Doctor Who: Short Trips: Snapshots

Joseph Lidster (ed)
Big Finish

Throughout his adventures in time and space, the Doctor meets so many people and each one is affected in some way: the waiter who keeps a special table for the Time Lord's granddaughter, Susan; the American student who befriends lost Lucie Miller; the teenage girl who discovers that she may be something more than human. What is it like when that strange blue box appears in your life? What is it like when your eyes are opened to so much more? What is it like when everything changes?

I've eyed up a couple of these BF anthologies a few times over the years but even 2nd hand the price tag has been too high for me so spotting this in a junk shop recently was a real treat.

As was usually the case with BF (it's changed lately) the stories feature Doctors 1 to 8 and in this case in pretty tiny little escapades...escapadettes perhaps...or not.

James Goss

The book is crammed and the highlights are many. James Goss' 'Indian Summer' featuring the First Doctor, Susan and a lifetime of strange events for a restaurant waiter / maitre d / manager / owner / manager again Suresh Parekh is a particular favourite and being second in the contents means the bar is set high and early. Fortunately there are a few that are up to it; Simon Guerrier provides an intriguing serial Doctor adventure featuring a young girl with a big problem, Brian Dooley gives us a delightfully bickery tale between the Fourth Doctor and Romana and the Eighth repays a favour in Joseph Lidster's 'Salva Mea'.

There are plenty of others both fun and funny and some that just drift past and the book ends oddly with Paul Magrs' 'Fanboys' which feels like it's been printed in the wrong book but I'm pleased to have finally tracked one of these collections down, it certainly didn't disappoint.