At first blush, you might turn up your nose at the premise of The Witches of Lychford, in which a group of slightly-misfit women in a quiet British town find themselves arrayed against the forces of darkness in the form of a proposed new superstore whose placement will (though most of the town does not realize it) open up the gates that separate our world from the world of the fairies. Like, you could see that premise and think it seemed heavy-handed.
However, Paul Cornell — a veteran writer on Doctor Who, among other things, responsible for some of my very favorite Doctor Who episodes — makes the premise totally charming. The novella’s attitude is something like “Well if it really were just a superstore that could be okay because jobs and cheap goods, but alas! It is actually a front for Evil!”
I went into The Witches of Lychford expecting it to be all of the things I loved about Paul Cornell’s Doctor Who episodes, and I forgot that one of those things is deus ex-machina endings. This works better on TV when you have David Tennant selling it for you:
OH WELL. The Witches of Lychford still was, essentially, very like a Paul Cornell episode of Doctor Who, complete with churches. Since I am on an indefinite hiatus from that show until Steven Moffat a) quits being a jerk or b) steps down, that means I am sadly in need of Doctor Who-type adventures in my life. I shall certainly be reading more things by Paul Cornell.
Fellow Doctor Who apostates, what sorts of books have you been reading to get you through these dark times?