Totem

"Calluses won't hide the blood on your hands."

Writer: Tara Samms

Format: Short Story

Released: March 1999

Printed in: More Short Trips 01

Featuring: Eighth Doctor

Synopsis

Here on Earth or out in the depths of the cosmos, the Doctor and his companions are never far from adventure. 

Discover things on Earth you were never meant to know. Get around the universe. Get short tripping. 

Verdict

Totem was a decent little story to kick off my reading of the More Short Trips collection! After taking what felt like an eternity and really was around a decade to actually get blogging the first volume of Short Trips, it's nice to quickly jump into this book. I'm a big fan of the idea and I do own a number of the Big Finish produced books in the Short Trips range, but I'm going to go in as much of a release order as possible now with what I own. Starting with the Eighth Doctor here is not much of a surprise given that he was the current Doctor at the time of release, although what he was doing was very unique. He was going by the familiar name of John, presumably as a shorthand alias for John Smith, and spent a lot of time in the farmstead of Señora Panstedas. She was a widow who was also reeling from the death of her son so she was certainly somebody who was vulnerable. Having the Doctor come into your life may not be the best thing for her when she was in that mental state of mourning, but he was actually there to help. There was no apparent trouble for her to be concerned with although by how things ended there was a sense of guilt from the Doctor. He seemed to know how her husband died and why with the cracked skull, so he'd try and make things easier for her. That was admirable at least and he only wanted some eggs as payment! That is very typical of the Doctor. For all of the jobs he was doing and the length of time he was sticking around, that seemed like a pretty fair deal to me! I did think it was quite amusing when he was smashed in the head by an egg and said he would prefer to be given them cooked and for breakfast. He could even make them himself if it was going to be a problem which was great humour. The cheek of him sometimes it's honestly a wonder he doesn't get smacked more. It's the fact he doesn't know what he's saying that does it. He genuinely believes it's the right thing to say and doesn't see an issue. I thought the moments the Doctor named himself and did so quite fiercely was intriguing and the ambiguous and mysterious nature of his conversation with the unknown inidivual was nicely done. I suspect Time Lord involvement, and I do wonder if this was at the point in the Eighth Doctor Adventures books where the Doctor lost his memory. I've only experienced that in Players, but it might explain things. There certainly felt like there was something of a gap in his demeanour, but he could easily have just been hiding his true self and purpose. I thought the funeral of Señora Panstedas's husband was a sombre way to end things and the final paragraph of the Doctor reflecting on her was a nice touch with her being in his thoughts. It was good of him to keep her at the forefront of his mind, at least at this point in the incarnation. The description of the Doctor's eighth incarnation with the velvet coat and the longer hair was really good in providing imagery and characterisation. It certainly helped. At just eight pages, there wasn't a whole lot this story could do but it was a fascinating little read! 

Rating: 7/10