Grey Matter

"He'd seen it, in the corner of his eye."

Writer: Dave Rudden

Format: Short Story

Released: October 2018

Printed in: Twelve Angels Weeping 01

Featuring: Twelfth Doctor

Synopsis 

On every planet that has existed or will exist, there is a winter...

Many of the peoples of Old Earth celebrated a winter festival. A time to huddle together against the cold; a time to celebrate being half-way out of the dark.

But shadows are everywhere, and there are some corners of the universe which have bred the most terrible things, lurking in the cold between the stars.

Here are twelve stories – one for each of the Twelve Days of Christmas – to remind you that to come out of the darkness we need to go into it in the first place.

We are not alone. We are not safe. And, whatever you do: don't blink.

Verdict 

Grey Matter was an outstanding way to kick off my reading of the Twelve Angels Weeping collection of short stories! I’m a big fan of the works of Dave Rudden that I have blogged so far and this looks set to be another stellar collection. I’m enjoying making use of my local library and getting twelve new stories like this feels great as this book is somewhat under the radar! I like the premise of exploring a story with a popular villain and you can’t go wrong in starting with the Weeping Angels! The title of the book itself is brilliant and I loved that we knew the Angels were coming throughout this opening instalment, but they didn’t really do an awful lot and it was just the fear of the plague that was rife. The atmosphere created in this adventure was sublime and it felt tense throughout. The concept of entire cities being wiped out in a day was fantastic and with the planet being a medical one devoted to finding cures and essentially one big hospital, they figured that everyone dying City by City was down to something like a disease. The image of City Ten just leaving a goodbye message displayed was incredibly powerful and really sold the helplessness of its inhabitants. They had the time to set this up knowing that the end was coming. Perrine was a very strong character as the Chief Medical Officer and he was clearly in survival mode. That was something he was challenged on by the Doctor fantastically by the conclusion of the story.  The way the Doctor did arrive was amusing as he just showed up in the middle of a quarantine when it just shouldn’t be possible. That’s his way to make an entrance! I thought it was a strong outing for the Twelfth Doctor and I was so thankful that we didn’t get the tired fierce eyebrows description to show which incarnation was present. What we got was really good and simple which is how it should be. I liked the setting of the thirty-fourth century though it wasn’t really important to the overall story. We just needed to know it was somewhere and when in the future. With the medical theme of the story, the importance of the role of a doctor in the professional sense was highlighted in sublime style. It was really so good and showed just what the Doctor stood for. He was horrified that a supposed medical facility had closed its doors to the sick. That was really powerful and he showed no qualms in standing up to Perrine and his failings as a Chief Medical Officer. The use of the image of an Angel becoming an Angel was fantastic and the significance that played in Perrine as patient zero with the Angel inside his mind was superb. The fact he was tormenting a Weeping Angel to try and research and use the quantum lock reverse engineered was incredible, but the Angels were never going to let one of their kind suffer like that! The image of the people becoming Angels behind the masks was excellent and for once this was something the Doctor couldn’t really fix. The ending was very emotional as Perrine realised what needed to be done to stop the plague and despite the offer, he couldn’t accept leaving in the TARDIS with the Angel in his head. The Doctor was genuinely devastated to have to leave the medical officer behind, but there truly was no other way. There would be no happy ending. Overall, a sensational start to the collection! 

Rating: 10/10