Little Rose Riding Hood

"I'm sure it's all in your imagination."

Writer: Justin Richards

Format: Short Story

Released: August 2026

Printed in: Time Lord Fairy Tales 08

Featuring: Ninth Doctor

Synopsis

We are all stories in the end...

Sixteen tales of ancient wonder and mystery, passed down through generations of Time Lords. 

Dark, beautiful and twisted, these stories are filled with nightmarish terrors and heroic triumphs from across all of time and space.

Verdict

Little Rose Riding Hood was an excellent adventure to continue my way through the Time Lord Fairy Tales collection of short stories! Or should I start calling them fairytales? This one had more of a fairytale theme than actually being one itself which was fascinating. It's clear that this would be one that was not told to Time Lord children as a bedtime story and given the theme and what it was based upon, I was completely fine with that. This was probably the best story in the collection so far and it was just really intriguing stuff. I thought the idea of taking the premise of Little Red Riding Hood but making the titular character into a fairytale version of Rose was terrific. I do think there was perhaps a tad too much ambiguity that might have prevented the perfect rating from myself, but I actually quite liked that at the same time given the fairytale theme. There needs to be a bit of magic at times and the mystery is part of the charm. It had to be the Ninth Doctor for this story and that was great as I love getting anything extra with this incarnation. It's still baffling to me that he only did one series on screen because he made such a strong impact. In my opinion, it was clear that this adventure took place after Rose as the way then Doctor interacted with and spoke to Rose was in a way of recognition of the true article that was his companion. I thought this version of Rose being drawn from then real world version was really good as the links to Father's Day were there in abundance with her father being dead. It was also reminiscent of the first time we see Jackie Tyler on screen as well with the description of her being in her robes. A strange man in her bedroom anyone? I thought that was really cleverly done. It was almost like a fairytale-isation of a chunk of the Ninth Doctor era. And then there were Zygons! I love the idea of the Ninth Doctor encountering Zygons and I'm not sure why but that just feels like a match that absolutely works. Maybe because they're both pretty brutish? The illustrations in this collection have been a bit of nothing in my opinion which might sound harsh but I'm not sure they have added a great deal to each story, but that all changed here. The image of the Zygon in the cloak and in the familiar guise of the wolf posing as in this case Rose's grandmother was incredible! The description with the suckers and the orange gooey and organic components of the bedroom was marvellous as well. It instantly brought a feeling of discomfort and just general grossness which was great stuff. It was a fine representation of the Zygons whilst staying true to the original fiction of Red Riding Hood. The simplicity of Rose travelling in hooded attire was good in representing that titular character as well. I thought the Doctor being written as having a shed was glorious as well and the smile that was written in there really was fantastic. The Doctor getting physical with the Zygon was a bit of a surprise but I like the emphatic nature of it! Down the stairs the Zygon went and that was the end of that. I enjoyed the Zygon shimmering in and out of the grandma disguise which really completed the role of the monster here. Overall, a superb little fairytale adventure! 

Rating: 9/10