Hold Your Horses

"It's really the Canterbury Embroidery!"

Writer: Nicholas Pegg

Format: Short Story

Released: August 2008

Printed in: Doctor Who Storybook 2009

Featuring: Tenth Doctor, Donna 

Synopsis 

When Donna goes missing entirely from the timeline in 2061, the Doctor seeks out to find her. And the answer seems to lie in a schoolboy called Alex, not that he knows it...

Verdict 

Hold Your Horses was a great short story to continue my incredibly sporadic reading of the 2009 Doctor Who Storybook! This was a really enjoyable read that had a big idea for a small format. Nine pages of printed A4 probably sounds less than it actually is and with the gorgeous illustrations to accompany the prose, this is a format of adventure I would very much be in favour of returning. I can’t compliment the artwork enough and it really does help to have visual aids, especially in a short story where there may not be enough time to fully flesh out the characters and their background and description. That’s a positive move. I thought starting off in a school was intriguing although I must say that I’m not usually a huge fan of children being main characters. For some reason they just don’t have the same appeal and I think the jeopardy there feels a bit wrong. How much danger should you really put a child in? That wasn’t the case here though as Alex was only in danger from mistaken identity when it came to antics in a classroom and finding his way outside of the headmaster’s office. The Doctor would see to putting that right thanks to an excellent eyewitness account which was fun. I was impressed with the characterisation of the Tenth Doctor in this story as he was clearly up to something but given Alex’s age he could just tell him what he needed to know. Donna going missing from existence is a tricky predicament to try and solve, but it was a situation which I enjoyed exploring. History going off course is always fun to delve into and the Norman Conquest differentiating was a very exciting prospect! The idea of a Harold III was great and Alex’s interest in history was lovely to read. I’m a huge fan of it myself given that I’ve studied it to a Master’s level! The Doctor having to study and study to find the moment where the divergent timeline had jumped off course was good but surely that’s an impossible task. Even for the Doctor after months and months, the detail is so tiny! It’s a little coincidental that he would meet Alex in 2061 where Donna would go missing, but then the whole thing was a paradox and they couldn’t really be explained. Older Alex had told the Doctor of his own future actions, therefore they must then happen to keep history in tact. It’s fun to play with and Donna trying to wrap her head around it all was tremendous. She confidently stated she’d nearly got it before the Doctor proclaimed that she very much did not. It was intriguing for Donna to be missing for most of the story but she made one hell of an entrance when the timelines were restored! She was far from best pleased with the Doctor and what had happened to her. His recruitment of Alex was decent and I liked that he was able to assure the boy of his lack of wrongdoing and that he was doing just fine. He knew him from the future which was a little bit of cheating, but hey ho. The significance of the Bayeux Tapestry was good and I liked that Alex would go on to take the place of Turold. That coming at a time where the Tapestry was being discussed in his history lesson was good and the Doctor actually deciding that Alex would take the place of Turold in history to put it back on course was quite fun actually. The paradoxical nature of things is a nice and easy way out as they literally cannot be explained! Overall, a really nice read with the final lines of Turold being described in Alex’s lesson as a mystery a really nice touch. 

Rating: 8/10