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Telos Doctor Who Novellas #1
Doctor Who: Time and Relative
The harsh British winter of 1963 brings a big freeze that extends into April with no sign of letting up. And with it comes a new, far greater menace: terrifying icy creatures are stalking the streets, bringing death and destruction.
The First Doctor and Susan, trapped on Earth until the faulty TARDIS can be repaired, are caught up in the crisis. The Doctor seems to know what is going on, but is uncharacteristically detached and furtive, almost as if he is losing his memory...
Susan, isolated from her grandfather and finding it hard to fit in with the human teenagers at Coal Hill School, tries to cope by recording her thoughts in a diary. But she too feels her memory slipping away and her past unravelling. Is she even sure who she is any more...?
The First Doctor and Susan, trapped on Earth until the faulty TARDIS can be repaired, are caught up in the crisis. The Doctor seems to know what is going on, but is uncharacteristically detached and furtive, almost as if he is losing his memory...
Susan, isolated from her grandfather and finding it hard to fit in with the human teenagers at Coal Hill School, tries to cope by recording her thoughts in a diary. But she too feels her memory slipping away and her past unravelling. Is she even sure who she is any more...?
120 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2001
2 people are currently reading
263 people want to read
About the author
Kim Newman
288 books949 followersNote: This author also writes under the pseudonym of Jack Yeovil.
An expert on horror and sci-fi cinema (his books of film criticism include Nightmare Movies and Millennium Movies), Kim Newman's novels draw promiscuously on the tropes of horror, sci-fi and fantasy. He is complexly and irreverently referential; the Dracula sequence--Anno Dracula, The Bloody Red Baron and Dracula,Cha Cha Cha--not only portrays an alternate world in which the Count conquers Victorian Britain for a while, is the mastermind behind Germany's air aces in World War One and survives into a jetset 1950s of paparazzi and La Dolce Vita, but does so with endless throwaway references that range from Kipling to James Bond, from Edgar Allen Poe to Patricia Highsmith.
In horror novels such as Bad Dreams and Jago, reality turns out to be endlessly subverted by the powerfully malign. His pseudonymous novels, as Jack Yeovil, play elegant games with genre cliche--perhaps the best of these is the sword-and-sorcery novel Drachenfels which takes the prescribed formulae of the games company to whose bible it was written and make them over entirely into a Kim Newman novel.
Life's Lottery, his most mainstream novel, consists of multiple choice fragments which enable readers to choose the hero's fate and take him into horror, crime and sf storylines or into mundane reality.
An expert on horror and sci-fi cinema (his books of film criticism include Nightmare Movies and Millennium Movies), Kim Newman's novels draw promiscuously on the tropes of horror, sci-fi and fantasy. He is complexly and irreverently referential; the Dracula sequence--Anno Dracula, The Bloody Red Baron and Dracula,Cha Cha Cha--not only portrays an alternate world in which the Count conquers Victorian Britain for a while, is the mastermind behind Germany's air aces in World War One and survives into a jetset 1950s of paparazzi and La Dolce Vita, but does so with endless throwaway references that range from Kipling to James Bond, from Edgar Allen Poe to Patricia Highsmith.
In horror novels such as Bad Dreams and Jago, reality turns out to be endlessly subverted by the powerfully malign. His pseudonymous novels, as Jack Yeovil, play elegant games with genre cliche--perhaps the best of these is the sword-and-sorcery novel Drachenfels which takes the prescribed formulae of the games company to whose bible it was written and make them over entirely into a Kim Newman novel.
Life's Lottery, his most mainstream novel, consists of multiple choice fragments which enable readers to choose the hero's fate and take him into horror, crime and sf storylines or into mundane reality.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 36 reviews
November 25, 2023
If you’re here to be directed to the worst, worthless, useless, magnificently boring, unutterably painful and bloated prequel novel of all time - you’ve come to the right place. This is the spot for me to help you out. If that’s what you want, all that I just mentioned…you need Prelude to Foundation by Isaac Asimov.
How did you know I was fiddling with you, a little, up above? Well, first of all, this magnificent and moving prequel to 60 years (just now, We Are Here!) of everything else Who that came after it, or before it, or before and after it at the same time (timey wimey walkie talkie), is not bloated. It’s a novella, not a novel. I mean, I did give clues to my shenanigans…plus, y’know, the 5-star rating.
Telos got the rights to publish Doctor Who novellas for a little while, up until the BBC pulled the plug. A selling point was that we were going to get a stream of wonderfully unexpected authors. People sneaking in while the sneaking was good, and doing their own thing with the legend. Results, like the roster of contributors, were various…and mixed. This, Time and Relative, emerged as the generally-accepted best of the Telos lot, I would say by a wide margin. Though there’s some other good stuff…even if I’m the only one who dug certain entries with atypical vigour (Shell Shock, anyone?…)
The Doctor and his granddaughter Susan have been hiding out in 1963 London, with Susan blending in by attending Coal Hill School, for only several months. They are fugitives, and we learn a bit about where things are at with them, via Susan’s diary covering March into April of that crucial year.
It’s very clear they are suffering some form of punishment, even though they have rebelliously fled an advanced, alien planet, or place of some kind. The punishment is mental; even so far from Home, the Doctor and Susan are somehow programmed to obey Rules -No Meddling Rules, No Compassion Rules - that they don’t like. Susan, young, less indoctrinated by a long life of passive Observation, gets headaches and mental fogs, whenever she tries to think like a rebel, or someone who cares about what happens in the Universe. Her mysterious old Grandfather is having a harder time being what he wants to be, deep inside. No Meddling, No Meddling, No Meddling Allowed!…and anyway, it would be Detected; the punishments, the amnesia, would be infinitely worse than anything endured, thus far.
The Cold, on Earth - we see the London version - has persisted, from winter, into March/April. The Cold comes alive, achieves the sentience it had, when it was one of the first forms of Life, billions of years before the first self-entitled little human. It seems, the humans’ experiments have helped awaken it. The ice and snow moves, bites, kills. Susan and some students, trapped in a hostile, frozen environment, fight to survive…and push towards a mentally-shackled potential saviour who is programmed not to care, not to do a damn thing to change the icy inevitable No Future (for us). Bring a stuffed animal.
Oh, if this somehow could have been the first televised Doctor Who story, instead of cave-people! But we have it now, early was late (timey no whiney). Of course, Ian and Barbara can only flit through the story, or get spotted together on a date, or throw snowballs, like the kids, even when it’s Not Allowed and the other teachers wouldn’t. No Meddling, No Meddling with the time-line. It gives us headaches, it gets complaints, fanboys descend and Punish…
I got emotional, and teary-eyed reading this once, reading this twice. Susan is a particular favourite of mine, so there’s that. And the Show means a lot to this ageing duffer.
How did you know I was fiddling with you, a little, up above? Well, first of all, this magnificent and moving prequel to 60 years (just now, We Are Here!) of everything else Who that came after it, or before it, or before and after it at the same time (timey wimey walkie talkie), is not bloated. It’s a novella, not a novel. I mean, I did give clues to my shenanigans…plus, y’know, the 5-star rating.
Telos got the rights to publish Doctor Who novellas for a little while, up until the BBC pulled the plug. A selling point was that we were going to get a stream of wonderfully unexpected authors. People sneaking in while the sneaking was good, and doing their own thing with the legend. Results, like the roster of contributors, were various…and mixed. This, Time and Relative, emerged as the generally-accepted best of the Telos lot, I would say by a wide margin. Though there’s some other good stuff…even if I’m the only one who dug certain entries with atypical vigour (Shell Shock, anyone?…)
The Doctor and his granddaughter Susan have been hiding out in 1963 London, with Susan blending in by attending Coal Hill School, for only several months. They are fugitives, and we learn a bit about where things are at with them, via Susan’s diary covering March into April of that crucial year.
It’s very clear they are suffering some form of punishment, even though they have rebelliously fled an advanced, alien planet, or place of some kind. The punishment is mental; even so far from Home, the Doctor and Susan are somehow programmed to obey Rules -No Meddling Rules, No Compassion Rules - that they don’t like. Susan, young, less indoctrinated by a long life of passive Observation, gets headaches and mental fogs, whenever she tries to think like a rebel, or someone who cares about what happens in the Universe. Her mysterious old Grandfather is having a harder time being what he wants to be, deep inside. No Meddling, No Meddling, No Meddling Allowed!…and anyway, it would be Detected; the punishments, the amnesia, would be infinitely worse than anything endured, thus far.
The Cold, on Earth - we see the London version - has persisted, from winter, into March/April. The Cold comes alive, achieves the sentience it had, when it was one of the first forms of Life, billions of years before the first self-entitled little human. It seems, the humans’ experiments have helped awaken it. The ice and snow moves, bites, kills. Susan and some students, trapped in a hostile, frozen environment, fight to survive…and push towards a mentally-shackled potential saviour who is programmed not to care, not to do a damn thing to change the icy inevitable No Future (for us). Bring a stuffed animal.
Oh, if this somehow could have been the first televised Doctor Who story, instead of cave-people! But we have it now, early was late (timey no whiney). Of course, Ian and Barbara can only flit through the story, or get spotted together on a date, or throw snowballs, like the kids, even when it’s Not Allowed and the other teachers wouldn’t. No Meddling, No Meddling with the time-line. It gives us headaches, it gets complaints, fanboys descend and Punish…
I got emotional, and teary-eyed reading this once, reading this twice. Susan is a particular favourite of mine, so there’s that. And the Show means a lot to this ageing duffer.
Read
February 18, 2021Set a few months before the TV series begins, this novella captures the eerie mood of those early stories very well, while cunningly dodging a few bullets. Newman resists his tendency towards over-referentiality (except for naming Susan's schoolfriends John and Gillian), and has her narrate while coming up with a plausible, effective reason why she's not giving anything much away about her past. There are occasional lapses in tone, but the central theme - of the amazing ability grown-ups have to ignore what's happening right in front of them - covers for a lot, and the moral ambiguity of the first Doctor in his early stories is if anything even more pointed here. Not bad at all.
January 13, 2013
Who Chronology Read - #2
First of the published Telos Novellas and set 6 months prior to An Unearthly child. And it's superb, written from Susan Foreman's perspective and glorying in the London Invasion scenario so beloved of Who, it's a glorious tribute to the show beginning. Kim Newman of course showers the work with period relevant pop-culture, sly historical references and more than a few nods to the shows own continuity. The Doctor is not featured heavily but a necessary plot element justifies this well and it is Susan's book being written in diary form. There's more than a few similarities with the recent Matt Smith Christmas special The Snowmen though the main 'villain's identity is more down to earth. It's wonderfully written, captures the spirit of the time and the show and leads nicely into the start of the series. Highly recommended.
First of the published Telos Novellas and set 6 months prior to An Unearthly child. And it's superb, written from Susan Foreman's perspective and glorying in the London Invasion scenario so beloved of Who, it's a glorious tribute to the show beginning. Kim Newman of course showers the work with period relevant pop-culture, sly historical references and more than a few nods to the shows own continuity. The Doctor is not featured heavily but a necessary plot element justifies this well and it is Susan's book being written in diary form. There's more than a few similarities with the recent Matt Smith Christmas special The Snowmen though the main 'villain's identity is more down to earth. It's wonderfully written, captures the spirit of the time and the show and leads nicely into the start of the series. Highly recommended.
November 12, 2022
Time and Relative, written by Kim Newman of Anno Dracula fame, is not only the first Doctor Who novella by Telos Publishing, but also one of the first chronological Doctor Who stories, set more than six months before An Unearthly Child. I tend to have mixed feelings about setting stories during this period in the Doctor’s life. The First Doctor can’t really do his usual schtick of saving the day without contradicting his character arc. Additionally, these stories tend to dispel the mist of mystery surrounding the Doctor’s past in a way that takes away from the magic of the show’s earliest episodes. However, Kim Newman manages to avoid these pitfalls by creating a story that deserved to be made.
Time and Relative takes on the form of Susan Foreman’s diary entries. In the show, Susan always came across as flighty and childish to me. Newman offers a different take on Susan’s character. He is able to write in a voice that makes Susan actually sound like an alien teenager. She goes through all the normal teenage experiences—hating school, trying to sneak into pubs, etc.—but throughout these seemingly normal scenes, there is something unearthly about her. She has patches of missing memories, but she knows that she and her grandfather ran away because they disobeyed the rules of their people.
The “mind fog” Newman employs is a fascinating addition to the lore. Essentially, when Time Lords break their conditioning, their minds revolt by fogging up their memories and making them act uncharacteristically. This explains a lot about the First Doctor; for example, why he tried to kill a caveman in An Unearthly Child. We get the sense that the Doctor we know—a meddling champion of justice and equality—has always been there, behind the conditioning, struggling to break free. This mind fog even explains some of the conflicting memories the Doctor has about their past. Although there are elements of the mind fog that don’t hold up in larger canon, it adds more than it detracts, shrouding the Time Lords in mystery and adding to the Doctor’s characterization. It also provides great grounds for emotional conflict in Susan’s mind. Throughout the novella, we grapple with the very human relationships Susan makes with her friends, and when catastrophe strikes, we see how she is pushed more and more to the breaking point.
The enemy of the novella is the Cold, a snow-controlling sentience that has regained consciousness for the first time since the Ice Age. Upon waking to find the Earth occupied by human beings, the Cold goes on a rampage to wipe them out. The Cold serves as an alien explanation for the Big Freeze of 1963. Reading Time and Relative at a time of year when the first snow was touching ground was chilling (pun intended). It’s terrifying to watch the Cold’s slow, eerie invasion grow to a violent slaughter of hundreds of innocents. Time and Relative isn’t afraid to get gruesome, which provides some excellent character work for Susan as she is forced to survive a murderous snowstorm with her friends. At the same time, it is a tad unbelievable that Ian Chesterton and Barbara Wright would never mention the violent murders of some of their fellow co-workers and students. If we are able to put this aside, I like the Cold. It’s a familiar foe—a combination of the Great Intelligence’s Snowmen and the Silurians—but it accomplishes the respective goals of 1) being scary snow, and 2) presenting a moral dilemma better than its peers do.
What really makes Time and Relative, though, are the characters. We watch Susan’s friendships with two fellow students, John and Gillian (cleverly named after the Doctor’s other grandchildren), blossom before being ripped to shreds. John, a nerd raised to be a soldier by his military father, is an excellent character. We watch him develop feelings for Susan, and then watch those feelings disappear when his father is killed by the Cold and he learns Susan is an alien. The outspoken Gillian is fantastically characterized as well. The abuse she receives at home is hinted at, and serves to more fully flesh out her character. Outside of home, she can be as rebellious as she wants, because it can’t be as bad as what she receives at home. It’s funny, because despite all that Gillian goes through, her relationship with Susan never breaks in the same devastating way it does with John. Instead, we watch Gillian and Susan simply drift apart. Zack, a biker gang member and Gillian’s love interest, is a likable voice of reason throughout events, with the only downside to his character being the large age gap between him and Gillian. Malcolm, a young boy Susan babysits, acts as a wholesome presence throughout the piece. He is the only person Susan can be honest with because he will remember the truth as childish stories. Being a second-generation immigrant from Trinidad, he is the recipient of racist abuse by white Britons at a couple points in the story. Newman handles racism in a more realistic and respectful way than many white Doctor Who writers. The racism of 1963 Britain is acknowledged, with its first instance in the story receiving reflection from Susan, who powerfully writes that she would be ashamed about what happened if she were a human. Since she is not, she is only angry. The second instance is a lot more scarring. During the storm, a pastor and his wife lose their marbles and try to sacrifice Malcom for the wickedness of the younger generations (despite Malcom being a member of the Church of England, just like them). It’s a dark scene, one of many depicting the adults’ bizarre responses to the alien invasion. Some refuse to accept it, some blame it on the kids, and some simply go into shock. It’s all a commentary on the refusal of adults to accept the impossible, even in the face of immediate danger. It leads to a few too many unrealistic characterizations, but it’s also a strong and interesting message to convey, and it reflects Susan’s goal in the story of convincing her grandfather to interfere.
It is eventually revealed that the Doctor has been helping the Cold (or, at least, staying out of its way). His non-interference brainwashing helps him see the Cold’s point: humankind has been far more destructive than the Cold ever was when it was the dominant lifeform on Earth. Even though the Doctor could contain the Cold at the flick of a switch, he doesn’t do so, even when Gillian threatens to snap Susan’s neck. The Doctor only reconsiders when Malcom offers him Cowboy Gonk, his favorite toy. The Doctor dismisses the toy before realizing it is a product of human imagination. Seeing the value in human imagination is what causes the Doctor to help. He decides to contain the Cold and relocate them to Pluto, where they will thrive in its frigid environment. It’s an excellent first step for the Doctor, even if his comments about seeing the benefit in meddling undermine his refusal to do so in later stories.
Time and Relative is a strange little novella. Even as I review it, I balk at its very existence. At the same time, it is gripping and expertly written. Every character has a chance to shine. The depiction of Susan is possibly the strongest I’ve ever seen, even if it doesn’t fall in line with the Susan we saw in the TV show. If you’ve ever been interested in the murky period of the show’s prehistory, I beg you to start here.
Time and Relative takes on the form of Susan Foreman’s diary entries. In the show, Susan always came across as flighty and childish to me. Newman offers a different take on Susan’s character. He is able to write in a voice that makes Susan actually sound like an alien teenager. She goes through all the normal teenage experiences—hating school, trying to sneak into pubs, etc.—but throughout these seemingly normal scenes, there is something unearthly about her. She has patches of missing memories, but she knows that she and her grandfather ran away because they disobeyed the rules of their people.
The “mind fog” Newman employs is a fascinating addition to the lore. Essentially, when Time Lords break their conditioning, their minds revolt by fogging up their memories and making them act uncharacteristically. This explains a lot about the First Doctor; for example, why he tried to kill a caveman in An Unearthly Child. We get the sense that the Doctor we know—a meddling champion of justice and equality—has always been there, behind the conditioning, struggling to break free. This mind fog even explains some of the conflicting memories the Doctor has about their past. Although there are elements of the mind fog that don’t hold up in larger canon, it adds more than it detracts, shrouding the Time Lords in mystery and adding to the Doctor’s characterization. It also provides great grounds for emotional conflict in Susan’s mind. Throughout the novella, we grapple with the very human relationships Susan makes with her friends, and when catastrophe strikes, we see how she is pushed more and more to the breaking point.
The enemy of the novella is the Cold, a snow-controlling sentience that has regained consciousness for the first time since the Ice Age. Upon waking to find the Earth occupied by human beings, the Cold goes on a rampage to wipe them out. The Cold serves as an alien explanation for the Big Freeze of 1963. Reading Time and Relative at a time of year when the first snow was touching ground was chilling (pun intended). It’s terrifying to watch the Cold’s slow, eerie invasion grow to a violent slaughter of hundreds of innocents. Time and Relative isn’t afraid to get gruesome, which provides some excellent character work for Susan as she is forced to survive a murderous snowstorm with her friends. At the same time, it is a tad unbelievable that Ian Chesterton and Barbara Wright would never mention the violent murders of some of their fellow co-workers and students. If we are able to put this aside, I like the Cold. It’s a familiar foe—a combination of the Great Intelligence’s Snowmen and the Silurians—but it accomplishes the respective goals of 1) being scary snow, and 2) presenting a moral dilemma better than its peers do.
What really makes Time and Relative, though, are the characters. We watch Susan’s friendships with two fellow students, John and Gillian (cleverly named after the Doctor’s other grandchildren), blossom before being ripped to shreds. John, a nerd raised to be a soldier by his military father, is an excellent character. We watch him develop feelings for Susan, and then watch those feelings disappear when his father is killed by the Cold and he learns Susan is an alien. The outspoken Gillian is fantastically characterized as well. The abuse she receives at home is hinted at, and serves to more fully flesh out her character. Outside of home, she can be as rebellious as she wants, because it can’t be as bad as what she receives at home. It’s funny, because despite all that Gillian goes through, her relationship with Susan never breaks in the same devastating way it does with John. Instead, we watch Gillian and Susan simply drift apart. Zack, a biker gang member and Gillian’s love interest, is a likable voice of reason throughout events, with the only downside to his character being the large age gap between him and Gillian. Malcolm, a young boy Susan babysits, acts as a wholesome presence throughout the piece. He is the only person Susan can be honest with because he will remember the truth as childish stories. Being a second-generation immigrant from Trinidad, he is the recipient of racist abuse by white Britons at a couple points in the story. Newman handles racism in a more realistic and respectful way than many white Doctor Who writers. The racism of 1963 Britain is acknowledged, with its first instance in the story receiving reflection from Susan, who powerfully writes that she would be ashamed about what happened if she were a human. Since she is not, she is only angry. The second instance is a lot more scarring. During the storm, a pastor and his wife lose their marbles and try to sacrifice Malcom for the wickedness of the younger generations (despite Malcom being a member of the Church of England, just like them). It’s a dark scene, one of many depicting the adults’ bizarre responses to the alien invasion. Some refuse to accept it, some blame it on the kids, and some simply go into shock. It’s all a commentary on the refusal of adults to accept the impossible, even in the face of immediate danger. It leads to a few too many unrealistic characterizations, but it’s also a strong and interesting message to convey, and it reflects Susan’s goal in the story of convincing her grandfather to interfere.
It is eventually revealed that the Doctor has been helping the Cold (or, at least, staying out of its way). His non-interference brainwashing helps him see the Cold’s point: humankind has been far more destructive than the Cold ever was when it was the dominant lifeform on Earth. Even though the Doctor could contain the Cold at the flick of a switch, he doesn’t do so, even when Gillian threatens to snap Susan’s neck. The Doctor only reconsiders when Malcom offers him Cowboy Gonk, his favorite toy. The Doctor dismisses the toy before realizing it is a product of human imagination. Seeing the value in human imagination is what causes the Doctor to help. He decides to contain the Cold and relocate them to Pluto, where they will thrive in its frigid environment. It’s an excellent first step for the Doctor, even if his comments about seeing the benefit in meddling undermine his refusal to do so in later stories.
Time and Relative is a strange little novella. Even as I review it, I balk at its very existence. At the same time, it is gripping and expertly written. Every character has a chance to shine. The depiction of Susan is possibly the strongest I’ve ever seen, even if it doesn’t fall in line with the Susan we saw in the TV show. If you’ve ever been interested in the murky period of the show’s prehistory, I beg you to start here.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 27, 2013
Much bloodier and darker fare than your average Dr. Who adventure. The story is told from Susan's diaries, while the Doctor is more or less peripheral to the events at hand. While there's little to be gleaned about the Doctor's past before the events of the show, there are some unpleasant implications about how Time Lords dole out punishment for those who don't quite fit in with their society, and hints about why the Doctor fled Gallifrey in the first place. The Doctor portrayed here is consistent with that seen in the earlier 1st doctor adventures (not very fond of humans).
August 10, 2016
All the action was fun and the snow monsters (something straight out of 'The Snowmen') were scary. I did wonder at the distance between Totters Lane and the school. It seems much too long, especially considering how short it is in many other stories.
Susan and the Doctor are well portrayed and I love their character development. There's a bit too much random death and destruction for my liking, and I am left wondering what happened to Susan's friends before episode 1.
Susan and the Doctor are well portrayed and I love their character development. There's a bit too much random death and destruction for my liking, and I am left wondering what happened to Susan's friends before episode 1.
December 20, 2024
“‘Continuity, bah!’ Grandfather said yesterday or the day after. ‘Doesn’t exist, child. Except in the minds of the cretinously literal …. Without contradiction, we’d be entirely too easy to track down. Have you ever thought about that? It’s important that we not be too consistent.’”
—
“I think meddling is an obligation. I want to be part of time and space. When we left Home, machines in the box came to life: clocks, to tick away the passage of seconds; odometers, to measure miles. Grandfather put those devices there, though they had no purpose until we ran away. Home isn’t a place where anything happens. Space there is like inside the Box — if you’re measuring all the dimensions in the universe, the space of Home doesn’t count. When we left, we winked into existence, entering the steady stream that runs from past to the future, emerging from the Box to become dimensional. Before that, I don’t even know if we qualified as being alive.”
—
“Everyone had obviously suffered through Adventures — which had changed them and the way they felt about the world. Or maybe just gave them an excuse for acting the way they had always wanted to.”
I started watching Classic Who recently and instantly fell in love with the first Doctor and Susan. They bounce off each other in exactly the way that a Doctor-companion relationship should work, but they also have a wholly unique relationship since they’re family. Suffice it to say, when I found out about this book I needed to read it. And if you are at all a fan of the first Doctor, I highly recommend this book!
The writing style is brilliant, the YA voice brings Susan’s character to life, makes the book more accessible, and brings a unique perspective to Doctor Who fiction we rarely see. It takes true talent to write an adult story in a YA voice, but Kim Newman does it brilliantly.
I love Susan as a character and a companion (as I’ll go into later). It’s very rare that the Doctor interacts with a school-age person, so Susan brings an air of whimsy and a want to learn that some of the other companions lack, at least to Susan’s extent. Her personality won me over from the first episode I saw with her, and this book expands on that and her overall character wonderfully.
Susan’s arc in this book is also incredibly important. She loves being able to go places and see things with her grandfather, but in this book she learns that it can be dangerous, that people can die and that she can lose friends. The lives of exiles is not a pleasant one, but she finds in the end that it’s one she’s willing to live, if only to keep her grandfather in check.
I love the characterization of the Doctor through Susan’s perspective. Susan, like the first Doctor, is the blueprint for a companion: an empathetic person who the Doctor is close to and who encourages him to be better. However, the first Doctor is much more stubborn and has had hardly any time with humans, where Susan has. She knows how great and terrible they can be, which is why the Doctor needs her, even if he never admits it. I really like how his first companion is the one who helps him realize the value of humanity, and I think it’s illustrated perfectly in this novella.
We see the beginnings of his love for humanity, going from a mindset of not meddling in the Cold’s takeover and extinction of humanity to seeing the value of humanity through their creativity and imagination. Because of this, we see him realize that meddling for the sake of helping people can do a great deal of good. This is the start of The Doctor, when he decides to take on that identity and internalize it. All because of Susan and her friends.
The plot is also very good. The stakes are just high enough to make things intense, but not too high as to ruin the vibe of the characters.
In the afterward, Justin Richard’s says “The Doctor of today is in danger of becoming merely a hero like any other. By returning to the roots of Doctor Who, Kim is able to recapture so much that we have subsequently lost. Time and Relative is a startling demonstration that less is more.” Since beginning to watch Classic Who, the differences between the character of the Doctor become stark. The first Doctor is aloof, mysterious, and too curious for his own good. While the Doctor of today still has a great deal of mysteries, they’re put on center stage and be plot points and character moments. The first Doctor cared very little about all that. The Doctor of today, especially with Steven Moffat’s run onward, feels very much like a typical hero. He has flaws, but they’re never explored deeply. Doctors 9 and 10 are the sweet spot in between mystery and heroism, but Richards’ fears are valid. And he’s right about Newman’s book, it does a fantastic job at reminding us why Doctor Who is so great.
—
“I think meddling is an obligation. I want to be part of time and space. When we left Home, machines in the box came to life: clocks, to tick away the passage of seconds; odometers, to measure miles. Grandfather put those devices there, though they had no purpose until we ran away. Home isn’t a place where anything happens. Space there is like inside the Box — if you’re measuring all the dimensions in the universe, the space of Home doesn’t count. When we left, we winked into existence, entering the steady stream that runs from past to the future, emerging from the Box to become dimensional. Before that, I don’t even know if we qualified as being alive.”
—
“Everyone had obviously suffered through Adventures — which had changed them and the way they felt about the world. Or maybe just gave them an excuse for acting the way they had always wanted to.”
I started watching Classic Who recently and instantly fell in love with the first Doctor and Susan. They bounce off each other in exactly the way that a Doctor-companion relationship should work, but they also have a wholly unique relationship since they’re family. Suffice it to say, when I found out about this book I needed to read it. And if you are at all a fan of the first Doctor, I highly recommend this book!
The writing style is brilliant, the YA voice brings Susan’s character to life, makes the book more accessible, and brings a unique perspective to Doctor Who fiction we rarely see. It takes true talent to write an adult story in a YA voice, but Kim Newman does it brilliantly.
I love Susan as a character and a companion (as I’ll go into later). It’s very rare that the Doctor interacts with a school-age person, so Susan brings an air of whimsy and a want to learn that some of the other companions lack, at least to Susan’s extent. Her personality won me over from the first episode I saw with her, and this book expands on that and her overall character wonderfully.
Susan’s arc in this book is also incredibly important. She loves being able to go places and see things with her grandfather, but in this book she learns that it can be dangerous, that people can die and that she can lose friends. The lives of exiles is not a pleasant one, but she finds in the end that it’s one she’s willing to live, if only to keep her grandfather in check.
I love the characterization of the Doctor through Susan’s perspective. Susan, like the first Doctor, is the blueprint for a companion: an empathetic person who the Doctor is close to and who encourages him to be better. However, the first Doctor is much more stubborn and has had hardly any time with humans, where Susan has. She knows how great and terrible they can be, which is why the Doctor needs her, even if he never admits it. I really like how his first companion is the one who helps him realize the value of humanity, and I think it’s illustrated perfectly in this novella.
We see the beginnings of his love for humanity, going from a mindset of not meddling in the Cold’s takeover and extinction of humanity to seeing the value of humanity through their creativity and imagination. Because of this, we see him realize that meddling for the sake of helping people can do a great deal of good. This is the start of The Doctor, when he decides to take on that identity and internalize it. All because of Susan and her friends.
The plot is also very good. The stakes are just high enough to make things intense, but not too high as to ruin the vibe of the characters.
In the afterward, Justin Richard’s says “The Doctor of today is in danger of becoming merely a hero like any other. By returning to the roots of Doctor Who, Kim is able to recapture so much that we have subsequently lost. Time and Relative is a startling demonstration that less is more.” Since beginning to watch Classic Who, the differences between the character of the Doctor become stark. The first Doctor is aloof, mysterious, and too curious for his own good. While the Doctor of today still has a great deal of mysteries, they’re put on center stage and be plot points and character moments. The first Doctor cared very little about all that. The Doctor of today, especially with Steven Moffat’s run onward, feels very much like a typical hero. He has flaws, but they’re never explored deeply. Doctors 9 and 10 are the sweet spot in between mystery and heroism, but Richards’ fears are valid. And he’s right about Newman’s book, it does a fantastic job at reminding us why Doctor Who is so great.
August 7, 2025
Plot
Susan Foreman is attending school in London. She lives with her Grandfather in a Box in a junkyard. Through diary entries, she relates her thoughts on school, her Grandfather, and her existence in this earthly year of 1963. However, she is not a normal earthling… or an earthling at all.
In addition to her troubles, a strange and unnatural cold has seeped into the country…
My Analysis
This is a short story, a novella, from the Doctor Who universe, and takes place not long before the series with Susan and the Doctor begins. This is a slice of life-type story with the usual bits of Doctor Who alien-ness going on.
Not much setting but Whovians will recognize the characters.
The Doctor (not known as the Doctor at this time), plays a minor role in this, although he ends up being the hero in the end.
Other characters make this story worthwhile. Gillian, the rebel. John, Malcom, and others. You even see a few school officials, including a teacher no one likes. You get a taste of sixties British life and discipline.
As the contributing author, Justin Richards writes, it was a challenge to write something in the vein of Who but to do it in a manner where one doesn’t know anything about the characters, a story that comes before the first episode in ’63. How does one write a story that introduces the characters but holds back a lot of the well-known stuff?
For instance, Gallifrey isn’t mentioned, although the fact Susan and her relative have two hearts is. No one, not even Susan, knows Grandfather’s name, and she admits that her own name is made up. She does mention they are exiles from wherever they originate and they’d be in trouble if anyone from that place discovered them.
So, all in all, a good story that fits well within the Who universe. Short, but enjoyable.
My rank:
Blue Belt
Susan Foreman is attending school in London. She lives with her Grandfather in a Box in a junkyard. Through diary entries, she relates her thoughts on school, her Grandfather, and her existence in this earthly year of 1963. However, she is not a normal earthling… or an earthling at all.
In addition to her troubles, a strange and unnatural cold has seeped into the country…
My Analysis
This is a short story, a novella, from the Doctor Who universe, and takes place not long before the series with Susan and the Doctor begins. This is a slice of life-type story with the usual bits of Doctor Who alien-ness going on.
Not much setting but Whovians will recognize the characters.
The Doctor (not known as the Doctor at this time), plays a minor role in this, although he ends up being the hero in the end.
Other characters make this story worthwhile. Gillian, the rebel. John, Malcom, and others. You even see a few school officials, including a teacher no one likes. You get a taste of sixties British life and discipline.
As the contributing author, Justin Richards writes, it was a challenge to write something in the vein of Who but to do it in a manner where one doesn’t know anything about the characters, a story that comes before the first episode in ’63. How does one write a story that introduces the characters but holds back a lot of the well-known stuff?
For instance, Gallifrey isn’t mentioned, although the fact Susan and her relative have two hearts is. No one, not even Susan, knows Grandfather’s name, and she admits that her own name is made up. She does mention they are exiles from wherever they originate and they’d be in trouble if anyone from that place discovered them.
So, all in all, a good story that fits well within the Who universe. Short, but enjoyable.
My rank:
Blue Belt
August 8, 2025
Book 340 - Kim Newman - Time and Relative
Long before Big Finish did it… and just as long before the TV series created ‘the Timeless Child’ the brilliant Kim Newman, writer and film critic, wrote this wonderful short novella that takes place before the first televised story. Newman writes the book like a diary written by the Doctor’s granddaughter herself, Susan.
So many clever ideas throughout… the ship is known as the Box… there are two school characters called John and Gillian, a la John and Gillian from the TV Comic tales… the Doctor is distant… aloof and very alien.
There is cold in the air… real cold… almost ice age cold… there is something else in the air… something disturbing… but something the Doctor just wants to ignore…as the humans are of no interest to him.
An astonishing tale with the Doctor’s presence permeating the whole novel and yet he is barely in it. This is Susan’s story… her relationship with her fellow students… her relationship with her teachers and indeed her relationship with her grandfather are central. An amazing piece of writing… intense… inevitable… indestructible… how do you ever defeat the Cold.
One of the best pieces of writing linked with Doctor Who I have ever read. Incredible.
Long before Big Finish did it… and just as long before the TV series created ‘the Timeless Child’ the brilliant Kim Newman, writer and film critic, wrote this wonderful short novella that takes place before the first televised story. Newman writes the book like a diary written by the Doctor’s granddaughter herself, Susan.
So many clever ideas throughout… the ship is known as the Box… there are two school characters called John and Gillian, a la John and Gillian from the TV Comic tales… the Doctor is distant… aloof and very alien.
There is cold in the air… real cold… almost ice age cold… there is something else in the air… something disturbing… but something the Doctor just wants to ignore…as the humans are of no interest to him.
An astonishing tale with the Doctor’s presence permeating the whole novel and yet he is barely in it. This is Susan’s story… her relationship with her fellow students… her relationship with her teachers and indeed her relationship with her grandfather are central. An amazing piece of writing… intense… inevitable… indestructible… how do you ever defeat the Cold.
One of the best pieces of writing linked with Doctor Who I have ever read. Incredible.
December 2, 2025
I don't really have much to do with Doctor Who - it was just a tantalisingly fuzzy jumble on the television whenever we managed to get a signal from the British channels, though I did read a few of the books, but I don't remember them. I know it starts in a scrapyard, in black and white, with an odd old man and his grandaughter, and it took me a while to realise that this book takes place just before that. Susan, an alien princess who's memories have been made as fuzzy as our old telly, goes to school and makes friends, not necessarily the best sorts of friends, but perhaps the best that school has to offer. Her grandfather is somewhere in a box in a scrapyard, doing things. Then things get cold. Very, very cold. A Cold with a mind of its own and a desire to take back the world it once ruled millions of years before, but first it has to wipe out the pesky infestation of humans. Susan and her friends have to cross part of London in the grip of a Cold that is actively trying to kill them with deadly snowmen to get to the scrapyard where her grandfather will help. Or will he? Grandfather is not the same as the rest of us, and tends to see things a little differently. Grandfather can be quite frightening.
Time and RELATIVE! I get it! Wait. Do I?
Time and RELATIVE! I get it! Wait. Do I?
June 8, 2024
"People are changeable. Their lives are so brief and busy that they have to crowd all the emotions they could possibly feel into a short time, like a thirsty man drinking in a pub after last orders have been called. It explains a lot about the way human beings have run the Earth."
An extremely well-written and engaging look into the life of Susan Foreman, the first Doctor's companion and "granddaughter." Written as a diary, it recounts the strugggle of humanity against an ice creature that has lain dormant in the Earth for eons. By far the best Doctor Who tie-in lit I've read, and perhaps the best media tie-in in general. Wonderful insights into British culture and a great period feel. The Doctor himself is lovingly and convincingly depicted as well.
Parental suggestion: Ages 13+
December 22, 2020
This DW novella set before the series begins, told in the form of Susan's diary while she's at Coal Hill School, was... fine? I'm not really a fan of Kim Newman's take on Susan's characterization, or the idea that she herself doesn't know anything about her past because it's been blocked out by some kind of telepathic Time Lord filter. I did enjoy the Doctor, although his appearances were brief. Nice wintery atmosphere and ice/snowman monster plot.
February 18, 2021
This was a middle range for me. It's a bit of a Goosebumps in the Who universe at times but also does a wonderful job of presenting background at other times. I liked the achievements of this story if not the actual events. The diary format isn't a favourite style of writing for me but it was nice to have the whole book written from Susan's perspective.
August 30, 2020
The first of the Telos Doctor Who novellas and one of the best. Set pre Unearthly Child it's a fairly slight story but with masses of atmosphere. The Doctor is not in the bulk of it, with Susan at the centre of the adventure while she fits in at school. It's one to read on a cold winter night while the wind whistles by your window. Atmospheric and very good.
August 3, 2023
A terrifying and insightful classic Doctor Who story that finally develops Susan as a character.
September 15, 2024
The best Susan book you are going to read.
August 29, 2025
This was not great. Weird characterization of the Doctor and infantilizes Susan even more as a character than she already was.
Read
April 8, 2009http://nhw.livejournal.com/1012606.html[return][return]This was the first of the run of Doctor Who novellas published by Telos, set immediately before the events of the first TV series, in London in early 1963. It's written in diary form, with Susan, the Doctor's granddaughter, as the narrator. She and her grandfather are exiles from their home planet, and can't quite remember why; as she tries to fit in at school, she comes top in Maths and Science, but loses out in Geography as she can't remember what the various cities and countries are called this century.[return][return]As typical with Telos there is an irritatingly self-congratulatory blurb (this time by Justin Richards) detailing just how wonderful this particular novella is. However, in this case it is close to being justified. For one thing, Newman gives Susan her own voice - in the series, she was rather the archetype of the screaming girl companion, to the dismay of Carole Anne Ford who had taken the role believing that she would have alien kung-fu type skills and whose favourite memory is when she turned violent in The Edge of Destruction. Newman's Susan isn't Buffy - apart from lacking physical fighting skills, she is less lucky in her choice of friends - but she is her own person, plaing not just at being grownup like her friends but also at being human - and it all makes sense.[return][return]Newman's other success is that his First Doctor comes closer than any other written version I have seen to capturing the essence of Hartnell's performance. This is helped by the first-person narrative from Susan's point of view: her grandfather is familiar but not central for most of the story. He catches the alienness of the Doctor's motivation and manner very well.[return][return]The actual story hardly matters in all of this, but the plot of a monster based on Cold, awakened by drilling experiments and taking over the earth starting with London, is true to many a Who story and also to the horror tradition which Newman is rooted in, so he does it pretty confidently. There are of course pleasing nods to continuity: Ian and Barbara are glimpsed on a date at the cinema, there is a hint that Susan's own people may be sending a man with a beard after her and her grandfather, and more subtly her friends at school are John and Gillian (probably most Telos readers are sufficiently up in obscure Who lore to get that particular in-joke).[return][return]Anyway, based on this, one would be encouraged to get the rest of the series of Telos novellas. Unfortunately, I have read two of the others and they don't come up to the same mark (one of them is definitely the worst Who fiction I have read in hard copy). Still, it was a good start.
February 2, 2017
So, I haven't watched much of the original Doctor Who series. I watched a handful of episodes when I was younger, and I've seen enough of the new series to have an understanding of the original one, but I've never seen any of the episodes with William Hartnell as the Doctor. I wouldn't have thought this would be a problem reading this novella, but it turns out that Newman wrote a prequel to the very first episode of the show with Time and Relative.
The story is written from the perspective of Susan, the Doctor's granddaughter. In this novella, she's on Earth, attending a school while her grandfather repairs the TARDIS. While there, she makes a few friends, and suffers through a bitter winter that ends in the kind of disaster that only an episode of Doctor Who can conjure. That means that, in any other setting, the enemies would be ridiculous, but here they fit the feel of the story perfectly. One of the later episodes in the new series even adopts the killer snowmen we find in this story.
The real reason I wanted to read this is because of Kim Newman. I rediscovered him a few years ago, and went on a buying spree to pick up all of his novels. Newman captures the feel of the show (as mentioned above), even referencing other events that would pop up later in the show. We're not presented with the Master, or the Daleks, or the Cybermen, but we do get introduced to our main characters. The Doctor himself doesn't make an appearance until the end, making Susan our hero for this particular tale.
I was surprised that the story turned out to be as dark as it was. There's a lot of killing that takes place in the story, some of it rather gruesome, enough so that I was expecting the Doctor to fix that at the end of the story, but no, the dead stayed dead here. Newman is well known as a horror author, so I shouldn't have been surprised, but the body count seemed pretty high for a Doctor Who story.
The story is probably best meant for the more hardcore Doctor Who fans, but I did enjoy the story. The characters were charming, the plot engaging, and the story itself was compelling, once it got going. For me, it was more a curiosity than anything else.
The story is written from the perspective of Susan, the Doctor's granddaughter. In this novella, she's on Earth, attending a school while her grandfather repairs the TARDIS. While there, she makes a few friends, and suffers through a bitter winter that ends in the kind of disaster that only an episode of Doctor Who can conjure. That means that, in any other setting, the enemies would be ridiculous, but here they fit the feel of the story perfectly. One of the later episodes in the new series even adopts the killer snowmen we find in this story.
The real reason I wanted to read this is because of Kim Newman. I rediscovered him a few years ago, and went on a buying spree to pick up all of his novels. Newman captures the feel of the show (as mentioned above), even referencing other events that would pop up later in the show. We're not presented with the Master, or the Daleks, or the Cybermen, but we do get introduced to our main characters. The Doctor himself doesn't make an appearance until the end, making Susan our hero for this particular tale.
I was surprised that the story turned out to be as dark as it was. There's a lot of killing that takes place in the story, some of it rather gruesome, enough so that I was expecting the Doctor to fix that at the end of the story, but no, the dead stayed dead here. Newman is well known as a horror author, so I shouldn't have been surprised, but the body count seemed pretty high for a Doctor Who story.
The story is probably best meant for the more hardcore Doctor Who fans, but I did enjoy the story. The characters were charming, the plot engaging, and the story itself was compelling, once it got going. For me, it was more a curiosity than anything else.
May 14, 2017
These Telos Dr. Who novels are so rare and so varied in quality that it's not always worth it to track them down. But in this case, it was well worth the trouble and expense to read this.
It starts off slowly, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. The book is written as the diary of the Doctor's granddaughter Susan as she attends school on earth, right after the two of them run away in the TARDIS. Susan is a wonderful narrator - funny and engaging. Her commentary on life at Coal Hill School had me laughing out loud at times. The story is pretty tame, but that's not necessarily a bad thing since this book is more of a character piece than an action adventure anyway. It's very likely that this book was a major influence on Steven Moffat when he wrote The Snowmen. I more often accuse Russell Davies of ripping off classic series stories but it's pretty obvious that Moffat had this story in mind for the Snowmen - the monsters are virtually identical in book and episode.
The most interesting thing about this book is the characterization of the First Doctor. It fits in perfectly right before An Unearthly Child, as the Doctor hasn't quite come around to the idea of being a cosmic crusader yet. I don't want to give anything away but his actions in the latter part of the book are surprising to say the least.
Since it's set directly before the very first televised story, this book would be worth reading for continuity reasons alone. However, it succeeds where other early adventures for the Doctor and Susan fail in that it never comes off as fan service. It's an excellent and entertaining adventure. I do hope BBC books reprints these Telos novellas at some point so that more Whovians can have a chance to read them without shelling out megabucks for the original printings.
It starts off slowly, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. The book is written as the diary of the Doctor's granddaughter Susan as she attends school on earth, right after the two of them run away in the TARDIS. Susan is a wonderful narrator - funny and engaging. Her commentary on life at Coal Hill School had me laughing out loud at times. The story is pretty tame, but that's not necessarily a bad thing since this book is more of a character piece than an action adventure anyway. It's very likely that this book was a major influence on Steven Moffat when he wrote The Snowmen. I more often accuse Russell Davies of ripping off classic series stories but it's pretty obvious that Moffat had this story in mind for the Snowmen - the monsters are virtually identical in book and episode.
The most interesting thing about this book is the characterization of the First Doctor. It fits in perfectly right before An Unearthly Child, as the Doctor hasn't quite come around to the idea of being a cosmic crusader yet. I don't want to give anything away but his actions in the latter part of the book are surprising to say the least.
Since it's set directly before the very first televised story, this book would be worth reading for continuity reasons alone. However, it succeeds where other early adventures for the Doctor and Susan fail in that it never comes off as fan service. It's an excellent and entertaining adventure. I do hope BBC books reprints these Telos novellas at some point so that more Whovians can have a chance to read them without shelling out megabucks for the original printings.
April 26, 2012
Telos’s first Doctor Who novella is written by Kim Newman. If you are a fan of genre film and TV, his is a name you will know. The novel, pitched as the story before the TV show began, needed a solid hand to tell it – and Newman has such a hand.
The story is simple enough, and winningly portrayed as Susan’s journal, and Newman sketches in the guest players with relative aplomb. I liked the humdrum moments, the girls being in the pub trying to act like adults, the small conversations – for they offset the violence and terror of the Cold Knights. The main villains are plausible, and their motivations make sense (not always a given in Doctor Who). Newman has also made the decision to background the Doctor – and this proves the novels greatest success. I love the character, don’t get me wrong, but he sometimes solves the problems with a flash and a bang, often in ways that don’t make much sense (and he does that here too), but by having him backgrounded, we can experience the terror with people who don’t understand what’s going on, and go on the journey with them as they try and get to a man who does know what to do.
The presentation of the Doctor is also very good here. Newman has his mannerisms down, and his coldness of personality towards humanity is an interesting counterpoint to the villains, but also more fitting with his attitude in those early serials.
Time and Relative then has much to recommend it as a Doctor Who novel. As literature it’s no great shakes, but you don’t expect War and Peace when you read a novella about snowmen coming to life and killing people.
The story is simple enough, and winningly portrayed as Susan’s journal, and Newman sketches in the guest players with relative aplomb. I liked the humdrum moments, the girls being in the pub trying to act like adults, the small conversations – for they offset the violence and terror of the Cold Knights. The main villains are plausible, and their motivations make sense (not always a given in Doctor Who). Newman has also made the decision to background the Doctor – and this proves the novels greatest success. I love the character, don’t get me wrong, but he sometimes solves the problems with a flash and a bang, often in ways that don’t make much sense (and he does that here too), but by having him backgrounded, we can experience the terror with people who don’t understand what’s going on, and go on the journey with them as they try and get to a man who does know what to do.
The presentation of the Doctor is also very good here. Newman has his mannerisms down, and his coldness of personality towards humanity is an interesting counterpoint to the villains, but also more fitting with his attitude in those early serials.
Time and Relative then has much to recommend it as a Doctor Who novel. As literature it’s no great shakes, but you don’t expect War and Peace when you read a novella about snowmen coming to life and killing people.
February 16, 2013
“(Maybe the Box is still at Home; what we stole might only be the Door.)”
Time and Relative is in the form of Susan Foreman's diary from 1963, set around six months before the events of An Unearthly Child. Susan and her Grandfather are trying to blend in, trying to pass unnoticed, and so Susan decides that she should attend school. The start of the book is mainly concerned with her attempts to fit in with the other children and avoid Detention. But there's something more going on. The winter has been especially hard and has lasted far too long - there is still snow on the ground on April Fools' Day - and it becomes apparent that the cold is not natural.
Susan has what she describes as fog in her mind, and she finds it difficult to remember home - but she finds that if she couches her memories in the setting of Coal Hill, she can see things more clearly. She and her Grandfather are truants, persued by the Masters. One particular of these (always the favourite where her Grandfather was a trouble-maker), possessed of a neat black beard and clever eyes, will make his career if he can bring them back. There are Rules. There is the Box.
The Doctor (never named as such, and Susan tells us she cannot remember his name, and that neither can he), is reluctant to help with the threat, because thus far he still has not broken the primary rule: Do Not Meddle. He is fully prepared to let the adversary destroy the human race, even prepared to sacrifice Susan herself, and in the end, it's only a toy that convinces him that we are worth saving. This is a Doctor at the very start of his love affair with humanity - are we worth it? For the first time, the answer is yes.
Time and Relative is in the form of Susan Foreman's diary from 1963, set around six months before the events of An Unearthly Child. Susan and her Grandfather are trying to blend in, trying to pass unnoticed, and so Susan decides that she should attend school. The start of the book is mainly concerned with her attempts to fit in with the other children and avoid Detention. But there's something more going on. The winter has been especially hard and has lasted far too long - there is still snow on the ground on April Fools' Day - and it becomes apparent that the cold is not natural.
Susan has what she describes as fog in her mind, and she finds it difficult to remember home - but she finds that if she couches her memories in the setting of Coal Hill, she can see things more clearly. She and her Grandfather are truants, persued by the Masters. One particular of these (always the favourite where her Grandfather was a trouble-maker), possessed of a neat black beard and clever eyes, will make his career if he can bring them back. There are Rules. There is the Box.
The Doctor (never named as such, and Susan tells us she cannot remember his name, and that neither can he), is reluctant to help with the threat, because thus far he still has not broken the primary rule: Do Not Meddle. He is fully prepared to let the adversary destroy the human race, even prepared to sacrifice Susan herself, and in the end, it's only a toy that convinces him that we are worth saving. This is a Doctor at the very start of his love affair with humanity - are we worth it? For the first time, the answer is yes.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 17, 2016
This was an interesting story, mostly because it was told in diary format in the voice of Susan, the Doctor's granddaughter. Her pop culture references to the time frame of 1963 make it fun as do her teenage viewpoints on clothes, boys and double geography! It made for a fun perspective to the story and was a kind of refreshing voice in an adventure story.
The story itself reminded me of the 2012 Christmas special ("The Snowmen"), and I would bet there was some inspiration from this little novella in that episode. There were many similarities in the actual "baddie" down to some of the descriptions of vicious snowmen and their sharp icy teeth.
One of the most interesting things this story brings up is the idea that Susan and the Doctor have been sort of mind-controlled by the society on Gallifrey, resulting in "fog patches" in their memories when they try to remember too much. Susan guesses this is some conditioning that keeps them following the rules, such as non-interference, that they left to break. This story also commits to the idea that this is the first time the Doctor "meddled" in local events allowing him to break through his "fog clouds."
Overall this is a fun story for any fan, and serves as a nice introduction to anyone who's curious and wants to get into the Doctor's printed adventures.
The story itself reminded me of the 2012 Christmas special ("The Snowmen"), and I would bet there was some inspiration from this little novella in that episode. There were many similarities in the actual "baddie" down to some of the descriptions of vicious snowmen and their sharp icy teeth.
One of the most interesting things this story brings up is the idea that Susan and the Doctor have been sort of mind-controlled by the society on Gallifrey, resulting in "fog patches" in their memories when they try to remember too much. Susan guesses this is some conditioning that keeps them following the rules, such as non-interference, that they left to break. This story also commits to the idea that this is the first time the Doctor "meddled" in local events allowing him to break through his "fog clouds."
Overall this is a fun story for any fan, and serves as a nice introduction to anyone who's curious and wants to get into the Doctor's printed adventures.
March 5, 2012
This novel is one of the many that I have been looking foreword to. An, it did not disappoint.
The book puts itself out as the Diary of Susan Foreman, telling of her adventures in March and April 1963. It tells of Susan, John; a fellow student that she is romantically involved with, and Gillian; her fellow friend. (Oh, get it? John and Gillian? Clever...)
The book is probably one of the least-confusing Doctor Who book I've ever read (authors always seem to want to make Doctor Who books long and complicated) it's up there with 'Who Killed Kennedy' and 'World Games,' two of my favourite books.
So, I'd definitely say that it's one of the greatest of its kind... So why am I only giving it 4 stars? Well, it is a bit weird... Like there's this idea put forth that the Doctor and Susan have patches in their memory... Susan can't remember her home planets name (Gallifrey?) or if it is a plane (Kasterbourus?)... Suggesting that she may have been travelling with the Doctor sense she was REAL young... And I prefer the 'Time & Time Again' scene... Also, they keep calling the TARDIS 'the box...' and John 'oh, get' Brent is the one who adds the 'in space' acronym bit... But all around, still a good book, and I'd suggest it. 4/5 stars.
The book puts itself out as the Diary of Susan Foreman, telling of her adventures in March and April 1963. It tells of Susan, John; a fellow student that she is romantically involved with, and Gillian; her fellow friend. (Oh, get it? John and Gillian? Clever...)
The book is probably one of the least-confusing Doctor Who book I've ever read (authors always seem to want to make Doctor Who books long and complicated) it's up there with 'Who Killed Kennedy' and 'World Games,' two of my favourite books.
So, I'd definitely say that it's one of the greatest of its kind... So why am I only giving it 4 stars? Well, it is a bit weird... Like there's this idea put forth that the Doctor and Susan have patches in their memory... Susan can't remember her home planets name (Gallifrey?) or if it is a plane (Kasterbourus?)... Suggesting that she may have been travelling with the Doctor sense she was REAL young... And I prefer the 'Time & Time Again' scene... Also, they keep calling the TARDIS 'the box...' and John 'oh, get' Brent is the one who adds the 'in space' acronym bit... But all around, still a good book, and I'd suggest it. 4/5 stars.
June 30, 2022
The Telos novellas were a publishing venture allowing authors to use Doctor Who elements and take them anywhere they wanted. These were to be deliberately different from the TV series. "Time And Relative" fulfills this brief. Told in the form of pages from Susan's diary and taking place a few months prior to events in "An Unearthly Child," the story focuses on how a teen mind views events that might end up in a Doctor Who adventure. The setting is the great freeze of 1963, which actually did happen, though for unclear reasons Newman offsets the date. In this version, we see the Doctor and Susan as they were in the unaired pilot episode, the Doctor cold and generally unsympathetic, taking a very strict "hands off" policy, and Susan struggling to maintain her superior aloofness, but also highly sympathetic to the human point of view. The limit to one point of view means that we do not get to see all that is happening, and much is guessing and inference.
July 26, 2013
Stellar debut installment of the Telos novellas! (And far better than Frayed, which was published later but takes place before it.) This very unusual Doctor Who novella takes place eight months before the very first episode of the television show, in 1963, and is told in the form of Susan's diary. Kim Newman has the character's voice down incredibly well - a necessity, considering the format - and actually makes the story almost entirely a solo one, with the Hartnell Doctor only really coming in at the end. Perhaps what impresses most, however, is Newman's steadfast attention to detail; in every way imaginable, he makes you believe that this story really does take place in early sixties London, incorporating pop culture, lingo and even the attitudes and rituals of the time. For any fan of early Who, this is sure to be a massive treat.
December 7, 2015
Not a terrible book, but it wasn't really anything special. This book (like Frayed) took place before the events of An Unearthly Child. The idea was interesting - getting a bit of a look into Susan's life/perspective. since she really wasn't in the show for that long. The execution wasn't pulled off that well though. The whole time I was reading it, it felt like nothing that significant could really happen between Susan and the other characters. And if you'll read it you'll see how events are sort of ignored afterwards, though that actually seems like a bit of a regular thing in Doctor Who.
Also, the plot seems to have a lot of elements in common with one or two fairly recent Doctor Who episodes, and I wonder if ideas were actually taken from here.
Also, the plot seems to have a lot of elements in common with one or two fairly recent Doctor Who episodes, and I wonder if ideas were actually taken from here.
June 24, 2024
The Doctor's granddaughter, Susan, remains an enigma that still haunts the show (as the teases in the current season illustrate). It's great to have this insightful prequel story from her point of view, which follows her and the-Doctor-who-is-not-yet-the-Doctor adjusting (or not adjusting) to their exile on Earth, and the second great act of rebellion that Susan inspires in her grandfather. The well-written side characters, spooky atmosphere, and genuinely scary villain are additionally all excellent.
Newman also portrays, or predicts, things about Susan's parentage that we're seeing appear on the show now. Good on him.
Newman also portrays, or predicts, things about Susan's parentage that we're seeing appear on the show now. Good on him.
March 26, 2011
The first in a series of novellas that relate the universe of Doctor Who through the eyes of those around him. This particular story is an entry in the diary of Susan Foreman during the spring of 1963. It offers a small amount of explanation to why they are living in the 60s but more importantly, it shows the beginning of the Doctor's unending fascination with the potential of the human race.
A quick read, this is something you can pick up and finish in just a couple of hours. I definitely recommend it for any Doctor Who lover or even anyone who wants a quick sci-fi book.
A quick read, this is something you can pick up and finish in just a couple of hours. I definitely recommend it for any Doctor Who lover or even anyone who wants a quick sci-fi book.
September 3, 2016
Found the diary format a bit annoying at first but warmed to it once it got in to the story. Lots of insight in to Susan as an alien misfit teen. Snowmen / ice monsters quite scary when they crush characters to death. Interesting non interventionist position of the Doctor.
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