One of the best Doctor Who’s ever — fascism is still fascism even if it’s hot pink, and sometimes it’s nice to have a good cry. Like the best Doctor Who stories, no matter your age you’ll get something out of this one. For a story with the silly Candy monster; it’s shockingly mature. The petulant nature of the Happiness Patrol really struck me this time around. Not only are they in a world on fire insisting that everything is fine, they’re also begging for everyone to please, just like them. They think that popularity justifies genocide. The empty streets in this special edition are so chilling. The set design is so evocative, so bleak.

It’s glorious sci-fi political satire, magnificently gloomy, kitschy and oppressive. It’s just camp enough that you recognize both the fun stupid aspects and the tragedy behind them. The lame pun after a man has been shot to death isn’t just a joke for the audience but a perverse taunt and a command to obey all in one.

Helen A is what it all rests on, and the performance that Dame Sheila Hancock gives is electric. If you don’t believe how much she cares about the unconvincing puppet’s death at the end, the whole thing falls apart, and she more than delivers. The whole typical ending liberation in this story, an ending in most government toppling Who stories, feels really different. It’s actually somber. Doctor Who’s done the right thing, convinced everyone to feel again, and the first thought that Helen A and the Happiness Patrol has is how much it hurts.

There isn’t a single part of this that isn’t some of the best Doctor Who can be.

this has NO GAMEPLAY

you wait. to click a button. and it says. do you want to spend money. and then when you click the button. it says. do you want to spend money. and then there's a pop up. and it says . do you want to spend money.

occasionally there's some attempt at telling a story but the fact is that these stories have no momentum because you can spend days trying to complete an objective. an objective which can only be achieved by 1. waiting or 2. spending money. I don't get this.

This game inspires in me such apathy that I don't even care about insanely exciting prospects like Star Trek crossovers and Shalka Doctor's first mainline appearance in millennia. It's just simply that poor.

Gently written, The Ties That Bind is a story which takes its own look at both Star Trek, Trans rights, and the classic awkward Christmas Dinner. At least initially, it’s a bit of a tougher read, showing us a future where even while humanity’s among the stars, small towns are still rife with bigotry and general nastiness, but it also never forgets to show hope by concluding well. It’s nice, but it’s really quite scant, resolved remarkably quickly. I could certainly have done with it being longer.

Abstract Tales is a three-in-one, telling three nearly completely unconnected stories in one slot, with a framing device inside a framing device to boot. I quite liked the framing device, and its use of the Abstracts, your classical figures who represent a concept. My favorite of the three is the Auteur one, though considering my favorite of generally everything is usually the Auteur one, this is not surprising. Still, I think it’s definitely the most fully formed and excellent of the three, and could probably have been an entire story in of itself. I’m always a sucker for dream related stories, and I’m always a sucker for properly done Multiverse stories, and this one did quite well with both. As for The first story (which is the second I’m writing about because I got distracted by Auteur), it involved a land of toys, and its legally distinct Toymaker. This was good and characterized the toys well as individuals. Usually when you get sentient toys they sort of homogenize and become gleeful Island of Misfit Toys squeaky angels. The third story was about Jenny Everywhere, a snowball fight, and the attempted banning of Snow. This was again, good, although it’s probably my least favorite of the three due to sheer competition.

Although Book of the Snowstorm is exceptionally odd for having longer and more meandering short stories, Abstract Tales running with it in the opposite direction and telling a bunch of tiny ones in a row makes it an oddity in a book of oddities. A lot of the stories in Book of the Snowstorm feel as if they’re books in of themselves, and Abstract Tales is at the forefront of that category, feeling like an outsider in the book and almost like it’d be better off as it’s own standalone release. But that isn’t an insult to the material in of itself, which is uniformly stellar, more how easily it slides into the wider frame of the book.

This is another fun and charming SIGNET story that made me even more invested in that side of the DWU than before. The story doesn't pack the emotional punch of Magic Bird of Fire, earlier in the anthology, but I can't fault it for that because it simply isn't what this story is going for. What this story is going for involves a sequence where the Olivia-mobile, driven by SIGNET's resident Alien "Olivia," plays Doja Cat and Olivia Rodrigo to the consternation of the main character.

At a certain point, reviewing things online with writers that I'm closely connected to almost becomes a conflict of interest, but I'll do my best to be honest with this one.

It's both quite good and incredibly weirdly structured. It's not that far off from something like Joy To The World and Anita where the supposed sideplot that shouldn't really be that important to events is by far the highlight of the episode. In this one, it's the delightfully psychotic and amusing notion of Auteur trying to take the place of Baby Jesus, warts and all. The story isn't really even about that at all, but it's by far the bit you'll remember and enjoy this one for.

This is a good introduction to Lotto, and plus it's free on the Cheshire House, so take a look at it next Christmas season.

This is one of what will become a common theme in Book of the Snowstorm. Vignettes that feel quite thoroughly like I'd enjoy them more if I was more acquainted with the context outside the DWU series. Which is more my fault than the stories fault, but irregardless, it'll pop up more and more as I go through the book. That being said, this is a charming parody take on It's A Wonderful Life, which is something that should be very difficult to do. The original film's kind spirit results in parodies often turning out as nihilistic and miserable experiences, which this expertly dodges and remains pleasant and amusing throughout.

One of two Coloth stories in the book supposedly about Coloth, Neither Warrior Nor Thinker is a sweet and very short character piece with a nice emotional beat to it. I would like to compliment it further, because it is quite good, but it is six pages long and it's brevity means that it does not do much more than that. Still, it's pretty damn good at making you go: Aww!!!!

This book is front-loaded with classics, by which I mean that my favorites in the entire thing are probably the first two ones. Though that's not to say that anything that comes after is subpar, but more of a reflection of how good and interesting the book is right out of the gate. It's about a young woman who spends her Christmas with a Dinosaur. Despite this audacious concept and all the sci-fi lore drops, it's actually remarkably small scale and soft in tone. Rosanna and Tirion have both stuck with me since I finished it, which is very rare for short story characters, who tend to be ephemeral at best. I had a blast with this one, and I'm not just saying that because the author is probably looking over my shoulder as I write this. Great stuff.

Magic Bird of Fire is a pretty goddamn phenomenal way to open the Book of the Snowstorm properly. Technically it's the first story in the book, and I certainly see it as such. It's one of my favorite short stories in the DWU.

It's about Aoife Fitzgerald of SIGNET who encounters a bunch of ghosts at a bar, and it's one of those little short stories that is so tiny and beautiful that saying too much more would probably ruin it. You know the way short stories work. They're adversarial little things, and just the scant word too soon can ruin them. So I'll leave it at this and say that this is how impactful, small scale storytelling is meant to be done. No matter who you are, I bet you can learn a lesson from this one.