The First Doctor #25

'Time and Relative' (2001) from Telos Novellas.

A very unique entry into the First Doctor's catalogue. Very nice to spend a lot of time with Susan and her school friends, establishing her life apart from The Doctor as she acclimatise herself to human life. The diary format is fun at first and it's good to hear Susan's inner monologue, but as the story goes along, and all of the main action happens on one day, it loses its purpose a bit unfortunately. The Cold Knights are a nice villain, and the goriness of the story here is much more appreciated than it was in Frayed, although I still find it to be quite out of touch with how seeing those things would affect a person like Susan. The primary issue I have with this story is just how wildly different The Doctor's characterisation is: he seems to be suffering from some kind of memory wipe that the Time Lords put on him before he left Gallifrey, and it manipulates his personality and belief system. This unaligns itself with all of the stories preceeding this but obviously that's going to happen a lot with EU. But this personality warping of The Doctor here is quite nauseating and feels a bit out of nowhere - it would be cool to see in a different story perhaps, but I imagine this story was written with the intension for it to be the very first story following their leaving Gallifrey. Overall intriguing, and a worthwhile read.