Short Trips: Monsters - #1:

--- "Best Seller" by Ian Mond and Danny Oz

Another day, another short trips anthology. With some fantastic writers and some revered stories, let's jump straight into "Short Trips: Monsters".

Plot:
The Doctor and Charley's quiet trip to Melbourne is interrupted by the mass riots pertaining to the hot, new book: "Darvian", a novel that's driven the world mad. But what's so special about The Darvian Saga? And can the Doctor and Charley stop a catastrophe before the prequel releases?

(CONTAINS SPOILERS)

A Universe of Terrors wasn't the strongest bunch of stories I've ever read, but I have very high hopes for this collection. I've heard some great things about this collection, especially about Joseph Lidster's story: Trapped!. And, judging by the first story, I'm excited to see where this collection will go. The imagery of a world that have become entirely obsessed with one novel is a pretty neat concept and the visuals of crowds amassing around any person who owns the book is a very good representation of popular culture at large. The TARDIS team here is the Doctor and Charley and it's very nice to have some previously audio only characters in prose, especially since Mond and Oz nail their voices so well; I can almost here McGann and Fisher reading the lines.

However, the actual threat of the story I found to be underwhelming. At first, the villain's made out to be just capitalism, a clever marketing scheme gone too far has driven the world to madness but instead it's another alien race exploiting mankind through consumerism. It fully could've just been human interference and the main villain could've been the monster that is capitalism but instead it's just some spooky aliens hiding in a boardroom. Also, after the Doctor has sunk their entire plan, the aliens' reaction is just "Whelp, we tried". I feel any intelligent creature would have a little more of a reaction than that and I'm pretty sure the writers just didn't know how to get out of the situation they'd written themselves into.

8/10

Pros:
+ Great imagery and message on pop culture
+ Feels vast and on a huge scale despite being so short
+ The Doctor and Charley are incredibly well written throughout

Cons:
- The aliens feel generic and unnecessary
- The antagonists have next to no reaction to their entire plan crashing and burning

Monsters | Ranked:
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1. Best Seller by Ian Mond and Danny Oz - 8/10

Overall - 8.0/10