| Title | : | Doctor Who: The Twelve Doctors of Christmas |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 1405928956 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9781405928953 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Hardcover |
| Number of Pages | : | 318 |
| Publication | : | First published October 13, 2016 |
Inside this festive book of Doctor Who stories, you'll find timey-wimey mysteries, travels in the TARDIS, monster-chasing excitement and plenty of Christmas magic. Find out what happens when the Third Doctor meets Jackie Tyler, the Seventh Doctor and Ace encounter an alien at Macy's department store, and the Ninth Doctor tries to get Rose a red bicycle for Christmas.
With stories by Jacqueline Rayner, Colin Brake, Richard Dungworth, Mike Tucker, Gary Russell and Scott Handcock, plus twelve original illustrations by artists including the award-winning Rob Biddulph.
Doctor Who: The Twelve Doctors of Christmas Reviews
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The Doctor & Xmas, like Bread & Butter!
The general rating is an average sum result of the individual ratings given for each short story in the anthology.
ALL I WANT FOR CHRISTMAS
By Jacqueline Rayner & Nick Harris
Rating: *** ( 3 stars )
The First Doctor, along with Ian Chesterton, Barbara Wright and Vicki Pallister, arrive to England, just in time for Christmas in 1963, however things aren’t like they supposed to be, and for a strange reason, some stuff is just odd.
A COMEDY OF TERRORS
By Colin Brake & Melissa Castrillón
Rating: **** ( 4 stars )
The Second Doctor, along with Jamie McCrimmon & Zoe Heriot, arrive to a spaceship in travel to a planet, part of a vast interestellar kingdom. There, they, have to pretend to be Shakespearean actors, while they investigate a menace against the princess soon to be crowned.
THE CHRISTMAS INVERSION
By Jacqueline Rayner & Sara Gianassi
Rating: **** ( 4 stars )
The Third Doctor, along with Jo Grant & Capt. Mike Yates, arrive to London, just in time for Xmas in 2006, but if you know well the New Series era, you know that there was already there another regeneration of The Doctor, so they need the assistance of Jackie Taylor (Rose Taylor’s mom) to avoid a time travel mess.
THREE WISE MEN
By Richard Dungworth & Rob Biddulph
Rating: *** ( 3 stars )
The Fourth Doctor & K9 are stranded in orbit around Earth on the TARDIS, since the time ship needs several very special spare parts to work again, and only UNIT has that kind of technology, but since they’re in space, the trouble of reaching the TARDIS is absurdly impossible. However, luckily the date is December 24th, 1968, so if you know something about history, you’ll figure out a way to accomplish the impossible.
SONTAR’S LITTLE HELPERS
By Mike Tucker & Staffan Gnosspelius
Rating: ***** ( 5 stars )
The Fifth Doctor, along with Tegan Jovanka & Vislor Turlough, attend a SOS signal in deep space from a space cargo vessel carrying toys for a Human Colony due to arrive in Xmas, however, they find a young Sontaran warrior decided to make his coming-to-age test with them.
FAIRY TALE OF NEW NEW YORK
By Gary Russell & Stewart Easton
Rating: ***** ( 5 stars )
The Sixth Doctor & Melanie Bush arrive to a space hospital vessel, that it’s “manned” by a crew of Catkind nurse sisters, part of the Sister of the Plenitude, taking care of a group of frightened kids. It’s up to The Doctor & Mel to find out why the kids are so scared and what secret hides in that space hospital vessel.
THE GROTTO
By Mike Tucker & Charlie Sutcliffe
Rating: *** ( 3 stars )
The Seventh Doctor & Ace arrive to New York and soon they have to mount a hunting mission against a strange alien monster through the Macy’s store during xmas time.
GHOST OF CHRISTMAS PAST
By Scott Handcock & Jennifer Skemp
Rating: **** ( 4 stars )
The Eighth Doctor is taking a brief rest, in the middle of the Time War, when he finds himself trapped in a second, unable to move forward of backwards, and soon he notices that he’s not alone in the TARDIS.
THE RED BICYCLE
By Gary Russell & Rohan Eason
Rating: *** ( 3 stars )
The Ninth Doctor puts to the test, making a very small change in history, to improve the childhood of Rose Tyler on Xmas, however, the kind deed will become more complicated than expected.
LOOSE WIRE
By Richard Dungworth & Captain Kriss
Rating: ***** ( 5 stars )
The Tenth Doctor faces again the Wire, during Xmas time, in a 21st Century, where with high speed internet and bluetooth technology, it will become the worst case scenario to deal against such villain.
THE GIFT
By Scott Handcock & Various artists
Rating: ***** ( 5 stars )
The Eleventh Doctor deals with an alien stranded at Earth during xmas time, and the spirit of the holidays will cause a tremendous effect at the origin world of the alien.
THE PERSISTENCE OF MEMORY
By Colin Brake & Tom Duxbury
Rating: ***** ( 5 stars )
The Twelfth Doctor takes a young boy to look after the mystery of the Loch Ness Monster, however, while The Doctor thought to know already the reason behind the myth, an ancient opponent will appear to cause mischief. -
2016 Book Awards
(awarded to Ghost of Christmas Past)
Runner Up: Best Short-Story 2016 (awarded to The Gift)
(more information about these awards on my blog)
On the first day of Christmas my true love gave to me...
...the Twelve Doctors Christmas stories!
(yeah, that rhyme didn't work, moving on)
This was the best thing ever to listen to while Christmas cleaning an entire house. I loved that there was one story for each Doctor, because I've been missing the old ones.
No, not all of the stories were 5 stars - but so, so many of them were spot on perfect. There were fun stories, sad stories, dramatic stories, action-filled stories, stories focusing on adults, stories focusing on kids - and the references throughout the entire thing were amazing.
In short, I might have found a new Christmas tradition. -
Ομολογουμένως, μόνο για φαν του Doctor Who.
-
*looks at rating*
Yep. Not five stars as in "the best thing in the history of everything, EVER", but undoubtedly the best Doctor Who short story anthology I've read - anyone who has seen me read short stories before probably knows I grumble a lot as it's a format that, more often than not, just plain doesn't seem to work for me when it comes to published tie-in fiction - and .. basically, I can't really find anything to complain about.
I enjoyed each and every story; some probably a bit more than others, but even the weakest ones (and I'd be hard-pressed to point at which ones they were - Five, Six and Seven, if I must, I suppose) were enjoyable little fully formed, well-paced little tales in their own right.
Favourites? The Third Doctor's story was a wonderful delight, actually making me laugh out loud. The Fourth Doctor story was unexpected and random in a brilliant way. The Twelfth Doctor's was one of the best ones I've read for my favourite incarnation.
And the illustrations! Each by a different artist, so naturally there were some I preferred and other styles I'm not so keen on, but it's such a long time since I've read a book with proper illustrations and, as it happened, the one for the Twelfth Doctor story was just perfect (I'm not kidding; if I could, I'd buy a print of it, frame it and hang it on my wall), so, yeah.
No complaints. I loved this. Such a warm, lovely, collection of clever little stories, kind and Christmassy without being overly sweet or cloying. -
1. All I want for Chirstmas by Jacqueline Rayner - 4 out of 5 Stars
2. A Comedy of Terrors by Colin Brake - 4,5 out of 5 Stars
3. The Christmas Inversion by Jacqueline Rayner - 5 out of 5 Stars
4. Three Wise Men by Richard Dungworth - 3 out of 5 Stars
5. Sontars Little Helpers by Mike Tucker - 3 out of 5 Stars
6. Fairy Tale of New York by Gary Russell - 4,5 out of 5 Stars
7. The Grotto by Mike Tucker - 3,5 out of 5 Stars
8. Ghost of Christmas Past by Scott Handcock - 4 out of 5 Stars
9. The Red Bycycle by Gary Russell - 3 out of 5 Stars
10. Loose Wire by Richard Dungworth - 5 out of 5 Stars
11. The Gift by Scott Handcock - 5 out of 5 Stars
12. The Persistance of Memory by Colin Brake - 3,4 out of 5 Stars -
Short stories loosely Christmas-themed or based around the day featuring the first 12 Doctors. Some are enjoyable. Most are quick and very light reads.
-
I’m a huge Doctor Who fan plus Christmas is my favorite time of the year (I’m basically Buddy the Elf) so when I found out about this christmassy Doctor Who anthology of course there was no way of not buying it. All of the Doctors are having their own little Christmas adventure, sounds like so much fun, doesn’t it?
I pretty much loved all of the twelve short stories; enjoyed some rather more than others though, only because I only know the new doctors so reading about the old doctors didn’t make me very emotional since I’ve never heard of them before.
All stories are packed with some fun things and references for mostly classic but also new fans I would say. There’s for example the third doctor hanging out with Jackie Tylor, Rose’s mother, in “The Christmas Inversion” which was one of my favorite short stories, even though I’ve never met the third Doctor before but I love Jackie and Rose is by far my favorite Doctor Who companion. That is also why “Roses Red Bicycle” has got to be my favorite short story. I love how much the Doctor grew on her. I loved it so much that Rose was mentioned so many times in this book, but Martha and Donna for example weren’t; neither were Amy and Rory or even Clara. I love so much how important Rose seems to all Doctor Who fans and that made me enjoy this book even more.
I also loved that there were so many references to some of the TV shows episodes, like sequels to one of the stories shown on TV, such as for example “Rose’s Red Bicycle” but also “Loose Wire” which is the story with the Tenth Doctor, my all time favorite Doctor.
Every story in this collection offers something to love and it is guaranteed to bring a smile on every Whovian’s face, I’m sure.
There are also insanely beautiful illustrations for each story. I honestly had to stop and stare at some of them because they are just so gorgeous.
I’m sure, since I only know the newer version of the show, the one from 2005, I missed a lot of references in the stories but I did check imdb.com quite a few times and looked up the characters and it was so nice to see that almost all characters in the stories were on the show as well. Not all of them though some of the Doctors even met some new characters in their stories, which was also very nice and fun to read about.
I found all short stories very enjoyable, even those with unfamiliar characters so don’t skip the Doctors you don’t know because you will miss on some great stuff if you do. Especially the story with the third Doctor is so good and really worth reading, especially when you love Jackie Tyler.
If you are a Doctor Who fan, you will enjoy this book – a lot. If you’ve never seen the show before but are still into aliens and Christmas and stuff, you may want to give it a try but I think the book is most enjoyable if you also watch the show. I read it a couple of days after Christmas and it kept the Christmas spirit alive for a little longer. It was such a fun read with great characters (don’t expect to get to know the characters in depth though, these are only short stories) and gorgeous illustrations. Also the cover is beyond beautiful. This book makes a great gift, Christmas gift especially and is perfect to read around Christmas time unless you feel the Christmas blues coming a bit early. But I would definitely recommend reading this book around Christmas and in the winter time. So if you are a Doctor Who fan and didn’t know this book existed I would recommend you to keep it in mind for next year maybe. -
As most doctor who books I've read so far this one was amazing too.
As always there are some stories I loved, some I liked and one that didn't do it so much for me.
But overall it was a fantastic, action packed, christmassy and entertaining read that I enjoyed a lot and will most likely reread next Christmas. ;) -
I really enjoyed this collection of short stories about all of the first 12 doctors and their christmas adventures. My favorites were #10 and #11 (who also happen to be my two favorite doctors). Great anthology for any Dr. Who fans.
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I really only liked 3 out of 12 stories but the idea was cute.
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z wielkim serduszkiem, nic specjalnego, ale jest świątecznie i Doktorowo — i ma perełki 💙
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This book was just a plain fun read. There were certain stories about which I didn't get too excited or I had trouble getting through, and there were others which I completely ate up before I realized I had. But either way, it was nice to be back in the world of Doctor Who and it reminded me how much and how long I've loved it. It even encouraged me to go back and watch the previous season which I hadn't gotten to yet. Add in some lovely artwork (I didn't love it all, but there were several really great illustrations), and you have a delightful Christmastime read.
By individual story:
First Doctor: 4 Stars - I always loved Ian, Barbara, and Vicki, the story was warm and Christmas-y, and the art perfect.
Second Doctor: 3 Stars - I felt like the writer truly captured Jamie and Zoe (both of whom I love), and though the story was predictable and silly, it suited the characters. The art was kind of neat too.
Third Doctor: 3 Stars - I loved the art, as well as the moment between Jo and the Doctor at the end. I even appreciated going behind the scenes of a New Who story with Jackie, and the introspection it brought to Jo. But in general I found it a little convoluted and a few things played up a little too much.
Fourth Doctor: 2.5 Stars - Too much NASA and not enough Doctor (especially considering it was Four!). The end almost bumped it up to a 3, but it would have involved some time travel rule breakage in a nonsensical way, which actually wasn't necessary. It just felt like there were too many missed opportunities to make it a great story. The art was cute.
Fifth Doctor: 3 Stars - This one was a decent Doctor story, but just not great for a Christmas-themed book. I don't remember much about Turlough, but Tegan was quite well-captured in this story. I didn't much like the art style.
Sixth Doctor: 4 stars - The story was actually really nice: a plot that seems creepy and threatening and then turns into a happy thing with a very solid Christmas ending. I felt like the art was a missed opportunity. They could have drawn something very fun or warm, considering the plot, and instead we got a window of a spaceship.
Seventh Doctor: 2.5 Stars - Again, it was a solid enough Doctor plot, but the story as a whole just didn't capture my attention. I liked the art though.
Eighth Doctor: 2.5 Stars - This story didn't capture my attention either, and I'm not sure if it's the dismal nature of the story or the fact that I've never actually watched the Eighth Doctor movie. I really loved the inclusion of Susan and the Doctor's role as a grandfather though. The art was great. I just wished I cared more about the story it represented.
Ninth Doctor: 3 Stars - I liked that it was a Rose-story without much Rose in it, because I got to appreciate her relationship with Nine from afar. I'm not quite convinced that the Doctor was well-captured in it and I didn't love the villain, but it wasn't bad. Just okay. The art was great.
Tenth Doctor: 3.5 Stars - I really liked this story, though it wasn't quite Christmas-y. It was pretty Ten though, and I liked Alice. The art was really nice too!
Eleventh Doctor: 4 Stars - Another story that was quite good at capturing the Doctor, and this one was also very Christmas-like. This was one of my favorites in the whole collection. I didn't love the art style, but the image it portrayed was heartwarming.
Twelfth Doctor: 3.5 Stars - I liked the story in general, and the callback to the Meddling Monk, but the ending was kind of a downer for me. The art was neat, but again, I felt like it was a missed opportunity. So many other things could have been portrayed besides the back of the Doctor's head, and a lake with a disappearing monster - especially with such a lovely art style.
Oh, and the picture on the last page? Perfect. -
So, I needed to switch up genres a little because there are WAY to many schmaltzy Romance Christmas novels…. not like I don’t love a good Romance! But, I’m sure you guys want to hear about something different and I wanted to READ something different!
Well, my geeky little heart could not turn this one down! A compilation of short stories starting with the First Doctor and ending with the Twelfth (duh…) all written by different Authors. I was worried that these stories were just going to be Fan Service and I would just be reading about your typical Daleks, Weeping Angels, Cybermen, etc…. kind of boring. But, NO! There is mention of the regular things we know and love, but these were very interesting new stories with interesting and new problems! I was surprisingly pleased!
“Whats’s all this about Christmas?” asked the Doctor.
“We were just indulging in a spot of Nostalgia.” Ian replied, “remeniscing about long ago.”
“The past is never ‘Long Ago’ when you have a Time Machine!”
I recommend this book as a nice easy read that you can pick up and put down whenever you have a spare moment. It’s a Doctor Who Fan’s Christmas Miracle! -
Cracked the cover on this for a seasonal Christmas Doctor Who story. I read 2 this year to get things started.
2022: FIRST DOCTOR: Periodic and lightweight. I wish writers would take a more modern approach to the first Doctor. * * *
2022: SECOND DOCTOR: This is exactly what I mean by a more modern approach to a classic Doctor. Very nice to see #2 tangle with a modern foe. The drawback here was the story lacked much seasonal element to it. * * * *
2023: THIRD DOCTOR: Nice intermingling of a vintage Doctor with a modern supporting character. Fun seeing Jo and Mike interact with modern tech. * * * * -
As someone who loves Doctor Who Christmas specials this is the perfect book for me.
All of the stories delivered but I liked some better than others, of course. That being said, I still found most of them rather forgettable. Overall nice (re)read, though. -
Awesome stories for Doctor Who fans of all ages!
-
On average, I’d say this was more like 4.5 stars, but I’m rounding up. I reviewed each individual story in the Traveling the Vortex Goodreads Book Club and once I’m on a regular computer rather than my phone, I’ll copy those reviews here. Suffice it to say that I enjoyed this greatly and I’m glad we read it with the book club this month.
EDIT: Here are my comments from the TtV Book Club about each story individually -
All I Want For Christmas - I loved that this ultimately wasn't some nefarious plot by evil alien monsters. This was simply Vicki trying to give Barbara a Christmas like Barbara remembered back on Earth. But because Vicki is from a vastly different time period than Ian and Barbara (which is something that can be easy to forget when dealing with this particular Team TARDIS), she doesn't get it quite right.
I love how this story plays with the relationship between Vicki and Barbara, both in terms of the different periods in history the characters are from, as well as their ages. Of course, Vicki would have different holiday traditions than Barbara would, which is why she misinterprets things like snapdragon and gets Frankenstein mixed up with frankincense. While there is a sense of peril in the story, it ends with a healthy dose of heart and good humor - which is one of my favorite hallmarks of Doctor Who. And Doctor Who that takes place at Christmas certainly should have an extra helping of heart and good humor.
A Comedy of Terrors - “The lady farts like a redcoat.” I think I could leave my review of this at that line from Jamie McCrimmon and you’d probably get what this is about. I’d have to check on release dates to see which came first, this or Big Finish’s Classic Doctors, New Monsters - but I’d like to guess this is the first time a Classic Who Doctor met the aliens of Raxocoricofallapatorius. Almost fitting that is was the Second Doctor, where he was somewhat clownish. Also, I’m willing to bet Jamie was having a good laugh about farting aliens.I’ll be honest - I thought this was hilarious in a pants-on-head sort of way. Definitely not a story to be taken seriously, but it’s not meant to. That makes it so much fun as a short story.
The Christmas Inversion - We’ve had multi-Doctor stories, but it’s rare that we have Doctors showing up within other Doctors’ eras and interacting with companions and relatives of companions. But here, the Third Doctor, Jo Grant, and Mike Yates end up meeting Jackie Tyler, Rose Tyler’s mum. Hilarity ensues. Because, Jackie. But that is the charm of this story - Jackie puts all the pieces together, which is great since this takes place during “The Christmas Invasion” and the Tenth Doctor is convalescing after regeneration.
It’s nice to see Doctors show up in other Doctors’ stories. And clever too.
Three Wise Men - The crew of Apollo 8 meet the Fourth Doctor. It's so funny going from the serious point-of-view of three astronauts orbiting the moon for the first time, to their utter bewilderment at seeing a blue box floating out in space with a curly-haired mad man with a stripey scarf. Again, this story can be summed up as "fun." It's reality meeting the impossible and I enjoyed every minute of it.
Sontar's Little Helpers - Why am I not surprised that Turlough doesn't like Christmas? Don't get me wrong, I like Turlough as a character. He's more of a lovable sourpuss than anything.
Anyway, the Doctor, Tegan, and Turlough have to help get supplies to a colony and the Sontarans are trying to steal it, led by a brash young Sontaran (only a few hours old!) trying to make a name for himself in the Sontaran military. Also, there's a robot named P011Y (I admit, I imagined this robot being voiced by Anneke Wills - the actress who played the Doctor's companion Polly in the '60s). The Doctor saves the day in the nick of time and the Loen colony gets their delivery just in time for Christmas. Happy endings and clever writing all around!
Fairy Tale of New New York - The title's a little cumbersome, but other than that we have yet another enjoyable story in this anthology!
With all the references to a past adventure, I feel like there was another story or book with the Sixth Doctor going to New Earth. If there is one, I'd like to look it up and read it (or listen to it, if it's Big Finish). Abbess Ayesha is a great character and her rapport with Sixie was a treat to read. I loved the concept of the Catkind trying to find a cure for humanity's cat allergies so they could live in harmony together - not to mention the twist that the Catkind's children could be allergic to humans!
Also - the Sixth Doctor being mistaken for Santa Claus because these human children don't really know about Santa Claus was absolutely adorable. Now I need a story with Colin Baker playing Santa Claus in some capacity. :)
The Grotto - The Seventh Doctor and Ace have to deal with an alien threat in Macy's at Christmas time. Because Doctor Who hasn't made everything terrifying yet.
I'm being facetious. This was a fun story too. Even had a sweet ending. Though I was expecting Ace to be making explosives at the perfume counter (because, Ace). While there weren't fiery explosions by the end of this, she did use bottles of perfume as grenades of a sort (an overabundance of perfume can be almost as devastating as traditional grenades). High marks for this one as well.
Ghost of Christmas Past - There have been several silly Christmas stories in this anthology (all fun and enjoyable) - but I think it's fitting the Eighth Doctor gets something heartfelt.
The Eighth Doctor really has a hard time of it. Tragedy striking his companions, traveling alone more often than not, the onset of the Time War, trying not to get involved but getting dragged into the conflict anyway - and he’s the most kind and sensitive of the Doctor’s incarnations. I feel sorry for him more than anything. And this story starts out with that theme, particularly the line about how the Time War’s rewritten time so much that many of the people the Doctor’s rescued never were born in the first place.
But Christmas is not a time of sadness and regret. And the Doctor gets a sweet reminder of what he's trying to save in the midst of all these terrible things he's facing. I love the message from Susan - as well as the fact this story acknowledges character details added in through Big Finish audios. A sweet story for a character deserving of more good things than he sometimes seems to get.
“Christmas forces you to remember the good times as well as bad.” Preach it.
The Red Bicycle - Leave it to Doctor Who to take one seemingly-throwaway line in an episode and make a great story out of it. And, of course, Christmas gift-giving could never be straightforward when you're dealing with the Doctor.
It's not just that the Doctor's gift to 13-year-old Rose gets stolen. It gets stolen twice. Once by some neighborhood kid, then by a giant alien robot with a score to settle. I did love the Doctor feeling like he's tougher now that he has a leather jacket and a short haircut, rather than the Byron-esque persona of his previous incarnation (well, the incarnation he claims at least).
Great story, heartfelt, and still action-adventure-y.
Loose Wire - This story is very Tenth Doctor, in that it deals with things that are very modern and of-their-time. In a few years, I expect this might be kind of dated, with its references to Bluetooth, Justin Bieber, 3G (well... that’s kind of on the way out now, isn’t it?) Still, it’s an interesting update for a villain that was introduced in a story set in the 1950s. It’s not too far-fetched to think that the Wire would have a field day with today’s technology. This one wasn’t quite as interesting as some of the others in this collection, but that’s hardly a criticism. It’s still enjoyable enough.
The Gift - Another story of presents being stolen, though this time the creatures doing the stealing don’t realize that they’ve hurt somebody through their actions. They apologize and return the presents and things are okay - more than okay, as it later turns out. They end up with a brand new tradition thanks to the Doctor and his young companion. Okay - mostly the young companion. Who then grows up and later gets to take her family back to that alien planet and see the good things her small gesture of kindness brought about.
Also (again) - the writing for the Eleventh Doctor was top-notch. All of the writing for the Doctors has been great in this collection, but I felt like this story really captured the tone and mannerisms of Matt Smith’s version of the Doctor. I needed to mention that specifically for this one.
The Persistence of Memory - Ah - so the famous Clive from the very first episode of New Who gets an origin story. Cute. (Though it was weird having to read his name as “CJ” when he was a kid - that’s been my nickname in the past, though not so much anymore). This story wasn’t quite so Christmas-y, which is kind of jarring after reading all of these other great Christmas-themed stories. It was a good story on its own and a fitting place to explain where Clive got his start. Just not sure if it fit so well in this story collection.
Overall, this was a fun and enjoyable set of short stories to read. Perfect for Christmas, great for Doctor Who fans, and... yeah. I liked it a lot! Also, the illustrations accompanying each story were very well done. Hard to pick a favorite - I loved all of them! -
Diese Weihnachtsanthologie haben wir schon vor einigen Jahren angefangen und jedes Jahr ein bisschen weiter vorgelesen.
Der Aufbau ist: TITEL von Autor*in & Illustrator*in.
1 ALL I WANT FOR CHRISTMAS von Jacqueline Rayner & Nick Harris
Ian und Barbara haben seltsame Träume.
2 A COMEDY OF TERRORS von Colin Brake & Melissa Castrillón
Der Doctor, Jamie und Zoe müssen eine Shakespeare-Aufführung retten.
3 THE CHRISTMAS INVERSION von Jacqueline Rayner & Sara Gianassi
Jo hört eine hilfesuchende Stimme in der Tardis.
4 THREE WISE MEN von Richard Dungworth & Rob Biddulph
Eine NASA-Crew begegnet einem Alien.
5 SONTAR’S LITTLE HELPERS von Mike Tucker & Staffan Gnosspelius
Tegan, Turlough und der Doctor landen auf einem weit entfernten Frachter.
6 FAIRY TALE OF NEW NEW YORK von Gary Russell & Stewart Easton
Mel und der Doctor begegnen Felis catus.
7 THE GROTTO von Mike Tucker & Charlie Sutcliffe
Ace und der Doctor folgen ein paar Fußspuren im Schnee auf dem Macy's-Dach.
8 GHOST OF CHRISTMAS PAST von Scott Handcock & Jennifer Skemp
Der Doctor erhält eine seltsame Weihnachtskarte.
9 THE RED BICYCLE von Gary Russell & Rohan Eason
Der Doctor möchte Rose temporale Einmischungen erklären und jagt daher einem roten Fahrrad hinterher.
10 LOOSE WIRE von Richard Dungworth & Captain Kriss
Als eine Erdbewohnerin einen Anruf von Justin Bieber erhält, muss der Doctor einschreiten.
11 THE GIFT von Scott Handcock & Various artists
Der Doctor hilft einem Mädchen, geklaute Weihnachtsgeschenke zurückzuholen.
12 THE PERSISTENCE OF MEMORY von Colin Brake & Tom Duxbury
Ein Junge auf der Suche nach Mysterien erhält vom Doctor eine Münze aus der Zukunft...
Jeder Doctor (wie der Titel sagt, 1-12) erlebt ein Weihnachtsabenteuer, manchmal mit seinen Companions, manchmal mit komplett Fremden, sodass jede*r einsteigen kann. Wir haben alle neuen Doctors kennengelernt, daher dachte ich, bei den älteren verstehen wir vielleicht Anspielungen nicht oder können uns nicht mit ihnen identifizieren. Aber der Doctor war einfach schon immer großartig und so sind alle Geschichten im selben Geist geschrieben und machen alle großen Spaß. Besonders lustig war aber bei 10, seine Gedankengänge von außen zu betrachten, das wirkt wirklich recht verrückt.
Jede Geschichte hat eine eigene Illustration erhalten, die zwischendurch eingefügt wurden.
Auf Deutsch erschienen als "Die 12 Doktoren der Weihnacht"! -
A collection of christmassy short stories featuring each of the first 12 doctors. Fun and charming, for the most part. They are a little slight in places, which is fine as they are aimed at a younger audience.
The Second Doctor's Comedy of Terrors and The Seventh Doctor's The Grotto are the highlights with The Christmas Inversion where The Third Doctor meets Jackie Tyler, the only one that falls really flat.
Overall, it is an enjoyable experience as I await Mr Gatwa's debut. -
2018 52 Book Challenge - 42) A Book With Non-Human Characters
This was a collection of short stories, one for each Doctor from the First to the Twelfth. Some were better than others, but definitely worth the read. -
3.5 stars
Some stories were silly, others near the end I liked better.
A great holiday read for Doctor Who fans. -
Is there a better way to spend christmas season than with the doctor? I don't think so.
I really enjoyed reading the Christmas stories especially with 9, 10, 11 and 12. I miss them. -
All of the Doctors having their own Christmas adventure.
These are short stories and some are better developed than others. But I wouldn't say any are bad so much as just short. They are often quite sedate for a Doctor Who adventure as well.
One of the best things is that the Doctors dealt with events that were more often associated with other incarnations of the Doctor. Truthfully, for me, the Doctor can sometimes feel like 12 separate characters instead of 12 versions of one character. By having them deal with events from other incarnations, it made them seem more connected.
A fun read. -
A nice collection of Christmas stories with all the incarnations of the Doctor. Some very touching, entertaining, and thrilling stories. A perfect Christmas read! They are easy and quick to read, and enjoyable even if you haven't seen all the Doctors on television yet. A wonderful Christmas read!
(only one tiny point of complaint: An editor should have found it odd - as I as a reader have - finding out that the third doctor didn't know a creature the second doctor clearly had known....especially if it was in the previous story of the same book - but that's just for those being a bit sensitive on the continuity thing.) -
Nice collection of stories - one about each Doctor. One or two were bit too childish, but rest was perfectly fine, relaxing read. Perfect for this time of the year, too. Maybe I'll find my own Doctor under the Christmas tree, too? ;)
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Overall, a disappointing mix of short stories. A couple were good, a couple were tolerable, but the best that could be said for the majority was that they weren't TERRIBLE. There were a couple stories that were terrible. Rereading this will not become a holiday tradition, sadly.
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A majority of this book was unfortunately, very very forgettable. The only stand out story that was actually pretty great was the 8th doctors story. The 3rd doctors story was fun, aside from those they are all very forgetful. Not bad by any means, just nothing special.
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Awesome stories. Lovely hard-cover, looks like it is hand-painted! Excellent illustrations inside the book as well!
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Yet again a lovely collection of Doctor Who stories where I find that I enjoy those stories more where I am already familiar with the Doctor from the TV series. Although, I do have to admit that I am starting to appreciate the older Doctors more and more. Their mannerisms aren't quite close to my heart as, say 10 or 11 are, but I believe I'm starting to get the hang of them.
Each story was roughly 30 pages long and while I'm not always a short story fan, I actually really liked these festive Christmas short stories that feature a Doctor who's awfully lucky at times (who am I kidding, he's almost always lucky) when he needs to save either someone specific or the world from aliens. Some of the stories I liked a bit more, but really, those stories were mostly those where I am already acquainted with the Doctor.
But I do have to say that there was an awful lot of my least favourite companion Rose Tyler in this collection of short stories. Two different Doctors, two different stories and at the same time there's only a small mention of my favourite Clara being someplace else while the Doctor has dealings with the Loch Ness monster ... and has a third mention of Rose Tyler. Am I really the only Doctor Who fan who dislikes Rose??
Lovely, heartwarming stories. I think I will re-read parts of this one in December. :)
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I think this is the only Doctor Who book I've ever read that was explicitly aimed at children, rather than having a sort of default young-adult feel to it; between that and the short-story format, these are much simpler tales than the ones I'm used to, and as a veteran reader of sci-fi tie-in books, I can attest to their usual state of simplicity. But I can't claim I wasn't aware of this - it's published by Puffin, after all - and if there's ever a time for a few sweet and simple stories, it is at Christmas. This was a gift from my grandparents, being the sort of thing you'd happily put on your wish list because you'd probably never get around to buying for yourself at the age of 26, and made a very nice switch-your-brain-off read to take me through New Year's.
Every story in this collection ends with either a vague moral (something along the lines of "giving a gift turned out to be the best Christmas present ever", as used almost word-for-word in "The Gift") or a punchline (see "Sontar's Little Helpers", a bit of a shaggy-dog tale literally building up to the use of that one phrase). This was what marked it out most strongly as a children's book. However, some of the stories - many of the stronger ones, in my opinion - required a quite heroic amount of background knowledge of Doctor Who spanning right back to the first series in 1963. I know I, primarily a New Who viewer with a sporadic knowledge of Old Who, had to look a few things up, so I imagine small children reading this collection will be a bit nonplussed (and quite possibly just skip to the New Doctors); while older kids will probably be asking for the entire Who back-catalogue on DVD so they can understand all the details, which I've just now realised may have been an excellent marketing move.
Some of the stories were really impressive in the emotions they explored: the first one, "All I Want For Christmas", looked not only at the consequences of travelling with the Doctor before he had control over the destination of his TARDIS (meaning the companions at the time spent Christmas genuinely wondering if they'd ever see their families again); but also made detailed use of the fact that Barbara and Ian would have been children during World War Two, and explaining how rationing and the absence (or even loss) of family members affected the way Christmas was celebrated by children in the 1940s. This was immediately followed by "A Comedy of Terrors", which despite some fun ideas about how Shakespeare might be performed in the far future literally revolved around a kiddie-humour fart joke, and was probably my least favourite in the book.
The rest of the collection maintained a much more even keel: special mention goes to "The Christmas Inversion" for making use of the format by having characters from New Who turn up in a Third Doctor story (and explaining a bit of off-screen action for some secondary characters during "The Christmas Invasion" special from 2005), and to "Ghost of Christmas Past" for doing the same in reverse, having briefly cameo in an Eighth Doctor story. "The Persistence of Memory" does something similar by exploring the origins of a more minor character (and I'm a sucker for expanded-universe origin stories), and has fun establishing its 1970s setting with a reference to Slade's "Merry Xmas Everyone", but loses points by having almost nothing to do with Christmas other than that one (rather shoehorned-in, on reflection) reference. Several stories in the collection are really only vaguely Christmas-adjacent to be honest, but finishing on this note with the Twelfth Doctor's story made it stand out more.
Other than that, three more stories had at least one outstanding feature for me: "Three Wise Men" was not overly Christmassy, but made great use of historical domain figures by featuring the often-overlooked in science fiction crew of Apollo 8. "Fairytale of New New York" featured three of my favourite things: a title referencing my favourite Christmas song (even though it really didn't come up in the story itself); a message about using medicine and technology to promote tolerance and social unity; and a reminder that cats are nice to have around but also insensitive gits most of the time. And finally, "The Grotto" is set in Macy's department store in New York, which pleased this fan of
SantaLand Diaries no end.
As another reviewer has pointed out here, it would have been lovely if the War Doctor had been included in this collection, but I understand that it would have messed up the themed numbering system a little bit, so I can forgive him not getting his own story; still a bit disappointed, though, that with so many cameos flying around, he didn't turn up at all.
The book itself is beautiful: each story has a full-colour illustration by artists with very different styles; and the book itself (unexpectedly) turned out to be cloth-bound, which is fancy and super pretty if a bit easily destroyed (I managed to rub the edges of the binding raw while reading it mostly on my book-stand, so I dread to think how it'll hold up for its intended audience). Overall, though, it was a nice and relaxing - and ultimately very festive - read, that has me keen to seek out its sister book
Doctor Who: Time Lord Fairy Tales (combining an existing passion of mine with a format that might even be more receptive to the children's short story style) the next time I'm looking to read something easy, seasonal, and almost relentlessly cheering.
