A Big Hand for the Doctor

"I don't laugh. I don't play games. I have a serious mission."

Writer: Eoin Colfer

Format: Novella

Released: November 2014

Series: 12 Doctors, 12 Stories: 01

Featuring: First Doctor, Susan

Synopsis 

The First Doctor is in persist of a hang of cut-throat Soul Pirates in Victorian London. Missing both his left hand and his beloved granddaughter, Susan, his quest to retrieve them promises a journey into a land he may never forget...

Verdict 

A Big Hand for the Doctor was an excellent little novella! A really excellent short story. I like to think of this little series of eBooks, a set I was lucky enough to be given for Christmas in the superb postcard edition, as quick Quick Reads if that makes sense. They're obviously considerably smaller than the Quick Reads, a range which is rather self explanatory but the length was actually pretty much perfect for the story to my surprise. I tend to be rather fussy when it comes to length of stories, particularly comic strips and those printed in the Annuals, but this worked a peach. I loved reading a story set before An Unearthly Child as it allows us to see what the Doctor and Susan got up to after leaving Gallifrey before meeting Ian and Barbara at Coal Hill School. The opening chapter was very good and I loved the conversation between the Doctor and Aldridge. It's intriguing seeing regeneration, Time Lords and Gallifrey not only mentioned but talked about by the First Doctor himself. It almost seems wrong but that rarity makes it all the more better I feel. The fact that the Doctor had a bionic hand for much of the story was quite a surprise but I did love his haggling in trying to get his new, five-fingered, hybridised hand cheaper. I liked how Aldridge's currency wasn't really currency at all. He wanted the Doctor's services and to the Doctor, especially this incarnation, I imagine that's quite a hefty price! This story and that reaction highlighted to me that the Doctor who appeared in The Infinity Doctors just can't be the First Doctor. I'm not sure who I had in mind when reading that novel but it most certainly was not William Hartnell's incarnation, not even a much younger version. The Doctor's love for Susan was sublime in this story and we really do get to see a softer side to the often grumpy incarnation of the Doctor. He really does love Susan incredibly, and perhaps a reason for that is what I implied had happened to her mother, which in turn would be the Doctor's daughter. Susan claimed she'd found her when in the grip of the orange beam. Is she lost? Had the Doctor lost his daughter, or even all his family excluding Susan? Maybe that's why the Doctor reacted the way he did when he saw what appeared to be his mother in The End of Time. The fact that his mother had a small piece of dialogue in this story is rather incredible I think! Add that to the Doctor wishing he'd already regenerated into the one with the bow tie (not my words!) and there really is a lot to smile and be surprised about in this short piece of prose. The Soul Pirates were good enemies and I liked how they bore resemblance to what was going on in The Doctor's Wife with body parts and what have you being harvested. But there would be junkyard for these Pirates because they'd gotten their name from the fact they left absolutely nothing to waste. They harvested everything and anything and then some more. Their intellect being the way the Doctor defeated them was really good though, I always think of the First Doctor being the most witty and intelligent of the Doctors. Appearing to be the oldest but actually the youngest, it seems the Doctor got childish with age and regeneration. The somewhat subtle reference to the upcoming Second Doctor was great comedic value because we know Patrick Troughton's incarnation really didn't have any fashion sense. I was fascinated by the communicators the Doctor and Susan talked on and I think they could come in handy in some future stories. I really liked Colfer's style of writing, it was a nice break from the many Terrance Dicks' novels I seem to have been reading lately, and it was terrific seeing what the Doctor was thinking from time to time. His refusal to let the Soul Pirates take his granddaughter away was superb. I liked how he had made it his mission to track down the Pirates through time and space and eradicate them. He genuinely seemed to despise them. It won't belong until he meets an even more despicable race on the planet Skaro. The resolution was very clever with the Doctor linking his DNA to the explosion of the Pirates' ship destroying them and allowing the Doctor, Susan and the others being saved along the way a safe passage to ground. The story, obviously being set in the Classic era, had very much a revived series feel to it which actually I think helped. There's little to go on with the First Doctor, especially set before the very first episode, because his experience in seeing the universe was only beginning. However, this novel did a spectacular job of capturing Hartnell's Doctor and gave us a terrific plot with some wonderful references. Overall, fantastic! 

Rating: 9/10