Rivers of London

I spent the majority of yesterday finishing off a book I've been reading recently, Rivers of London, and since it's been nearly two months since I reviewed a novel, I decided to do a blog post about it.

Rivers of London is a textbook example of an urban fantasy novel; the story follows Peter Grant, a probationary constable working with the Metropolitan Police Service, who starts the story (much to his own surprise) by taking a witness statement from a ghost. Soon he is drawn into a wizarding apprenticeship, studying under Chief Inspector Nightingale, and finds himself working in a small, secretive branch of the MPS that deals with the supernatural. Over the course of the novel, he becomes involved in an investigation into a series of brutal, magic-related murders.

The most appealing thing about the novel is it's sheer readability. It's the kind of book that you sit down to read for five minutes and end up reading for three hours. The most obvious reason behind this is the excellent narration - the story is told from a first-person perspective, as we see everything that occurs in the novel through the eyes of our protagonist Peter. Author Ben Aaronovitch has done a brilliant job of making Peter a likable character; he balances the relatable everyman with whom the audience can sympathise, with the witty, intelligent central character the audience can root for. Peter's wry observations and exasperated sense of humour lend the novel a lighter tone, and provide plenty of laughs over the duration of the book. His perspective is unique, original and entertaining, and this makes it easy to devour the book in huge chunks, because even when the story falters a little, the way Aaronovitch tells the story through Peter never fails to keep the reader hooked.

I mentioned just now that the story stumbles at times, and while this is true, it's only a very small issue. Mostly the story flows smoothly and naturally, with the murder investigation progressing in such a way that new information is constantly unveiled, yet the reader remains intrigued throughout. For every plot thread that is wrapped up, a new one is unraveled, and this contributes to the readability I mentioned above; there is always something the reader is left waiting to find out, always something new to be discovered if you carry on reading for just a few more pages. But unfortunately there is one point, early on in the story, which I feel the author mishandled; the moment when Peter is properly introduced to magic. This is the stumbling block of the story. At the beginning of the novel, Peter has no knowledge of magic or the supernatural whatsoever. His only exposure to anything out of the ordinary is his talk with the ghost, right at the book's beginning. He spends the next few days pondering the experience, wondering whether or not the ghost was real. Then, in a scene that lasts roughly two pages, he is introduced to his mentor Nightingale and given a criminally short version of the 'magic is real' speech that is such a common thread in fantasy stories. It isn't so much the brevity of the scene that bothers me, it's more Peter's reaction - or rather, lack of reaction. Peter takes the news that vampires, ghosts and wizards are all real completely in his stride, to the point where he seems almost ridiculously detached from the whole thing. He goes from an ordinary copper to telekinesis, and at no point does he sit down and think 'Wow, I'm a sorcerer now.' It makes him seem emotionless, and that doesn't gel with how he comes across in the rest of the novel.

I've banged on quite a bit about that one scene, so I'll reiterate that it's only a small issue. Once Peter is inducted into his wizard's apprenticeship under Nightingale, the novel adopts a near-flawless flow of tension, mystery and humour, the story slowly and subtly building up to a fantastic climax (coupled with a betrayal from one character I won't spoil), and overall I thought the plot was wonderful. It wraps itself up quite nicely, though several loose strands are left hanging for the sequel, Moon Over Soho (which I have yet to read). It's a great example of a book that stands on it's own but also works as the push-off point for a series. So don't be put off when I say that this one, small part of the book's story was flawed, because ultimately it's quite a superb piece of plotting.

And of course, I couldn't possibly review Rivers of London without talking about the eponymous city itself. It's clear that Aaronovitch is extremely fond of London, and it's also clear that he's hugely knowledgeable about it. Trivia and tidbits of London history seep through the pages of this novel, particularly in relation to Thames river and the various other rivers that flow through, past, or near London - hence the novel's title. In the hands of a less talented writer this could become tedious very quickly, but fortunately in this case all of the slivers of knowledge are delivered through Peter, a Londoner himself. The information is seamlessly slipped into Peter's narrative of the story in a way that feels unforced and in character, so Aaronovitch can show his love for the city all he likes without boring the reader. On the contrary, this added level of detail makes the realistic depiction of the London police service stand out, which in turn emphasises how uncannily odd the various supernatural events are. So by adding in tiny snippets of London trivia, the book manages to do what every urban fantasy novel aspires to do, and stands the juxtaposition of normal and unnatural front and center, obvious and unmissable, in the eyes of the reader.

Bits and Bobs

• Much to my surprise, it turns out Ben Aaronovitch has also written for Doctor Who! After I was finished reading I read the 'about the author' paragraph and apparently he wrote the McCoy story Remembrance of the Daleks, and the later McCoy story Battlefield. As I'm sure you all know, being involved in Doctor Who in any capacity is worth ten billion Alex points, so well done to him.

• My favourite line by far in the novel is located in an early discussion between Peter and Nightingale.
  
  'So magic is real,' I said. 'Which makes you a... what?'
  'A wizard.'
  'Like Harry Potter?'
  Nightingale sighed. 'No,' he said. 'Not like Harry Potter.'
  'In what way?'
  'I'm not a fictional character,' said Nightingale.
  
  I'll never be quite sure why fictional characters saying 'I'm not a fictional character' amuses me so much, but it does. It really, really does.

I'll round off the review by saying that I will definitely by going out and looking for Moon Over Soho, and if a book is good enough to make me want to buy the sequel, then I think it's safe to say it has succeeded as a novel. If you're a fan of urban fantasy, or London, or just fun books, then I'd definitely recommend picking up Rivers of London.

In far less interesting me-related news, I broke up for the Christmas holidays on Friday, so I'm free until 2012! This means I have two weeks to engage in all of my favourite hobbies, like sleeping, eating pringles, and staring vacantly into space wondering absently if I should try and get something productive done. Ah, good times. But anyway, I hope you enjoyed this review, and until next time, thanks for reading.

Tumblin' in the Wind

Over the past two weeks or so I've been using Tumblr a lot. I'm sure I don't need to explain what Tumblr is to you, but for any readers who have been living under particularly large boulders, it's basically a blogging site, a rival to Blogspot I suppose (shhh, don't tell them I've defected). There are a lot of differences between the two sites, and rather than pick one over the other I've ended up using them both for different things.

Blogspot is a much more professional service. The layouts it offers you for your blog are arranged in a much neater, easier-on-the-eye fashion. It's a similar story for extra pages; the 'Doctor Who: Re-Incarnated' and 'Friday Night Who UK' tabs at the top of this blog are a lot easier to find than the cramped list of links on Tumblr. The archiving system on Blogspot stands out most emphatically as the better one; Tumblr's archive is a slapdash, chaotic mess of posts set out roughly in rows, whereas Blogspot's dropdown list is really easy to navigate through. Blogspot lets you create a 'proper' blog, so you can write reviews, essays, or just ramble on about the comparative benefits of Tumblr for half an hour. *Cough*

But just because Tumblr is a bit more of a makeshift system, doesn't mean it isn't useful. Whereas Blogspot is all about quality, Tumblr gives you quantity. So far in the six months I've been using this blog, I've made around 35-40 posts. My total number of posts for Tumblr at this very moment, however, is 154. Tumblr is all about quick, easy blogging; just as Twitter is a faster, more compacted social network than Facebook, so Tumblr is a faster, more compacted blogging platform than Blogspot. I think this is mostly down to Tumblr's 'reblog' feature - again, you almost definitely already know what this is, but for clarity it's a feature that allows you to repost somebody else's blog post on your own blog. So, for example, if somebody posts a funny picture, you can reblog that picture and it appears on your Tumblr page, for all of your followers to see, under the caption of '(Your name) reblogged this from (Person who made the funny picture)'.

Tumblr is more suited in general, I think, to shorter posts. The majority of the posts on Tumblr are images or GIF files, and most of the text posts are only a couple of sentences. It's almost like a halfway mark between Twitter and Blogspot, because you can note down a couple of thoughts that would be impossible to encapsulate in 140 characters, but not enough to fill a proper blog post.

Because the two different sites fit different niches, I'm going to keep using both of them for different things. This blog will continue unabated as normal; if for whatever reason you can't stand Tumblr, don't worry, I'm not going to start moving my content over to there instead. But I am going to be using Tumblr if I ever have an idea or an observation to make, and I want to share it but it's just a couple of lines long, so it would be worthwhile checking my page out. Oh, and I'll also be reblogging lots and lots of Misfits GIFs, because there is no good reason not to.

The point I'm trying to get to, which is basically what this whole post has been leading up to, is 'hey, I have Tumblr, go follow me on Tumblr.' And, without further ado, here I am on Tumblr. I will try and find a space to put a permanent link to it somewhere on the sidebar of this blog, so newcomers will always be able to find me on Tumblr, but for now, you'll have to just cope with this.

Thank you very much for putting up with yet another floaty, dreary blog post that doesn't really contribute anything to anyone. I promise, honestly, the next post will be something constructive like a book review or something, and won't have the word 'Tumblr' in it at all. For today, however, this is all I've got. Thanks for reading.

PS: I believe I may have broken the first rule here (the first rule of Tumblr is don't talk about Tumblr), but I won't tell if you won't.

Music Videos

One thing I always found really confusing when I was younger was the concept of music videos. I've always loved music, but the idea of a short video to accompany a song seemed off somehow. Music is an aural medium, meant to be listened to, so it often feels silly to be watching a 'music video' - it's a blend of two different forms and when I was younger I didn't think that it could work. Since then I've become a lot more accepting of music videos; obviously they serve a purpose, allowing the music to appear on TV channels and YouTube. These are both visual displays and music videos allow artists to get their songs on those displays; and having your song played on TV or on a video-sharing site will increase public awareness of the song, and of course that in turn will lead to higher sales. So I do see why music videos have to exist. However, I've never really embraced them. I've always preferred just listening to a song over watching the video, even until very recently.

In the last month, though, I've had my opinion of music videos mixed up yet again. I watched two music videos that made me feel that they were not only necessary - they improved on the original song.



The first one was this video for the song Shake Up Christmas by Train. I was cycling through some of Train's tracks on YouTube after a friend (with excellent taste in music) told me to listen to their song Drops of Jupiter. Anyway, while I was looking through their song list, I found a Christmas track from last year, and thought to myself 'Well, it is the Christmas season after all,' and gave it a look. Now, I really like this song on it's own - it's cheery and merry and the singer has a cool voice. But it's the video that really made the experience for me, and that's never happened before. I think the reason this video appealed to me where others have failed is because it tells such a simple, heartwarming story, and it tells it so well. The interlinked lives of the five or six major characters in the story, and the 'Christmas magic' that brings it together - and of course, because it's a music video, the story is told entirely through direction. A huge majority of the music videos I've seen make no attempt to tell a proper, fleshed out story, and those that do often rely on the song's lyrics to provide cohesion. In Shake Up Christmas, on the other hand, the video works as a standalone piece in its own right. You could mute the sound and it would still make complete sense (though that would be a bit counter-intuitive, wouldn't it?). I think that's another major factor in me liking it - it works as a standalone piece of art.



The other music video I saw was Alex Day's new song Forever Yours. Alex Day is a YouTube musician, so the vast majority of his work is displayed primarily through the Internet. The logic behind me liking this video is a bit harder to pin down, because the story isn't as clear as in Shake Up Christmas' video; it took me a few watches to properly understand what was happening in this one, so clearly the story wasn't the primary appeal. I think this time round it has a lot more to do with how 'clever' the video is. The direction flips between two different styles; an amateur, homemade production, and a more high-budget, professional video. Not only does it make the video more interesting to view, it sharply shows the contrast between different levels of filmmakers, from kids with video cameras making films in their gardens, to a proper film crew with a director and editing team. I think this makes it a lot easier to appreciate the effort put into making the video, on both sides of the coin. On the amateur side, it shows how hard they have worked to create something realistic-ish with no fancy equipment or software, and how they have had to use smart filming techniques to bypass scenes that would otherwise be expensive to film. On the professional side of the coin, it shows how much hard work and time goes into making something so high-end, something in a different league from most small-time video makers. This makes watching the video a more satisfying experience.

Ultimately, I'm not 100% sure why both of these videos suddenly jumped out at me and made me appreciate music videos more as an art form. Perhaps it has something to do with the reasons above, or perhaps there's something else that I've missed. Regardless, I'm now a lot more agreeable with the idea of music videos being just as important as songs (but not more important - the song is always the primary piece of media). That's all from me this time - I know, it wasn't really a very substantial post, but hey, I needed to write something, and this topic burst forth from my head. I think - fingers crossed - the next post might be a book review, if I can keep on schedule. For now, though, goodbye, and thanks for reading.

Five Things I Learned From NaNoWriMo

There were only three blog posts last month; one was a blog post explaining how busy I was going to be in November, one was an Internet meme about books, and one was a slapdash podcast me and Mark threw together on a whim. None of them were really content-heavy - I didn't do any reviews or rambles or anything like that. As I explained in 'A Month of Writing', I've basically been really busy writing other things over the course of November, and I haven't had much chance to focus on writing blog posts. There was a short story I started that didn't really work out, and an article on video games that is going pretty well. The main reason I was so busy in November, however, was NaNoWriMo.

NaNoWriMo is a worldwide event in which people attempt to write a 50 000 word novel over the 30 days of November. I explained it in more detail in 'A Month of Writing', or you can just go to their website and read about it for yourself there. Basically, I attempted to participate over the course of last month and, all things considered, I failed miserably. I ended up with a wordcount total of just over 16 000 words; 34 000 off of my target for the end of the month. I think it's worth saying that I wrote all of those in the first 13 days of the month - I gave up after that, due to exhaustion and the fact that I was already behind. However; in the course of participating, I learned a couple of things about writing. Some of them were completely new to me, others I had always sort of known about, but taking part in NaNoWriMo made them more tangible. So here's five things that I learned from NaNoWriMo.


1. Deadlines Mean Productivity

I'm starting with the obvious one, but in every situation, working to a deadline will mean an increase in output. This isn't just true in writing, it's true in every facet of life; if you have a deadline, it helps you defeat the procrastination demon of 'why do today what you can put off until tomorrow?' With NaNoWriMo, the 30 day limit for writing is about as harsh as it gets, so it's impossible to put off the work until tomorrow if you want to stay in the game. As the final hour draws closer, you will begin to write more and more frantically, and you will begin to push out pages and pages where otherwise you would be struggling to write a sentence. The approaching finish line will keep writing front and center in your mind as it looms ominously. Deadlines also provides motivation, and motivation is vital in writing. In fact...


2. Keep Motivated

This is one of the most important lessons, and I think I failed NaNoWriMo this year because I didn't adhere to this point. Basically, it is vital that when you are writing something, be it a short story or a full-length novel, you keep yourself interested and enthusiastic about the piece. Motivation comes in a million different shapes and sizes, so do whatever you believe will motivate you. Tell everyone you know you're going to write a novel, so they can give you pep talks or pressure you to write. Maybe block yourself from the Internet if it's distracting you, or even just hang big posters around your house that say 'WRITE A NOVEL!' in big red letters. Whatever you do, staying motivated is the key to success. I lost interest in my novel around the month's midway point, for a number of reasons, and once you lose interest you are fighting a lost battle.


3. Plan Ahead

This point is entirely subjective and varies from author to author. Some writers like to meticulously think through each of their scenes, whereas some writers just go with the flow. So consider this point more of a suggestion than the others. Planning ahead will save you a great deal of headaches when you are in the thick of writing your novel, churning out words at a rapid pace. You don't want to lose any of the momentum you've (hopefully) built up by stumbling on a plot hole, or realising that you just don't like that scene you've just written. This happened to me around chapter 4 of my novel, and it seriously impacted on my word count. I could have remedied that problem with planning; if you work out a rough draft of how your story will go, it makes the actual writing process much easier.

4. Don't be Afraid of First Drafts

Editing a story you have written is not usually a fun process. Going through, line by line, cutting out parts that don't work and replacing them with new things that do, can be a tedious process if you've just finished writing, because the story is still fresh in your mind and it may be difficult to get an objective view of the piece. As a result, you might be inclined to avoid first drafts, as they require a lot of editing by definition to turn into full, finished stories. I certainly felt that way before NaNoWriMo, and would often spend a lot of time getting one scene just right before moving onto the next. But this is a mistake; first drafts, I've learned, are actually an infinitely valuable way of getting your novel onto its feet. Because you know you're going to be coming back and rewriting everything later, it's okay to experiment or change your mind about things. For example, I decided during chapter 5 that I was going to relocate my story to an entirely different location. Because I was going to go back and edit the older chapters later, I was free from going back and editing them right there and then. That meant I could just carry on with chapter 5 uninhibited, so no time was wasted and I was able to implement the change easily. Another great thing about first drafts is that you can leave parts of the story 'under construction'; when I was having a hard time with a scene, I just wrote a quick note to myself explaining how the scene should end, then carried onto the next scene. I got to move past my writer's block, and I was safe in the knowledge that the scene would be finished later in editing.


5. Spread Out the Exposition

While the other points have all been quite vague and general, this one is more focused because it's a problem that I struggle a lot with when I'm writing. Exposition is basically the act of giving the reader information - this could be background trivia, or important story details that advance the plot. A big problem with exposition is that, generally, it isn't much fun to read or write when done in large doses. When an author provides too much exposition in a scene, it is referred to as a 'plot dump', and this is often a problem because the writing may feel forced; for example, if two characters are providing excessive exposition through their dialogue, the dialogue would feel unnatural and stilted. Another problem is that exposition given in the form of description, or as an opening narrative, can be very tedious for a reader. The solution to these problems is to spread your exposition out; the reader doesn't need to know everything at once. If you are setting your story in a fantasy world, do not fully introduce the world immediately. Instead, describe it only when necessary and bring the reader into it slowly. If, as another example, you are trying to unveil the killer in a murder mystery, do not fall into the trap of having the murderer break down at the end and explain the whole plot, in detail, through excessive monologue; instead, reveal the inner workings of the murder over several scenes, so that the climactic final reveal feels more natural.

So those are five writing points that I learned from my failed participation in NaNoWriMo. I hope that at least one person reading is a struggling writer who maybe took something away from one of those points. I will, if all goes to plan, be following these points when I re-attempt NaNoWriMo next year.

Since this is my first post of the new month, I'm pretty much obliged to link you to the Doctor Who: Re-Incarnated website so you can check out our latest story. It was written by Mark and features Jack the Ripper! Exciting, right?

Apologies for any typos, grammatical errors, sentences that don't make sense, or general stupidity; I wrote this at 2am in the morning. I'll come back tomorrow and re-edit it, looking for any problems I've missed in my current sleepy state. Thanks for reading.

Podcast | 1. Pigs and Hitler

EDIT: Due to the rubbishy rubbishy rubbishness of PodcastMachine's limited file traffic, or something like that, the player for the podcast isn't working at the moment. To fix this problem, I've put a link at the bottom of this blog post where you can download the podcast as an MP3. Then you can put it on your Ipod or phone or whatever and listen to it on the go, or just listen to it from your computer. Easy peasy.

It's been a busy month for me, and I don't really have time to go through what's been happening. NaNoWriMo, I have to say, was a bit of a failure all things considered. What I do have for you today, however, is the first episode of the new Not Entirely Incoherent podcast! Give it a listen and see what you think. This week's episode is hosted by me and my friend Mark.




This week, for our pilot episode, we review all three episodes of the excellent crime drama 'Sherlock'. Plus, Mark interviews our brand new podcast host, AND a mysterious guest. Then there's our very first Who Would Win In A Fight argument, and a prank call that doesn't go exactly to plan...

Please visit me @KingOrokos and Mark @Marcus_1963. Don't forget to leave comments below!

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The BBC 'Big 100' Book Challenge

I haven't had much time to do anything other than write recently, what with the continuing threat of NaNoWriMo (I'm pretty far behind, actually, but I'll talk about my trials and tribulations some other time). But this is one of those copy-and-paste memes that are pretty easy to fill in, and this one in particular appealed to me because it's all about books. Therefore, I thought it would make a good, easy blog post to see you on until the next time I get a spare chance. So here's the meme, and I hope you can go on to fill it in for yourself.

___

Have you read more than 6 of these books? The BBC believes most people will have read only 6 of the 100 books listed here.

Instructions:

• Bold those books you've read in their entirety.
• Italicize the ones you started but didn't finish or read only an excerpt.

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen

2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien

3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte

4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling

5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee

6 The Bible

7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte

8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell

9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman

10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens

11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott

12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy

13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller

14 Complete Works of Shakespeare

15. Rebecca - Daphne du Maurier

16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien

17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk

18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger

19 The Time Traveler’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger

20 Middlemarch - George Eliot

21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell

22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald

23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens

24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy

25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams

26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh

27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky

28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck

29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll

30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame

31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy

32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens

33 Chronicles of Narnia - C.S. Lewis

34 Emma -Jane Austen

35 Persuasion - Jane Austen

36 The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe - CS Lewis

37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini

38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres

39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden

40 Winnie the Pooh - A.A. Milne

41 Animal Farm - George Orwell

42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown

43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving

45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins

46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery

47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy

48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood

49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding

50 Atonement - Ian McEwan

51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel

52 Dune - Frank Herbert

53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons

54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen

55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth

56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon

57 A Tale of Two Cities - Charles Dickens

58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley

59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon

60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck

62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov

63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt

64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold

65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas

66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac

67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy

68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding

69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie

70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville

71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens

72 Dracula - Bram Stoker

73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett

74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson

75 Ulysses - James Joyce

76 The Inferno - Dante

77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome

78 Germinal - Emile Zola

79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray

80 Possession - AS Byatt

81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens

82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell

83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker

84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro

85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert

86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry

87 Charlotte’s Web - E.B. White

88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom

89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton

91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad

92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery

93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks

94 Watership Down - Richard Adams

95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole

96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute

97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas

98 Hamlet - William Shaskespeare

99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl

100 Les Miserables - Victor HS

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So I got 8 out of 100, which is slightly above average. Interestingly, a lot of the books on this list are books I've always wanted to get round to reading - Catch 22 and 1984, are two examples. Maybe I'll repeat this meme again next year and see if and how I've improved.

Thanks for reading, and hopefully I'll talk to you again soon.

A Month of Writing

Blog posts are probably going to be a little lacking this month, I'm afraid, because this is a month of writing. I just have so many things that need writing down or typing up over the course of this month, so blog posts are going to take a bit of a back seat.

First off, the big one is National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo for short. Every November, the founders of NaNoWriMo set a challenge; to write a 50,000 word novel in 30 days. This year I've decided to take up that challenge. It's pretty straightforward really - you just sit and write, and if by the end of the month you've written your novel, you've succeeded. It doesn't have to be publisher worthy, so it's a great way of getting a first draft done if you're terrible with procrastination. At this precise moment in time, I have about 3,500 words, and I need another 1,500 by the end of tonight if I want to keep on target. So that's going to be sucking up a lot of my spare time for the whole of November. If you want to check NaNoWriMo out, they have a website, though obviously you're too late to take part this year.

While that is the big writing thing I'm doing this month, I also have a lot of other projects that are lagging a little. There's a brand new article on video games that I've been working on, ever since I put up that Map Mechanics post, because that sparked some of my interest in video game design back up. There's also another reason I'm writing the article, but I'll tell that story some other time. I've also got a short story I was planning on writing, but haven't had time to get round to. And of course there's the usual work for Re-Incarnated, editing and writing stories for that always takes up time.

I just wanted to make a short post about how the blog might be a little less active over the next month. Just letting you know. So there's all of the things I've been working on recently. I'll try and keep you updated on NaNoWriMo, but apart from that don't expect too much. Thanks for reading.

Warm Bodies

It's Halloween, which means of course it's time for a vaguely Halloween-themed blog post! And, since it's been a long while since I posted a proper book review on this blog (not counting my review of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, which was published on the Cult Den), it's also time for a book review post. So how to combine the two? Well, quite recently I conveniently read a book starring a zombie as its main character, and nothing says Halloween like the shambling undead. So today I'll be reviewing Warm Bodies by Isaac Marion.

Warm Bodies did not sound like the kind of book I would want to read. A basic summary of the plot - 'R', a nameless zombie with no memories of his past life, falls in love with a human survivor he meets in the city named Julie. That does not sound like a good book to me. It sounds like one of the countless hastily put-together Twilight copies that have sprung up in the last three years, working on the basic outline of 'a love story where one of the romantic leads is a supernatural creature'. To make things worse, there's a quote from Stephanie Meyer on the front cover which proclaims 'I never thought I could care so passionately for a zombie... the most unexpected romantic lead I've ever encountered.' If I had seen this book on the shelf at a bookstore, there's no way I would have picked it up. Which is worrying, because Warm Bodies is actually a great novel.

The best thing about this book, quite simply, is R. He is beyond brilliant as a character and as a protagonist, perfectly crafted and tailor-made for the story. The book is told from his perspective, and his inner dialogue is what elevates the story to its high status. This tale wouldn't work from a third person POV; only through the eyes of R do we see the true complexity of Marion's writing. As a zombie, R is unable to speak in anything other than short, monosyllable sentences. In his mind, however, he is brooding, introspective and contemplative. The book moves at a slow pace because everything R does or sees, he analyses, reads into, mulls over in his head. So much of the story is told through R's philosophical monologue, and for most novels or stories this wouldn't work. On this occasion, however, it fits perfectly - at the novel's start, he is stuck in the dull and repetitive routine of zombiehood, and as such has plenty of time for mental discourse. It was a stroke of genius on the writer's part to make speech so difficult for R, as the gap between what R thinks inwardly, and what he is able to express outwardly, is a central theme in the novel, and a massively endearing character flaw. R is unable to speak his mind, has his freedom of speech stripped from him - not because of tyranny or dictatorship, but because he physically cannot form the words he needs to articulate his thoughts into sentences. This makes him easy to sympathise with; you will care about him more than you ever thought you could for a zombie. Stephanie Meyer got that right, at least.

Marion takes some liberties with the established mythos of zombies so that they work for his story, and for the most part does an admirable job of it. The zombies in Warm Bodies, outwardly, are still the shuffling, groaning corpses, who infect you with a bite and die only if you aim for the head. Inwardly, however, the author has redesigned them completely; these are not the instinctive, non-sentient, predatory zombies of World War Z, the most popular versions of the creature. The zombies in Warm Bodies are more akin to vampires. They are still cognitive, intelligent even in some cases, and capable of rational thought and logic; but the limitations of their decaying bodies prevent them from conveying this, and their insatiable hunger for human flesh drives them inexorably onwards, quite like a vampire's thirst for blood. Because he stamps his own signature on them, but does not make the mistake of altering them beyond recognition, Marion is able to develop an original story within the confines of a tired genre.

Warm Bodies is at its strongest when it is developing its characters, and R is not the only example of this. All of the story's major players are well rounded and interesting. M - a bald, bearded zombie and R's best friend - is as close to comic relief as the book gets, and is unusual amongst the zombie horde in that he possesses a sense of humour. He isn't as layered or developed as some of the other characters, but that suits and begets his role in the story as a comedy sidekick of sorts (albeit a morbidly macabre one). He still manages to lighten the mood in each of his scenes, both for R and for the audience, and provides a much needed change of tone at several points in the otherwise mostly bleak novel. Grigio, the leader of the human survivors, is an excellent foil, pushing the story forward and creating tension and suspense in a story which otherwise moves at a very leisurely pace. He is something of an archetype more than an original creation, but like with M, that fits his role in the story. Perry is a particularly interesting character who plays a very unusual role in the story, which I won't spoil; I will say, however, that he is one of the best examples of retroactive character development I've ever read.

What is one of the only problems I have with the book, unfortunately, is with one of the most important characters, Julie. As an individual, she is superb, with a hundred different layers of nuance to her personality and a well-defined world view that makes it easy to see her point of view in most situations. What I take issue with, sadly, is her relationship with R, the relationship that the whole story is built on and around. Now don't go grabbing the torches and pitchforks just yet; the relationship between the two characters is not badly done or poorly written, far from it. From around the time R attempts to take Julie home, through the city, the development between the two is word-for-word perfect, and something Marion should be applauded for. But Julie's initial reaction to R, for me at least, was a little unbelievable. Surely, having been left alone by R following the slaughtering of all of her friends and fellows, a character as strong-willed and determined to survive as Julie would have attempted some kind of escape? There's also the factor of her relationship with Perry, and how quickly she moves on from him (though admittedly, this is retconned later in the story through her discussions with R about Perry), which stretched my suspension of belief a little too thin. The relationship still works and is still wonderfully written, it's just that there are a few bumps along the way.

Bits and Bobs

• If you have good observational skills, you've probably noticed by now how the character names - R and Julie - match up with those of Romeo and Juliet, reflecting the similarities between the two stories of forbidden love. I must admit, despite the fact that I had been told beforehand the story was very similar to Romeo and Juliet, I only noticed this similarity of names a while after reading the book. If you read a little further into things, M could also be compared to Mercutio, as he acts as the funny to R's serious, and is the main source of comedy in the story.

• If you're unsure as to whether you would enjoy the book, I really recommend checking out some of Isaac Marion's short stories. They're all available for free on his website, and they really show off his writing - they demonstrate both how clever his ideas are, and how amazingly he can put them down on paper. In particular, check out Somnia, Pixel, What it Was Like For Jerry Being Immortal, That's Not Me and the Angriest Stoplight.

To sum up, I really enjoyed this book. I was wrong to assume it was similar to Twilight - in fact, having read it, if somebody compared Warm Bodies to Twilight now, I'd be a little bit insulted on the author's behalf. Which is slightly hypocritical of me, but then hypocrisy is excellent for proving points. It has good writing and phenomenal characters, especially the hero R. Definitely give it a read if you like your stories to be thoughtful and introspective.

And that was my Halloween extravaganza. I know, exciting wasn't it? While you're here, I might as well tell you that my Doctor Who fanseries, Doctor Who: Re-Incarnated, is still going strong, and we release our third story tomorrow at 7pm. It's absolutely fantastic (and I'm not saying that because I wrote it), and I would love for you to check it out. Click on that link there to go to the site, or click on the little 'Doctor Who Re-Incarnated' tab at the top of this blog.

The next blog post will most likely be a Friday Night Who UK update - yes, I said I wasn't going to be doing those regularly anymore, but since we've missed three consecutive weeks I thought we needed a bit of a roundup to let people know we haven't completely given up and died. Until then, happy Halloween, and thanks for reading.

Map Mechanics

One thing I don't think I've mentioned before is that I find video game design really interesting. Programming was never really my thing, but conceptualising and designing a game, the ideas part of the development process, has always been really fascinating for me. I love video series like Extra Credits, or the Lost Garden blog, which talk about the various facets of the medium. I enjoy video game design so much that at one point, back in the hazy days, I wrote an article or two about it.

Since it's been a fair while since my last blog post, I thought I would take one of my old articles and publish it here, tweaked and edited a bit. This one in particular was a fun little mechanic I thought up for action RPG games. So I hope you like it.

***

I've always wanted to design an Action RPG, in the style of Okami or the Legend of Zelda series. My idea for today's post is all about the exploration side of Action RPGs, and focuses on a flexible map. Instead of the world being fixed and static, locations can be moved or spun round as the player decrees. I'll explain.

In the game's beginning, the player starts off with just one piece of the world map, which shows the starting location. For the purposes of this essay, let's call that location 'X'. Now, the player explores X, and completes the missions or quests that the game throws at them. Then, eventually, the player is told that he needs to go to location 'Z'. Now look at the map piece; clearly, the player has no way of getting to Z. What does the player do? It seems impossible.

However, then they complete another vital mission, and the player's reward is a second piece of the world map. This map piece is marked by location 'Y'. This piece doesn't really seem to help, at first. But this is where the player could be introduced to the flexible map mechanics, and this is where the fun begins.

Basically, the flexible map mechanic allows the player to align the pieces in any way they want, like a jigsaw puzzle with flat sides. Then, when the player reaches the edge of the current piece, they automatically cross to the next piece that is lined up. If no piece has been lined up, then the edge will be a dead end. Essentially it allows the player to alter the world map so they can create new paths to different areas. So the player can now align these two map pieces together, as seen to the left.

The player can then head east from X, and will cross over to the second piece of the map, as the two paths join up, and find themselves at point Y. But there is still no way for the player to reach Z from there - right? Wrong, as the flexible map mechanic comes into play again. The player, who is now stood at Y, can rearrange the map pieces and place them on top of each other, as seen to the right.

As you can see, the player now needs to head south to reach point Z and continue the game. This is only a simplified example, and I imagine numerous map pieces and various combinations could keep the game interesting. A road's been blockaded? Simply build your map so you can go around it. This wouldn't be a main mechanic, exactly, just an aside that would have to be worked out when the player is planning his/her journey.

***

Yeah, just a little idea I had for a map you could move. Seemed quite cool, so I thought I would write a little article about it, and I did. The whole thing was a little more difficult than I had originally planned it to be, because the images weren't formatting properly or some technical gibberish like that, but I fixed it eventually.

As for future blog posts, you may or may not have noticed the Friday Night Who UK updates have subsided into nothingness, because they weren't necessary. If you want to find out more about the FNWUK schedules, you can check the page on this blog, or look for the hashtag on twitter. Though of course, we've missed it for two weeks in a row now, so...

That's all for now. Thanks for reading!

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

It's been a long while since I wrote a book review - the last one was Anansi Boys, back in the far off days of August - but procrastination can't hold anybody forever, so very recently I got round to writing a review for the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. It's one of the most famous novels in all of science fiction, and I finally picked up a copy about two weeks ago on a trip to Liverpool.

But as you may have already noticed, this blog post is far too short to contain a proper book review. But don't panic! The review hasn't been washed away by the tides of the superinformation highway or anything ridiculous like that; it's just been published somewhere else.

The Cult Den, an up and coming website devoted to cult TV, literature, comics, films and pretty much everything else, recently asked for submissions from freelance writers, to write articles for the site. Since science fiction and fantasy novels - the types of book I usually like to read and review - fall under the heading of 'cult', I decided to submit a book review to the website. They were happy to publish the article, which I'm absolutely ecstatic about, as I'm pretty sure this is my first piece published by someone else.

The Cult Den is still in it's early stages, and is currently being hosted on Weebly; in many ways, it's similar to Re-Incarnated, in that they have the ambition to become the best of the best, but are still finding their feet. Even though the site is fairly new, though, they have a great selection of articles written by all manner of people on all manner of subjects, and there's plenty for everybody, no matter what your tastes. If you want to follow them on twitter @TheCultDen, I'm sure they would be very grateful.

And now, the moment you've all been waiting for; you can reading my review of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by clicking here. I'll probably submit another article to the Cult Den at some point in the future, but don't worry - the majority of the things I write will still be coming on this blog, when I get around to writing them. But on this occasion, this post is really just here to say 'Look, I did a thing, and they put it on their website! Look at it, look!' Thanks for reading, and please do check out the Cult Den and my article.

A Warning

The following is a heartfelt message to all my friends and family...



It's a song by a comedian called Mitch Benn, and he's absolutely brilliant. I've pretty much spent most of today listening to his songs - he writes comedy music, like Bill Bailey or Tim Minchin. As well as a couple of songs about Doctor Who, he's also written songs about Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings - there's even a Beatles parody called 'I Am Not The Walrus'. I decided that since the finale of Series 6 of Doctor Who is on tonight, it would be a good time to post this particular song, just to warn you in case you didn't know already. ;)

Sorry, short blog post, I only really wanted to show you this song and mention Mitch Benn. But while you're here, I might as well mention my DW fanseries, Doctor Who: Re-Incarnated. Our second story, Twister, went online today, written by my good friend and co-head writer Mark. You can check it out here if you're interested.

Nothing more to say really. See you next time, in a proper blog post. Until then, thanks for reading.

Almost Closing Time

I'm not exactly in a happy mood right now. As I write this, Closing Time is airing on BBC1, the latest episode of this show I watch, I might have mentioned it at some point, Doctor Who. I am, shockingly, not watching it. This is because my TV decided that ninety seconds into the new episode would be the perfect place to, of its own accord, switch to Channel 4 and stay there. Without changing back. At all.

So, rather than throw things at other things and cry tears of rage, I've decided to use the 45 minutes I've got until the episode is up on Iplayer to write something interesting and entertaining. Or maybe just ramble for three quarters of an hour. And because I can't get it off of my mind right now, I might as well talk about Doctor Who. After all, it's not like I usually talk about that or anything.

Why am I so obsessed with Doctor Who, anyway? I suppose the obvious answer is the escapism. Escapism is, in my opinion, quite simply the best thing that humanity has ever created. People read books or watch TV for different reasons; to be entertained, to be informed, to make themselves laugh or cry. I read books and watch TV because I want to escape. There's a reason I read science fiction and fantasy almost exclusively, and there's a reason I dislike stories set entirely within the real world. Fiction is, for me, a chance to go somewhere else, to live a life that's completely different from my own. Why would you want to read a story about real things that could really happen? That's no fun. You could just go out and live that story, rather than sitting at home reading it. But sci-fi, and fantasy, these are the stories that we can only ever experience through fiction, and that is why I think they're the most important genre of storytelling. This escape from real life in favour of a tailor-made reality, this escapism, is the draw for pretty much every form of media I enjoy. Books? Neil Gaiman novels and Harry Potter, or Skulduggery Pleasant. TV? Being Human, Misfits, and of course Doctor Who. None of these stories could ever happen, not in a million years. But through the minds of their creators, on screen or in print, they do. That's the appeal, you see?

So, I think that's part of my obsession with Doctor Who explained. It's journeys through time and space, constant danger and laughter and adventure, are utterly absurd, and of course that's why I love it. But I don't think that's all there is to it. Why is Doctor Who special in my heart, above all of those other stories I mentioned? Is it the endless multiera, multigenre, multimedia format that allows it to do anything and everything? Well, perhaps that has something to do with it, but that's not the real reason. Nope, the real reason is the Doctor himself.

He's a character etched into my mind, a fictional being more important to me than any real world celebrity. The core concepts of the character absolutely match with my idealised image of who I want to be as a person. He's the most intelligent person in any room at any given moment, and he uses his intelligence both to baffle people and to help them. He's confident and easy-going, always fighting for equality and justice and all things right. He's the person I want to be like, more than anyone else in existence.

aaaaaaaaaaand on that note, having gone from 'enthusiastic fanboy' to 'creepy obsessive', Closing Time has finally showed up on Iplayer and I'm off to watch it. So I guess this brings this ramble to a 'close', eh? In conclusion, I watch Doctor Who and I love Doctor Who not only because it's brilliant in every aspect EVER, but also because the Doctor is as perfect a character as has ever been created. Not in the flawless, Mary-Sue kind of way (though in my mind, he often is like that), but in a brilliantly crafted, work-of-art kind of way.

You will see that the title of this blog is 'Not Entirely Incoherent'. This is because parts of the blog make perfect sense. Unfortunately, this post has not been one of those parts. Thanks for reading!

He Sees

It's been a long while since my last blog post, going on two weeks now, and even then the last post I made was a Friday Night Who UK update. I mentioned back when I first started the blog that, if I couldn't get round to writing new and regular posts, I would fall back on some old material that I produced before I had this blog. This is a good thing both for me, the writer, and you, the reader. I don't have to struggle to create new content quickly if I don't have the time or willpower, but you're still able to read something you've never seen before and (hopefully) enjoy it just like you would a brand new blog post.

The first thing I came across while I was looking for something new to post was this poem I wrote a while back. It's very short and very rushed and a bit rubbish. On the plus side, though, it's all about the Slender Man! I wrote it one dull weekend day while me and a friend were running through old Marble Hornets episodes.

In the deep and the dark and the cold
He walks
It’s the young and the scared and the weak
He stalks
Through the holes in his head, without eyes
He sees
He’s a man in the forest, or a thing
In the trees.

His body is slender and his fingers
Thin
His mouth stretched wide like a ghostly
Grin
He hides in the midnight light,
Pitch black
Where he waits, ever patient, then he makes
His attack.

Don’t even try to run, because the
Slender Man’s back.

...Yeah, I told you it was a bit awful. I never was very good with poetry. Oh well.

Thanks for reading this short, poemtacular blog post. Hopefully I'll have a more content filled, interesting post up in the near future.

Friday Night Who UK: 9th and 16th September 2011

(If you don't know what Friday Night Who UK is, click here.)

So here's another Friday Night Who UK update that's coming a little later than it should have done. As I'm writing this, I've got about an hour until tonight's viewing starts, so I'll have to type pretty quickly. Basically, I went back to school on Monday, so I haven't had as much time as I would have liked, and this update was unfortunately quite low on my list of priorities. To make up for it, this is a two-in-one blog post, because it includes the update for next week's viewing as well.

First off, our viewing of the Daemons went well, with no hiccups - well, apart from the fun facts fiasco, wherein me and Mark attempting to out-trivia each other using the Daemons' wikipedia page. So if I ever use the words 'fun fact' in a tweet again, it's almost definitely a lie. Just so you know.

More importantly, what are we watching this week? Why, it's City of Death of course, featuring one Tom Baker. It's commonly regarded as one of the greatest stories of Baker's seven year run, so we should be in for a good evening. If you want to join me and Mark in our viewing of City of Death, you need to follow us on twitter (@KingOrokos and @Marcus_Joan respectively) at around 7pm UK time, which is in less than an hour as I'm writing this! You also need to use the #FridayNightWhoUK hashtag, and also the #CityOfDeath hashtag this week.

As I said, this post is also an update for next week - so, if you want to join us on the 16th of September, for our next Friday Night Who UK, we'll be watching Resurrection of the Daleks with Peter Davison. I don't know much about this story, which I suppose will make watching the episode all the more interesting. Obviously most of the information in the previous paragraph still stands, but you'll need to use the #ResurrectionOfTheDaleks hashtag this time round.

So, that's all for this relatively short double-post. 50 minutes left until City of Death as I type this! Oh well, I'm sure one person will read this before then... Maybe...

Next time on Not Entirely Incoherent: Words, arranged in patterns to form sentences! Thanks for reading.

Fish And Chips For All

As the more perceptive among you might have guessed, I like Doctor Who. I like watching episodes of Doctor Who. I like reading Doctor Who novels. I like writing my own Doctor Who stories. I like talking about Doctor Who in general. One thing I did not like - until recently - was listening to Doctor Who.

Audiobooks and audio dramas have never been my cup of tea really. I've always preferred the visual medium of TV, which is more immersive, or the medium of literature, which is more flexible (because you use your imagination to bring the story to life). I also dislike audiobooks and similar things because listening to them is an 'all-or-nothing' sort of activity; you either pay full attention to them, which means sitting still with your earphones in, or you multitask and focus on doing something else - which, of course, means you don't have your full attention on the story. As a result, though I was aware of Big Finish Productions, and the many many many stories they had produced, I didn't really feel a need to listen to any of them.

Mark, my friend and fellow Whovian, has been trying to get me into the Big Finish stories for a while. Several weeks ago I tried listening to the Mists of Time, a companion chronicle featuring Jo Grant, and I really couldn't get into it. It was confusing, and a bit dull to be honest. So I decided that Big Finish wasn't for me, and left it at that. Mark, though, was extremely persistent, and eventually he convinced me to try again. So I decided to have another go, and start off with the 'New Eighth Doctor Adventures', and series of stories about Paul McGann's Eighth Doctor and his new companion Lucie Miller. It was a case of second time lucky - I absolutely loved it this time round. Partly because of the much more engaging plot, and partly I think because it was an audio drama, instead of an audiobook - the fact that the story could only be told through this medium makes it much more appealing to me.

Anyway, I just yesterday finished the first series of the New Eighth Doctor Adventures, so I decided that for this blog post I would review the first story in the series, Blood of the Daleks. Quick plot summary: when the Doctor - along with mysterious TARDIS intruder Lucie Miller - lands on the ruined colony of Red Rocket Rising, he soon finds his oldest enemy at work.

Blood of the Daleks was an excellent start to the series, the audio equivalent to a page-turner novel that keeps you up until two in the morning. That, incidentally, is exactly what happened with this story for me. I started listening at around midnight, intending to just start the story off to see if it was worth continuing with. I ended up covering the entire story - which is a good 90 minutes long in total, spread over two parts - that same night. There's something about this episode that compels you to carry on listening, even when you know it's too late and you need to get some sleep (by the way, if you ever want to get into Big Finish stories, listening to them late at night when you should be sleeping is the best way to do it).

The portrayal of the titular Daleks is at least partially responsible for the success of this episode. The dilemma of Dalek stories is that pretty much everything that could be done with the Daleks has been done already. It's difficult to take them in a new direction; but instead of struggling against that, Blood of the Daleks revels in it. This story is drenched in archetypal Dalek tropes, from their facade of benevolence (as seen in Power of the Daleks and, more recently, Victory of the Daleks) to the utter hatred of impurity that defines them as villains. Recent Dalek stories in the TV series have touched upon the latter trope - for example, the lone solider in Dalek sacrificing himself because of his impurities, or the mutiny of the Cult of Skaro in Evolution of the Daleks - but none of them have really embraced the concept in the way that this story does. By using the tried and tested techniques previously established by forty-odd years of stories, Blood of the Daleks manages to return the Daleks to a glorious status that they haven't seen in a long time.

Another element of the story that works really well is the human-Daleks. While the mad scientist behind their creation, Professor Martez, falls a little flat, the creatures themselves are excellent counters to the main villains, the 'pure Daleks'. Because they are so similar to the pure Daleks, when the human-Daleks are destroyed because they are 'different' it really displays just how ignorant and small-minded the Daleks truly are. The idea that, if there were only two Daleks left in the entire universe, they would still fight amongst themselves because each one thought the other 'impure' is a fascinating concept, and one that this story goes quite a way into exploring. The Doctor's line about how the Daleks might be at war with themselves furthers this idea - the Daleks really are so obsessed with purity that, if they ever did take over the universe, they would probably just start fighting each other. And of course, I have to mention Dalek Fred (surely the forgotten fifth member of the Cult of Skaro), who is left to die on the Dalek battleship as it hurtles towards the laboratory, and willingly accepts his own death as it is in the name of Dalek victory. This lack of individuality within the Daleks is another facet of their species that has been lost a little in recent years.

But, as much as I've talked about the Daleks, they really are only one half of the story. The other half of the story is Lucie Miller, as this is her introduction both for the Eighth Doctor and for us, the listener. Lucie is a large part of why I enjoyed this story so much, as she really is a fantastic companion and a very suitable counterpart to the Eighth Doctor. One of the problems, I imagine, with audio dramas is making sure none of the actors have similar voices, as having two characters within a story who sound similar could lead to confusion. For example, in this story, I had a bit of difficulty in the early scenes distinguishing Asha and Klint, who both have fairly similar voices, albeit with different accents. By making Lucie a northerner, however, I think that Big Finish have cleverly killed two birds with one stone. Not only does it make Lucie easy to identify, even in very hectic scenes, with lots of characters and dialogue rushing around, but it also turns her into a perfect foil for Paul McGann's Doctor. Eight is a very sophisticated character, and Lucie's practicality and Northern bluntness means the chemistry between the two is nothing short of genius. Congratulations are in order for McGann and Sheridan Smith, who make an excellent team.

Another part of this episode that works well is the character of Tom Cardwell, another example of the 'distinctive voice = memorable character' thing I mentioned earlier. I always love a crazy conspiracy theorist who is proved right, and Cardwell slots right into that category - and, just like with the Doctor, he gets plenty of great banter with Lucie, which helps define both of their characters. It's a pity that some of the other characters aren't quite so interesting; Asha/Martez are both sadly very one-dimensional, falling right into the roll of a stereotypical mad scientist, and not really going anywhere from there. In any other story, there would probably have been a morality play, with characters siding either with Klint (These experiments are wrong) or Martez (These experiments are for the greater good). Unfortunately, as Martez was breeding Daleks, there's pretty much no ground for him to stand on, so the morality play is ignored, and the character is resultingly given very little to do.

Bits and Bobs

• At first I was thrown by the unusual planet name of Red Rocket Rising, but it very quickly grew on me. Why, in science fiction, are so few planets given names like this? I understand it when the planet is inhabited by aliens, but on a human colony planet, Red Rocket Rising actually makes much more sense as a name than, say, Susamachamoria, or some scifi technobabble like that.

• If you listen carefully to Klint's transmission at the end, when she is lauding the arrival of their saviours, you can just make out the name 'Telos' when she mentions the planet name. I don't know if it's just my love of black humour, but I found it hilarious that Red Rocket Rising had been through all that trouble only to be invaded by the Cybermen after the Doctor leaves.

In conclusion, Blood of the Daleks is a gem of a story with some strong main characters, and the best portrayal of the Daleks I've seen in years. Next time on Not Entirely Incoherent: lots of complaining!

Thanks for reading.