“Take heed; for he holds vengeance in his hand
To hurl upon their heads that break his law.”

Three little girls in disguise. The Doctor and Ruby separated but both trapped in an unreal domain, where a children’s game of snakes and ladders can have deadly consequences. What does it all mean? Well, first of all, the third novella of the season, Furies From the Deep by Richard Dinnick, had me scurrying for my Bulfinch’s mythology and my encyclopedia to look up the Furies and read whatever I could about them. A capsule definition: they are three hideous deities who torment and punish wrongdoers without mercy…

Furies From the Deep begins slowly, with the Doctor stepping out of the TARDIS to investigate why and how they have materialized in mid flight. What he finds there, a graveyard and further on, a crypt which supposedly contains the graves of his previous and alternate selves and his previous companions, Brad and Nick, gave me a creepy, crawling feeling as I read it.

    “Returning the foot of the sarcophagus, the Doctor moved along all the other in turn. Sure enough they read “IV” to “VIII.” Checking the faces, he also recognised numbers “VII” and “VIII”. “IV” and “VI” were unknown to him, but it did not take a genius to realise who they were. So, his alternate selves appeared to be entombed here. The question was, by whom?”
Who’d want to do that to the Doctor and why? Three innocent little girls? Hardly. The first chapter is carefully crafted to create a dark mood and build suspense gradually. Richard writes well, his vocabulary is extensive and he doesn’t use the usual or ordinary word at times, and he’s meticulous in providing exact details, like:
    “Molten lava oozed sluggishly along ravines that scarred the hard baked surface and, in the distance, Ruby could see blowholes sending jets of steam – and sometimes more lava - high into the stultifying air.”
The characters too are flawlessly depicted too. We know exactly each girl’s name, (Tisi, Meg, and Alex) her physical description, and even the clothes each of them is wearing. That makes the chapter more absorbing, giving each little girl/Fury some individuality and making them more menacing even as they maintain their façade of being children.

That kind of technique reminds me of the classic old horror movies I used to watch. The first half of the film would be understated with only a few hints of the monster, but, scene by scene the tension would build with a minimum of gore until the climax and dénouement. Likewise here, Richard sets his initial scenes with precision. I was so caught up in the world Richard was creating that I was thinking the game of snakes and ladders and to a lesser extent noughts and crosses were very dangerous.

The other thread with Ruby is creepy in its own right, too. Ruby has no idea that the Furies are toying with the Doctor, she has enough trouble trying to breathe in a suffocating environment, and talking with what she thinks is a strange and possibly dangerous little girl.

By the second chapter, the tone darkens even further in a subtle, abstruse way. That’s when the pint sized Furies confront the Doctor with his alleged crimes, all actions and decisions he’s made in the past that caused many others to die. As the Doctor himself puts it, ‘These are not my greatest hits…’ Never mind that they were evil beings like Ashgotoroth, or Kuang-Shi vampires. But the Furies don’t stop there. They even taunt the Doctor with his own failings, and his own doubts and regrets Everything from abandoning Brad for a “cuppa” to his relationship with Nick. All of it is fair game for the Furies, who seemingly will accept absolutely no defense, no good intentions on the part of the Doctor. Who can be held to that kind of impossible standard?

This part of the story, in essence, is a kind of morality play where the truth can be bended and stretched until it’s used to damn the Doctor for what he has done and what he has failed to do. Because the Doctor isn’t omniscient or omnipotent, he had to make tough choices in his life and the Furies may well punish him just because he’s a Time Lord and was able to choose one course of action over another. This is challenging reading, I couldn’t just sit back and passively let the sentences flow idly across my eyes. There are many shades of gray in the universe, not everything is in clear cut black and white terms, and I was asking myself about all sorts of moral ambiguities and not just concerning the Doctor. Too serious for a Doctor Who fan fiction story? I don’t think so, while Furies From the Deep might ask a little more from anyone who reads it, I think that just makes the story that much more thought-provoking and entertaining at the same time.

The only real action in this thread is the game of snakes and ladders that the three girls/Furies and the Doctor continue to play as they goad the Doctor. Otherwise, it’s Ruby who must find a way to find the Doctor and help him, after a mysterious voice inside her head (actually Tardis) warns her to do so. This part of the novella is secondary, and although well written, it just didn’t hold my interest quite as much as what was happening to the Doctor. That Ruby conveniently discovers a large reserve of weapons is a bit too coincidental plot wise especially when she encounters a hostile creature in the cliffhanger for chapter two. I sincerely hope Ruby isn’t going the way of Alf by always reaching for a gun when things go awry. Perhaps not, for even as she raises the gun to fire,

    “‘Freeze!’ she shouted at the door. Freeze? She grimaced. All this stupid soldiery!” Ruby realizes how ridiculous she sounds.

To balance the seriousness of the tale, some of the other details in Furies had me smiling. The “Greatest Granddad in the Universe” coffee mug in the beginning scene is a nice touch, the paraphernalia found in the Doctor and Ruby’s pockets made me grin, and the cameo reappearance of the secondary wooden control room is welcome. The repartee between the Doctor and Ruby is always comfortable, and those little flashes of humor that Ruby and the Doctor possess in the face of adversity make the story more real and enjoyable to read. The first half of Furies From the Deep is suspenseful, otherworldly and intriguing. I have no doubt the remaining chapters will be as interesting.


“Sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me.”

Just like the above quote is a fallacy, because names can hurt as much as - if not more than - physical pain, the latter half of Furies from the Deep continues the game of Snakes and Ladders but on a deeper, more insidious level. The three Furies/little girls persist in their tormenting of the Doctor, but danger lurks even closer. Besides dueling with the Doctor with semantics, trying to confound him and trap him with his own logic and morality, the Doctor, and later on even Tardis (and Ruby, in the other thread) are threatened with physical harm too.

Again the Furies delve into the Doctor’s psyche to extract scenes from his past, where death and pain pulsed all around him. Alex and Meg take a personal delight in watching the Doctor relive things that nobody should be subjected to, the deaths of people you love. In fact, it’s as if the Furies are already punishing the Doctor beginning with this line:

    ‘Have you lost many?' asked Alex with a broad smile.
Then as the girls proceed to count the companions he has lost, the Doctor struggles with his emotions: his anger, his regrets and his sadness, that yes, is carried as a weight inside him.
    ‘So you feel no remorse for your companions,’ said Meg, brushing a stray piece of fluff from her kimono. ‘Of course I do,’ replied the Doctor, just managing to maintain his grip on the anger welling within him once more. ‘Had I been able to save them, I would have. They were my friends. I…’ he faltered for a second. ‘I loved them.’
The passage ends with these comments by the Doctor:
    ‘So you can sit there and judge me for “letting” my friends die, but you have no idea how I feel about those matters. Whatever the punishment you have planned for me, it cannot possibly supersede the loss I already feel.’
This entire section is particularly poignant and moving. It strips away the outward veneer and defenses of the Doctor until you see the inner soul of a man who has known deep sorrow and who still mourns.

There are other twists and turns in this story that are completely unexpected and wonderful. Ruby’s encounter with Tisi and how she discovers the Fury’s masquerade as the Doctor is so simple I was shaking my head in admiration. That almost got by me, too. Of course the Doctor doesn’t speak in contractions! But when Tisi reluctantly transforms Ruby into an actual ruby (the gemstone) I realized this thread of the story was becoming so interesting and absorbing it was rivaling the Doctor’s plotline for my attention. Also, the cliffhanger to episode three, where Tardis is screaming in agony is surprising and spine tingling. The TARDIS is usually invulnerable, and to see her persona writhing in pain paints a vivid picture in my mind.

Surprisingly, I felt a little sympathy for all three of the Furies as the novella progresses. Are they participants in a game, as much as the Doctor, Ruby and Tardis are? Despite the fact they hurt the Doctor, Ruby and Tardis, when she intervenes on the Doctor’s behalf, somehow they are trapped in their realm playing out the game almost as much as the Doctor is. An interesting thought, and as the final scene to Furies involves a mysterious figure that congratulates the Doctor for the lessons he has learned and the three little Furies for the part they’ve played, it’s very clear Furies may have ended, but the complete story has yet to be told…

Conclusions:

Furies from the Deep is a story that’s entertaining and ambitious. Appearances can be deceiving and those three Furies lead the Doctor on a game that has him looking inward to examine his decisions, his actions, and his emotions. Richard Dinnick’s writing is absorbing and rich, if one or two sentences are awkward or overly wordy, the whole micro universe he creates to tell his story more than makes up for that. If you want some insights into the character of this Doctor, and if you want to know how three little girls hold the Doctor’s fate in their hands, then read this novella. You’ll be surprised, intrigued and glued to the last word.