Susan Calman

I liked the idea of this collection: showcasing four of the Doctor’s finest female companions, entirely written by women. And overall the collection worked. Here are my thoughts on each story.

Sarah Jane and the Temple of Eyes
I am a sucker for ancient Rome stories, and this one was pretty good. I liked that Sarah got to use her journalism skills in this one.

Rose and the Snow Window
I liked that this story was set in Toronto, but one point didn’t work for me: the City of Toronto has its own police force and therefore the RCMP would not be the first agency to respond to a call, and certainly not on horseback, unless somehow the situation occurred in the middle of the Musical Ride. (My other half: “Or unless the government collapsed and we were under martial law.” Me: “This was set in 2005! There was no martial law. This isn’t an alternate future in the aftermath of SARS.”)

Clara and the Maze of Cui Palta
I think I’ve picked up a joke in the title: there is a verb, palter, that means to equivocate or prevaricate in speech, or to trifle with. The question of the title could be “who’s trifling with the Doctor and Clara”? And Susan Calman did a good job of making Clara not annoying.

Bill and the Three Jackets
I really liked this one! I love stories with Twelve and Bill in them, and this one felt genuinely scary to me.… (mais)

In this memoir, Susan Calman talks about her experiences with depression (personified here as the Crab of Hate): how it developed, how it has affected her relationships, and how she manages it on a daily basis. I related strongly to her experiences with the paranoid and anxious sides of depression in particular, although we are a decade and an entire ocean apart in age and geography. She writes with honesty about herself, taking responsibility for what she can and emphasizing the personal aspects of her experience (i.e., not making her personal experience universal). If you’ve ever seen her on QI or heard her on Radio 4, you may want to read this — it is illuminating and about the most feel-good book you can read about depression.… (mais)

https://nwhyte.livejournal.com/3194792.html

Four pretty good stories, two by established Who writers Jacqueline Rayner and Jenny T. Colgan (Colgan of course much better known for her other writing) and two by established writers who are new to the Whoniverse (Susan Calman and Dorothy Koomson), each featuring a companion (Sarah Jane, Rose, Clara, Bill) who makes a crucial difference to the plot. My favourite was the Twelve-and-Bill story, "Bill and the Three Jackets" by Dorothy Koomson, which had a neat bit of identity-swapping and body horror tying into Bill's own back story; I'll look out for more of her work.… (mais)