Dave Rudden

As I did last year with Rudden's Twelve Angels Weeping, I started reading this book on Christmas, and read a story every day until I finished. It was a fun way to do it. Rudden has a strong, unique voice as a Doctor Who short fiction writer, and does a good job of capturing the series's tone while not feeling beholden to how things would be on screen; he also does a good job of tying each story into Christmas without making it feel repetitive.

Highlights for me included "Father of the show more Daleks," chronicling a series of Christmastime meetings between the eleventh Doctor... and Davros!? Good Christmas fun, but also a dark peek into the psyches of the Daleks and their creator. "For the Girl Who Has Everything" was a story of Osgood's first week at UNIT, before Kate Stewart was in charge and before Osgood was chief scientific advisor; she has to rely on her wits to defeat a Sontaran plot. Rudden perfectly captures Osgood's personality and voice. "Visiting Hours" does a great job of filling in the Rory/River father/daughter relationship that Steven Moffat kind of neglected; Rory comes to visit River at Christmas in Stormcage, only for them to have to fight their way through the facility unexpectedly. Genuinely touching stuff about parenting and family. "A Perfect Christmas" was a charming story about Madame Vastra trying to give her ersatz family a perfect holiday at all costs, and "A Day to Yourselves" was a great story about an immediate post–Time War ninth Doctor trying to find consolation by saving planets, only no one will let him do it.

The book only really had two misfires for me, "He's Behind You," which felt like it didn't lean into its panto premise enough, and "We Will Feed You to the Trees," which while well told, didn't seem entirely convincing in the way it explained everything. But really, Rudden has an excellent grasp of tone, theme, and character, and I must seek out his original fiction, but I also hope he keeps writing Doctor Who because he has a markedly interesting voice that goes beyond your average Justin Richardsesque fellow. show less

This is a collection of twelve stories set in the Doctor Who universe, most having some kind of Christmas connection (however slight), most featuring the Doctor, most featuring a monster of some sort. I started reading the book on Christmas Day 2020, and read one story per day, which turned out to be a really fun project.

Rudden had never written any Doctor Who book before this, but alone he has more variety and invention than some Doctor Who anthologies written by twenty-five different show more authors. Highlights for me included a noir story about a private detective on Gallifrey hired to track down the TARDIS the Doctor stole (containing a surprising but subtle tie-in to Prisoners of Fate, a Big Finish audio dram), a story told from the point-of-view of a Cyberman, a really neat story of the Paternoster Gang, an adventure for Rory and the eleventh Doctor investigating a regicide, and a story of the Master trying to be the Doctor. There was only one I didn't really like, an overly long story of a heist that I didn't really get the point of.

The best story was "The Rhino of Twenty-Three Strand Street," about an Irish girl from 1960s Dublin, chafing in Catholic school, who discovers that a Judoon has moved in next door. Really well told and heartwarming.

All of the stories have a strong sense of voice and tone, short Doctor Who fiction at its very best. This is the twelfth Doctor Who Christmas book I've read, and it's the one I've enjoyed the most except for Short Trips: A Christmas Treasury. show less

A child gets plucked from an orphanage, is taken in by a secret society of warriors fighting primordial evil and finds out he has super powers! Awesome! Except it's not because even though it's no fun being an orphan, it's a bit of an insult to injury to find that you have an aunt that has been ignoring your existence all your life and that she's an inflexible, obdurate, emotionally distant head of an order of people who have been scarred and worn down by a long endless war that will show more eventually take their lives if they are not consumed by the accumulated effects of the disfiguring price they pay every time they use their powers against their terrifying opponents, and which you will have to pay also.

Now, while I find this set-up appropriately angsty and difficult in a fantasy about children recruited to fight in a secret war, while in our world there's nothing particularly nice about being a child soldier, this is not a gloomy or an angsty read. It is, in fact, a fast and smooth read, exciting and emotional, full of dry wit and lovely pieces of writing and turns of phrase that can be very funny or very evocative or downright chilling, with well-developed characters that the author is not afraid to damage or destroy. The setting of the orphanage is particularly well-drawn, and when the book is focused on Denizen's doings in Dublin, the text is haunted by the terrible plight of the unfortunate Simon in the demon-haunted institution at the edge of the world.

Beyond that, however, the hints and glimpses of the dark and deadly adversaries from a different world become more and more intriguing as the book goes on, and it is clear that there is more depth and complexity to them than simple malevolent bad-guys, and if the sample chapter at the end of this edition is any indication, this series (trilogy? Can't remember) is going to some very interesting places indeed. show less

https://nwhyte.livejournal.com/3118499.html

Newly published collection of vaguely Christmassy stories set in the Whoniverse, by Irish YA author Dave Rudden (who I confess I hadn’t heard of before). Single-author collections like this are unusual for Doctor Who, especially by an author who hasn’t previously written for the franchise, but I think this is really successful - only eight of the twelve stories actually have the Doctor in them, and often as a background figure while the real show more action is happening to other people. Rudden pastiches various genres more or less successfully, but also displays a fierce loyalty to Who’s own mythology. The standout story for me was “The Red-Eyed League”, featuring Vastra and Jenny encountering a Sea Devil, a direct clash between Old and New Who. But for my own purposes I also need to point out the second last story, “The Rhino of Twenty Three Strand Street”, set in Ringsend in 1966, and therefore only the second Doctor Who short story ever where the action takes place in Ireland. (The first few paragraphs of the last story, “Anything You Can Do”, are set in Belfast, but with no local colour.) There isn’t a duff story in the lot, though, and it would do well as a Christmas gift for younger (or indeed older) fans. show less