The novel version of 73 Yards is very interesting! If you liked the creepy, supernatural, unexplained time twist nature of the TV episode, then this is that plus much more of the inside of Ruby’s head as she lives through an entire life on what the book emphasizes is a version of the earth “suspended along” Ruby’s event. There is more here about how the world is cut off from reality in some way, no more extraterrestrial visitors or supernatural threats, the TARDIS is just a shell, some link to itself in the “real world.”

There is a little bit more but still not enough about Roger ap Gwilliam, who we are told is very very bad but who doesn’t do anything and is despatched very easily. One wonders why, with The Doctor’s words about Roger ringing in her ears “the most dangerous Prime Minister in history,” she decides to work really hard to elect him and then undermine him, a strange course of events.

One wonders why people react so differently (as the narrative requires) to the same thing being said by Old Ruby. Some cut her out of their lives, some run away in fear, some resign as Prime Minister. The book here does postulate what Old Ruby must be saying to them, more or less, since her gestures and message never change, but also covers itself by describing Actual Ruby finally hearing it as being like syllables tumbling together to describe secrets that should never be shared, which is lovely, so we can treat it as if those syllables meant something different to each of them who heard it, but each of them definitely knew it was a different older Ruby saying it, and whatever was happening was WRONG. It’s mysterious!

It’s also complicated by the people in the Welsh pub (a great scene in the show and the book, perhaps the whole story should have stayed there with those characters), they are messing with Ruby, so we can’t really use anything they’re saying about Mad Jack or the Fairy Circles to help us understand what’s happening. The Doctor at least confirms it IS a Fairy Circle when he reappears, and knows not to read the messages, so maybe some of what they said was real?

Why Mad Jack there and then Roger saying he was once called Mad Jack later? Are we meant to interpret that they are the same? Linked? Breaking the circle released him or some spirit inhabiting him? Or is it just another mysterious implication? One thing is clear, the old Ruby is not there until they break the Circle, really until The Doctor has vanished, but she’s there already the second time and is able to help Ruby break the cycle instead of the circle; whatever happens here, by whoever’s hand, we can only infer that this was all some kind of punishment for breaking the Fairy Circle.

But we know from Empire Of Death that Roger is still elected anyway, and does become Prime Minister, and does make everybody log their DNA, but he has yet to be mentioned again, so…much as I adore the vibe, the creepy tone, the writing in this book as well as the way it was shot for TV, one does wonder what it was all for. Ruby does gain, from this experience, the ability to later tell when reality has been altered, even more than The Doctor can, which is cool. But the Roger character is sort of just jammed into these events and does confuse me slightly.

The main thing we do gain here is time with Ruby Sunday, and I really do like her on her own. Not every companion gets a Doctor-lite episode focused on them, and Ruby gets two! And they are both pretty good! This one confuses me at its core, it feels like a clumsier Turn Left, or even RTD attempting to write his own Listen, which I would say is not his natural metier, but it does have strange ideas, it is vibey, and it’s an hour of TV and thus a novel that just wouldn’t exist in almost any other franchise.

4/5, I’ll take mysterious and unexplained vibes over lots of other DW modes!