Fiction Reviews
Doctor Who: Ruby Red
(2024) Georgia Cook, BBC Books, £14.99 / Can$31.99 / US$20, hrdbk, 202pp, ISBN 978-1-785-94899-2
Here we go, hold on to something because Georgia Cook has kicked off a series of original new adventures in book form for the Fifteenth Doctor and Ruby Sunday. Cook is a safe pair of hands to be entrusted with this task as she has “previous” with the Doctor having written audio adventures for the Eleventh and Twelfth Doctors, and other related “Who-stuff” for Big Finish. Also, right at the outset, I have to give an appreciative nod to the great wraparound cover by Lee Binding. I suggest you take the cover off and spread it out to appreciate Binding’s artwork.
So much for the cover, but what’s inside? Well, weirdly enough (or not so weird in the Doctor’s world), the Doctor and Ruby have received a distress call from Russia, but Russia way back in 1242. The sender is Ranavere, an alien girl, and a bit of genius, who has found herself in the middle of a war between Estonia and Novgorod, with a major battle about to take place at Lake Peipus which happens to be frozen, but evil things are hatching below the icy surface. Even worse, Ranavere’s distress call has been pick up by her sisters – Helgadene and Cellisamere - and they are not happy, as Ranavere is on Earth to earn her spurs as a Rentaran warrior by fighting her first battle, so why is she sending a distress call? Family honour is at stake here and they mean to make sure honour is not lost, whatever the cost.
Cook has delivered a story that works perfectly on the page, expending beyond the confines of budget and the limits of 45 minute episodes. There actually was a battle on Lake Peipus which took place on the 5th of April 1242, and is known as the Battle on the Ice, or the Battle on Lake Peipus, or the Battle on Lake Chud, so Cook is using that well-worn Whovian trope of involving the Doctor and his companion in historical Earthly events. A trope which was established back in the First Doctor days and has continued throughout the Doctor’s different regenerations. After all, one of the briefs of the show was to educate the viewers, or the readers in this case, and I consider myself to be educated having known nothing about the Battle on the Ice which ended the Northern Crusades and was a battle fought between the expanding Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church.
However, given that the story revolves mainly around the outsiders – the Doctor and Ruby, Ranavere and her sisters, and the alien menace lurking in the waters of the lake – we don’t get any feel for those taking part in the battle and the circumstances surrounding it. Because of this, Cook could have used any real battle to hang her story on, or perhaps just made up one of her own. However, I have to say that she has captured perfectly the characters of both the Doctor and Ruby in their actions, reactions, and the dialogue between the two. Whovians will appreciate various references to TARDIS glitches and the like throughout the book.
To sum up, Ruby Red is a fast-paced story (the novel is only over 200 pages long and consists of a prologue and twenty chapters, so this is my kind of book), that is also creepy in places, mainly due to the lurker beneath the lake and the influence it has over animals and people which is straight out of the body horror playbook, and given the sense of paranoia and distrust that generates, there is more than a nod to The Thing. If you known anything about Ruby Sunday then you will know the importance of family to her, and family comes to the fore here with the relationship between Ranavere and her sisters who have tolerated her strange, non-fighting quirks, but they are warriors, from a family of warriors and one way or another Ranavere will become a warrior. End of story, or is it?
This is solid start to the Doctor’s narrative adventures. More adventures to follow, hopefully with some more penned by Georgia Cook.
Ian Hunter
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