The Rhino of Twenty-Three Strand Street

"Songbirds shouldn't look at the sky."

Writer: Dave Rudden

Format: Short Story

Released: October 2018

Printed in: Twelve Angels Weeping 11

Featuring: Thirteenth 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 

The Rhino of Twenty-Three Strand Street was a decent story to continue my reading of the Twelve Angels Weeping collection of short stories! The Judoon aren’t a bad choice by any stretch of the imagination to include a story about in a celebration of villains in Doctor Who, and they’re certainly one of the more impactful monsters from the modern era in particular. The approach here was totally different to what I was expecting though as we met a younger Judoon for the first time! That was an intriguing concept and coupling him with a young human girl made for a pretty good matchup. Although the Thirteenth Doctor features here, the story is all about Patricia who’s a very inquisitive young girl. I like that she was always asking questions and building her knowledge in the school library, but being from Ireland her education was often centred around religion and her sisters as teachers weren’t too thrilled about what she was learning about. Who cares rhinos? Well, Patricia certainly did after finding that one had seemingly moved into Mrs McCarthy’s house after she passed away! That was quite an amusing concept as I just couldn’t envisage a Judoon settling down and living in a small house, but with it being a young member of the species it did make a little more sense. Whilst there was nothing particularly wrong or bad about this story, I think my rating is slightly lower than others in this book because not a lot actually happened. There was no Judoon threat which was a shame and we actually just had a nice tale of Patricia taking the child Judoon under her care and even providing food and comfort. There just wasn’t much excitement and it was difficult to get too invested in a ten-year-old. I appreciated that she was snooping around to find food and fauna for the Judoon, going so far as to even find a bucket of mud and not get her clothes too dirty. I wasn’t massively a fan of the way that Patricia was doing everything she would for a normal white rhino. That didn’t seem entirely accurate given that the Judoon were alien, although I can’t deny the similarity in appearance! Surely the fact it was walking on two legs though would be enough to show it was rather different than a traditional rhino. The fact it knew it was on Earth thanks the drawing of circles in the mud and the hologram ring surrounding the house should also have been indications for Patricia. But then again she was only ten no matter how advanced she was for her age. It was pretty interesting to learn that this story was only released four days after the broadcast of The Woman Who Fell to Earth so life for the Thirteenth Doctor was very much in its infancy! With that being said, the characterisation was really impressive and I definitely got strong Jodie Whittaker vibes! The type of explanation of events like was the case here would become a hallmark of her era so that felt really good. Just when she was travelling alone is anyone’s guess though! The ending was a little sad as after the Doctor knocked on the door to check in, both Patricia and the child Judoon panicked and set off to run. The police wording on the TARDIS probably didn’t help in their efforts to stay put either! Patricia was pretty devastated though that the Judoon just ran away and back into space and beyond. After all she had done for it and it just left her behind. It was some solace though to know that the Judoon could have easily outpaced her and left her behind, but it kept pace with her to see that she was safe. Their nature was as mercenaries, but this Judoon did show some kind of appreciation for it being looked after. Overall, a good read to serve as the penultimate story in the collection!

Rating: 7/10