Short Trips: Defining Patterns #12 - “Lepidoptery for Beginners” by John Dorney

Iolas Blue has the perfect villain plan. He has a step by step agenda for everything about to happen and with it, he’s going to kill the Doctor. And how could you stop somebody who knows exactly what’s about to happen?

(CONTAINS SPOILERS)

John Dorney, you son of a bitch, you did it again. Or should I say, you did it, as this was the legendary writer’s first ever contribution to the official Doctor Who canon. And what a start it was! Lepidoptery for Beginners might be the best short story I’ve seen out of Short Trips so far, nearly everything about it landed. First of all, the idea of somebody calculating the butterfly effect and using it to take over the universe is a really fantastic high concept premise that really works in short form; this whole story is basically just an extended villain monologue but it is a blast just learning the ins and outs of the cartoonishly named Predicticon. But that names a stylistic choice - our main antagonist, the fantastically weasley and egotistical Iolas is a brilliantly bombastic bad guy and a blast to listen to, his blusteringly pompous attitude makes him the epitome of a love to hate villain.

Also, I find it a real shame Dorney hasn’t written more prose because his writing is quick, witty, descriptive and genuine all in one and excels especially in the writing of our main cast. Two is a Doctor who is famously hard to capture on paper (hence why there seems to be so few well liked Two novels) but Dorney manages it and then some, I could feel Troughton emanating from the pages, along with Hines and Padbury.

The only thing I think I’d criticise Lepidoptery for Beginners for is that it’s a little dialogue heavy. As I said earlier, it’s basically an extended villain’s monologue and whilst it’s good, I do wish we saw a little more of the action because Dorney does somewhat skip over it.

10/10

Pros:

+ Utterly brilliant premise

+ Iolas is a fantastically slimy antagonist

+ Wonderful, quick moving prose

+ Really captures the characters well

Cons:

- Could use a little more focus on actual action