{"id":4317,"date":"2022-09-30T10:37:08","date_gmt":"2022-09-30T10:37:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.benjeapes.com\/?page_id=4317"},"modified":"2022-09-30T13:57:58","modified_gmt":"2022-09-30T13:57:58","slug":"the-wintertime-paradox","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.benjeapes.com\/index.php\/writing\/book-reviews\/the-wintertime-paradox\/","title":{"rendered":"The Wintertime Paradox"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>The Wintertime Paradox: Twelve Festive Tales of Tinsel and Time Lords by Dave Rudden (BBC Children\u2019s Books, 2020)<\/strong><\/p>\n

Dave Rudden gives us twelve Doctor Who<\/em> stories so convincingly in different tones, styles and voices that you could believe it\u2019s by twelve different authors. How you read this very enjoyable collection will depend on how you approach the relaunched series, because it is very weighted towards post-2005 Who<\/em> \u2013 every Doctor from Nine onwards makes an appearance \u2013 and there is a story arc which either enhances or gets in the way, depending on viewpoint. But there are a couple of classic Doctor appearances too and, most impressively, some actual stand-alone sf.<\/p>\n

In \u201cA Day to Yourselves\u201d, a still-traumatised Nine finds to his annoyance that his other selves keep getting there first to save the world. They want him to enjoy a peaceful Christmas on his own, taking some self-time before resuming his travels.<\/p>\n

Rose and Ten go to the pantomime in \u201cHe\u2019s Behind You\u201d, which captures David Tennant\u2019s portrayal and the chemistry of the characters so perfectly that you stop noticing there isn\u2019t much story.<\/p>\n

\u201cFather of the Daleks\u201d gives more nuance to Davros\u2019s motivations, and his relationship with the Doctor, than any TV appearance since 1975. Sadly it suffers from the Daleks\u2019 acquired habit of being held in thrall when Eleven starts monologuing, instead of just exterminating him.<\/p>\n

Bill plays slightly more of a role than Twelve in \u201cInflicting Christmas\u201d, a reflection on the nature and reliability of memory. Unfortunately a promising set-up just sort of fizzles out, like many of the Christmas specials.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe Will Feed You To The Trees\u201d gets the gold star: a thoughtful lost colony story with a Deathworld vibe that makes it the hardest sf and the least Christmassy in the collection. Seven finds himself on a planet with two seasons: Succour, a time of planting and preparation; and Siege, when you hope the preparations were enough.<\/p>\n

Five appears in \u201cA Girl Called Doubt\u201d but the story would work without him. The aftermath of a Cybermen invasion is shaped thoughtfully by the logic of what Cybermen do to people and the lesser thought-of but inevitable consequences. There\u2019s a twist, but we\u2019ve seen it before on TV.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Paradox Moon\u201d is the obligatory season finale that resolves the arc, doing what it\u2019s supposed to but baffling with awestruck Whovian timey-wimey babble rather than really explore time travel in a sfnally rigorous way.<\/p>\n

Scattered in between these we get the stories sans Doctor, which on average prove more satisfying \u2013 perhaps because they rely on actual storytelling and not the author doing a convincing imitation of whichever actor.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor The Girl Who Has Everything\u201d could have been called \u201cHow Osgood Got Her Scarf\u201d: in the UNIT archives on Christmas Eve, as it happens. The only misstep here is to mention the Abzorbaloffs, thus fixing them in canon when their one TV appearance was an aberration best forgot.<\/p>\n

\u201cVisiting Hours\u201d gives Rory more agency than he ever had on TV, and even succeeds in putting him one step ahead of his daughter River.<\/p>\n

The title of \u201cChristmas With The Plasmavores\u201d saves you having to read the story, and you would see the resolution coming even if there wasn\u2019t a massive hint in the opening illustration.<\/p>\n

\u201cA Perfect Christmas\u201d is nicely steampunky, as befits the era: Madame Vastra tries to get her head around this strange human tradition.<\/p>\n

\u201cMissing Habitas Frond\u201d is a decently done period detective story starring Missy, set appropriately in Edinburgh, 1909. Missy has always been the best Doctor\u2019s evil alter ego since Roger Delgado\u2019s Master and here we see exactly what can happen if she takes a liking to you.<\/p>\n

In short, this is an entertaining collection that encapsulates a typical Doctor Who series: some good stories, some very good, and some clunkers, but if you want hard sf then look elsewhere.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Wintertime Paradox: Twelve Festive Tales of Tinsel and Time Lords by Dave Rudden (BBC Children\u2019s Books, 2020) Dave Rudden gives us twelve Doctor Who stories so convincingly in different tones, styles and voices that you could believe it\u2019s by … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":368,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-4317","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.benjeapes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4317","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.benjeapes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.benjeapes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.benjeapes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.benjeapes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4317"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.benjeapes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4317\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4363,"href":"https:\/\/www.benjeapes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4317\/revisions\/4363"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.benjeapes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/368"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.benjeapes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4317"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}