by Jacqueline Rayner, Jenny T. Colgan, Susan Calman & Dorothy Koomson

Puffin, out March 8

Sarah Jane, Rose, Clara and Bill all come to the fore and play crucial roles in their own respective stories, saving Doctor, the universe or just the day.

Released on International Women’s Day – 8 March 2018 – The Day She Saved the Doctor is a… ahem… companion piece to The Missy Chronicles, featuring four stories where the Doctor’s fellow TARDIS traveller plays a key role in resolving the story. Of course, and especially since its return in 2005, the Doctor has frequently been saved by his companion’s actions, be it through the application of humanity or plain common sense, but never so overtly as here.

In Sarah Jane and the Temple of Eyes, the Fourth Doctor and investigative journalist Miss Smith travel to Ancient Rome. Sarah (as I’m delighted she’s referred to both in description and the Doctor’s dialogue) becomes embroiled in a plot involving high priestesses and blindness – all very Brain of Morbius – but there’s a lot of fun to be had in the banter between the two leads.

Sarah Jane Smith is the show’s original feminist, challenging the status quo on Peladon with her progressive women’s lib stance and we get to see her again railing against chauvinism.

Rose and the Snow Window by Jenny T. Colgan exists in a fairy tale landscape of fluttering snowflakes, whether 2095 Toronto or 19th Century St Petersburg. Rose and the Ninth Doctor are tracking down a puncture in time, but before they’ve had the chance to apply the timey-wimey equivalent of a latex patch, Rose has been whisked away in a flowing press into some  courtly intrigue.

Clara and the Maze of Cui Palta by Susan Calman takes Clara and the 11th Doctor to the most beautiful city in the galaxy, as voted by readers of Space Health Monthly. It also houses a giant, organic maze, which the Doctor assumes he can easily navigate, but luckily the Impossible Girl has worked out what’s going on.

Finally, in Bill and the Three Jackets, Doctor Who fiction newcomer Dorothy Koomson takes the 12th Doctor’s student and puts her in peril when out buying some clothes for a hot date. There’s a fun narrative twist that only works in written form, and there’s some typically spiky dialogue from the Doctor that you could imagine Capaldi barking.

These 45-page stories are quick reads, and there’s the assumption (rightly so?) that the readers know the show and the characters. There’s little description of how they look, what the TARDIS does, who the Doctor is – you’re thrown straight into the story and left to pick it up at that entry point. There’s no classic monsters, and the stories are on the milder end of the spectrum from a jeopardy perspective, suggesting the targeting of a younger demographic.

Verdict: There’s nothing “only” about being a girl, and this quartet of tales reminds us that behind every great Time Lord is a great woman companion. 7/10

Nick Joy