Nine authors have received the inspiration of the Muses, to speak of the mysterious Time Lord known only as the Doctor.
Nine authors have received the inspiration of the Muses, to speak of the mysterious Time Lord known only as the Doctor.
SHORT TRIPS: THE MUSES
Perhaps “the Muses” is another relatively weak theme to link a group of stories, but the content of the stories themselves trumps other considerations. With a smaller number of stories contained within, Big Finish’s fourth collection is more detailed than its predecessors — but is it better?
Teach Yourself Ballroom Dancing — Robert Shearman — Very poignant stuff, and a bit of a departure from the normal Shearman motif. There’s no dark humor, there’s no false realities, there’s just a girl that always wanted to be a ballet dancer. Shearman knows the sixth Doctor, too, and makes him sympathetic in ways other authors can only imagine.
The Brain of Socrates — Gareth Roberts — The plot is silly, but so’s the story, which is just laugh-out-loud funny from start to finish. Roberts still writes the best comedic fourth Doctor, and he captures Leela in a manner that was never seen on television, but is still utterly convincing. We need more Gareth Roberts material, it’s just that simple.
Mordieu — Tara Samms — And yet again Tara Samms triumphs with an amazing piece of writing. Written from the perspective of a man in the early stages of dementia, Mordieu shows the advent of stigmata that may or may not be caused by an alien influence. Samms writes the amnesiac eighth Doctor wonderfully — the memories are shown to be there, lurking under the surface — but the first-person sections are the best of all. Amazing.
An Overture Too Early — Simon Guerrier — Guerrier’s first two offerings for the anthologies were high-quality works in Zodiac and Companions, and this is no different. The nature of the short story is such that it allows the author to write parts of stories without completing the plots, and this is what Guerrier has done, describing the third Doctor coming across the aftermath of the actions of a future incarnation. Guerrier writes the Pertwee regulars without resorting to cliche (a difficult task), but the ending is what sells the story. Great stuff.
Hymn of the City — Sarah Groenewegen — Her story “Virgin Lands” in Zodiac was terrible, and this is only slightly better. Clearly an NA-style story but taking place early in the Doctor/Ace partnership, this is nothing more than cliche: the Doctor refuses to explain anything, Ace complains a lot, there’s an explosion, and at the end the Doctor explains what happened and everyone’s happy. The prose is uninspiring as well. Can’t we ever have an actual NA author try a new NA?
Confabula — Ian Potter — Potter has been rather experimental in his previous stories, but here he tells a deceptively simple story about love and the nature of reality. He captures the fifth Doctor and Nyssa with little effort, showing the depth of their relationship that has been developed so well in the BF audios. The end is obvious, but necessary — and the beautiful thing about it is that we’ll never know who was right.
The Astronomer’s Apprentice — Simon A. Forward — Forward recently mentioned on a message board thread that he didn’t find writing the Troughton regulars to be difficult, and it definitely shows here — the characters leap off the page. Between this surreal piece of writing and the complexity of The Sandman, which I listened to at around the same time, I have to wonder if Forward, like the Master, gets dizzy walking in a straight line! Probably the best Traken story.
Katarina in the Underworld — Steve Lyons — It adds some needed(?) depth to the Doctor/Katarina relationship, seen so briefly on television and now almost entirely gone, but otherwise this is a very uninspiring walk through the mythological Greek afterlife. Lyons usually has something to say, but this is just uninspiring. Probably the most average story in the collection.
The Glass Princess — Justin Richards — Wow. Nice try by Gary Russell and company to come up with a new variety of multi-Doctor story, but Richards eclipses them all with this simple, beautiful effort. Sure, some of the Doctors are cliched, but the story is about Clio, not them. The ending is amazing — who knew Richards could write emotional work like this? Stunning.
With only one poor story in the collection, and the second-worst being by Steve Lyons, it’s obvious that The Muses is something special. There’s mature humor, tragedy, and experimentation on display here, and almost all of it works. Thus far, the Short Trips collections have been worth the money, and this one is the best of the first four. Highly recommended.