This moderately interesting collection of Doctor Who stories, all themed (sometimes very loosely) around Christmas or midwinter, rarely fully landed for me. I'm likely still thinking of the level and variety of short stories we used to get in the BBC and Big Finish's Short Trips books, and the combination of this being a single writer, and produced by the Children's arm of a publisher, means I probably should have lowered my expectations. It's a lovely, chunky (400-page) hardcover with a beautifully designed cover in a limited color palette, which makes you think you're going to read something with a huge "Wow!" factor. Yet there were more than a few times I felt like I was reading content rather than stories.

One of my biggest criticisms is that you can't really "hear" the individual Doctors in the stories, with perhaps the exception of the Ninth Doctor in "A Day to Yourselves." Fully half the stories seem to be set more or less in the Eleventh Doctor's era, but he only shows up twice, and fairly generically. The same thing happens with the Tenth- and Twelfth-centric stories, as well as a cameo appearance by the Fifth Doctor. One story focuses on a Seventh Doctor who calls characters "my dear," but the Thirteenth Doctor gets at least a little of her typical phrasing in. And that's it - a seemingly strange choice to rarely focus on the Doctors or what makes each one unique, although possibly guided by the success of Rudden's last Who collection, which was all villain-based tales.

The two best stories are the aforementioned "A Day to Yourselves" and "Christmas with the Plasmavores," both of which have a great sense of comic timing. Unfortunately, the actual concepts in some of the others, such "We Will Feed You to the Trees," are often more interesting, but they're just too simple and tidy, and without a laugh or two that becomes much more obvious.

I'm sure a child of 9 to 12, as the book was intended for, would enjoy this collection. However, particularly if that reader would be interested in any of the older Doctors, there are simply better and perfectly appropriate alternatives available, at least if you're willing to buy a used book. ( )

As I did last year with Rudden's Twelve Angels Weeping, I started reading this book on Christmas, and read a story every day until I finished. It was a fun way to do it. Rudden has a strong, unique voice as a Doctor Who short fiction writer, and does a good job of capturing the series's tone while not feeling beholden to how things would be on screen; he also does a good job of tying each story into Christmas without making it feel repetitive.

Highlights for me included "Father of the Daleks," chronicling a series of Christmastime meetings between the eleventh Doctor... and Davros!? Good Christmas fun, but also a dark peek into the psyches of the Daleks and their creator. "For the Girl Who Has Everything" was a story of Osgood's first week at UNIT, before Kate Stewart was in charge and before Osgood was chief scientific advisor; she has to rely on her wits to defeat a Sontaran plot. Rudden perfectly captures Osgood's personality and voice. "Visiting Hours" does a great job of filling in the Rory/River father/daughter relationship that Steven Moffat kind of neglected; Rory comes to visit River at Christmas in Stormcage, only for them to have to fight their way through the facility unexpectedly. Genuinely touching stuff about parenting and family. "A Perfect Christmas" was a charming story about Madame Vastra trying to give her ersatz family a perfect holiday at all costs, and "A Day to Yourselves" was a great story about an immediate post–Time War ninth Doctor trying to find consolation by saving planets, only no one will let him do it.

The book only really had two misfires for me, "He's Behind You," which felt like it didn't lean into its panto premise enough, and "We Will Feed You to the Trees," which while well told, didn't seem entirely convincing in the way it explained everything. But really, Rudden has an excellent grasp of tone, theme, and character, and I must seek out his original fiction, but I also hope he keeps writing Doctor Who because he has a markedly interesting voice that goes beyond your average Justin Richardsesque fellow.