The Red-Eyed League

"Have I slept so long only to die?"

Writer: Dave Rudden

Format: Short Story

Released: October 2018

Printed in: Twelve Angels Weeping 07

Featuring: Vastra, Jenny, Strax

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 

The Red-Eyed League was another great story to continue my reading through the Twelve Angels Weeping collection! Whilst this book focuses on villains, I thought the Silurians being used for both heroes and enemies here was a clever use and kind of sums up their position in Doctor Who folklore. Are they really villains as a whole? Sure, there are some rogue members of the species but it’s not as if they’re like the Cybermen or Daleks where every single one would be considered a villain. Following on from A Soldier’s Education, it’s fun to have Strax in his familiar role here as part of the Paternoster Gang. I’m a massive fan of the Victorian trio and I’m so glad that Big Finish has provided a spin-off series for them, but I’ve always felt they warranted one on television too. Maybe with Disney+ getting involved with Doctor Who now, this could be a possibility? Let’s hope so! For now though, any extra story we get with the Paternoster Gang is most welcomed in my book. As one might expect with a story sub-titled as Silurians, the focus was firmly on Vastra and she really did shine. For me, the story was all about her relationship with Jenny and that was tested in a big way here. It’s often easy to forget just what life might be like for Vastra here as she’s millions of years out of her time and hiding away. She hides that well in her demeanour but she has become quite fond of humanity, something other Silurians may not share. That was the case here as another Silurian made herself known to Vastra. Kisimos was the real villain of the piece and I thought she was an excellent character! She seemed superior to Vastra but I think that’s just because this was the first time she had encountered another of her species in a very long time. She even struggled with the traditional Silurian tongue, not even getting her name quite right in pronunciation. Imagine getting corrected on that! Kisimos didn’t hold back in trying to make Vastra remember who she was and didn’t very much take kindly to the fact that humanity were ruling what she still considered to be her planet. Her comments on the pollution and what they’d done to the Thames were fun, but Vastra was quick to defend that they were still a young species. Developments would come, but that didn’t interest Kisimos. The fact she was actually interfering in the work that the Paternoster Gang had accomplished was never going to work as a means of showing Vastra her past. She acknowledged that time travel could happen in many different ways and for her, Earth had moved forward whereas the Silurian race had not. That was powerful stuff. Initially, Kisimos was thought of as being good and someone Vastra could confide in after claiming to be lonely with no others of her race around. Well, that didn’t go down well with Jenny! She really was quite offended that Vastra didn’t feel she could talk her about serious stuff like that. Jenny was onto Kisimos from the start after events with the Widow and the murder, as only the Paternoster Gang linked the cases. Kisimos was undoing all of the good that Vastra had done with her Paternoster friends, all in a failed effort to revert her to her roots. She admitted she wasn’t of human kind, but she no longer considered herself to be a Silurian of the kind Kisimos was promoting. She was still favouring hunting and a pack mentality, but that was long gone now. The ending was good with Kisimos having servants, but they were all no match for Strax’s rat bombs to knock them all out. Vastra instructing the Doctor to put them back in stasis was a neat touch too. Overall, a great read!

Rating: 8/10