The Monster Vault

Lately, Doctor Who non-fiction books (at least the BBC's own ones) have tended to be aimed at the more junior end of the age spectrum. They also, at times, seem to forget that the series began earlier than 2005.

Now comes The Monster Vault, edited by Paul Lang, which has a much wider appeal. 

The book is essentially an A to Z of monsters, going from him:

To them:

- all of which have appeared throughout the entire history of the programme, from the first Dalek story to the most recent Cyberman one.

Every entry has a full page colour image accompanying it, which I had thought were going to be original art works but prove to be photographic in origin, although enhanced in terms of colour and background. (If they are paintings, they're remarkably good ones). For most entries, this image is accompanied by a single page of text, with some photographs from the relevant story / stories.

Many of the entries, however, are for monsters which have appeared in multiple stories, so their page count increases accordingly.

The emphasis is, as the title says, on monsters although this seems to include robots and androids as well. Humanoid aliens and individual humanoid villains are (mostly) absent, so we get an entry on the Quarks, but none for the Dominators, for instance. Where there is a link between monsters, robots or aliens, this is reflected in the text. What constitutes a monster is a bit arbitrary.

Some monsters aren't quite important enough to get an entry by themselves and so are grouped together in a sort of box-out, such as with various creatures from Skaro other than the Daleks (Magnedons, Handmines, Varga Plants etc.).

Oddly, one of these groupings is for Androzani creatures, and includes the Wooden King and Queen from The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe. Whilst the Foresters came from Androzani Major, there was no mention on screen that the tree entities came from there as well.

There are some interesting extrapolations as well - other facts that were never mentioned on screen. Best example is that the Raston Warrior Robot derives its name from 'Rassilon's Automaton', and these killing machines were built specifically for the Death Zone on Gallifrey.

One minor gripe is that a little too much emphasis is placed on the most recent incarnations of the more famous monsters. The Cybermasters and Ashad get more prominence than the average Cybermen, and the DIY reconnaissance Dalek from Resolution gets more prominence than the ordinary ones which feature series in, series out. I suppose they want to push these newer models due to the current production team, but it is a little insulting to see the original Ray Cusick Dalek relegated to one tiny black and white photo, when the dustbin version gets the full page colour image. Likewise with the Cybermen - those of the classic era get barely get a mention and the greatest Cyberman design (the early Troughton one) gets only a small single image also.

The last section of the book is a selection of images, with captions only, relating to the design and making of the monster costumes / props, and the classic era is well represented.

We've come a long way since the Target Doctor Who Monster Book, which is this volume's ancient ancestor. Certainly worth buying for newcomers, as an introduction to the Doctor's monster foes since 1963, but equally worth a purchase as a nicely illustrated coffee table type book for those of us who are already fans and like to focus on just the TV series itself.