The Uncollected Internet Doctor Who Short Trips, 2004–21

A few years ago, I wrote a blog post about all the short Doctor Who stories with Christmas themes that had never received some kind of hard-copy publication. In the process of researching it, I had to also figure out all the Internet-published short Doctor Who stories that were not Christmas-themed. Just as I read all the Christmas-themed ones as a sort of "book" in 2022, for Christmas 2025, I read all the other ones. Once again, here is a handy guide to all of them, along with my thoughts. (Note there were a bunch of short stories published on the official site during lockdown in 2020, but those were all subsequently collected.)

Adventure Calendar

As covered in my previous post, the official Doctor Who web site used to run an annual "adventure calendar" that often included short stories. Some were Christmas-themed, but some were not. Here are the ones that were not:

• "Number 1, Gallows Gate Road" by Rupert Laight (4 & 11 Dec. 2008). The tenth Doctor lands at a boarding house in 1940 where everyone—including himself—is curiously lacking in ambition. Published in two parts, I found the first pretty strong and atmospheric. Like a lot of Doctor Who stories, the second part, where you have to give explanations and solutions, is less engaging, but still I enjoyed it.
• "Houdini and the Space Cuckoos" Part One, Part Two, Part Three, and Part Four by Joseph Lidster (15-16, 19, & 25 Dec. 2012). In this story, the eleventh Doctor must team up with Harry Houdini to stop some aliens. I usually get on with Joseph Lidster's work very well, but this is more action-focused and less character-focused than plays to his strengths, I think. I did think he did a good job of capturing the voice of the eleventh Doctor.
• "Doctor Who and the Horror of Coal Hill" by Gavin Collinson (21 Dec. 2017). This is a bit longer than some of the other ones, and I found it surprisingly engaging. The main story is about the first Doctor visiting Coal Hill School during the time Susan is a student there, and helping a teacher fight off an alien menace; the story periodically jumps ahead and shows later Doctors coming back to the school later on to remember the events of the story. It's a neat story that parallels the Doctor's status as an outside with the perils of immigration. I thought Collinson's Christmas stories were a bit slight, but this one is strong.

Other Stories from the Official Site

• "The Feast of the Stone" by Cavan Scott & Mark Wright (3 Apr. 2004). This is the only story in this post to predate the 2005 revival, back when the official Doctor Who site was a subsection of "BBC Cult." (It is amazing to me that twenty years on, it's still there, though!) This is the only other story to ever feature the Doctor and his companions from the webcast Scream of the Shalka; it was part of a BBC Cult vampire-themed initiative. It's decent enough, but I very much enjoyed the glimpses of this unique Doctor with his unique companions, particularly the robotic shell of the Master. Scott & Wright to a good job capturing the voices of both Richard E. Grant's Doctor and Derek Jacobi's pseudo-Master.
• "'42' Prologue" by Joseph Lidster (12 May 2007). You may remember the 2007 episode "42," about the tenth Doctor and Martha, told in real time aboard a dying spaceship. This story chronicles the four minutes before they showed up, from the perspective of one of the characters on the ship. It doesn't particularly work on its own (it would be interesting to read it and then immediately start the episode, I think), but it's Joseph Lidster, so it has a strong sense of voice and character.
• "The Lonely Computer" by Rupert Laight (24 May 2008). The David Tennant years were really the peak of content on the official site; this story is based on a passing reference to the Doctor having met a lonely computer in Belgium in "The Unicorn and the Wasp." It's a little underdeveloped but Laight does well by both the tenth Doctor and Donna.
• "Blue Moon" by Oli Smith (July 2009). For the fortieth anniversary of the Apollo missions, the BBC site released this story about the Doctor discovering secret alien intervention in the moon landing—a premise the show would use itself just a couple years later. I thought this one was just okay, not much to say about it.
• "The War of Art" by Paul Cornell (Aug. 2010). I forget what the occasion for this one was, but I feel like it did have one, like it was a tie-in to a game or something. Paul Cornell is one of my favorite writers (not just Doctor Who writers, but writers full top) and he can do good, beautiful character work—but as this story shows, he can also be quite funny. Aliens invade a futuristic gallery, and Cornell uses this as the opportunity for a number of art jokes; I laughed out loud repeatedly.
• "The Night after Hallowe'en" by Mark B. Oliver (29 Oct.–5 Nov. 2010). This is the first of several stories by Mark B. Oliver about a family of kids the eleventh Doctor keeps meeting; they also appeared in a couple Christmas stories. I find the kids pretty generic, as is the plot here. I don't feel like they warranted repeat appearances.
• "What the TARDIS Thought of 'Time Lord Victorious'" by James Goss (15 Nov. 2020). This is one of two online prose tie-ins to the "Time Lord Victorious" event; it is told from the perspective of the TARDIS, picking up from the end of "The Waters of Mars," establishing how the tenth Doctor gets from there to the events of the crossover. It's fine. Goss always writes with a strong sense of voice, but the basic premise of the crossover was a bit silly.

Stories from Other Sources

• "My Dad, The Doctor" by Jamie Mathieson (First News, 29 Oct. 2015). Mathieson, writer of several Peter Capaldi tv stories, writes this prose story about him, one where the Doctor uses his sonic sunglasses to take over the mind of a kid's dad in the middle of a crisis. Well written but I found the final twist didn't make a ton of sense. It was written for a kids newspaper, but Mathieson republished it on his own blog.
• "The Dawn of the Kotturuh" by James Goss (official newsletter, 25 Sept. 2020). This is another tie-in to Time Lord Victorious, one explaining how the alien Kotturuh brought death to the universe during the Dark Times. It was originally published in the official Doctor Who e-mail newsletter. Frankly, even by the standards of Doctor Who, I don't think the idea of a universe with living things without death makes any sense, and this story didn't make it work any better.
• "The Voice of Many Angels" by Gavin Collinson (Maze Theory’s Into the Unknown web site, 18 Mar. 2021). My understanding is that the videogame Doctor Who: The Lonely Assassins had a tie-in website called Into the Unknown, purporting to be a conspiracy theorist blog focused on the Weeping Angels. This was the final post on the site, a short story from the perspective of the guy who ran the site. The site and the story are gone now, but author Gavin Collinson was kind enough to share a copy of it with me via e-mail. I really enjoyed it; creepy and suggestive, and it expanded on Weeping Angels lore in interesting ways that I liked. Amazing to think there are new angles on them, but I loved the idea of a support group!

Since the time span covered in this post, there have been a least a couple more, tie-ins to another crossover event ("Doom's Day") but I haven't read those yet. These thirteen stories run over 250 pages if formatted like an official BBC Books anthology, so it makes for a nice set of readings. I wonder if any official publisher will ever be motivated to collect any of this work?

Doorway to Hell (From Stockbridge to Segonus: A Doctor Who Magazine Comics Marathon, Part 40)

Doorway to Hell: Collected Comic Strips from the pages of Doctor Who Magazine
by Mark Wright, Staz Johnson, Mike Collins, David A Roach, and John Ross

Collection published: 2017
Contents originally published: 2016-17
Acquired: December 2017
Read: December 2022

The twelfth Doctor has settled down for a time, stuck in one time and place. His new companion is a young, college-age black woman, to whom he acts as a bit of a teacher. Plus, his oldest enemy is trapped with him.

No, it's not series ten... it's DWM issues #501 to 511! It is a bit amazing how much this is like what would be done on screen a year later. "Great minds," one supposes, but it's a set-up that really works in both cases.

Reading the comic, I have come to look forward to those periods where the television programme is off screen for protracted runs. Even though the comic is usually solid when the show is on, the energy of a complete run with its own connections and themes makes it greater than the sum of its parts—and it's most often these sequences that reward rereading in collected form.

The Pestilent Heart, from Doctor Who Magazine #501-03 (Aug.-Oct. 2016)
story by Mark Wright, pencils by Mike Collins, inks by David A Roach, colour by James Offredi, letters by Roger Langridge

This is the story that has to reunite the twelfth Doctor with Jess Collins from The Highgate Horror, strand the Doctor in the 1970s, and establish a new status quo. Its strength is definitely its first installment, where Jess goes after the enigmatic Doctor she remembers from Highgate Cemetary; the later-era Peter Capaldi Doctor is perfectly presented here, funny and acerbic. Once the plot gets underway I found it all a bit less interesting, to be honest, and when the bird creatures appeared in a grave, I was a bit confused until I realized they were totally different bird creatures to the ones in a grave from Jess's first story!

from Doctor Who Magazine #504

Moving In, from Doctor Who Magazine #504 (Nov. 2016)
story by Mark Wright, art by John Ross, colour by James Offredi, lettering by Roger Langridge

Now this is where this run and its premise begins to sing. This is told in the form of four three-page vignettes, as the Doctor interacts with each member of the Collins household: father Lloyd, mother Devina, son Maxwell, and of course Jess. They're all nicely executed bits of characterization, but the best of all is the Doctor arguing about superheroes with Max. "Detectives aren't clever! What's clever about solving crimes after they happen? 'Ooh, look at my amazing powers of hindsight!'" John Ross is usually tapped as DWM's action man (see last volume for a prime example), but he's amazingly deft with the character work here: good facial expressions, really captures Capaldi's performance and brings the whole family to life. This is the kind of thing only the strip could do, and all the better for it.

from Doctor Who Magazine #506

Bloodsport, from Doctor Who Magazine #505-06 (Dec. 2016–Winter 2016/17)
story by Mark Wright, art by Staz Johnson, inks by David A Roach, colours by James Offredi, lettering by Roger Langridge

This is a fine story. Solid but unspectacular... alien hunters come to London, the Doctor must persuade them to depart. It's the exact kind of thing that benefits from the overarching set-up, because Jess and Max and the blundering cop are what make the story work, as real people around the Doctor trying to get out.

from Doctor Who Magazine #507

Be Forgot, from Doctor Who Magazine #507 (Jan. 2017)
story by Mark Wright, layouts & inks by David A Roach, pencil art by Mike Collins, colour by James Offredi, letteting by Roger Langridge

I like that Christmas strips have become a thing, but not too regular of a thing so that they don't feel repetitive when the graphic novels are read in quick succession. I am, however, not sure what I think of this one. You think the Collinses' neighbor is being controlled by a monster, but it turns out to be a hallucination brought on by grief. It's trying to say something important... but is this how grief and mental illness work? Feels a bit cheap. But I did like the last page a lot, where Devina throws a Christmas party for the whole street.

Doorway to Hell, from Doctor Who Magazine #508-11 (Feb.-May 2017)
story by Mark Wright, art by Staz Johnson, colours by James Offredi, lettering by Roger Langridge

It all comes to a (premature, I would claim; more on that soon) end with this story, a nice little epic where the Roger Delgado Master goes after the twelfth Doctor, mistaking him for a new incarnation after the third. There are two great cliffhangers, good character moments, nice dialogue, impressive hellish art from Staz Johnson, and a nice coda. It's all very well done, and DWM makes one of its rare bids for depicting a key tv-continuity moment with the regeneration of the Master. I liked it, and like all the stories, it's better because of its context.

from Doctor Who Magazine #509

I said above that this run is a lot like series ten. There's another way it's like series ten: its set-up feels like it could have been a storytelling engine for a lot longer than it was. I always think we needed a second series of the Doctor and Bill at St. Luke's; I would have liked to have had at least one more story of the Doctor with the Collinses. It very much seems like there ought to have been at least one more "regular" adventure at least between Be Forgot and Doorway to Hell.

Stray Observations:

• Sometimes Roger Langridge is credited with "lettering," other times with "letters." This must not bother him, as he's the one who has to write it each time, so if it did, he could fix it! (Similarly, sometimes James Offredi is credited with "colour" and other times with "colours.")
• Jess remembers the Doctor used to travel with Clara, of course, but as per "Hell Bent," he does not. So when she brings it up, he's confused... but oddly not curious. I guess in some way, he knows it's something he's better off not knowing, but it does read a bit off. That said, there wouldn't be a way to bring Jess back without this bit of awkwardness.
• Staz Johnson is the first new artist to debut in DWM in quite some time, the first since Paul Grist way back in #414, ninety-one issues prior. This is the longest gap between new artists in DWM history, beating out the previous record when Tim Perkins debuted in issue #130, the first new artist since John Ridgway forty-two issues earlier. He is, on the other hand, the first DWM artist not to contribute to the commentaries that I can remember! (At least, since the detailed commentaries were introduced.) He's done some work for DC and such, but I know him best as one of the primary artists of the later, black-and-white years of the Transformers UK comic strip.
  
• Don't confuse Be Forgot the Christmas comic strip written by Mark Wright with with "...Be Forgot," the Christmas short story co-written by Mark Wright. I guess if you have a good title, you can't afford to turn it down even if you've used it before!
• Wright talks about suggesting era-appropriate actors to Staz Johnson to model characters on; Katya, the Master's henchlady in Doorway to Hell, is clearly Jacqueline Pearce!
• "JUST A TRACER" WATCH: The rare DWM graphic novel where everyone who worked on it gets cover credit!

This post is the fortieth in a series about the Doctor Who Magazine comic strip and Marvel UK. The next installment covers Daleks: The Ultimate Comic Strip Collection, Volume 1. Previous installments are listed below:

1. The Iron Legion
2. Dragon's Claw 
3. The Transformers Classics UK, Volume One
4. The Tides of Time
5. The Transformers Classics UK, Volume Two
6. Voyager
7. The Transformers Classics UK, Volume Three
8. The World Shapers
9. The Transformers Classics UK, Volume Four
10. The Age of Chaos
11. The Transformers Classics UK, Volume Five
12. A Cold Day in Hell!
13. Death's Head: Freelance Peacekeeping Agent (part 1)
14. Nemesis of the Daleks
15. Death's Head: Freelance Peacekeeping Agent (part 2)
16. The Good Soldier
17. The Incomplete Death's Head
18. Evening's Empire
19. The Daleks
20. Emperor of the Daleks
21. The Sleeze Brothers File
22. The Age of Chaos
23. Land of the Blind
24. Ground Zero
25. End Game
26. The Glorious Dead
27. Oblivion
28. Transformers: Time Wars and Other Stories
29. The Flood
30. The Cruel Sea 
31. The Betrothal of Sontar
32. The Widow's Curse
33. The Crimson Hand
34. The Child of Time
35. The Chains of Olympus
36. Hunters of the Burning Stone
37. The Blood of Azrael
38. The Eye of Torment
39. The Highgate Horror
    

The Highgate Horror (From Stockbridge to Segonus: A Doctor Who Magazine Comics Marathon, Part 39)

The Highgate Horror: Collected Comic Strips from the pages of Doctor Who Magazine
by Mark Wright, David A Roach, Mike Collins, Jacqueline Rayner, Martin Geraghty, et al.

Collection published: 2016
Contents originally published: 2015-16
Acquired: January 2017
Read: December 2022

The strip continues its use of rotating creative teams throughout the twelfth Doctor and Clara era. Since The Crimson Hand, the strip has always tried to do an ongoing strand when the show is off the air for protracted periods of time, but it is less consistent about if it tries to do this when the show is on. Yes, ongoing stories for the Eleven/Amy and Eleven/Clara runs, no ongoing stories for the Twelve/Clara run. I wonder what determines this? Well, presumably Scott Gray knows how to make the magic...

Space Invaders! / Spirits of the Jungle, from Doctor Who Magazine #484 & 489-91 (Apr., Sept.-Nov. 2015)
stories by Mark Wright and Jonathan Morris, art by Mike Collins & David A Roach and John Ross, colour by James Offredi, lettering by Roger Langridge

These two stories perhaps exemplify the fault with the rotating creative team approach. This isn't to say that the stories are awful or anything—I feel a bit bad picking on them, to be honest—but they are also not up to much. Space Invaders! has a fun premise of the Doctor and Clara being in a gigantic space storage facility, but I don't feel like it does anything fun with it, as it basically becomes a fight between them and a giant monster. Similarly, Spirits of the Jungle is crammed with ideas and action, but the ideas are mostly just there; the story doesn't really do anything of note with the idea of a living jungle, or Clara encountering a Danny Pink simulation, or what have you. The fakeout ending is all too obvious: this is an area where the regular page length of a DWM strips lets the twist down. Clearly the story isn't going to wrap up on page three! It would be more effective to trick the reader into thinking it's a two-parter, and then having a cliffhanger at the end of part two.

from Doctor Who Magazine #492

The Highgate Horror, from Doctor Who Magazine #492-93 (Dec. 2015–Winter 2015/16)
story by Mark Wright, art by David A Roach with Mike Collins, colour by James Offredi, lettering by Roger Langridge

This is a solid enough story. Lots of atmosphere as the Doctor and Clara battle vampires in a spooky cemetery, aided by future companion Jess. But the ending—as I feel like is often the case with these two-part stories by inexperienced comics writers—seems to come out of nowhere. Like, it's ten pages of solid horror, and then the Doctor's like, "oh this previously unmentioned time thingummy can fix all out problems." But David A Roach really nails it, of course.

The Dragon Lord, from Doctor Who Magazine #494-95 (Jan.-Feb. 2016)
story by Steve Lyons, art & colour by Adrian Salmon, lettering by Roger Langridge

"Adrian Salmon, draw dragons." Well, of course it looks great. But to be honest I found the story a bit of a muddle, and got lost, especially as the Doctor seemed very angry for reasons that I never really grasped.

from Doctor Who Magazine #496

Theatre of the Mind, from Doctor Who Magazine #496 (Mar. 2016)
master of ceremonies: Roger Langridge, lighting by James Offredi

Roger Langridge has been a recurring artist on DWM since Happy Deathday in 1998, and the main letterer of the strip since TV Action! in 1999. But Langridge is also an accomplished writer of comics, something I know from his short, lamented, but very good 2010-11 run on Thor. Here for the first time in seventeen years at DWM, he writes as well as draws... and the the result is excellent, the first strong strip in what was shaping up to be a bit of a lackluster volume. The Doctor meets old friend Harry Houdini... and of course battles aliens. Langridge has a great grasp of character voice, some good gags and imagery, and real economy of storytelling. Everything here shines in both writing and art. His caricatured style is good for capturing Peter Capaldi, of course, but I was also surprised to realize that he probably does the best Jenna Coleman of all the DWM artists?

Witch Hunt, from Doctor Who Magazine #497-99 (Apr.-June 2016)
story by Jacqueline Rayner, pencil art by Martin Geraghty, inks by David A Roach, colours by James Offredi, lettering by Roger Langridge

This story I had a dim memory of reading as it came out (which was not true for the other stories here, most of which I had completely forgotten)... and I was surprised to find Clara's last DWM adventure an absolute delight. A Halloween-themed fundraiser at Coal Hill School goes horribly wrong when Clara—dressed as a witch—is sent back to the era of the witch hunts and hunted by the real Witchfinder General! It looks great of course (Clara in a simple black witch outfit is perfect) and is packed with lots of great moments: "curses" start working... but the Doctor is able to use that to his advantage by picking up a penny and giving himself luck. Clara in prison is a tour-de-force of illustration from Martin Geraghty and David Roach. There's lots of whimsy here mixed with real peril, especially when the Doctor must face down Miss Chief, a seemingly omnipotent entity who just really really gets on his nerves, the kind of enemy that Peter Capaldi's Doctor sparkles facing down. Lots of good gags, strong character moments. Jac Rayner is rapidly emerging as a new talent on the DWM strip.

from Doctor Who Magazine #500

The Stockbridge Showdown, from Doctor Who Magazine #500 (July 2016)
story by Scott Gray; art by Dave Gibbons, Roger Langridge, Adrian Salmon, Dan McDaid, John Ross, and John Ridgway; pencil art by Mike Collins and Martin Geraghty; art & inks by David A Roach; colours by James Offredi; lettering by Dave Gibbons and Roger Langridge

Five hundred issues of DWM... commemorated by a twenty-page strip featuring Sharon, Max Edison, Izzy, Frobisher, Destrii, Majenta Pryce, (kind of) Chiyoko, Dogbolter, and Hob! With art by all the most prominent current members of the DWM art team, but also bringing back Dave Gibbons and John Ridgway! Like, what can you say against or even for such a celebratory jam? It also gets in references to DWM's two dead companions, Sir Justin and Gus... and the Gus moment is the emotional heart of the strip. "No one ever remembers Gus. Except me." This is what I think elevates it, not just using the strip's history as a source of continuity, but delivering a surprise character moment. "You see, I'm not on your list, Dogbolter... you were on mine." Finally, 413 issues later, the Doctor brings Dogbolter to justice.

from Doctor Who Magazine #500

It's got lots of nice moments beyond that. It's great to see a sure-of-herself Izzy, and the bit where she points out that of course she's reconciled with her parents is great; it's nice to see her and Destrii getting along; it's good to see Destrii at all (though we don't know what she's been up to) and Majenta Pryce using her powers for good. Max gets his moment in the spotlight, and we even get to visit DWM's other mainstay of a setting, Cornucopia. The way each artist is assigned their own two-page spread is very well done; we finally get to see Dan McDaid draw Majenta again, for example.

A well-earned and well-done celebration of five hundred issues. I mean, c'mon... they got Dave Gibbons to come back!

Stray Observations:

• I think I'm getting good at pegging when David Roach is collaborating with Mike Collins and when he's not. Their styles are very sympathetic, but there's some slight differences when Roach isn't inking over Collins's pencils.



from Doctor Who Magazine #497


• At thirty-eight issues, Clara has the third-longest run of any comic strip companion, behind only Izzy and Frobisher, and just edging out Amy. Not sure I would have guessed she had the longest run of any tv companion! But it kind of makes sense; there were some big hiatuses in Clara's tv tenure. (Note that this doesn't mean she appeared in all thirty-eight issues of the era, just that she was the companion for that period.)
• Scott Gray totally ignores the fact that Dogbolter was seemingly killed off in Death's Head #8. Look, I know, but it was written and illustrated by Dogbolter's creator! And he ignores that Hob became a vengeful killing machine in The Incomplete Death's Head #6-12. I can't imagine why!
• Maybe it would have been overegging the pudding, but I could have done with a couple more cameos at the last-page celebration of Max's birthday on Cornucopia. C'mon, throw in Horatio Lynk and Amy Johnson!
• Okay, it feels a bit churlish to complain about this, but whenever the strip celebrates its own history, it feels to me like what it celebrates is not the entirety of that history, but just 1979-87 and 1996-present. Sure, 1987-95 was not the best era of the strip, but it often seems like Ground Zero didn't just erase the New Adventures strips, but everything involving Sylvester McCoy's Doctor at all. I'm not saying that Olla the Heat Vampire needed to pop up here... but, I dunno, give us a Muriel Frost or House on Allen Road appearance? The strip continued to introduce original characters and concepts during that run, and surely someone out there is nostalgic for them! And it's not like this period is one Scott Gray is unfamiliar with... he debuted on DWM then!
  



from Doctor Who Magazine #500


• Say it again. Dave Gibbons! John Ridgway! Wow! They both have still got it.
• "JUST A TRACER" WATCH: Second billing! Of course, he's not "just a tracer" in this one...

This post is the thirty-ninth in a series about the Doctor Who Magazine comic strip and Marvel UK. The next installment covers Doorway to Hell. Previous installments are listed below:

1. The Iron Legion
2. Dragon's Claw 
3. The Transformers Classics UK, Volume One
4. The Tides of Time
5. The Transformers Classics UK, Volume Two
6. Voyager
7. The Transformers Classics UK, Volume Three
8. The World Shapers
9. The Transformers Classics UK, Volume Four
10. The Age of Chaos
11. The Transformers Classics UK, Volume Five
12. A Cold Day in Hell!
13. Death's Head: Freelance Peacekeeping Agent (part 1)
14. Nemesis of the Daleks
15. Death's Head: Freelance Peacekeeping Agent (part 2)
16. The Good Soldier
17. The Incomplete Death's Head
18. Evening's Empire
19. The Daleks
20. Emperor of the Daleks
21. The Sleeze Brothers File
22. The Age of Chaos
23. Land of the Blind
24. Ground Zero
25. End Game
26. The Glorious Dead
27. Oblivion
28. Transformers: Time Wars and Other Stories
29. The Flood
30. The Cruel Sea 
31. The Betrothal of Sontar
32. The Widow's Curse
33. The Crimson Hand
34. The Child of Time
35. The Chains of Olympus
36. Hunters of the Burning Stone
37. The Blood of Azrael
38. The Eye of Torment
    

Short SF&F Week: Voices from the Past edited by Scott Harrison and Lee Harris

Kindle eBook, n.pag.
Published 2011
Acquired May 2011
Read July 2012

Voices from the Past
edited by Scott Harrison and Lee Harris

Once again, I picked up this book because Paul Cornell has a story in it; I really am obsessed. Voices from the Past is the first (and apparently only) publication of H&H Books, collecting 1,500-word stories from almost thirty of British sf's best authors, released for charity. (Though "British sf's best authors" has a curiously high correspondence to "people who write Doctor Who tie-in fiction".) The linking theme seems to be the title itself; nearly all of the stories have literal or metaphorical "voices from the past." (Rob Shearman's, though, has a creepy man-dog creature. We love you, Rob!)

The main thing I learned is that the 1,500-word short story is immensely difficult to write; many of these stories are just an idea, but they're slightly too long to get away with only being an idea. Worse than a story that's just an idea is a story that's just a twist, and that's an all too prevalent mode here. Especially if that twist is just a cliche or a joke I've heard before. I could complain about a lot of those, but instead I'll focus on the good ones, such as Alastair Reynolds's "Ascension Day," which is about a spaceship that stays in a place for years upon years... but is about to take off. But of course, like all good twists, it's not twist, but simply a revelation about what's come before.

Other good ones: Cavan Scott's "Just Do It" was striking and creepy, Jasper Fforde's "Shuttle" had a great, vivid concept, Joseph Lidster's "Success" feels like the flipside of an aliens-invade-London episode of Russell Davies Doctor Who, Maura McHugh's "Mustn't Grumble" puts a poor father/son relationship into a disturbing light, Mur Lafferty's "750,000 of Your Friends Like This" was a great idea and funny even if it wasn't much of a story, Paul Magrs's "The Curious Package" was charming fun, and Robert Shearman's "The Runt" was darkly true in that way that Shearman always is.

So there's some good stuff, but the hit ratio is slightly lower than one might hope for. They're all over quickly, which means that most of the bad ones don't outstay their welcomes (though there are some capable of doing that anyway!). It's an okay book in the end, but you'd kinda hope for better from many of these authors.

All that said, for an eBook-only release, the formatting on this thing (at least in the Kindle edition) is terrible. I can (begrudgingly) understand bad formatting on print book also released as an eBook, but when a book is only an eBook, every line of text consistently being indented on the left side is inexcusably sloppy. Check your work, people!

Dr Who and the Ghosts of Christmas

Every now and then, I encounter a Short Trip on my reading list, but it feels right to read Christmas-themed ones at Christmastime, so I let this one jump the queue a bit:

Doctor Who: Short Trips #22: The Ghosts of Christmas
edited by Cavan Scott & Mark Wright

Hardcover, 278 pages. Published 2007. Acquired May 2009. Read December 2011.

Paul Cornell's A Christmas Treasury, Big Finish's first Christmas anthology, remains a high watermark for me-- not just in terms of the Christmas books, but Short Trips in general. On the other hand, their second one, The History of Christmas was kinda disappointing. Still, Doctor Who and Christmas just go together in a way that's right, something I think Paul Cornell realized before even Russell T Davies did, and so I was happily looking forward to this book.

It didn't disappoint. Even at its weakest, it still has a sense of joy about it. It's divided into three section, for Christmases Past, Present, and Future, which correspond to when the stories are set. The title and the blurb implies an element of spookiness or horror, and thankfully that's minimal, because in the few cases where it's tried, it doesn't really work. "24 Crawford Street" by Ian Farrington feels more arbitrary than spooky, while Xanna Eve Chown's "Do You Believe in the Krampus?" takes a great premise (the Alpine legend of a demon that eats naughty children) but is completely boring. "The Stars Our Contamination" by Steven Savile is a zombie story that doesn't really click. Most disappointing is Peter Angelhides's "The Somerton Fetch," a saccharine muddle of a story about a character I don't really care about.

But on the whole, the stories really work. This collection includes such joys as:

• "For the Man Who Has Everything" by Dan Abnett: A private secretary to a Cabinet minister spends Christmas with the eighth Doctor after the two of them save the world together.
• "Tell Me You Love Me" by Scott Matthewman: The best TARDIS crew ever (the first Doctor, Ian, Barbara, and Susan) experience Christmas in the London Blitz. Ian and Barbara are both sharply captured in this ominous tale.
• "Do You Dream in Colour?" by Gary Russell: No Doctor, but Ben and Polly after their time in the TARDIS. The story avoids the obvious route of having them romantically involved, and is all the better for it. It's nice to see some post-TARDIS companions who aren't depressed or traumatized, but the Doctor has clearly made his mark.
• "The Nobility of Faith" by Jonathan Clements: A Christmas pantomime where the Doctor meets "Ala Urd-Din."
• "Dear Great Uncle Peter" by Neil Corry: A little boy discovers that he's forgotten his Christmas day! How terrible! Thankfully the Doctor and Leela can set it right. Maybe trying too hard to get the voice of a small child, but fun and worthy of its position in Re:Collections.
• "They Fell" by Scott Handcock: Charley Pollard! What else do you need?
• "The Christmas Presence" by Simon Barnard and Paul Morris: The writers of The Scarifyers tackling Doctor Who? I hadn't even suspected that the world could be this kind.
• "Snowman in Manhattan" by John Binns: Worth it just for the image of the first Doctor as a department store Santa, but it turns out to be a good story beyond that, too.
• "The Crackers" by Richard Salter: Evelyn Smythe discovers that her Christmas memories live within the TARDIS itself.
• "Dr Cadabra" by Trevor Baxendale: The sixth Doctor is mistaken for a clown at an office Christmas party. Naturally.
• "Keeping it Real" by Joseph Lidster: As in The Gathering, Lidster demonstrates that he knows why Tegan is one of the best companions.
• "Christmas Everyday" by Mark Magrs: It's Christmas once a week in a future where the United Kingdom is one giant shopping center.

I also enjoyed "Faithful Friends" by the editors, a three-part story about the Doctor and the Brigadier at Christmas. Something about the Brigadier and Charley being reunited at Christmas just makes me smile.

My favorite was definitely "Far Away in a Manger" by Iain McLaughlin, a quiet tale with no monsters or villains. The Doctor, Peri, and Erimem land on an Earth colony during a snowstorm and help the colonists through their various problems. It's a charming story, clearly meant to be read on a long night during a snowstorm, helping hold back the cold just like a fire in the hearth.

I love Doctor Who, and I love Christmas. Any book with one of those things is good, but this one has both. How can it not be great? Every book should be a Doctor Who Christmas book. Except that that much Christmas would be saccharine, and that's something this book avoids nicely. Not as good as A Christmas Treasury, but that's no black mark; it's still one of the best books the Short Trips series has done.

This collection is also noteworthy for featuring three sequential stories using the term "bobble hat," which I had not previously been aware of.