Prose Fucking hell this is good. Eddie Robson delivers a love letter to the NAs, EDAs and DWM comics just as attention was shifting elsewhere in 2005. The Eighth Doctor and a new bespoke travelling companion he's just bust out of prison pitch up in the Seventh Doctor's favourite village of Cheldon Bonniface at Christmas in a future time so that he can hide her in what was once a friendly UK immigration service for aliens. Sadly there's now a government in place which is taking much the same approach as the one we have in 2022 with tabloids creating a similar level of fear. As the detention centre awaits closure the Doctor decides to take everyone into the village for a final Christmas bash and there are hijinks. Many, many hijinks.
He can correct me on this, but I think this was Robson's first full Eighth Doctor story and he just nails it. The tone is humorous and a bit daft but with a thematically serious core. There are moments of physical and verbal comedy which leap off the page and look ahead to the broader edges of the TV revival. This might be seventeen years ago but it feels totally fresh right down the huge event which happened about 5/6ths of the way through and then another 8/10ths after that. Eddie's mainly written audio adventures since and he began writing was just a bit too late for the novels and it's a real shame we didn't see an EDA from him.
Placement: For spoilery reasons there are some continuity references and a conversation right at the end which put it after The Gallifrey Chronicles but before Endgame.
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