Doctor Who Short Trips: A Christmas Treasury

Big Finish Short Trips #11

by Paul Cornell (Editor), Jonathan Morris, Jo Fletcher

Doctor Who Short Trips is a series of themed short story anthologies of new Doctor Who fiction, featuring the Doctor in all of his first eight incarnations. They feature stories written by some of the leading names in Doctor Who, past and present, including Paul Cornell, Gareth Roberts, Christopher H. Bidmead, and Paul Magrs. This collection covers every aspect of Doctor Who at Christmas, from the Fourth Doctor and Romana wisecracking their way through opening their presents to the Seventh Doctor encountering a dangerous something from Christmas past. The Fifth Doctor visits an old companion, the First Doctor lands in a house where Christmas doesn't go as planned, while the Second Doctor finds he has to have a serious chat with Santa Claus.

Genres: Doctor Who, Short Stories, Science Fiction, Christmas, Fiction, Doctors, Anthologies

192 pages, Hardcover

First published December 1, 2004

About the author

Paul Cornell is a British writer of science fiction and fantasy prose, comics and television. He's been Hugo Award-nominated for all three media, and has won the BSFA Award for his short fiction, and the Eagle Award for his comics. He's the writer of Saucer Country for Vertigo, Demon Knights for DC, and has written for the Doctor Who TV series. His new urban fantasy novel is London Falling, out from Tor on December 6th.

via Wikipedia @ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Cor...

Reviews

[Sophie Crane · Rating 4 out of 5]

Big Finish's 11th anthology of short Doctor Who fiction takes the form of a compendium of Christmas variety - with a content of 22 short stories, 4 poems, 4 recipes, and 2 games.
The short stories are mostly of a high quality, although the sheer mass of them (roughly double the amount of the average Short Trips anthology) mean they are generally rather short character pieces. Amazingly the authors manage to find enough ways to tackle Christmas, from the more subtle winter ghost stories to an outright meeting of the Doctor and Santa, with the stories being divided fairly evenly between light-hearted whimsy and more sombre tales. There are too many tales to go through individually, but some of the more interesting include a cautionary tale where time travel enables Doctor Who fandom to travel back in time and correct the series faults; the Doctor appearing on a Morecambe and Wise Xmas Special; a Dickensian Christmas theme planet under alien assault; and a trilogy of UNIT Christmas parties. Interestingly the stories are also arranged in a symmetrical fashion, so that the second half of the book is a sort of mirror image of the first. The poems are mostly slight but amusing, while I found the recipes and games largely a waste of space, in the context of Christmas fun these were appropriate enough.
Perhaps no real classic short stories, but a decent hit rate, and a book stuffed with enjoyable seasonal fare. Recommended.

[James Allen · Rating 5 out of 5]

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. I read it over the Christmas period of 2024 (21st December - 26th December) and it was definitely the thing that made me feel the most Christmassy out of anything I read, watched, listened to, and even saw out and about.

I do think 31 stories was a lot however, the poems, games and recipes certainly broke up the pace well between the proper stories and the poems were really good, I was quite surprised by them. Of the 31 stories, my favourites were:

Last Minute Shopping: The 5th Doctor, Tegan and Turlough do some Christmas Eve shopping for presents.

Lily: The 5th Doctor visits Sarah Jane and her Granddaughter for Christmas.

Never Seen Cairo: The 5th Doctor befriends a soldier during the Christmas Truce of WWI.

A Christmas Truce: The Master visits the 3rd Doctor on Christmas.

The Small Things: The 4th Doctor and Romana attempt to deliver a lost letter.

I'd say this book, if you can find it, is very well worth reading, especially during the Christmas period if you can.

[Ellie · Rating 2 out of 5]

It’s December so to get in the holiday mood I thought it’s a fine time to read some of the (surprisingly high number of) Christmas themed Doctor Who short story collections. Most of this was nothing special with a couple of really bad gimmicky stories and one or two that were decent character pieces. Also has some games, recipes (did you ever want to make Mrs Baddesley’s plum pudding from The Chimes of Midnight? “Christmas wouldn’t be Christmas without”…), and even filk song lyrics.

[Mark Higginbottom · Rating 5 out of 5]

An absolutely delightful collection of short stories,rhymes,poems and even recipes all laced with a succulent slice of the Festive season!There are some really quite moving stories along with some funny ones too but all have a lovely warm cosy enriching feeling to them.I would definitely recommend this to Doctor Who fans but I would even say to fans of the Yuletide festivities of which I am absolutely one.A sheer joy to read .....loved it!!

[KP Mathislife · Rating 5 out of 5]

I found these stories very entertaining. I enjoyed how short they are and what variety there was. I marked many of them to return to later (more so than in other short trip books).

[Jamieson · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Short Trips books from Big Finish are often mixed bags. I've had ones that I've really enjoyed, and ones that have kinda dragged. Because they're out of print, it's hard to get a hold of them. This was their first Christmas-themed collection and it's kind of a mixed bag itself. There's primarily short stories (which is what the Short Trips are), but in this one, there's also poems, recipes and even a couple games you can play. Most of the stories are good, with a few that really stood out such as All Our Christmases (about time travel being used to "fix" things about Doctor Who [though this isn't outright stated] until the show ceases to exist, similiar to the Unbound Audio "Deadline") and ...Be Forgot (essentially a Bernice Summerfield Christmas story that just happens to feature the Eighth Doctor and is set shortly after the Benny Audio story Death and the Daleks). In all, a worthwile (and fairly quick) read that will delight fans of the Classic Series of Doctor Who and who are looking for something to read over Christmas.

[Nicholas Whyte · Rating 2 out of 5]

http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/2690075.html

These themed anthologies of Who stories are sometimes more miss than hit, and I fear this is largely in the former category - perhaps not helped by my reading it at the height of summer rather than in the Christmas season for which it was intended when published in 2004, with New Who looming round the corner. Perhaps appropriately, the two stories I enjoyed most are reflexive vignettes where the TV show becomes part of the narrative, "Christmas Special" by Marc Platt and even more so "All Our Christmases" by Steve Lyons. Otherwise I think this is best enjoyed with mulled win in one's hand and a seasonal mood in one's brain.

[Billy Martel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Review by story…

All Our Christmases: Absolutely fantastic story full of in-jokes and winks at the audience. A tribute to the show, its history, and its fans. 5/5 stars.

Goodwill Towards Men: Simple cute little story. 4/5 stars.

UNIT Christmas Parties - First Christmas: Sweet as anything, honestly, almost too sweet. Simply adorable. 4/5 stars.

UNIT Christmas Parties - A Christmas Truce: Actually too sweet. Kind of dumb. But ok fan fiction. 2/5

[Alex Sarll]

As mixed a bag as any anthology - indeed, more so than most, given it also includes games, poems and recipes, like a true festive annual - but it's made some progress at getting me in a festive mood. Includes the first Steve Lyons story ever to intrigue and delight me in the way the other stuff of his I've encountered was clearly trying and failing to do.

[ani · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book has the best prologue of any book i've ever read.