Thirteen Doctors 13 Stories - Naomi Alderman Read online

  Contents

  THE FIRST DOCTOR: A BIG HAND FOR THE DOCTOR BY EOIN COLFER

  THE SECOND DOCTOR: THE NAMELESS CITY BY MICHAEL SCOTT

  THE THIRD DOCTOR: THE SPEAR OF DESTINY BY MARCUS SEDGWICK

  THE FOURTH DOCTOR: THE ROOTS OF EVIL BY PHILIP REEVE

  THE FIFTH DOCTOR: TIP OF THE TONGUE BY PATRICK NESS

  THE SIXTH DOCTOR: SOMETHING BORROWED BY RICHELLE MEAD

  THE SEVENTH DOCTOR: THE RIPPLE EFFECT BY MALORIE BLACKMAN

  THE EIGHTH DOCTOR: SPORE BY ALEX SCARROW

  THE NINTH DOCTOR: THE BEAST OF BABYLON BY CHARLIE HIGSON

  THE TENTH DOCTOR: THE MYSTERY OF THE HAUNTED COTTAGE BY DEREK LANDY

  THE ELEVENTH DOCTOR: NOTHING O’CLOCK BY NEIL GAIMAN

  THE TWELFTH DOCTOR: LIGHTS OUT BY HOLLY BLACK

  THE THIRTEENTH DOCTOR: TIME LAPSE BY NAOMI ALDERMAN

  ABOUT THE AUTHORS

  THE FIRST DOCTOR: A BIG HAND FOR THE DOCTOR

  EOIN COLFER was born and raised in the south-east of Ireland. Artemis Fowl, his first book of eight featuring the young anti-hero, was an immediate international bestseller and went on to win several prestigious international awards and be made into a feature film by Disney Studios. He has written a number of other successful books for both adults and children, including Airman, Plugged and the W.A.R.P. series. For theatre, Eoin has written the plays My Real Life and Holy Mary, as well as the book for the Christmas musical Noël.

  From 2014 to 2016 Eoin served as Ireland’s third Children’s Laureate. He lives with his family in Dublin.

  Find out more about Eoin at www.eoincolfer.com. You can also follow him on Twitter: @eoincolfer

  THE SECOND DOCTOR: THE NAMELESS CITY

  MICHAEL SCOTT is one of Ireland’s most successful and prolific writers for both children and adults. Michael has over 100 titles to his credit, has written in a variety of genres including fantasy, science fiction and horror, and is considered an authority on mythology and folklore. In 2007, The Alchemyst: The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel, the first in a groundbreaking young adult fantasy series, launched straight into the New York Times bestsellers list, spending sixteen weeks in the top ten. All six books in the series have been New York Times bestsellers and the series is now published in thirty-seven different countries. Michael lives in Dublin.

  Find out more about Michael at www.dillonscott.com. You can also follow him on Twitter: @flamelauthor

  THE THIRD DOCTOR: THE SPEAR OF DESTINY

  MARCUS SEDGWICK was born and raised in East Kent in the south-east of England. He now lives in the French Alps. He is the winner of many prizes, most notably the 2014 Michael L. Printz Award for his novel Midwinterblood. Marcus has also received two Printz Honors, for Revolver in 2011 and The Ghosts of Heaven in 2016, giving him the most citations to date for America’s most prestigious book prize for writing for young adults.

  Other notable award-winning books include Floodland, Marcus’ first novel, which won the Branford Boase Award in 2001, a prize for the best debut novel for children published in the UK each year; My Swordhand is Singing, which won the Booktrust Teenage Prize for 2007, and Lunatics and Luck, part of The Raven Mysteries series, which won a Blue Peter Book Award in 2011.

  His books have been shortlisted for over forty other awards, including the CILIP Carnegie Medal (seven times), the Edgar Allan Poe Award (twice) and the Guardian Children’s Fiction Prize (four times). He has been nominated for the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award three times, in 2016, 2017 and 2018.

  He has illustrated some of his books, and has provided wood-engravings for a couple of private press books.

  His website is www.marcussedgwick.com and you can follow him on Twitter: @marcussedgwick. He is probably currently working on a new book of some kind …

  THE FOURTH DOCTOR: THE ROOTS OF EVIL

  PHILIP REEVE was born in Brighton and worked in a bookshop for many years before becoming a full-time illustrator and then turning to writing. His first novel, Mortal Engines, won the Nestlé Smarties Book Prize Gold Award (2002), the Blue Peter Book of the Year Award (2003), and was shortlisted for both the Branford Boase Award and the Whitbread Children’s Book Award. A movie version by Peter Jackson was released in December 2018. He has since won many more awards and accolades for his works including the Guardian Children’s Fiction Prize in 2006 and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for A Darkling Plain, and the 2008 CILIP Carnegie Medal for Here Lies Arthur. His most recent titles are Night Flights (a Mortal Engines collection), Station Zero (the third part of the Railhead series) and The Legend of Kevin, co-created with illustrator Sarah McIntyre.

  He lives in Dartmoor, England, with his wife and son, Sam.

  For further information and to explore the author’s own curious world visit www.philip-reeve.com

  THE FIFTH DOCTOR: TIP OF THE TONGUE

  PATRICK NESS was born in Virginia, USA, and is the author of the Chaos Walking trilogy. The third book of the trilogy, Monsters of Men, won the CILIP Carnegie Medal, with previous accolades for the series including the Guardian Children’s Fiction Prize and the Booktrust Teenage Prize. The film adaptation of the first instalment, The Knife of Never Letting Go, is currently in post-production with Lionsgate, starring Tom Holland and Daisy Ridley.

  Patrick’s sixth book, A Monster Calls, became the first book ever to win both of the prestigious CILIP Carnegie and Kate Greenaway Medals. A Monster Calls was adapted into a 2016 film of the same name starring Liam Neeson and Sigourney Weaver, and in summer 2018 a theatre production was staged at The Old Vic as part of its bicentenary celebrations.

  Patrick has written three works for adults and eight YA novels, and is published in forty-three languages. His latest novel And the Ocean Was Our Sky, with illustrations by Rovina Cai, is out now.

  Find out more about Patrick at www.patrickness.com. You can also follow him on Instagram: patricknessbooks

  THE SIXTH DOCTOR: SOMETHING BORROWED

  RICHELLE MEAD is the bestselling author of the Vampire Academy, Bloodlines, Glittering Court and Age of X series. Her love of fantasy and science fiction began at an early age when her father read her Greek mythology and her brothers made her watch Flash Gordon. She went on to study folklore and religion at the University of Michigan, and, when not writing, Richelle spends her time drinking lots of coffee, keeping up with reality TV and collecting 1980s T-shirts. Richelle lives with her family in Seattle, USA.

  Find out more about Richelle at www.richellemead.com. You can also follow her on Twitter: @RichelleMead

  THE SEVENTH DOCTOR: THE RIPPLE EFFECT

  MALORIE BLACKMAN has written over sixty books for children and young adults, including the Noughts & Crosses series, Thief and most recently her science-fiction thriller Chasing the Stars. Her work has also been adapted for TV, with the six-part adaptation of Pig-Heart Boy winning a BAFTA and Noughts & Crosses currently in production for the BBC, with Roc Nation (Jay-Z’s entertainment company) on board to curate and release the soundtrack as Executive Producer. A stage adaptation of the book, by Pilot Theatre, ran from February 2019, under the direction of Sabrina Mahfouz.

  In 2005, Malorie was honoured with the Eleanor Farjeon Award in recognition of her distinguished contribution to the world of children’s books, in 2008 she received an OBE for her services to children’s literature and, between 2013 and 2015, she was the Children’s Laureate.

  Malorie is currently writing for the new Doctor Who series on BBC One, and the fifth novel in her Noughts & Crosses sequence, Crossfire, will be published by Penguin Random House Children’s in summer 2019.

  Find out more about Malorie at www.malorieblackman.co.uk. You c
an also follow her on Twitter: @malorieblackman

  THE EIGHTH DOCTOR: SPORE

  ALEX SCARROW used to be a graphic artist, then he decided to be a computer-games designer. Finally, he grew up and became an author. He has written a number of successful thrillers and several screenplays, but it’s young-adult fiction that has allowed him to really have fun with the ideas and concepts he was playing around with when designing games.

  He currently lives in Norwich with his family.

  Find out more about Alex at www.alexscarrow.co.uk and www.time-riders.co.uk. You can also follow him on Twitter: @AlexScarrow

  THE NINTH DOCTOR: THE BEAST OF BABYLON

  CHARLIE HIGSON started writing when he was ten years old. After university he was a singer and painter and decorator before he started writing for television. He went on to create and star in the hugely successful comedy series The Fast Show.

  He is the author of the bestselling Young Bond books, and the horror series, The Enemy. His Fighting Fantasy interactive gamebook, The Gates of Death, came out in 2018.

  Charlie doesn’t do Facebook, but you can tweet him @monstroso

  THE TENTH DOCTOR: THE MYSTERY OF THE HAUNTED COTTAGE

  DEREK LANDY hates to brag. He positively blushes whenever anyone mentions the awards he’s won, such as the Irish Book of the Decade, the Red House Children’s Book Award, and numerous regional honours in Ireland and the UK – all for his Skulduggery Pleasant series (which is, incidentally, published in over thirty-five languages around the world). He wouldn’t want to point out that the eleventh book of the series, Midnight, was released in 2018, and heaven forbid anyone should mention that he also found time to pen the Demon Road trilogy. Modesty demands that he refrain from pointing out that, on occasion, he also writes for Marvel Comics.

  If you really must, you can follow him on Twitter @DerekLandy and Instagram: dereklandyofficial

  THE ELEVENTH DOCTOR: NOTHING O’CLOCK

  NEIL GAIMAN is the bestselling author of more than twenty books for adults and children, including the novels Neverwhere, Stardust, American Gods, Anansi Boys, Coraline and The Graveyard Book, the Sandman series of graphic novels, and two episodes of Doctor Who (‘The Doctor’s Wife’ and ‘Nightmare in Silver’). He has received numerous literary honours including the Locus and Hugo Awards and the Newbery and CILIP Carnegie Medals. Neil has written and is the showrunner for a mini-series based on Good Omens, the book he co-authored with Terry Pratchett. American Gods has also been adapted into an Emmy-nominated TV series.

  More than two million people follow him on Twitter: @neilhimself. You can find out more about Neil at www.neilgaiman.com

  Born and raised in England, he now lives in the USA, with his wife, the rock star Amanda Palmer. He is Professor of the Arts at Bard College. His hair is ridiculous.

  THE TWELFTH DOCTOR: LIGHTS OUT

  HOLLY BLACK is the author of bestselling contemporary fantasy books for kids and teens. Some of her titles include The Spiderwick Chronicles (with Tony DiTerlizzi), the Modern Faerie Tale series, the Curse Workers series, Doll Bones, The Coldest Girl in Coldtown, the Magisterium series (with Cassandra Clare) and The Darkest Part of the Forest. She has been a finalist for an Eisner Award, and the recipient of the Andre Norton Award, the Mythopoeic Award and a Newbery Honor. Her latest young-adult novel, The Cruel Prince, begins a new series, The Folk of the Air.

  Holly currently lives in New England with her husband and son in a house with a secret door.

  Visit Holly’s website for up-to-date news: www.blackholly.com. You can also follow her on Twitter: @hollyblack

  THE THIRTEENTH DOCTOR: TIME LAPSE

  NAOMI ALDERMAN is a novelist, broadcaster and video-game designer. Her novels include Disobedience (2006), The Liars’ Gospel (2012) and the bestselling The Power (2016), which won the Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction and was named by Barack Obama as one of his ten books of the year. Her work has been published in more than thirty countries. She was mentored by Margaret Atwood as part of the Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative, was one of Granta’s Best of Young British Novelists in 2013 and is Professor of Creative Writing at Bath Spa University. She presents Science Stories on BBC Radio 4, and is the co-creator and lead writer of the smartphone audio adventure Zombies, Run! She is currently working on the TV adaptation of The Power.

  Her website is www.naomialderman.com and you can follow her on Twitter: @naomiallthenews

  1

  THE STRAND, LONDON, 1900

  The Doctor was not happy with his new bio-hybrid hand.

  ‘Preposterous. It’s not even a proper hand,’ he complained to Aldridge. ‘There are only two fingers, which is rather fewer than the traditional humanoid quota.’

  Aldridge was not one to put up with any guff, even from a Time Lord.

  ‘Give it back then. No one’s forcing you to take it.’

  The Doctor scowled. He knew Aldridge’s bartering style, and at this point the Xing surgeon usually threw out a red herring to distract the customer.

  ‘Would you like to know why I closed my practice on Gallifrey?’ Aldridge asked.

  Red herring delivered as expected. Every time he turned to Aldridge for help, this story was trotted out.

  ‘Was it our title perhaps?’ the Doctor enquired innocently.

  ‘Exactly,’ said Aldridge. ‘Call yourselves Time Lords? How pompous is that? Someone previously registered Temporal Emperors, had they? A pity, you could have shortened it to Temperors.’

  Temperors, thought the Doctor. That’s almost amusing.

  Amusing because a Time Lord known as the Interior Designer had once famously suggested that exact title at a conference and been nicknamed Bad Temperor for the rest of his quantum days.

  But the Doctor could not allow even a glimmer of a nostalgic smile to show on his lips – firstly because smiles tended to look like a death rictus on his long face and secondly because Aldridge would exploit the moment to drive up his price.

  ‘Five fingers, Aldridge,’ he insisted. ‘I need an entire hand just to do up my shirt in the mornings. Humans put buttons in the most awkward places even when they are quite aware that Velcro exists.’ He checked his pocket watch. ‘Or rather, will exist in half a century or so.’

  Aldridge pinged one of the curved ceramic digits with a scalpel. ‘The exoskeleton has two fingers, I will grant you that, Doctor, but the glove has five, including the thumb, all controlled by signals from the exoskeleton. A bloomin’ bio-hybrid miracle.’

  The Doctor was impressed, but would not allow himself to show it. ‘I’d rather have a bio-bio miracle if it’s all the same to you. And I am in a dreadful hurry.’

  ‘Come back in five days,’ said Aldridge. ‘Your flesh and bone hand will be ready by then. All I need is a sample.’ He thrust a specimen jar under the Doctor’s nose. ‘Spit if you don’t mind.’

  The Doctor obliged, feeling more than a little relieved that spittle was all Aldridge needed from him. Some time ago, after the whole Inscrutable Doppelgänger fiasco, he’d been forced to part with two litres of very rare TL-positive blood from which to work up plasma.

  ‘Five days? You couldn’t get the job done with a little more urgency, could you?’

  Aldridge shrugged. ‘Sorry. I have a cluster of amphibi-men in the back, all hissing for their tail extensions. It’s setting me back a fortune to hire a fire truck to keep ’em lubricated.’

  The Doctor stared Aldridge down until the portly Xing surgeon relented.

  ‘Very well. Two days. But it’s gonna cost you.’

  Ah yes, thought the Doctor, preparing himself for bad news. ‘How much exactly is it going to cost me?’

  Although how much was perhaps the wrong term to use as Aldridge usually dealt in commodities rather than currencies.

  The surgeon scratched the bristles that dotted his chin like the quills of a porcupine. If ever one of Victorian London’s cads, scoundrels, dippers or muck snipes stepped inside Aldridge’s Clockwork Repair and Restorati
on hoping to light-foot it down the Strand with a couple of glittering fobs, they would have had a nasty surprise. For Aldridge could balloon his cheeks and expel one of those venom-laden bristles with a speed and accuracy comparable to that of the rainforest nomads of Borneo wielding their blowpipes. The villain would wake up six hours later, chained to the Newgate Prison railings with very fuzzy memories of the previous few days. Prison warders had taken to calling these occasional deliveries ‘Stork Babies’.

  The Doctor pointed pointedly at Aldridge’s chin. ‘Are you trying to intimidate me, Aldridge? Is that a threat?’

  Aldridge laughed and his beard rippled. ‘Oh, come on, Doctor. This right here is the fun of it. The barter and such. Our little game.’

  The Doctor’s face was unreadable. ‘Even if I hadn’t lost one of my hands, I would not be smiling like an idiot. I don’t laugh. I don’t play games. I have a serious mission.’

  ‘You used to laugh,’ rebutted Aldridge. ‘Remember that thing with the homicidal earthworms? Hilarious, was it not?’

  ‘Those earthworms excreted nitrous oxide,’ said the Doctor, ‘known on Earth as laughing gas, so I was laughing against my will. I do not usually indulge in merriment. The universe is a serious place and I left my granddaughter watching a house.’

  Aldridge spread his fingers on the desk. ‘Very well, and I only make this offer because of the wonderful Susan. What I require for the rental of the bio-hybrid and the growth of a new hand in my vat of magic is …’ He paused, for even Aldridge knew what he was about to ask would not be swallowed easily by a Time Lord who did not possess a sense of humour. ‘One week of your time.’