The Monthly Adventures #91a - "Spring" by Mike Maddox

Circular Time is the first example of something I’ve been awaiting since I began this review marathon: the anthologies. Consisting of four short stories rather than a collective narrative, the anthologies were always going to be a challenge to review since they’re technically four stories in one and so four reviews in one. The best work around I could think of is just to write four short reviews, so today, we begin our journey down the road of short fiction. And luckily, we just so happen to have a collection written by one of my favourite authors. Well, half of it anyway.

Assigned by the Time Lords to track down a renegade, the Doctor finds himself at the heart of a deadly tradition and the return of a godly prophet.

(CONTAINS SPOILERS)

The opening to Circular Time was definitely not what I expected. The theme of this anthology seems to be somewhat vague, but the actual link between stories doesn’t begin until Cornell’s half. So, what we have firstly is a massively trimmed down political thriller about birds and a really f**ked up legal system. The thing that really stood out to me about Spring was the worldbuilding. Mike Maddox manages to create a believable society in only about thirty minutes and it’s wildly impressive how alive everything feels. I like how alien everything is, and how he manages to call out some tropes surrounding these types of stories. The beats about perspective and respect of other cultures is really interesting and some truly fantastic stuff.

The material on Time Lord interference and the Doctor’s relationship to them is also great. I like when Zero calls out the Doctor for obviously working with the Time Lords and even being Gallifrey’s president at one point, despite his supposed denouncement of them. These are things that were never really explored in the classic era and I’ll eat up any introspective analysis of the Doctor’s character.

Unfortunately, this story doesn’t stick the landing for me because of one simple mistake: it bites off more than it can chew. This is an idea common with short fiction, when the author uses a concept that simply can’t work in the allotted time frame. All the interesting world building and moral quandaries sort of go out the window towards the end and the story doesn’t actually bring any real analysis to these questions. It asks them but then chickens out when it comes to following them up. This really felt like half a story and I think it probably would’ve worked much better as a Companion Chronicle.

Also, I don’t know what was happening with the score here, but it is really very bad. Like seriously, I don’t know whose idea it was for the horrible squawking sound effects but it genuinely gave me a visceral reaction.

Spring raises some interesting points and it’s a decent introduction to this collection, but falls apart due to one of the classic sins of short fiction. Things will only get better from here.

6/10

Pros:

+ Really great worldbuilding in a short amount of time

+ Posits some great questions about interference and Time Lord involvement

Cons:

- Completely abandons most of its interesting themes by the end

- Needed more runtime

- Atrocious score

This is part of a series of reviews of Doctor Who in chronological timeline order.

Previous Story: The Game

Very fun little story that goes into detail about the Time Lords. I really enjoy the insight this story gives into how the Doctor is viewed by the general Time Lord population. It's nice to see a perspective that isn't the High Council's.  Zero is a very interesting character, he lives up to the Prydonian reputation established by the Doctor at the beginning of this story. His whole scheme is very silly and yet very clever at the same time.

I'm unsure of my opinion on the short, 30 minute style of story. On one hand, it skips most of the boring "capture and re-capture" stuff that nearly every Doctor Who story goes through but it lacks the worldbuilding and general fleshed-outness of most stories and their settings.

Next Story: Circular Time: Summer

I really enjoyed the glimpse into Time Lord culture and politics. The bird people were fun. But, most especially, I liked the characterization is Nyssa!