Peter Anghelides

A collection of short Doctor Who stories focusing on Missy, aka the latest incarnation of the Master, the Doctor's old friend and long-term nemesis. Personally I adore Missy; I think she's enormous fun, and the best version of the Master since the original. So how could I resist?

To address each of the six stories included here individually:

"Dismemberment" by James Goss: Shortly after regenerating, Missy visits her favorite evil gentlemen's club, discovers she is no longer welcome as a show more member, and wreaks horrible vengeance on the people who kicked her out. There's some genuinely funny moments, and some darkly satiric sensibilities. And Missy gets some great lines. But the sheer levels of horror and gruesomeness to some of her actions actually made me feel a little uncomfortable by the end. I think this particular kind of villainous depravity might almost be a little over the top, even for Missy.

"Lords and Masters" by Cavan Scott: The Time Lords send Missy off on an assignment for them. They really ought to know better. I liked the concept of this one, and the way it offers up some rather dark little details about how things have been going on Gallifrey. I do wish the "companion" she was given for the job felt less two-dimensional, though. And it's genuinely a little unsettling to get a Doctor Who story like this where the Doctor doesn't get to show up to make things right in the end.

"Teddy Sparkles Must Die!" by Paul Magrs: A weird, weird little send-up of kids' adventure stories, featuring evil governess Missy and a magical talking teddy bear. I honestly can't quite decide whether this one is pleasantly ridiculous or just plain ridiculous.

"The Liar, the Glitch and the War Zone" by Peter Anghelides: An adventure in Venice featuring a damaged TARDIS, a temporal rift, and an army of angry space gryphons. But despite the fact that there's a lot going on here, I found it a bit dull. There's less good Missy dialog here than in the other stories, too. I did like her villainous plan to flood Venice, though.

"Girl Power!" by Jacqueline Rayner: An epistolary story, also featuring the Twelfth Doctor and Nardole, in which Missy hatches a plan that gives new meaning to the phrase "smash the patriarchy.". Now, this one was pleasantly ridiculous. Delightfully ridiculous, even. I was laughing out loud through pretty much the whole thing.

"Alit in Underland" by Richard Dinnick: This one is told from the POV of Alit, the little girl from the episodes "World Enough and Time"/The Doctor Falls," and is set during the period between those episodes when the Doctor is unconscious. I don't know that it's a bit from that story that really needed filling in, but it does give us the opportunity for a little more interaction between Missy and her previous incarnation, and I will never say no to that.

Rating: It's enough of a mixed bag that I'm going to call it 3.5/5, but the best stories are fun enough that I'd say it's worth checking out if you're a fan of the character. show less

One of the things I always struggle with with this series of Doctor Who tie-in novels is that there's a lot of mostly nonsensical technobabble that I mostly just let wash over me because it's, well, nonsensical—but then every so often it turns out that some of the nonsensical technobabble is brought back as an "aha! gotcha! twist!" moment, which leaves me confused and/or shrugging. This happened quite a bit here, though there were some good character moments and a conclusion to the Faction show more Paradox arc which drew a line under things in a mostly satisfying way. That's enough to bump my rating up from a 2.5 to a 3, despite the slightly ropy prose/dialogue.

What I really didn't like was the sexism embedded in the narrative and the framing of the female characters. It's not the worst I've ever read but it's persistent and irritating, of the kind that makes me think the authors never imagined a woman reading their work. show less

I didn't enjoy this book, but I'm struck by contemporary reviews revealing how a certain segment of fans absolutely loathed the character of Sam. And I'm struck by this because, well, I think she's pretty great. Or at least consistently written.

Okay, I guess, circa 1997, fans had a bunch of hang-ups. First of all, the New Adventures series had revelled in psychological drama and increasingly emotionally wrought companions; meanwhile, teenage girls seemed very 1970s for the program. She was show more seen as, in a contradictory sense, both lightweight and too much. Fans presumably wanted a companion who could hold their own alongside the Doctor (which had been more the mould of the program since about 1981) yet not someone who would presume to oppose, dismiss, or doubt him. The fact that Sam often feels like the protagonist of these books was especially galling to fans who worshipped the Doctor as a character, and saw the companion as a vital part of the plot rather than the plot per se. And the fact that it isn't always an easy alliance annoyed some fans. Although, to be fair, Ace and Benny were like this with the Seventh Doctor, they were beloved characters, whereas Sam was a teenage girl with outspoken progressive views, so she hadn't endeared herself to those fans before she was "foisted" upon them by those ungrateful authors giving us new content every damn month.

And those progressive views apparently mattered too. I don't care what a person's politics are, personally, but it's interesting to watch the way that Sarah Jane Smith's feminism is perceived to be toned down over her run, but how it's also deemed hugely worthy of comment by anyone reviewing her earlier stories. Some people just didn't want Doctor Who to be "message fiction", as they wanted it to be sci-fi more in the (perceived) X-Files or Babylon 5 approach, where story trumped politics. Others - of a certain gender and ethnicity, dare I suspect - felt like it devalued the books or made them less "hard" if they focused on her attitudes. And, for some, they saw those attitudes as being, dare I say it, a female thing. show less

The idea of doing an anthology all about Missy/The Master is a really good one. The character is rarely seen outside of their interactions with the Doctor, but we know they've had an array of adventures all on their own. It seems like an anthology of stories starting The Master would've existed by now, but alas this is the first one. It works out well considering how prevalent Missy has been in the last few seasons of the show. She made a lot of appearances and there was a lot of room to show more give her some really fun adventures.

So, how does it play out? Well, it's definitely a bit of a mixed bag. Several of the stories are extremely good. The rest range from average to mediocre. None of them are truly bad, but the book never gets as good as its first two stories. It hits a high real quick then plummets with the third story and slowly climbs its way back to pretty good.

The first story, Dismemberment (by James Goss), is a lot of fun. It explores Missy's interactions with a gentlemen's club she frequents every time she regenerates and how she reacts to them kicking her out of the club now that she's become a woman. It's easily one of the most violent stories Missy/The Master has ever appeared in and it's an utter delight.

The next one, "Lords and Masters" by Cavan Scott, is my personal favorite. It involves the Time Lords recruiting Missy for a dangerous mission. There's some fun tidbits about what happened directly after the John Simm Master ended up on Gallifrey at the end of "The End of Time" and I always love when the Time Lords appear in a story, so this one was a lot of fun.

The third story, "Teddy Sparkles Must Die!" by Paul Magrs, is where the anthology started to lose me a bit. The story revolves around Missy posing as a governess for some children while she's in the possession of a magic, talking stuffed bear who can grant wishes, and the pandemonium that ensues. It's not that it's a bad story, exactly, it's just really really weird and not at the same level as the previous two. I'm sure plenty will like it, but it didn't work for me.

The next story, "The Liar, the Glitch, and the War Zone" by Peter Anghelides, is similarly weak. This story features Missy shortly after the end of "The Witch's Familiar" as she's recently escaped from the Daleks and gets herself into some trouble with the Gryphons, who end up making her crash land in Italy. The story from there involves her utilizing a rift in the time vortex to fix her TARDIS and leave. It's fine. Nothing to write home about. It took me a while to get through it just because it was a bit of a slog. It's better than the previous story, but only just.

"Girl Power", by Jacqueline Rayner, is really fun. It's a story set during Missy's imprisonment in the Vault as she reaches out to famous historical women in order to convince them to overthrow the patriarchy. It's told exclusively through emails/texts/chat messages, which is just a really fun way of doing the story. There's not a whole lot to the story, but Nardole and the Doctor appear in it which is fun. It's just fun.

The final story, "Alit in Underland" by Richard Dinnick, ends the anthology on a high note. It's a story that takes place during the events of "The Doctor Falls" (while the Doctor is unconscious after their crash arrival onto floor 507). Missy is joined by the John Simm Master and a local girl, Alit, as they go down a floor, to floor 508, in order for the Master to find a way back down to the bottom floor so he can reprogram the Cybermen again. This story features Missy at her most Doctor-ish and it's really interesting seeing her really trying to do the right thing while her earlier incarnation just wants to cause havac. Comparing this story to the first one in the anthology really helps you see how Missy evolved over her lifetime from someone who didn't care about anyone to someone who sorta did. It's really nice.

Overall, it's still a fun read. The majority of the stories are, at minimum, good, and the couple of less than good stories aren't all that bad. Plus the good stories are REALLY good and it's just a lot of fun seeing Missy on her own adventures, however short they may be. show less