Ten stories - Seven Doctors - One enigma

Los Angeles. The war's over, the GIs are home, Truman's in the White House and the mobsters are making a killing - as usual. Into the office of a private investigator walks a mysterious little man with a story that's out of this world. He says he's lost his memory. He wants the PI to help him. When he turns out his pockets, he produces a pile of bizarre objects, each of which restores a memory and solves a part of the puzzle.

And the memories seem to belong to seven different people.

Decalog is a new concept in Doctor Who fiction: A cycle of ten linked stories. The stories are written by authors who are well known to readers of the New Adventures or Doctor Who magazines - Paul Cornell, Marc Platt, Vanessa Bishop, Jim Mortimore, Andy Lane - and have been brought together by Mark Stammers and Stephen James Walker, who are part of the team that researches and writes in-depth factual books about Doctor Who such as The Sixties and the Handbook series.

Ten Stories - Seven Doctors - No Fixed Abode

Imaginatively entitled DECALOG 2, this is the second collection of Doctor Who short fiction.  And this time the theme is the Doctor's home - inasmuch as a peripatetic Time Lord can be said to have a home.

As before, the editors have gathered a galaxy of star writers to illuminate the theme.  Many of the contributors will be well known to the readers of the New Adventures and the Missing Adventures series of novels: Daniel Blythe, Paul Cornell, Andy Lane, David McIntee and Gareth Roberts are prolific Doctor Who authors.  And as before this volume also includes contributions from new writers.

In these stories, among many other unexpected occurrences, the Doctor meets a pretender to the English throne, Nyssa meets a ghost, Zoe gets lost in time, Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart is dismissed from UNIT, and K-9 is in electrifying form.  And the Kandyman is on Tara in a verse play in iambic pentameters.

Ten Stories - Seven Doctors - One Chain of Events

'The consequences of having the Doctor crashing around our universe can be colossal... The Doctor is a time traveller.  Never forget that, because it is central to an understanding of what makes him so terribly dangerous.  Most of us, in our tiny, individual ways are involved in the writing of history.  Only the Doctor is out there rewriting it.'

But even the Doctor may not see the threads that bind the universe together.  Perhaps, instead, he cuts right through them.  Who knows what events he sets in motion without even realizing?  Who knows what consequences may come back - or forward - to haunt him?

Ten completely new tales from the universe of Doctor Who.  Seven Doctors' lives, inexorably linked in a breathtaking chain of consequences.

As always, the editors have assembled a dazzling array of writing talent, from award winning TV script writers to acclaimed New Adventures authors.  And, as before, there are the usual contributions from talented new writers.