.. AND ETERNITY IN AN HOUR by Steve Bowkett
"Eternity" is a rather dull Third Doctor/Jo Grant story. Like all too many short stories, it starts off with a nice idea (the time storms which ravage the planet Alrakis) and just can't pull off the execution. Ultimately, "Eternity" is another variation on the old overthrow-the-evil-overseers plot which has pretty much been done to death in Doctor Who. The Cerunnos is particularly dull -- yet another ancient evil from the dawn of time -- and the evil leader, Zaniah, is horribly over the top.

MOVING ON by Peter Anghelides
"Moving On" is not an intrisically bad story, but it suffers from a rather fanfic-ish desire to have a companion "come to terms" with her time with the Doctor and (as the title indicates) "move on to her own life". Which is all very well, but "Moving On" really does nothing new with the concept, so the whole thing has a very familiar, been-there-done-that quality. The plot itself isn't half bad but ends up ruined by an all too easy climax, perhaps indicating that Peter isn't quite comfortable with the short story length. And, as a K-9 fan, I was rather disappointed by how shabbily the poor thing is treated. :-) Peter's mucking about with continuity is also a minor aggravation (he seems to have moved forward the events of "The Hand Of Fear" and "K-9 & Company" by a decade or so), but this is really a minor nitpick.

TARNISHED IMAGE by Guy Clapperton
"Tarnished Image" is a rather more interesting tale, particularly as it plays with the genre a bit by having the bulk of the story related via news clippings. It presents a great set-up, but does fall apart a bit at the end, with a series of explanations I found rather convoluted (but maybe I'm just being thick). Perhaps the story's biggest detraction is its own self-dismissiveness, which has made it rather more forgettable than perhaps it deserves to be.

PAST RECKONING by Jackie Marshall
If you ever needed a definition for the term "non-event", look no further than "Past Reckoning". The story meanders about for fifteen minutes before suddenly pulling an alien device virtually out of nowhere to provide an excuse for a plot. Dull and pointless, "Past Reckoning" has little to recommend it.

UNITED WE FALL by Keith R A DeCandido
A real upturn from the book's first four stories, "UNITed We Fall" is an amusing little story which is the first to realize it is a short story and make use of the form, rather than trying to be a two hundred and fifty page novel squeezed into thirty pages. The Fourth Doctor is captured expertly -- the first instance of good characterisation in "Decalog 3" -- and the whole thing is just a lot of fun, even provoking a few proper belly laughs. Plotwise, there's not a lot to it, but that's really beside the point. It's enjoyable to read, and that's good enough for me.

ALIENS AND PREDATORS by Colin Brake
Overtly dark and tediously pointless, "Aliens and Predators" does at least boast a better portrayal of the Second Doctor than we've seen in the Missing Adventures to date. It suffers badly from frankly amateurish writing, however, and the surprisingly high number of grammatical and typographical errors doesn't do it any favors.

FEGOVY by Gareth Roberts
A somewhat above average story which, perhaps, underachieves, "Fegovy" is blessed with another excellent portrayal of the Sixth Doctor in a Virgin book, and a similarly impressive depiction of Mel. The same praise cannot be reserved for the plot, however, which starts off well but is let down by one of the worst climaxes I've seen in many a day. Gareth does at least get another coupel of dozen pages to play with his prize creations, the Chelonians, and our look at non-military examples of the race is one of the story's more interesting points.

CONTINUITY ERRORS by Steve Moffatt
Far and away the best short of "Decalog 3", "Continuity Errors" makes me wish Virgin could extend its license for just one more month to give Steve Moffatt a crack at a full-fledged New Adventure. As it is, "Continuity Errors" is just a tantalizing morsel which leaves the reader pining for more. Moffatt has the Doctor and Benny nailed down perfectly, exhibiting in all too few pages the full range of their characterisations, from comedy and good naturedness to mystery and darkness. The plot is perfect for the medium, and is a rare inspection of exactly how the Doctor affects the course of history. The questions "Continuity Errors" raises are highly intriguing and notably sobering, leaving similar efforts in stories like "Tarnished Image" in the dust. "Continuity Errors" is simply excellent, and rivals even Jim Mortimore's "Book Of Shadows" as the best short story in all the "Decalog"s released to date.

TIMEVAULT by Ben Jeapes
While not quite as successful as the volume's other Fourth Doctor story, "Timevault" is a nice little adventure which doesn't seem squeezed into its allotted length. Jeapes' portrayal of the Doctor is capable, if not as spot-on as Keith DeCandido's, and the story's villains are very nicely written.

ZEITGEIST by Craig Hinton
"Zeitgeist" is another one of those stories which feels mercilessly crammed into just thrity pages. The basic plot idea -- that a time loop is causing multiple variations of a planet's history to come into being, and along with it multiple Fifth Doctors and Turloughs -- is one worthy of considerable investigation, and consequently "Zeitgeist" feels like a missed opportunity. In particularly, the Savant -- a version of the Doctor who never left Gallifrey -- is never taken advantage of, which is a shame. As interesting as it is, "Zeitgeist" is hopelessly unsuitable as a thirty-three page story.

DECALOG 3 edited by Andy Lane and Justin Richards
As a whole, "Decalog 3" is probably the least successful of the "Decalog"s to date. Let down by some rather dreadful stories in its first half, it just can't pick up enough steam through the latter stories to really garner any accolades. As good as "Continuity Errors", "UNITed We Fall" and "Fegovy" are, three stories just can't support a book which ought to have ten good stories.

The running theme itself -- that the Doctor's actions cause repurcusions which affect his own past and future -- is intriguing, but generally used in a gimmicky sense here. Only a couple of the stories take this theme and run with it; the best, no doubt, is "Continuity Errors", which is all about the Doctor's actions having massive consequences. In the end, the linking theme is hardly different from the original "Decalog"'s, where an object from another story (in that case a linking story running through the whole volume) shows up in the current one.

Altogether, "Decalog 3" is something of a disappointment to herald Lane and Richards' first attempt at editing such a collection. I can only hope that their second effort next year shows a great deal of improvement.

5/10.

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