The Garden of Statues

"It was as if they had vanished into the air."

Writer: Justin Richards

Format: Short Story

Released: August 2026

Printed in: Time Lord Fairy Tales 01

Featuring: Weeping Angels

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

The Garden of Statues was an excellent short story to kick off my proper reading of the Time Lord Fairy Tales collection! I am delighted that I have never read this set of intriguing and folk-like tales before because of the extra add-on at the book's conclusion with The Doctor and the Three Witches to compliment the ongoing Circuit Breaker multimedia saga, but it now feels like I'm starting the book properly with the first story to be printed inside. This also feels more poignant now knowing that the entire original collection was written by Justin Richards who sadly recently passed away. His contribution to written Doctor Who and beyond is incredible and substantial so I'm delighted to be reading more of his work now. He's a tremendous writer and I know he played a huge role with Jago & Litefoot at Big Finish also which is a favourite spinoff series of mine. Starting off a collection like this one is no mean task and it's a bold move to go with in writing about fairy tales for a species like the Time Lords. We've seen mentions on screen by the Doctor of stories as a child and now we get to read some of them ourselves. I think that's magnificent. This one captures the very essence of the Weeping Angels almost faultlessly. They're a sublime villain as it is and probably the most iconic monster to come out of the modern era, and with them being famously assassins from the dawn of time it makes sense that they would find their way into Time Lord fairytales. Their being quantum locked is obviously iconic and I thought incorporating people with no knowledge of them was really clever. We really did learn all about the Weeping Angels through Tarmin and Izmay and it was great to have the advantage of knowledge as the reader. It was quite fun to know what was inevitably coming for the pair of children and the tension building as the Angels got closer and started to look more sinister. I was really impressed with the description of their appearance and it was perfectly resemblant of Blink in the writing which is what you want. We know they've returned numerous times on screen now but I'm not sure any modern episode has laid such a lasting imprint in the subconsciousness of fans of all kinds than that one. It's an iconic design and an incredible story. I thought the whole story of the children being scared of the haunted house with the older people now gone who used to look out over them was great, but the way that came full circle and turned out to actually be Izmay and Tarmin as older people was beautiful. The use of the same words that started the story and then ended it with them looking on at the children that were actually themselves and their friends was just stunning. That instantly upped the rating for me a mark because it was just so lovely. Even in a story that set the tone for everything that the Weeping Angels are and showed why they were feared, an emotional human story was at its heart. I thought that was just glorious. I like the paradoxical nature of the fates of Izmay and Tarmin in their elderly actions actually bringing them to the point in their lives that they were, and them presenting the silver tray for the sweets was great stuff. Overall, a superb start to the collection! I think I'm going to enjoy this one.

Rating: 9/10