Your enjoyment of Thirteen Doctors, 13 Stories may well hinge on whether or not you’re willing to forgo the fact that some would simply draw the line under it serving as a second post-anniversary cash in. The newest of the Doctors is given a postscript shorter outing in Naomi Alderman’s Time Lapse as a whole year goes missing following on from the Twelfth’s Lights Out, Holly Black telling the tale of an adventure within an adventure as he sets about getting Clara that coffee. So far, so comfortable. Neil Gaiman once more writes for the Eleventh in Nothing O’Clock, a glimpse into the Time Lords’ past as the last of them looks into an attempt to legitimately purchase the Earth by a very old enemy… again, tone just right.

Then we come to Derek Landy’s Mystery of the Haunted Cottage. Somebody’s been watching The Mind Robber… and it shows, as Tennant is shoehorned into Troughtonian territory. Charlie Higson precedes him with The Beast of Babylon, which manages to function as a capable enough-post regeneration outing for Christopher Eccleston, while also – whisper it – giving the Ninth Doctor a chance to travel with someone who isn’t Rose Tyler. Heavens above, you may well cry. But there’s a twist, as well as a call-back to the first (for this writer’s money, weakest) story in the collection. Alex Scarrow’s Spore gives food for thought as the Eighth Doctor grapples with an intelligent pathogen, following on from Rosa scribe Malorie Blackman’s The Ripple Effect, which finds the Seventh Doctor confronting perhaps his biggest prejudice in the face of a journey into what at first glance seems an almost idyllic timeline.

Richelle Mead then offers up an illustration of just how well disparate elements can work together in Something Borrowed (not to be confused with the Torchwood episode of the same name), pterodactyls running amok on Koturia – modelled on Las Vegas – as a certain amoral Time Lady seemingly wants to settle down. Before she can ride the matrimony pony, though, a certain old and interestingly-coated friend of hers pitches up for the nuptials – narration provided by his own lady companion. A more recent staple follows with the Doctor-light Tip of the Tongue, Class headmaster Patrick Ness applying subtle strokes of Fifth Doctor and Nyssa to teenage romance in wartime America against a backdrop of awkward truths forcibly spoken. As they so often do in the Doctor’s world, nature and time travel collide in Phillip Reeve’s The Roots of Evil, the Fourth defending himself against charges in relation to a future offence aboard the Heligan Structure with Leela in tow, the whole thing feeling a bit too Face of Evil meets The Seeds of Doom for comfort.

Next up, a beardie sorcerer, Vikings, and a powerful weapon appear in Marcus Sedgwick’s The Spear Of Destiny. You can probably guess just who Frey is, given a little research into the various translations of his self-appointed title. But isn’t a hint of the familiar what we all love now and again? It’s a question of balance. Mostly, the bar is set somewhere in the middle in that when familiar structures are deployed well, the warm blanket of nostalgia is mentally pulled over and we can forgive a few little flubs here and there as we settle down to read. The Nameless City, Michael Scott’s Lovecraft-aping trip into the remnants of a pre-Gallifreyan universe pitting the Music of the Spheres against the rasp of the recorder, is possibly the most ambitious narrative on offer – full marks for pluck in introducing new Old Ones into the canon.

But paradoxically things are then let down by an old new one in a sense. Eoin Colfer’s A Big Hand for the Doctor plays around with the sorts of idea first introduced around 2005 in a way that suggests he’d never actually even watched before then prior to saying yes to writing for the First Doctor. If you can persuade yourself that you do need this on your shelf, dive in. If you already have either of the previous collections, consider carefully. Literal proof that time is money.

THIRTEEN DOCTORS, 13 STORIES / AUTHORS: VARIOUS / PUBLISHER: BBC CHILDREN’S BOOKS / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW