventh Doctor comes across as a slightly more in control and less clumsy version of the character we see on TV, which inevitably ends up robbing him of a lot of the quirkier and endearing aspects that Matt Smith has added to the character over time. In fact, it makes one wonder if this book was begun before Smith was cast, as the portrayal here seems to default to an archetypal version of the character that, like the story itself, seems to be very Tom Baker in tone.