Frayed was the eleventh Telos Doctor Who novella. It featured the First Doctor and Susan Foreman. This is one of the earliest-set stories set prior to An Unearthly Child. It is the second in Telos' novella range to be set prior to this story, the first being Time and Relative. The author's name, Tara Samms, is a pseudonym for author Stephen Cole, who has written several Doctor Who stories under the pseudonym, as well as his own name.

Publisher's summary[]

"I like to stare into the sun, eyes wide. It burns incredible colours into my head, great shifting continents of them that blot out all else. And I try to keep looking until I imagine all the pretty blue has boiled away from my eyes and they are left a bright, bloody red and quite sightless."

On a blasted world, the Doctor and Susan find themselves in the middle of a war they cannot understand. With Susan missing and the Doctor captured, who will save the people from the enemies from both outside and within?

Plot[]

The Old man and his granddaughter have fled the confines of their society's norms and meet humans for the first time on the planet Iwa when he and she are separated. In his search for his granddaughter, the Time Lord found a human medical colony. The principal work of the facility, called "the Refuge", was to rehabilitate patients identified as "Future Deviants". By undergoing dream therapy, it was hoped that such individuals would not become criminals. The Time Lord soon learned the residents were besieged by fox-like aliens who could disintegrate and reconstitute their bodies. Taking him inside their compound, the humans stripped him of his clothes and burned them, citing possible contamination by the "foxes". They gave him new clothes drawn from their own supply. This meant that he was now wearing the garb of a doctor. When they assumed that he was sent from Earth to help them, he agreed. Not wishing to give them his real name, he referenced his new clothes to derive a title: "the Doctor". The Time Lord assumed this alias because he described it as an honourable profession amongst his own people.

He agreed to help them with their "fox problem" if they would help him find his granddaughter. They discovered she had become trapped in the colonists' "dream chambers", medical devices that put patients into a deep sleep and linked them in one communal dream. Inside the dream chamber, the Doctor's granddaughter met a human colonist named Jill, who promptly gave the young girl the name "Susan", after Jill's own mother. Eventually, the newly named Doctor and Susan were reunited. They helped the colonists broker an uneasy peace with the foxes. They left the colony, deciding to retain the names they had gained there. The Doctor was deeply impressed by humans during this initial encounter. He told Susan they should find a way to settle amongst them for a while so that he could study them and they could maintain a low profile on the run from the Time Lords.

Characters[]

• First Doctor
• Susan Foreman
• William Mosely
• Juniper
• Cass
• Gus Webber
• Jill Helright
• Olmec
• Parm
• Baine
• Mette
• Salih

Worldbuilding[]

Individuals[]

• The Doctor and Susan have left Gallifrey quite recently.

TARDIS[]

• The TARDIS chameleon circuit still works at this point. The TARDIS takes the shape of a boulder.
• The Doctor refers to the fault locator.

Notes[]

• The foreword was written by Stephen Laws.
• The cover art by Chris Moore was only used on the deluxe edition, which was signed by the author, artist, and foreword writer.
• Given that the TARDIS' chameleon circuit is operational, this is one of the few Doctor Who stories in any medium in which the TARDIS appears in a form other than that of a police box.

Continuity[]

• In another account of the Doctor's first encounter with humanity, his TARDIS also assumed the form of a boulder on the Moon in the distant past. (AUDIO: The Beginning)
• Susan communicates telepathically with Jill. (TV: The Sensorites)

External links[]

• Frayed at the Doctor Who Reference Guide
• The Discontinuity Guide to: Frayed at The Whoniverse
• The Cloister Library: Frayed