"The Centenarian"
edited by Ian Farrington

Normally in Doctor Who, the Doctor is the main constant between stories. Even if he's just regenerated, or he's dealing with a familiar threat, or if the story is told from his companion's perspective, the Doctor is the character who links all the stories and is arguably the focus of each adventure. Which is where Big Finish's seventeenth Short Trips anthology, The Centenarian, is a little different.

This time, the linking character who we focus on is Edward Grainger, an unremarkable man who lives a remarkable life. Rather than seeing various aliens popping in and out of the Doctor's life, we see how various incarnations of the Doctor and friends have visited Grainger, from the day he was born until the day he died. The result is an anthology a little more focused and cohesive than we've seen before, and one that's certainly unique.

A prologue from Joseph Lidster, who conceived the idea along with the collection's editor, Ian Farrington, kicks things off nicely. It's a short and to-the-point tale with some nice character moments in which we're told of Grainger's birth, and the Doctor's involvement with it. With some nice references to the wider Big Finish continuity, and a healthy dollop of mystery and intrigue, it's the perfect introduction to the book.

Gary Russell's Echoes, a Christmas-set Third Doctor story featuring Edward as a young child, is the first story proper. It's an original idea and the tale is a particularly charming and heart-warming one, with a nice festive atmosphere. With its use of period technology as a major story point, it feels very much rooted in its time. Evocative and beautifully-written.

Direct Action by Ian Mond is an inventive story, which sees Edward's father at war from the perspective of a time-travelling film-maker, who encounters the Fourth Doctor. The angle taken here is an interesting and well-executed one, but in the context of the anthology it feels like a bit of a distraction away from Edward himself. It's exciting and original, but it feels like a side-step away from the other stories.

Glen McCoy follows, with a Third Doctor tale entitled Dream Devils, which sees the Doctor putting a stop to the alien-fuelled nightmares of a young Edward at boarding school. Despite a slightly twee premise, the story moves pacily along and holds the reader's attention throughout, but the climax of the story seems rushed and insubstantial. A nice adventure, but one that could do with being a little longer.

The Fifth Doctor appears in Falling From Xi'an by Steven Savile, in which Edward Grainger joins an expedition in China where his guides include the beautiful Mai Ling, and surprising discoveries are made in a mysterious tomb. This is the first story of the collection that I didn't enjoy, with an uninteresting plot and characters I struggled to engage with. Average, bringing nothing special or original to the book.

Richard Salter's Log 384 sees the return of Mai Ling, as Grainger and the Seventh Doctor rescue her from being a test subject for biological weapons in Manchuria. The manipulative side of the Seventh Doctor is used to great effect here, and he's very much in control of things throughout. The mood of the era is created well, and there are some moments of genuine jeopardy which help the story rattle along successfully.

The Church of Football is the next story, written by Benjamin Adams and featuring the Fifth Doctor encountering Grainger at Wembley Stadium in the 1930s. The tale is told by companion Peri, and is a charming little piece that moves along reasonably quickly, capturing its narrator's voice with startling accuracy, even though the plot itself is nothing hugely earth-shaking.

Grainger then takes a mere incidental role in Simon Guerrier's Incongruous Details, which sees the return of Will Hoffman and Emily Chaudhry from the UNIT spin-off audio series, and makes little impact. The story meanders along seeming to go nowhere, and even Guerrier's spot-on depiction of the Sixth Doctor can't save this disappointing tale.

The Third Doctor makes a brief appearance in Ancient Whispers by Brian Willis, sidelined for much of the story, which introduces a wife for Edward Grainger. The story is a good one, and its characters just about carry the tale, but I would have preferred more involvement from the Doctor - his absence was really very noticeable here.

Just as I began to get bored with the book, Lizzie Hopley contributes the fantastic First Born, a Fifth Doctor adventure which concentrates mainly on Tegan, seeing the Grainger family extend further and offering up many lovely character moments for the Doctor and his three companions. The eighties era of the series is reproduced affectionately and accurately, and the story is a fun and enjoyable read.

The high quality continues with Dear John by John Davies, starring the Eighth Doctor with Samson and Gemma, and focussing on Grainger's eponymous son. Whilst certain elements of the plot feel really implausible (even for Doctor Who), it's successful on the whole, cute and touching, making for a gentle but strong story.

Grainger's character is portrayed quite differently in Checkpoint by Stel Pavlou, in which he meets the Fourth Doctor in Berlin, which made this story jar slightly. However, Pavlou handles the Doctor brilliantly and accurately, leading to some very enjoyable moments of comedy.

He's back to his old self in Childhood Living by Samantha Baker, a story which features the First Doctor and his granddaughter, as well as Grainger and his granddaughter. Despite an uncomfortable 'back in my day' speech by Grainger, which is cliched but ultimately serves a purpose, the story is brilliantly-written and very engaging; and the further extension of Edward's family adds a nice new dynamic to his character.

The Lost by L.J. Scott features a brilliantly-characterised Second Doctor, Jamie and Victoria, who encounter Grainger in New York, where he's investigating his god-daughter's mysterious disappearance. Fast-paced, and featuring some great action sequences, this story is one of the book's highlights.

However, by this stage, the fact that Grainger doesn't twig who the Doctor is each time becomes annoying. Having been through so many unusual life events, often coupled with the arrival of a stranger, I'd expect him to be asking "You're a Doctor, aren't you?", and the fact that we have to go through the process of him slowly realising so often just annoys.

We're treated to a change of format for Old Boys by James Parsons and Andrew Stirling-Brown, which is a letter from Grainger depicting a handful of meetings between his friends and the Sixth Doctor. It has a lot of humour and charm, but the choice of a letter form bewildered me, because there's so much dialogue and quoted speech that straight prose would have been a lot more suitable. The added emotional engagement we get from Grainger's first-person experience is welcome, and the ideas are sound, but ultimately I didn't feel that this story worked.

Stephen Hatcher's Testament tackles an unusual premise well: Edward Grainger published his memoirs, in which he realised and explained the truth about the Doctor, but the Doctor and his actions becoming public knowledge caused society to deteriorate, and it's up to the Time Lord's seventh incarnation to put things right. The unique plot hooks the reader in from the beginning, the structure juxtaposes the two time periods effectively and intriguingly, and the resolution is touching. A tremendous story.

Finally, Joseph Lidster takes us back to the first story, with Forgotten, in which the Eighth Doctor and an elderly Grainger go on one final adventure together. It's nothing ground-breaking, but looping back to how the collection began is clever, and rounds the book off in a satisfying way. As a standalone story, it's average; but as the last chapter in the Doctor and Grainger's shared lives, it's touching and exciting and fitting.

With the stories running in chronological order, The Centenarian is more of a single ongoing narrative than a short story collection. The individual tales reference one another, and some characters overlap, which makes it harder than normal to just 'dip in' to the book at random, and it's hard to judge whether this is to the detriment of the anthology or not. The majority of stories are good, with a few exceptions in the middle, and most readers should find something to their tastes here. But whilst the quality is a bit variable, the chronological depiction of Edward Grainger's life works quite well, and I'd welcome similarly inventive uses of the Short Trips format in the future. Good solid stuff.