Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10
Our lives are short, and the adventures we may face few and far between, and even if we heed the call to embrace the possibility of writing the details of even a small skirmish, do we have the honest intention to admit that the moment adds clarity to our existence, or do we brush it under the carpet as if nothing monumental took place, ignoring the prelude to an even greater journey, then we deserve nothing more than short trip, an exercise in futility as we breathe our last breathes with regret.
It is to the moment between the tick and tock that life takes notice of, we can all be heroes in the grand gesture, we can all be the lead character when the world requires the silent offering of the silent act of bravado requires, but what if we forget to mention the sound we followed when nothing else was supposedly happening.
To place yourself within the moment as a reader, to grasp the point of the short story is to give in to trust, to embrace that which you follow on the grander scheme can still persuade you in the detail of a single strand, an observation that far outweighs time; and one to which can be found to incorporate many faces of the same person.
The 15 new adventures that make up the new Doctor Who Target Storybook feel almost as if they are companion pieces themselves, they take in every incarnation of the mad person in the box from Gallifrey up to Jodie Whitaker’s presentation of the Timelord, and which adds flavour and some revelation in the time between adventures and the tick and the tock of the universe’s heartbeat.
The 15 new tales have the allure of being written by notable luminaries and stars of the series, including Colin Baker, whose own tale sits perfectly within the era of television’s The Trial Of A Timelord, Terrance Dicks, Matthew Waterhouse, the excellent George Mann, and Jaqueline Raynor, each one of them are engaging, delightful short stories that never once lose what it means to be enthralled by life of The Doctor, and perhaps in this case, more importantly of the lives that are touched by the renegade wanderer in time.
There is no time to be lost in plot and the distraction of Time as an entity, these 15 tales are of the here and now, spread across the fragile fabric of the universe but within a compact reasoning which sees the reader immersed, almost dunked as one would bobbing for elusive slippery apples in water, in a brief mystery and explanation which adds, as only Doctor Who could, to the dimensions of the mysterious and enigmatic life of the Doctor and the lives they touch.
An excellent diversion of time, well-paced and full of colour; Doctor Who Target Storybook is one for an occasion.
Ian D. Hall