Review of The Scruffy Piper by JayPea
12 November 2024
This review contains spoilers
I rated Little Rose Riding Hood as a fairy tale not a story, so I'm unfortunately going to have to do the same here.
As a story, I loved this, Two dropping in on a space station that protects the galaxy from Cybermen, it's crew distrustful of him, and him ending up Pied Pipering the invading Cybermats off the ship, what's not to love?!
As a fairy tale though... Firstly, again, I find it hard to believe Time Lords would tell Fairy Tales like this about The Doctor. The Doctor as a ghost story sure, but why tell stories of The Doctor as a hero? This also has too much dialogue for a fairy tale in my option, and even ignoring that dialogue it's written more like a kid's short story with a twinge of fairy tale, than an actual fairy tale.
Most frustrating to me though is the art. Now, the art in the series is absolutely beautiful, and here's no exception, but there's a big problem with it for me. At one point in the story, there's mention of one of the Cybermats having it's antenna shot off, but the Cybermats depicted in the art are the Closing Time Cybermats, which don't have antenna. It might be nitpicking but I don't know, especially in a kid's book, it feels like the art really matters.
Again, rating this as a story, much higher, but rating this as a fairy tale, it's not the best.