‘Jak and the Wormhole’, ‘Snow White and the Seven Keys to Doomsday,’ ‘Frozen Beauty’… Traditional fairy tales get a Doctor Who twist in this collection of 15 stories. It was a nice clothbound edition in a charity shop and I thought it somehow looked like a good read for colder weather. I like the concept of the book, very much. The actual stories, and the writing style, were surprisingly lacklustre. There are a few good ones, but the rest are unmemorable. I’m not sure why they are called Time Lord Fairy Tales, as the Doctor isn’t even in every story, and when he is, not the main character. We get some well-known creatures from the show, such as the Weeping Angels, Sontarans and Slitheen, but disappointingly no Daleks. I feel certain that Daleks could have been worked into a fairy tale. I think it’s an ideal book for a total Whovian nut who collects and reads anything about the show, but for the more casual fan, and moreover a fan of unusual re-tellings of classic tales, it sadly does not live up to its promise.

Published by Puffin, 2015.