The Emperor Dalek's New Clothes

In 2014, BBC Books reissued 2013's 12 Doctors, 12 Stories as a box set of novellas; in 2016, they did the same thing with 2015's Time Lord Fairy Tales short stories. So, like I did with 12 Doctors, 12 Stories, I am going to read one of them a month, beginning with The Emperor Dalek's New Clothes.

It's cute, I guess? The Time Lord Fairy Tales are half the length of the 12 Doctors, 12 Stories novellas, and they're all written by Justin Richards, instead of luminaries of British children's fiction. This one reads how you would imagine a fairy tale written by Terry Nation would read: plucky rebel fighters with goofy space names fighting a Dalek occupation force. The ending didn't go how I expected, to the benefit of what had been a very predictable story. If that's what Richards set out to do, he accomplished it perfectly. It is neat to see Daleks rendered in David Wardle's woodcut-style illustrations, though he depicts the sessile Emperor Dalek from "The Parting of the Ways," which doesn't line up with the mobile one described in the text.