Review: Doctor Who Annual / Whodle / The Adventures Before

Three new Doctor Who titles from Penguin, and as usual these are all aimed at the younger set ... I'm never sure quite which age group that is, but I suspect it's the sort of 6-12 year old mark ... though of course fans of all ages may enjoy them!

First up is the 2025 Doctor Who Annual, and this year the book seems a little more 'together' than previous fare and is quite enjoyable as an overview of the previous season, plus assorted extras. We get a double page for each of the stories, written to tie in with the themes of those stories, lots of photos, some great puzzles (I loved hunting for the goblins hidden throughout the book) and other bits and pieces.

The design is smashing and really complements the written material. It's slight but visually rich and there's a lot for the young fan to enjoy here. I like the printed endpapers - very nice design - and the little novelisation by Steve Cole of Russell T Davies' Children in Need skit from 2023 featuring a non-Dalek Base-sitting Davros and the 14th Doctor getting to add a plunger arm to the first Dalek, is a nice addition.

So a great Annual this time around ... entertaining and visually exciting!

Next up is Whodle. Now I had no idea what this was, and it took me a little time to figure it out. Basically it's a book of logic puzzles. They range from Easy to Extreme, and do you know, I cannot figure a single one out!

So to take an Easy one for example: you have three 'Characters', three 'Enemies' and three 'Objects' and through a series of observations (like for example, 'Character A was holding Object B', 'Character B would never touch Object B', Character C is fond of Fruit'... you work out who was actually holding Object C (which is an Orange, for example), and this was Character C ... but you also have to figure out who is where, again through more observations. There's also a list of 'Character/Object traits' to guide you. The harder ones have more of each item, and more categories to work out.

So it's a sort of figure it out as you go thing ... ie there should only be one answer which matches all the observations and traits - ie one solution to each puzzle. It sounds tricky, and yes, I found it very tricky ... and time consuming. So if you're looking for something to make a young fan really use their grey matter and deductive skills to the max, then this might be the book for them!  There are 61 puzzles in here covering stories from every era of the show. 

It must be hard to sort this all out to create the book, and I pity the poor editor/proof reader who possibly had to solve every puzzle themselves in order to check it was all correct. And to add to the puzzlement, the authors say in the front that 'we have to deviate a little from canon', so having an encyclopaedic knowledge of Doctor Who won't necessarily help you!

Finally we have a new fiction anthology called The Adventures Before, and as it suggests, these are eight short stories which act as 'preludes' to 'the greatest adventures of the Doctor'. Hmmm ... a little hyperbole there perhaps given that the list includes 'Arc of Infinity' and 'Planet of the Dead'.

The tales are OK, but they are patchily written, and many aren't really 'preludes' at all, just another adventure which happens to be placed timewise before the one stated.

There's an odd mix here. Mark Griffiths contributes 'The Boy and the Dalek' which starts with the 2nd Doctor, Jamie and Victoria finding a lone Dalek on Skaro which shows them a story of its past, where it meets a young boy and helps it. We conclude with a surprise ending which leads into the start of 'The Daleks', the first ever Dalek story on television ... but it's a little clunky. Steve Cole's 'The Roots of Evil' is basically a retread of 'The Seeds of Doom'. A rather good tale about Scorby and a fellow heavy falling foul of another plant-based threat when they try to deliver it to Harrison Chase. Gary Russell brings us 'The Four Faces of Immortality' which is a prelude to 'The Five Doctors', and has Borusa having a sort of daydream about the other three Time Lords trapped on Rassilon's plinth at the end of the story in question. There's some nice ideas in here. Beth Axford's 'Becky's Impossible Day' is ostensibly a prelude to 'Rose', but is actually a straightforward little side adventure for the 9th Doctor. 'Smiley's Mirror Exhibit' is by Janelle McCurdy and prequels 'Planet of the Dead' and features the 10th Doctor visiting the titular attraction (which is in the same museum as Lady Christina steals the cup from at the start of said story) and rescuing a girl and her friend Jake. Finally, there's 'The Fall of Apalapucia', a prelude to 'The Girl Who Waited' by E L Norry. This is 'proper' science fiction, detailed and with alien creatures, things, environments ... all sorts. It's also hard to summarise simply: a story of the fall of a futuristic planet and its inhabitants. Probably the best in the book as it doesn't rely at all on anything from Doctor Who itself apart from the name of the planet the following story took place on.

There are two stories written by cast members. Janet Fielding (Tegan) contributes 'Little Did She Know' which follows a return trip to an evocatively described Australia by Tegan to see her father as a prelude to 'Arc of Infinity'. If anything it is more a prelude to 'Snakedance'. It also slips from past tense into present in the middle and then back again: maybe this is deliberate to try and up the tension, but it jarred with me. And Ingrid Oliver (Osgood) contributes 'The Morning of the Day of the Doctor' which pretty much tells you what it covers: Osgood's morning before the Doctor arrived on the scene in that story. Quite enjoyable, especially as The Curator (as played on telly by Tom Baker) makes another appearance.

Overall I found the collection slightly disappointing. The ideas are simple (apart from 'The Fall of Apalapucia'), and it really doesn't fulfil its stated aim of providing actual preludes to the specified stories. Again, it's aimed at young readers, so this might be the reason for the simpler plotting and writing ... but when I was young, I know I wanted material which was actually more complex to get my teeth into. 

As with the other titles reviewed here, this would make an ideal 'starter' for any young Who fan at Christmas, and as this is why Penguin are publishing this sort of book, then I'd say they succeeded!