Doctor Who Short Trips: Monsters

Big Finish Short Trips #9

by Ian Farrington (Editor), Samantha Baker, Anthony Keetch

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. Whether made of flesh and bone, or created in the deep recesses of the mind, monsters are terrible things. They come after you in the night, when you least expect it; they invade your world when all seems safe. Monsters features stories that tell of such beasts—some real, some imaginary; some alien, some homegrown.

Genres: Doctor Who, Short Stories, Science Fiction

188 pages, Hardcover

First published September 1, 2004

Reviews

[James Allen · Rating 3 out of 5]

I chose this anthology to read next, as I felt the theme of "Monsters" would have been a fit for the season, as it's currently Halloween. Monsters are a core part of Doctor Who's identity—without monsters like the Daleks or Cybermen, Doctor Who wouldn't be around today—so a whole anthology for them makes perfect sense.

I will say I felt the subject matter was rather lacklustre in its application here. "Monster" could mean anything, but very few stories did anything other than "An alien monster invades". They weren't bad stories by any means, but I found them a tad basic, especially when these Short Trip Anthologies have been such a great source of pushing the boundaries when it comes to Doctor Who stories in past releases.

That's not to say this anthology was without such stories. One in particular, Trapped! by Joseph Lidster (who has quickly become one of my favourite Who writers), has a duology of circumstances of ordinary people becoming trapped due to the 6th Doctor's interference, causing him to look inwards at his recent behaviour towards Peri and try to amend his ways.

The whole anthology was a nice read; not every story is going to be a big hitter, but the short story format is great for Doctor Who. The stories you get here, you wouldn't find anywhere else.

[Mark Higginbottom · Rating 3 out of 5]

Another one in the Short Trips series.Number 9 in fact.Yet another mixed bag.These stories really are hit and miss.I think the authors sometimes forget that these are under the title of Doctor Who so therefore we readers would actually like to see the character of the Doctor in the story!It seems sometimes the stories are an idea the author had who then tacked the Doctor on.... fleetingly!I wouldn't say any of these stories were excellent or even very good,they are just.....okay.A tad disappointed..... hopefully the next one will be an improvement!

[Nicholas Whyte · Rating 3 out of 5]

http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/2660590.html

Didn;t grab me as strongly as some of the previous volumes in this series, with some stories (like Marc Platt's) trying too hard and others not trying at all. I did particularly like the very first story, "Best Seller" by Ian Mond and Danny Oz, which has the Eighth Doctor and Chaley pollard encountering a evil book in Australia, and a long satire on reality TV, "Not So Much a Programme, More a Way of Life" by Anthony Keetch which has the Fifth Doctor and Nyssa faced with a cult sf show on contemporary Earth. I note also a story set in 14th-century Ireland, "Screamager" by Jacqueline Rayner, which brings the Second Doctor and Victoria into contact with the Black Death and is nice enough from the character point of view but not hugely historically satisfactory.

[Anne · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not the strongest of the Short Trips anthologies, despite a theme that seems ripe for classic Doctor Who exploration. For me, the stand out was Anthony Keetch's Not So Much a Programme, More a Way of Life.