Doctor Who: The Secret in Vault 13

In Doctor Who: The Secret in Vault 13, by David Solomons, the Doctor and her friends are traveling through space and time when Graham wants to stop by Earth to water his houseplants. His thirsty, suddenly talkative begonia starts the mystery, leading the friends to an alien species of gardeners, and a prophecy about the Thirteenth Doctor protecting the Genesis Seed from baddies who want to destroy the universe. I always prefer new characters and new villains, over another big reveal that another really-really-last-this-time Dalek has been found. (Also, I’d absolutely want to take my houseplants through space with me.)

There are quick, fun references to previous episodes and doctors in The Secret in Vault 13, but none of the plotpoints rely on recognizing a previous character or event, so it’s suitable for new fans. For example, Ryan pulls out a famous stripey scarf for a trip to a cold world, but finds it way too long, and puts on some other clothes from the TARDIS’ storage. Readers can recognize the scarf or not, without detracting from this story.

The Doctor is aware this is another magical-keys MacGuffin hunt, and she’s just as excited for her 10,000th space scavenger hunt as I was to read it. The key quest takes the Doctor and her friends on smaller adventures that felt like standalone episodes, perfect for these months (years?) without any new episodes. Because there were so many smaller stories and smaller objectives, there was time for Yaz, Ryan and Graham to all shine and joke around. The Ryan / Graham dialogue was especially nice.

More personally, I loved reading about the world of a twisted boarding school, made from students and crashed on a hostile planet. There’s a creepy shell of school still sort-of functioning, with robot staff going through the motions of British boarding school without any regard for student safety or just how messed up the entire situation is. As I receive endless work emails about making sure that students are adequately penalized for signing in late to online classes IN A PANDEMIC or about maintaining professional dress IN A PANDEMIC, the frankenfaculty doesn’t seem too ridiculous or even unusual. 

This is definitely a middle-grades novel, so some of the jokes skew a bit young, but space friends and alien flowers saving the galaxy is a good adventure for all ages!

Fans of this one will enjoy other Thirteenth Doctor spinoff novels Doctor Who: Molten Heart and Doctor Who: Combat Magicks.