Publisher – Penguin

Published – Out Now

Price – £12.99 hardback £6.99 Kindle eBook

It is London, 1978, and tensions are high. Seema and her family are struggling, but she has learnt to keep her head down, not create trouble.

That is until she and her two friends, Terrence and Inderjit, decide to join an anti-National Front protest in the East End.

And when trouble does inevitably find them, the friends are saved by the appearance of a mysterious, seemingly broken-down bus.

But inside this bus it is like nothing any of them have ever seen. It is a journey through the most wonderful landscapes, where visions of hopes and dreams envelop the lost group.

Who - or what - is this strange place? The tall, grumpy man with white hair might know the answers, but then he seems just as scared as they are . . .

Regular blog readers will be aware of my love of Doctor Who. A show that I started watching very young and thanks to the Target novels at my local library a huge part of how I got hooked on reading the genres of science fiction, fantasy and horror. These days I have a big soft spot for the Twelfth Doctor with a mix of prickly kindness that appeals and knowing that none other than the great fantasy author Tasha Suri has written the 1970s set novel The Cradle starring said Doctor I could not resist. It is a rather brilliant piece of storytelling and plays to the strengths of a novel and captures the spirit of this particular era of the show perfectly.

Seema lives in the Southall London 1978. A time of tension. Racism is common; the National Front is on the rise and Seema’s Asian family face regular abuse and are trying to recover from a recent tragedy. Her sister is encouraging her to join protests against all of this and her mother wants her to stay safe, while Seema also wants her own life which doesn’t quite align with either. But life gets stranger when a bus from Seema’s childhood has impossibly reappeared and seems to call her to her. Seema and her friends find their school commute interrupted by violent skineheads and the strange bus re-appears. The day gets stranger and stranger and the friends find themselves in danger and only a mysterious grey haired man calling himself The Doctor may hold some answers

I loved this story for many reasons. Seema is our narrator and prior to the stranger side of the story taking over Suri grounds us into this period of history many of us may not be aware of and also makes us get to know Seema. Nostalgia fans seem to overlook how often the UK has been fairly embracing of right wing fascism (someone thing we rarely seem to get away from for long) and while we get to fear the approach of National front skinheads we get to also witness the casual and quite common racism that’s comes across in education where Black and Asian students are forced out of their local areas to school trips that need to be supervised for the very young; police officers who do little over rasist attacks and even a local neighbour who has no desire for Seema and her frinds to ever enter her café. We as the reader get to feel the horror of that and what it means for Seema and her friends to experience this day after day.

With Seema we get a smart, hyper-aware teenager who is trying to navigate this dangerous worldand her own aims in life. She is gay and yet to reveal this to her family; she loves theatre and sewing and has made great friends in the form of Terence and Inderjit who are already planning their next Shakepeare performance. Suri makes us really feel for these three kind, funny, smart and shining kids who are being smothered by an incredibly blinkered world. We are invested in this trio very swiftly so when the tale moves into Science Fiction we care what happens about them.

With novelisations we can have tales that really go epic and blow the show’s usual budget but what I find fascinating and works well within the novel format is that this tale is quite intimate; character-focused and very much less focused on huge earth invasions and something more personal and focused on the psychological battles. Seema and her friends find themselves in a really unsual reality-bending situation and each character finds a huge jurdle to climb. Impressively as that tale evolves we get to see how where Seema and her friends have arrived in poses a dilemma as to whether it’s a trap you could see yourself staying for safety despite how scary it can be or go back to the dangerous human world she lives in day after day. Fortunately the group have a Time Lord alongside them.

Suri captures the Twelfth Doctor (of season 9 based on the clues I suspect - told you I am a fan) perfectly. Here he comes across more a guardian and guide than actively taking down a threat and Seema works out his grumpiness hides a lot more going on. Suri captures the language of the Twelfth perfectly from the little snarky asides to flowing eloquent speeches and you can hear Capaldi’s voice and imagine the music when those soar and reveal the philosopher hiding under the curmudgeon. I also liked how this book has a few scenes where I suspect the show would have struggled to pull the effects off, but they are scenes that give us more insight into the Doctor and in particular something I’ve never seen tried before and adds to the feeling of someone who has seen so much whatever face they wear.

Finally this story is about choices. Facing what we fear; staying as safe as we can or facing the world head on. There are great moments of creepiness combined with a reminder of all the bad things we human are capable are (and still are fifty years later) but as with this show doing the right thing; being kind and occasionally saying No More stands out. My favourite show, Doctor and one of my favourite authors means this is a must read and I strongly recommend it!