Fiction Reviews
Doctor Who: Stormcage
A River Song Adventure(2026) Alex Kingston, BBC Books,
£25 / Can$53.95, hrdbk, 304pp, ISBN 978-1-785-94975-3
The inner back cover of this book proclaims that Alex Kingston is TV royalty, then what does that make River Song in the Whoverse? She is more than a companion, she is also the daughter of two companions - Amy Pond and Rory Williams, as well as being an archaeologist, a time traveller, an outlaw, a prisoner, and, oh, the Doctor's wife. Since her debut in Silence in the Library, River has become one of the most beloved characters in modern Doctor Who, largely thanks to Alex Kingston's charismatic and witty performance.
With Stormcage – A River Song Adventure, Kingston takes on a new role, inviting readers not just to follow River's adventures but to become River herself. Eh? What? Well, if you haven’t guessed already, this is not a conventional novel. Instead, it follows ye olde "choose your own adventure" format, with readers constantly faced with decisions that determine the course of the narrative, and their fate. One path may lead to a crucial clue and a continued adventure, another path might lead to your…, well, extermination, and game over.
The fun starts in the Stormcage Containment Facility, the intergalactic prison where River is often held prisoner, and just as often manages to escape from. This time she has escaped due to some aliens attempting to free another prisoner but they have damaged reality and created a Fate Nexus which has created multiple realities in time and space and it is up to River and/or “us” to stop the aliens, and repair the timelines and put reality back together again. Simples, yes?
If completing the book and reaching the end of the adventure is hard enough, then so is reviewing it because of the multiple paths the reader can take. My journey will not be the same as yours, as we navigate our way through the choices open to us and the different adventures we can have, although some of these adventures will end abruptly as we encounter dead ends, or just simply, death!
Tricky reviews aside, one of the strengths of the book is the second person narrative. You. Are. River. Song. At least within the covers of the book, wearing her shoes, inhabiting her skin – okay, maybe not go there, but you do get to experience the thoughts, feelings and emotions as if you were River herself.
A long, long time ago, I tried to write a choose your own adventure children’s book, about a young boy entering a fantasy world and encountering all sorts of weird and wonderful characters and situations and it was hard work, so hard that I resorted to writing it as a conventional novel. Looking at the copyright page, I see that the storyline is attributed to Alex Kingston, Jacqueline Rayner and Steve Cole, so Kingston probably had a helping hand with the writing. We shouldn’t also forget that Kingston has previous form as a Doctor Who author, penning The Ruby’s Curse, which featured River and her hard-boiled alter-ego, Melody Malone, who was a private detective in 1930s New York, so she has been someone else, and now everyone can be her too.
Hats off to Kingston et al for pulling together – or maybe, that should be pulling apart the multiple strands, and connections and endings, as another one of the versions of River the Fate Nexus has created bites the dust. After all, where would be the enjoyment in successfully navigating the book in one go, especially when it costs £25? Failure is fun, but success has its rewards as the further into the book you go, and the longer you survive, then the more encounters you have with familiar faces in the Whoverse including some Doctors, companions and arch enemies of the highest order – no spoilers here.
Great fun, but is it worth the £25 entry fee? I’m sure for the Whovians it is.
Ian Hunter
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