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A review by jackiijackii
Doctor Who: 12 Doctors, 12 Stories by Richelle Mead, Marcus Sedgwick, Philip Reeve, Neil Gaiman, Alex Scarrow, Holly Black, Michael Scott, Charlie Higson, Derek Landy, Malorie Blackman, Eoin Colfer, Patrick Ness
4.0
I'm going to review each story as I read it, because I think it will take me some time and I don't want to forget:
First Doctor: A Big Hand for the Doctor
I'm not well-versed in the First Doctor's stories, but this brought him a little closer to my heart. He is proper, and smart, and full of love for his granddaughter, but he doesn't have any patience for nonsense, as though he's already seen it all (and he still has at least a dozen or so regenerations after this, that we know of). Despite being only 70 pages, the story feels complete, with all problems solved and no gaps, with rooftop fights and aliens and technology. The Doctor is a complete character, and I didn't feel like I had to know anything else about him to enjoy the story. I can totally imagine this as an actual episode for the First Doctor, though the references to 21st century things is awesome.
Second Doctor: The Nameless City
The Second Doctor is described in this story as "an unmade bed", with his mussed hair and crooked bow tie, and he's a little flaky, but very endearing. The story was good, but then again, when you basically retell HP Lovecraft, you're almost guaranteed a hit. The Nameless City, the Necronomicon, the tentacled/beaked ancient one...yep, all we needed was for Lovecraft to appear to witness it all (a la "A Big Hand for the Doctor"'s ending). The city itself reminded me of the Time Tombs/Shrike Temple, and the "glass apes" were like Shrikes themselves, from the Hyperion Cantos. While I appreciate getting to know the Second Doctor better, the story was too unoriginal to leave a lasting impression in my mind.
Third Doctor: The Spear of Destiny
Not a bad little story, tying in several famous spears as alien tech. Also get to briefly see the Third Doctor in hand-to-hand combat. I think I would have enjoyed it more as a novel-long story.
Fourth Doctor: The Roots of Evil
A short and tidy story; the Fourth Doctor wasn't as distinct in this one, which saddens me because Tom Baker is a fan favorite for a reason. I love Leeta, too, but the best part of this story is an "appearance" from Eleven, and when the main character is Four, that's not saying much.
Fifth Doctor: Tip of the Tongue
The story is great, but the Doctor only makes three short appearances and says maybe five sentences the entire time. I was excited to go on an adventure with the dashing Fifth Doctor but he wasn't really there. It kind of reminded me of Blink, where some random human is the main character, but unlike that episode, the Doctor didn't engage said random human to help solve a mystery. I forget his companion's name, I'm not sure he ever said it.
Sixth Doctor: Something Borrowed
The Sixth Doctor was always too mercurial for me, but I really liked him in this story. He was undoubtedly, 100% Colin Baker as Six--the author not only understood him but made him as animated on the page as he was in the show. His companion, Peri, narrates the story in first person, which is brilliant for several reasons: we get an intimate portrait of the Doctor; we can see for ourselves that this companion is intelligent, well-matched, refreshingly sarcastic, and still cares deeply about him; and because we, as readers, are by default his companions, Peri represents us well. There's also a depth of character in this Doctor that's difficult to achieve in 68 pages. So far, this and the First Doctor's story are the best at representing the Doctor.
Seventh Doctor: The Ripple Effect
There wasn't much to this story, but Seven and Ace were presented well, and there was something deeply disturbing yet kind of magical about seeing Daleks as a kind, benevolent, and intelligent species. If there was time (or, a novel-length instead of short story) to explore it, I think it'd be fun to see this play out like the Dreamweaver episode with Eleven/Rory/Amy, where Seven and Ace aren't sure if the nice-Dalek or the bad-Dalek reality is true.
Eighth Doctor: Spore
It's true I hold Eight to a higher standard, because I'm desperately in love with him, so maybe Spore wouldn't be so bad as another Doctor's story, but it's a huge disappointment for Eight. Eight is terse and romantic, charming as f*ck and a little bit silly. At least, he's supposed to be.
In Spore, a spore-thing drifts to earth and we discover it's kind of like if a Marvel Comics symbiote (like Venom) didn't need a host, but could build itself using DNA from a liquified body. There are three phases of this Spore: liquify all organic matter in a set range, gather all liquid to create a brain and defensive creatures, then ask the most intelligent inhabitants of the planet One Question: if they answer that Question correctly, the Spore self-destructs and leaves the planet alone. If they don't answer correctly, the planet isn't intelligent enough to live and it'll take over everything. This part was actually pretty cool: it's an interesting premise and it had a horror-story feel to it.
But then the Doctor shows up, alone. He walks calmly to the commotion, sits down with the man in charge, and calmly explains the situation. Then he walks calmly into the infected town, finds one military team survivor, and sits her down and calmly explains the situation to her. Then he walks calmly out into the night to find the growing Symbiote Brain, because it's ready to ask the Question and he has to try to answer it. He finds the Brain and has a lovely calm conversation with it, and saves the day. Then they walk calmly back to the man in charge. The lady he saved looks at the stars all googly-eyed and waxes poetic about how she'd love to explore the universe. The Doctor tells her, "Oh your species will get there in a few decades, you can probably explore it then. Cheerio!" And leaves without her.
I suspect she shows up later as a character, thought I can't remember exactly. But his refusal to take her is a complete turnaround from several regenerations later, where Eleven has to literally force Clara into the Tardis to travel with him. Also, the question is to "explain the ratio 1:812", which I first thought was clever because I misremembered it as the God Ratio, or Golden Ratio, but it isn't. It's nothing, it's made up. So basically, this Eight wasn't really Eight, and his part of the story was boring, and while the villain was terrifying it was a familiar villain.
Ninth Doctor: The Beast of Babylon
Perfectly Nine. He's mad and cares too much, smiles crazily, and beats up bad guys. The last chapter made me cry. Right up there with the stories for One and Six.
Tenth Doctor: The Mystery of the Haunted Cottage
This story was better than most of the DW novels I've read. It's also the most hilarious of this collection (yes, I'm saying that before reading Twelve's story), and Derek Landy's clever and funny bio should have been a huge give-away. If not for the apparent awesomeness of Ten and Martha, the best part would have been the nods to books Martha has read. I'm going to read this aloud to my husband; it's definitely worth sharing.
Eleventh Doctor: Nothing O'Clock
I'd read this one before, in Neil Gaiman's "Trigger Warnings". It's more creepy than it is fun, but the Doctor and Amy are true to character, and it really is a clever story. Reminds me of Coraline, but, that doesn't surprise me. Good Eleven, good story.
Twelfth Doctor: Lights Out
Clara has tainted all my opinions of Twelve and his episodes as bad. She's supposed to be the voice of the audience, but she has to be dragged on adventures. The initial mystery of her existence isn't compelling enough to compensate for her complete lack of personality, and once the Doctor figures out the "Impossible Girl" (gag me), all we have left is a pretty and reluctant magician's assistant. She treats the Doctor like a child and--this is possibly her most unforgivable trait--she's boring. She doesn't have Amy's ferocity, or Martha's logic, or Rose's heart. She's never the first to jump into something, and more often than not, she seems downright annoyed with the Doctor.
So when I realized Lights Out was a story without Clara, I saw it as an opportunity to actually get to know Twelve without the weight of his most useless companion. And you know what? He's fantastic. He's cocky and sympathetic, he's mature and endearingly clueless. And the story itself is complete; I love that he promoted someone to temporary-companion status, and I love that, while it seemed cute and kind, it was part of his plan, kept neatly hidden until the end reveal.
So! Overall, I really liked this collection. One, Six, Nine, Ten, and Twelve were the best stories, and now that I'm thinking about it, they're so great because they're true to their Doctor. I wouldn't have needed a physical description of any of them to know who they were. Highly recommended for fans of DW.
First Doctor: A Big Hand for the Doctor
I'm not well-versed in the First Doctor's stories, but this brought him a little closer to my heart. He is proper, and smart, and full of love for his granddaughter, but he doesn't have any patience for nonsense, as though he's already seen it all (and he still has at least a dozen or so regenerations after this, that we know of). Despite being only 70 pages, the story feels complete, with all problems solved and no gaps, with rooftop fights and aliens and technology. The Doctor is a complete character, and I didn't feel like I had to know anything else about him to enjoy the story. I can totally imagine this as an actual episode for the First Doctor, though the references to 21st century things is awesome.
Second Doctor: The Nameless City
The Second Doctor is described in this story as "an unmade bed", with his mussed hair and crooked bow tie, and he's a little flaky, but very endearing. The story was good, but then again, when you basically retell HP Lovecraft, you're almost guaranteed a hit. The Nameless City, the Necronomicon, the tentacled/beaked ancient one...yep, all we needed was for Lovecraft to appear to witness it all (a la "A Big Hand for the Doctor"'s ending). The city itself reminded me of the Time Tombs/Shrike Temple, and the "glass apes" were like Shrikes themselves, from the Hyperion Cantos. While I appreciate getting to know the Second Doctor better, the story was too unoriginal to leave a lasting impression in my mind.
Third Doctor: The Spear of Destiny
Not a bad little story, tying in several famous spears as alien tech. Also get to briefly see the Third Doctor in hand-to-hand combat. I think I would have enjoyed it more as a novel-long story.
Fourth Doctor: The Roots of Evil
A short and tidy story; the Fourth Doctor wasn't as distinct in this one, which saddens me because Tom Baker is a fan favorite for a reason. I love Leeta, too, but the best part of this story is an "appearance" from Eleven, and when the main character is Four, that's not saying much.
Fifth Doctor: Tip of the Tongue
The story is great, but the Doctor only makes three short appearances and says maybe five sentences the entire time. I was excited to go on an adventure with the dashing Fifth Doctor but he wasn't really there. It kind of reminded me of Blink, where some random human is the main character, but unlike that episode, the Doctor didn't engage said random human to help solve a mystery. I forget his companion's name, I'm not sure he ever said it.
Sixth Doctor: Something Borrowed
The Sixth Doctor was always too mercurial for me, but I really liked him in this story. He was undoubtedly, 100% Colin Baker as Six--the author not only understood him but made him as animated on the page as he was in the show. His companion, Peri, narrates the story in first person, which is brilliant for several reasons: we get an intimate portrait of the Doctor; we can see for ourselves that this companion is intelligent, well-matched, refreshingly sarcastic, and still cares deeply about him; and because we, as readers, are by default his companions, Peri represents us well. There's also a depth of character in this Doctor that's difficult to achieve in 68 pages. So far, this and the First Doctor's story are the best at representing the Doctor.
Seventh Doctor: The Ripple Effect
There wasn't much to this story, but Seven and Ace were presented well, and there was something deeply disturbing yet kind of magical about seeing Daleks as a kind, benevolent, and intelligent species. If there was time (or, a novel-length instead of short story) to explore it, I think it'd be fun to see this play out like the Dreamweaver episode with Eleven/Rory/Amy, where Seven and Ace aren't sure if the nice-Dalek or the bad-Dalek reality is true.
Eighth Doctor: Spore
It's true I hold Eight to a higher standard, because I'm desperately in love with him, so maybe Spore wouldn't be so bad as another Doctor's story, but it's a huge disappointment for Eight. Eight is terse and romantic, charming as f*ck and a little bit silly. At least, he's supposed to be.
In Spore, a spore-thing drifts to earth and we discover it's kind of like if a Marvel Comics symbiote (like Venom) didn't need a host, but could build itself using DNA from a liquified body. There are three phases of this Spore: liquify all organic matter in a set range, gather all liquid to create a brain and defensive creatures, then ask the most intelligent inhabitants of the planet One Question: if they answer that Question correctly, the Spore self-destructs and leaves the planet alone. If they don't answer correctly, the planet isn't intelligent enough to live and it'll take over everything. This part was actually pretty cool: it's an interesting premise and it had a horror-story feel to it.
But then the Doctor shows up, alone. He walks calmly to the commotion, sits down with the man in charge, and calmly explains the situation. Then he walks calmly into the infected town, finds one military team survivor, and sits her down and calmly explains the situation to her. Then he walks calmly out into the night to find the growing Symbiote Brain, because it's ready to ask the Question and he has to try to answer it. He finds the Brain and has a lovely calm conversation with it, and saves the day. Then they walk calmly back to the man in charge. The lady he saved looks at the stars all googly-eyed and waxes poetic about how she'd love to explore the universe. The Doctor tells her, "Oh your species will get there in a few decades, you can probably explore it then. Cheerio!" And leaves without her.
I suspect she shows up later as a character, thought I can't remember exactly. But his refusal to take her is a complete turnaround from several regenerations later, where Eleven has to literally force Clara into the Tardis to travel with him. Also, the question is to "explain the ratio 1:812", which I first thought was clever because I misremembered it as the God Ratio, or Golden Ratio, but it isn't. It's nothing, it's made up. So basically, this Eight wasn't really Eight, and his part of the story was boring, and while the villain was terrifying it was a familiar villain.
Ninth Doctor: The Beast of Babylon
Perfectly Nine. He's mad and cares too much, smiles crazily, and beats up bad guys. The last chapter made me cry. Right up there with the stories for One and Six.
Tenth Doctor: The Mystery of the Haunted Cottage
This story was better than most of the DW novels I've read. It's also the most hilarious of this collection (yes, I'm saying that before reading Twelve's story), and Derek Landy's clever and funny bio should have been a huge give-away. If not for the apparent awesomeness of Ten and Martha, the best part would have been the nods to books Martha has read. I'm going to read this aloud to my husband; it's definitely worth sharing.
Eleventh Doctor: Nothing O'Clock
I'd read this one before, in Neil Gaiman's "Trigger Warnings". It's more creepy than it is fun, but the Doctor and Amy are true to character, and it really is a clever story. Reminds me of Coraline, but, that doesn't surprise me. Good Eleven, good story.
Twelfth Doctor: Lights Out
Clara has tainted all my opinions of Twelve and his episodes as bad. She's supposed to be the voice of the audience, but she has to be dragged on adventures. The initial mystery of her existence isn't compelling enough to compensate for her complete lack of personality, and once the Doctor figures out the "Impossible Girl" (gag me), all we have left is a pretty and reluctant magician's assistant. She treats the Doctor like a child and--this is possibly her most unforgivable trait--she's boring. She doesn't have Amy's ferocity, or Martha's logic, or Rose's heart. She's never the first to jump into something, and more often than not, she seems downright annoyed with the Doctor.
So when I realized Lights Out was a story without Clara, I saw it as an opportunity to actually get to know Twelve without the weight of his most useless companion. And you know what? He's fantastic. He's cocky and sympathetic, he's mature and endearingly clueless. And the story itself is complete; I love that he promoted someone to temporary-companion status, and I love that, while it seemed cute and kind, it was part of his plan, kept neatly hidden until the end reveal.
So! Overall, I really liked this collection. One, Six, Nine, Ten, and Twelve were the best stories, and now that I'm thinking about it, they're so great because they're true to their Doctor. I wouldn't have needed a physical description of any of them to know who they were. Highly recommended for fans of DW.