If there’s one thing Doctor Who fans know, it’s that things don’t always occur in the right order. Effect precedes cause; the wimey is timey; sometimes you see your wife die before you even marry her. It happens.
Doctor Who: The Adventures Before takes that idea and runs with it, letting eight authors loose on a televised Doctor Who story and weaving a tale running up to that split second before (or after, or in-between) the TARDIS appears. Each story is wonderfully bite-sized, so I’ll try not to give too much away…
Doctor Who: The Adventures Before is available to buy now.
Discover what happened before . . .
What did Osgood do the morning of the Day of the Doctor?
What happened to Tegan before Arc of Infinity, and why does it involve strange sentient lights in the Australia outback?
What was the Tenth Doctor doing in a hall of mirrors, right before Planet of the Dead?
Answers to all these questions lie in an incredible collection of new Doctor Who short stories that give a glimpse into the moments just before we saw the Doctor step on screen.
From Skaro to Apalapucia, from a shop front drained of colour to Rassilon’s tomb, join a host of incredible adventures across the universe with Doctors, companions, friends and foes.
Synopsis
The Boy and the Dalek by Mark Griffiths
The anthology starts with a story taking the Second Doctor, Jamie and Zoe on a rescue mission with a difference in The Boy and the Dalek. Written by Mark Griffiths in his first prose Doctor Who story, you may know his name for penning Cutway Comics’ Omega miniseries, the narrative shifts away from the television characters to give us a tale of (as the title suggests) a boy and his Dalek. It’s a fantastic concept that I’m surprised nobody seems to have tackled before, with Dalek 444 forming an emotional attachment to Harrison that grows organically over the course of the story. Griffiths knew what he had with this idea and fully explores it in an impressively-efficient piece of storytelling. That said, the coda felt like it came out of nowhere, like it’d been tacked on to give the ending some extra fan-service.
The Roots of Evil by Steve Cole
Moving on, the always-brilliant Steve Cole delivers a prequel to The Seeds of Doom with The Roots of Evil – because The Nouns of Adjective is a tried and tested Doctor Who formula. Since this was leading into an episode I’ve not seen, I expected to feel lost. But, despite mostly starring characters from the TV story (I later discovered) it’s an authentic prequel in that it works perfectly as a standalone story. It never feels like the plot screeches to a halt just to plant seeds of what’s going to occur on TV, helped by the incredible atmosphere that Cole creates. Rather than simply setting the stage for The Seeds of Doom, Cole gives his story a unique tone, embracing the body horror of the Krynoid mutation unflinchingly and putting it at the very heart of the plot.
Little Did She Know by Janet Fielding
Actor, agent and now author, Janet Fielding follows Tegan after her departure in Time-Flight with Little Did She Know. I’ve always found the Mara more silly than scary, so I expected to be rather disinterested by this, as Fielding crafts a mid-quel of sorts between Kinda and Snakedance. But her decision to focus on Tegan visiting Bundaberg and confronting her strained relationship with her father was a wonderful way to keep Tegan’s character growth at the heart of the story, even as a fan-favourite villain lurks in the background. It’s only let down by its writing style, which alternates between past and present tense a few times and overuses a couple of phrases (sometimes multiple times on the same page) which suggests a bit more work was needed.
The Four Faces of Immortality by Gary Russell
With The Four Faces of Immortality, Gary Russell (if you’re a fan of Doctor Who books, you already know who he is) blends Doctor Who deep lore with a compelling string of vignettes. Following Borusa after being encased in the Tomb of Rassilon at the end of The Five Doctors, the Cardinal gets some face-time with the three Time Lords who sought the secrets of immortality before him. Russell weaves together some of the most obscure references to Gallifrey’s history drawn from the depths of spin-off media without ever losing sight of the plot. The trio of Time Lords are characterised very distinctly and I’d love for them to appear again somehow.
Becky’s Impossible Day by Beth Axford
Beth Axford – editor, poet and author of the Doctor Who Quiz Book (and a 2019 guest post on this very blog) – makes her Who literary debut with Becky’s Impossible Day, a sharp and concise character-focused story set around the events of the 2005 episode Rose. Axford wastes no time introducing the titular Becky and within three pages crafts a sympathetic, well-rounded hero you can’t help rooting for. Just in time for something alien to happen and throw it all into doubt. Where the previous stories in the collection went for scale and bombast, Becky’s Impossible Day is a contained but no less imaginative story driven by the character’s emotional turmoil. For me, this is the highlight of the collection and I can’t wait to read what the author does next.
Smiley’s Mirror Exhibit by Janelle McCurdy
Fantasy author Janelle McCurdy also makes her Doctor Who debut with a Tenth Doctor story leading straight into Planet of the Dead. This is a fairly straightforward adventure as a young girl investigates her friend’s disappearance around a peculiar new exhibition and runs into the Doctor doing much the same. While this story is fizzing with energy and imagination, it’s a bit lacking when it comes to characterisation until practically the final paragraph. I wish we’d learnt more about the girl as the story unfolds, but I appreciate the limited word-count makes this tricky. I also felt McCurdy lays the callbacks on a bit thick, having the Doctor quoting himself or referencing bygone monsters for no clear reason. Nevertheless, a very satisfying runaround story for any Tenth Doctor fan.
The Fall of Apalapucia by E. L. Norry
Having contributed to the Origin Stories anthology in 2022, here E. L. Norry crafts a unique and sprawling world from little more than a handful of references. Depicting the fall of Apalapucia – funnily enough – into the state we find it in 2011’s The Girl Who Waited, Norry has clearly spent a long time thinking about the two-hearted species that existed there and building them a culture and history. In Seladore we get a literal tour guide to the world and a tragic figure as we slowly see him and the rest of his species succumb to the one-day plague. Though a tad overwrought in places, Norry demonstrates a spectacular command of descriptive language and ensures every sentence paints a vivid image. A genuinely beautiful piece of writing.
The Morning of the Day of the Doctor by Ingrid Oliver
The anthology ends with Ingrid Oliver, who played Osgood on TV and audio, taking the brief exactly at its word. While the previous stories played fast and loose with the before aspect of “The Adventures Before” (as a time-travel story should), Oliver delivers a story laser-focused on setting up the opening scenes of The Day of the Doctor. Unfortunately, that’s the whole story. It expands a little on the characters of McGillop and Osgood’s oft-mentioned sister (whose name may link to Smiley’s Mirror Exhibit but also could be a coincidence) but beyond that it’s Osgood going through the mostly-mundane motions of her morning. The appearance of the Curator is appreciated, and Oliver writes a lovely description of Tom Baker, but his role is just to give Osgood and Kate the information they pass onto the Doctor in the opening five minutes of the 50th anniversary special. There’s no plot and it doesn’t tell us anything about Osgood we don’t already know, so this was a rather underwhelming way to close the collection.
Overall
Doctor Who: The Adventures Before contains a wonderful blend of talents: authors who have been writing Who for decades, new writers flexing their TARDIS talents for the first time, and performers whose dedication to their roles drives them to explore the unseen depths of their characters. Across the board, the writing is efficient and evocative, building a complete and mostly satisfying narrative in fewer than thirty pages. The Fall of Apalapucia and Becky’s Impossible Day are the standout stories from the collection for their breadth of imagination. It’s just a shame the final story – linked to a beloved episode – left me cold. Hardcore fans will enjoy the exploration of Tegan and the deep-cut continuity references (who’d have thought the Timewyrm would be relevant in 2024?) while anyone with an interest in Doctor Who will dig the adventure, imagination and emotion.
With thanks to Puffin, Penguin RH and BBC Children’s Books for the review copy.