Nothing O'Clock is the eleventh Puffin eshort released to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Doctor Who, this time featuring the Eleventh Doctor (aka Matt Smith). This story can be found in Neil Gaiman's short story collection, Trigger Warning, which also has his brilliant Sherlock Holmes story, "The Case of Death and Honey."

Gaiman, being an unashamed Whovian (who has won a Hugo Award for one of his Doctor Who episodes), has written a brilliant romp with the Doctor and companion Amy Pond. Its a creepy, timey-wimey story set around a ground of aliens who wear masks of animals and margaret thatcher (called the Kin) who've traveled to earth to overtake it. In a way, it is a form of pay back for what the Time Lords did to them thousands of years ago (trapped them in impregnable and unreachable prison). Yet, the Time War happened and the fall of Gallifrey. So now the Kin has made it to earth to conquer it and wipe out the human race.

Can the Doctor stop them?

Neil Gaiman nails the voice of Matt Smith's Doctor and his companion, Amy and his story feels like an authentic Doctor Who episode while maintaining Gaiman's dark voice. I like to revisit this story often and I am rereading it as I am reading through Trigger Warnings during Autumn 2021. ( )

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Featuring the eleventh Doctor, this e-short was my first book by Neil Gaiman. And this was a very nice surprise. I had heard a lot of positive things about his writing, and it didn't disappoint.

I also have read some other Doctor Who novels (whole list with reviews below) and I find them really interesting. The story in this e-short didn't disappoint either.

Craze people asking you to ask them how late it is. Even though the story is very short, it was creepy enough to make me feel uncomfortable. Would recommend as a short read.

Other Doctor Who novels I've read and reviewed:

* 12th Doctor:

Silhouette (Killer Origami), The Blood Cell (Prison) The Crawling Terror (Giant Insects)

* 11th Doctor:

Touched by an Angel (Weeping Angels)

* 10th Doctor:

Keeping Up With The Joneses (50th anniversary E-short)

*3rd Doctor:

The loneliness of the Long Distance Time-Traveller (Alternative England)

* War Doctor:
The Engines of War ("Ex-ter-mi-nate!") ( )

Everyone probably knows this already, but for those who don't Neil Gaiman is a huge Doctor Who fan, and he has already had the pleasure of writing two episodes for Matt Smith's run as the eleventh Doctor. It's no surprise then that he can write a really, really good Doctor Who short story. It, honestly, felt exactly like an episode from the show. One of the good ones. The idea of a single entity that can move through time in small increments as easy as walking, and thus fill up the entire universe with a race of the same creature in different times is pretty great. It also makes perfect sense that the timelords would've imprisoned it instead of killing it (since that would technically be genocide and they try to be peaceful) and that our Doctor would be the one to pull the trigger now that he's the last of his kind and that option isn't viable anymore. I like that it wasn't a big mystery, really. It seemed like The Doctor knew exactly what he was going to do with the Kin as soon as it stepped foot on the TARDIS, and any timelord could've probably done it, but like I said--ours is the one who finally pulled the trigger.

The one thing I will say is that Amy, sadly, did very little in the story and there was a bit of a cheap plot device that The Doctor used to get himself and the Kin to "Nothing O'Clock" (before the big bang, and before time existed) and then it, naturally, gets destroyed in the process so that everything can go back to exactly how it was. It felt unnecessary. Why not just have the Doctor say, "I can only do this once because my TARDIS is so old" or something? ( )

Doctor Who: Nothing O'Clock is short story by Neil Gaiman based on the adventures of the 11th Doctor from the BBC show Doctor Who. The Doctor and his companion, Amy Pond, must solve the mystery of masked strangers buying up all the real estate in a small English town in 1984. What is the purpose? Why the masks?

Gaiman has written an excellent short story for fans of the 11th Doctor, who might be seeking another adventure. Matt Smith and Karen Gillian are excellently captured as the Doctor and Amy Pond. The dialogue rings true, which is probably helped by the fact that Gaiman has written two episodes of the show (A Nightmare in Silver and The Doctor's Wife). The story also has a creepy and disturbing feel which I associated with Gaiman. His adventures, much like his novels, have a darker and sinister side than most of Doctor Who.

Given its length, I probably only recommend this to fans of Doctor Who. I'm not sure Gaiman enthusiasts will get much out of the story without being fans of the Doctor. Still, it is an enjoyable quick read and worth your time if you are a fan of the show. ( )

This book is a delight, definitely in the top tier of the 12 Doctors, 12 Stories novellas. Neil Gaiman's televised Doctor Who stories have been mixed at best ("The Doctor's Wife" was pretty good; "Nightmare in Silver" probably set back the potential of the Cybermen and didn't make much sense to boot), but this is nearly perfect. The eleventh Doctor and Amy discover that someone has bought up every residence on Earth (legitimately), leaving no room for its people, who all die off, leaving the Earth free for some aliens to take over. Gaiman does a good line in creepiness (the aliens all wear animal masks, and go under names like "Mr Rabbit"), Gaiman captures the performances of Matt Smith and Karen Gillan extremely well, there are lots of great Doctorish lines (the Doctor suggests a lack of gazpacho in 1984 would be cause for alarm), and there are some nice references to things the show established after Series Five (like Mels and the War Doctor). A perfect little novella, and probably the best work Neil Gaiman has done on Doctor Who.