Blood on Santa's Claw and Other Stories

Main Range #259

Released: 10 December 2019

Listened: 3/26/20

This release is from near the end of the Main Range, the 2019 Christmas story. It’s another collection of short stories, all of which have a Christmas theme. The big difference here is that Peri has acquired a boyfriend named Joe shortly before the first story, and the subplots involve how he adapts, how Peri adjusts to having a partner on her journey, and how the Doctor (still somewhat abrasive at this point) copes with another human who he didn’t pick. All the stories are set in the 59th century, which the Doctor normally avoids, because it’s “silly.” The first story is fairly absurd, revolving around people who’ve taken Shakespeare, The Wind in the Willows, and any number of other things as official religions. The second involves designer children, and that’s where things start to turn dark. The third story is about people trapped at an orbiting Christmas party for three years. And in the final, the Doctor discovers that he’s made a big mistake. Peri gets a lot of spotlight in this story, and a lot of excellent dialog.

(Spoiler: It isn’t, in fact, a collection of short stories, but one long story by Nev Fountain disguised as a series of Christmas stories. This is Nev Fountain, so the writing is at once silly, sharp, and dark, and Peri gets a lot of good lines. Joe isn’t what he seems to be, and is actually the bad guy of the story. This is one that benefits from re-listening, so you can find the clues that are dropped.)