Borrowed Time

The most recent book I finished reading was Borrowed Time, a NSA Doctor Who novel by Naomi A. Alderman, so I decided to do a review of it since it's been nearly fifteen days since I made a 'proper' blog post.

As you may remember from my Touched by an Angel review, the NSA books are a series of Doctor Who stories featuring current Doctors and companions. Naturally, then, Borrowed Time stars the 11th Doctor, Amy and Rory. The plot of the book follows Andrew Brown, a bank manager who never has enough time to do anything. He's constantly late for meetings, forgetting birthday's, etc, until one day he meets the enigmatic Mr. Symington and Mr. Blenkinsop. An unusual pair of businessmen, they offer Andrew a deal he can't turn down; a watch that allows him to turn back time, giving him chance to do all the things he wouldn't normally be able to. But, of course, it quickly becomes apparent that Symington and Blenkinsop are lying to Andrew, and it's up to the TARDIS trio to stop them.

The book's main setting is the Lexington bank, Andrew's workplace, and while a bank at first glance sounds like a rather mundane location for a Doctor Who story, it actually works really well. The villains of Borrowed Time are draining away the life from Andrew and the other workers who have been deceived into wearing the watches, but they are doing so through interest and small print; the parallels between the work of real-life banks and the alien schemes of the book are clear, which is why the bank is such a fitting setting. In fact, Borrowed Time is all about drawing parallels to banking and finance. The whole thing could be summed up by the phrase 'Time is Money' - the book is essentially the story of swindlers, robbing people of their cash through scams and misdirections, but instead of money they are stealing time from their victims, robbing years of people's lives to sell on the market. These connections make the book a lot more interesting to read than your average straight-up Doctor Who adventure, and some of the references are eerily familiar - in particular, the scene where Amy agrees to the terms and conditions of the watch, without reading them. Oh dear, oh dear.

The characters of the book are likable for the most part; Andrew and his bank co-workers are set up as real, believable people, which means we feel for them when their time is stolen away. Nadia and Sameera (in addition to Andrew himself) are in particular well-developed characters, and the author establishes their personalities very quickly and efficiently. The characters are also developed in such a way that they compliment the twists and turns in the plot - for example, one character is set up as a villain, only to actually be an innocent bystander. Alderman is good at making the reader expect one thing from a character, which means we are surprised when we get something completely different. Like I said, in this sense the characters add to the feeling of shock the reader feels when the plot twists unexpectedly. The heroes of the story (11, Amy and Rory) are also written well and convincingly for the most part, though Amy does seem unusually dim-witted in one scene - she really should, at this point, know better than to trust a man in a suit, selling time travel, in a 21st century banking office.

The book's story is pretty cerebral as NSA books go, leaning more towards the Doctor, Amy and Rory sneaking undercover into the bank to gather clues and solve the mystery, though it does become more action-packed and fast paced in the second half. There's a lot of time travel on display in the novel, which is pretty obvious given the time reversing watch; Alderman manages to fit an impressive amount of timey-wimeyness into the story, most of it revolving around the characters of Symington and Blenkinsop. There's time rewinding, paradoxes, slowing down and speeding up time, and quite a bit more. It all adds to the story, and each odd variant on time travel is interesting or amusing in it's own way. As for the villainous plan, the Doctor defeats the baddie in a refreshing way, using just his wits and his words, and his manipulation of the information he has available to him is delightful to read. The last few pages tie up the loose ends presented by the book, giving everyone a happy ending for the most part, and the story resolves itself neatly and tightly.

Overall, Borrowed Time is a good read and an enjoyable Doctor Who story. It lacks the emotional punch and the fantastic retrofitted plot of Touched by an Angel, but it draws some interesting connotations to the real world that make it more than just the average Who novel.

I'm very behind on my book reviews at the moment, as I've already finished reading the next book in my review pipeline - The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest - and I've started on another book, Neil Gaiman's Anansi Boys. I'm going to be doing a lot of reading over the next two weeks because I'm going on holiday, and it's going to be the sort of holiday which involves lots of sitting under a palm tree on a beach with a good book. A holiday for lazy people, in other words. So I'm going to have a bit of a backlog on book reviews for some time; never the less, I should have my next review up sometime soon after I get back from holiday. As for the Torchwood: Miracle Day review, I've decided I'm going to wait until the series finishes before I put it under the microscope, as the episodes are very much interconnected, and tell one big overarching story. That's all for now, so thanks for reading!

Friday Night Who UK: Emergency

Man the battle stations, we're hit!

Okay, we've got quite a few bumps on the road ahead for Friday Night Who UK in the next three weeks, so this is an emergency update to inform everybody of the crises. Here is the (revised) schedule for the next three weeks, and the reasons behind the changes.

On the 29th July, we had originally planned to watch The Ark in Space; however, due to outside commitments neither me nor Mark will have computer access on Friday night, which means that watching the episode as usual would be impossible. Because of this, we're going to switch to plan B and, for one week only, move Friday Night Who UK to a Thursday. This means that we will be viewing The Ark in Space at the regular time of 7pm, but on the 28th of July. We'll still be using the usual hashtag of #FridayNightWhoUK, though, for the sake of simplicity.

On the 5th August, we will be viewing Revenge of the Cybermen, or at least, that's the plan. Unfortunately, I will once again be out of the country on that day, as I leave for a holiday in Greece on the 4th. Mark, however, should be available on that day so long as nothing else comes up, so he will be running Friday Night Who UK on that date on his own. Fortunately, Keith (of the Traveling the Vortex podcast) is due to join us on the 5th, so Mark won't be alone. It's really disappointing that I won't be able to join Keith, as he usually isn't able to participate due to time differences, and I'm pretty annoyed that I'm not going to be there on this occasion. So, Mark will be leading Friday Night Who UK and Revenge of the Cybermen on the 5th if all goes to plan.

On the 12th August, the episode we had scheduled to watch is Dragonfire. Sadly, I will still be in Greece on that date (I return on the 14th) so once again Mark will be on his own running the show. We're going to try and drum up some alternate contacts to participate for that week, so he isn't forced to go solo, and if we do find anyone I will update twitter to let everybody know. For now, however, Mark will be going alone on the 12th. If anyone wants to join in on that date (it will be the regular time, 7pm in the UK or 1pm in the US), it would mean a lot to us.

Thank you very much for reading. I'm really sorry that I've messed up the schedules with these holidays and trips out - I should have planned for this in advance, rather than cobbling together some last minute backup plan. To sum up; on the 28th (tommorow), we will be watching The Ark in Space; on the 5th Mark and Keith will be watching Revenge of the Cybermen; and on the 12th Mark will be watching Dragonfire. Any additional updates or changes will be made via twitter, so keep an eye out there - you can follow me at @KingOrokos. Though, of course, please be aware I won't be able to update between the 4th and the 14th.

Oh, and one last note: Mark recently changed his twitter handle. He is no longer @VortexTravel; instead, he is @Marcus_Joan. If you want to speak to him or follow him, do so there. Also, please note that Keith can be found at @VortexKeith, and his podcast at @TravelVortex. That's all for now!

Friday Night Who UK: 29th July 2011

(If you haven't the foggiest what Friday Night Who UK is or why I'm talking about it, click on this link.)

We've had some real bad luck over the last few weeks with Friday Night Who UK. Two weeks ago we desynchronised video times halfway through - we ended up watching the episode at different times. Last week my twitter feed froze up for most of the second half of the viewing. And this week, Mark's entire street suffered a black-out, which lead to him missing the majority of the episode (we were supposed to be watching Death to the Daleks). Will our apparently endless stream of bad luck ever cease? Success is turning out to be the exception, rather than the rule, which is pretty irritating. Don't worry, one day we'll run a failure-free showing.

We finished up our (problem-ridden) Pertwee trilogy last time, so for this Friday's edition of Friday Night Who UK we're moving on to the 4th Doctor, aka Tom Baker! The episode we'll be watching this week is The Ark in Space. Baker's first full, post-regeneration story as the Doctor, this episode takes place in the far future on the space station Nerva. It's also notable for being Harry Sullivan's first trip in the TARDIS! If you want to join us this week, follow me on twitter at @KingOrokos and Mark at @VortexTravel. Remember to use the #FridayNightWhoUK hashtag, and also this week the #TheArkInSpace hashtag. We'll be starting at our usual time of 7pm, or 1pm if you're in America.

Thanks for reading, and please do join us for The Ark in Space!

School's Out

Yeeeeeeeeah!

For anybody reading who lives in America, today's the day the British schools finish for the summer holiday. We've got six weeks of absolutely no work, no exams, no lessons, no teachers, and a LOT of fun. If you haven't guessed already, this makes me very very happy. I don't really have a big speech to make or anything, but I will say that it's been the best year yet and we've had a lot of fun. Nonetheless, I can't wait to get started on doing nothing, which is my main objective for the holiday this year. Have a nap. Get up. Write a bit. Make tea. Fall asleep. It's a game plan I intend to stick to.

More interesting and complex blog posts coming up when I can get round to it. Thanks for reading, and woooooohooooo!

Friday Night Who UK: 22nd July 2011

(If you've got no idea what Friday Night Who UK is, or why we're talking about it, click here.)

The most recent Friday Night Who UK followed the rather unfortunate tradition we seem to have developed, by once again suffering because of technical difficulties. Whereas last time me and Mark ended up desynchronising, and had to realign our video times, on this occasion my twitter up and locked me out for a good portion of the episode (we were watching The Curse of Peladon). I got back in time for the last five minutes, but by them the damage done could not be repaired. Let's hope this week everything goes to plan, right? Third times the charm and all that; after all, this is the third Jon Pertwee story we've watched. And which Doctor was he again? Exactly.

The story we'll be watching is Death to the Daleks (the third story of that series - okay, I'll stop that now), a Dalek story featuring the Third Doctor and Sarah Jane, stranded on the planet Exxilon, where they must form an uneasy alliance. It all sounds very interesting, and as usual we'll be starting at 7pm UK time, which is about 1pm across the pond. If you want to join in, remember to follow along on twitter at @KingOrokos (that's me) and @VortexTravel (that's Mark). Use the #FridayNightWhoUK hashtag and also, this week, the #DeathToTheDaleks hashtag.

Thanks for reading, and please feel free to tag along for the ride!

How To Live Safely In A Science Fictional Universe

It didn't take me as long to read How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe as I thought it would. I got a lot of reading done on Tuesday night, so I got it finished in about a day (It's taken me about five times as long to write this review).

The plot of HTLSIASFU (It's a loooooooong title) is a pretty odd one. The main character is Charles Yu, a time machine repair man; it's his job to stop paradoxes, and mend problems in the space-time continuum caused by other time machines. But one day, he accidentally crosses his own timeline, and ends up shooting his future self. Locked in an endless loop, going round in circles - shooting his future self, then going on to be shot - he needs to figure out a way to break free and save his own life, or else he'll be trapped in a constant, unending cycle for all of eternity.

The plot isn't the only thing about the book that's really strange, as the writing is quite unusual as well. The book is written from a first-person perspective, everything happening from Charles' point of view. But it's more than that; the book is almost a monologue, filled with digressions and rambling from Charles. Several times, particularly in the earlier chapters, there are long gaps in the action where it's just Charles, alone in his ship, talking about his life, and the people in it. Even in the more eventful scenes, the bulk of the story is just Charles' thoughts and opinions. There's actually an in-story reason for this writing style, which I won't spoil, but I'll just say - everything he thinks is recorded into the book, which is why the writing is so digressive. It sounds pretty boring when I say it like that, but actually the monologues are interesting to read. The book's setting is intriguing and unusual; the story take place inside 'minor universe 31', an odd sci-fi style location, and this gives Charles some interesting things to talk about, which keeps his speeches fresh. The monologue style as a whole is a very clever way of doing a book, and I think it's the only way a story like this (filled with time travel and shifting logic) could be told coherently.

Another reason the monologues work so well is the genuine emotion in many of the later scenes. It's really easy to feel for the main character, because his relationship with his father (which plays a major part in the book) is set up so believably. The book doesn't look like an emotional story from the cover, but actually all of the science fiction threads running through the story are just background detail - ultimately, the book is about Charles and his relationship with his dad. The author (whose name is also Charles Yu, make of that what you will) could easily have set this story in the present day without changing too many of the main themes or characters, but I think the sci-fi setting gives the book variety and uniqueness - it's not often you can find a book that tells such a grounded, character-based story within the confines of such an unusual universe.

Outside of the odd way the tale is told, there isn't much else to say about the book. Usually I'd spend a bit of time discussing the characters, but really the only character we see a lot of is Charles. Most of the other characters (Ed, Tammy, Phil) are there to give Charles someone to talk to or react to, or to move the plot forward. I think I've already made it clear that Charles himself is an interesting and likable character, as you can't have a good monologue with a boring narrator - he's funny, self-deprecating, and easy to relate to. So that's pretty much all I've got to say about the book.

Bits and Bobs

• There's a lot of playing with tenses in the book, which is actually explained in the story - near the start, Charles claims that his ship's 'tense operator' is broken. As a result, there's quite a bit of did/doing/will do, the usual sort of mucking about with tenses that are, for me, among the highlights of time travel stories in general. I just love it when writers play with words like that, and Yu (the author, not the character) does it brilliantly.

• When I was reading the book, I was actually reminded of the Worst of the Time Lords comic strip. Probably because there are a lot of similarities between the two; both are monologues starring self-deprecating time travellers. I was also reminded quite a lot of the book Jpod by Douglas Coupland, simply because the rambling, digressing style of the books are very similar.
  

Overall, I thought it was a neat little book, not like what I thought it would be. It managed to pull off an unusual writing style without sacrificing coherency, and the story is fairly interesting.

Updates on the blog will probably be a little irregular for a while, as I've been really tired lately and just haven't felt up to much writing. I'm going to try and keep it at least weekly, though, so the gaps between new posts hopefully won't be too small. The next book I'll be reviewing is Borrowed Time by Naomi A. Alderman, another Doctor Who story. I'll also probably be doing a review of the new Torchwood episode some time soon, or maybe I'll wait until the series has ended and review them all at once. Oh, and there should be a Friday Night Who UK update some time soon. That's all for now. Thanks for reading!

The Girl Who Played With Fire

My first proper blog post was a review of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (you can read it here). Now I've just finished reading the sequel, and the second book in the trilogy, The Girl who Played with Fire, so I should probably give my thoughts on it.

The plot of the book, which I'll summarise quickly, is this; Mikael Blomkvist is doing well as the editor of Millennium Magazine, following the events of the first book, but when a freelance journalist writing an important article for the magazine is shot dead, Blomkvist is thrown into the centre of the investigation. And the prime suspect is Lisbeth Salander, an ex-private investigator and Blomkvist's old research assistant. Blomkvist must try and find Salander and prove her innocent - but will the police catch her first?

The first thing I will say about the book is that it is a lot more action-packed than the first one. While the trilogy is touted as a 'thriller series', the first book felt a lot more like a murder mystery, and I mentioned in my review that the action only starts proper more than halfway through. That wasn't the case with The Girl who Played with Fire, which has a lot more in the way of confrontations at gunpoint, brutal interrogations and fistfights. It actually feels like a thriller this time, which is great, and the faster pace of the book makes it a lot easier to get absorbed into the story; I spent quite a lot of my Saturday sat on the couch, reading in silence, wrapped up in the plot. There are a few moments in the book where the story starts to drag, but that's inevitable in such a large book; there are so many characters and mysteries and plot points, it would be near impossible to keep up the pace of the story for the whole novel whilst also resolving every loose thread.

Speaking of loose threads, another thing I mentioned in my last review was that the story seemed to leave several unresolved story points hanging, such as the subplot with Bjurman. I was glad to see that that subplot - and several other 'loose threads' - were picked up on in this installment. Having read the second book in the trilogy, it seems more obvious to me now that Larsson intended the trilogy to be one big story, told in three volumes, instead of three individual tales. Looking at it that way, it almost seems unfair for me to review the book when I haven't read the final story, The Girl who Kicked the Hornet's Nest - it would be like reviewing a book when you're only halfway through it. Needless to say that, while the story does come to a satisfying close, several plot strands and character issues have still not been addressed, presumably to be picked up in the final novel.

Yet another thing that I talked about in my first review (yes, there's more!) was how odd it was, that Salander was treated as the main character by the cover of the book, and the advertising, when in fact Blomkvist was far more prominent in the story. In this second novel, by comparison, Salander is hugely more important. Not only does the plot centralise around her, as she is on the run from the police, we also see a lot more of her. We get to know her more and learn a lot about her character and her back story, and that back story is actually a very big part of the plot. Blomkvist is still a main character, and we still spend a lot of time with him, but in this book (unlike the first) I really got the feeling that Salander is the 'hero' of the book. She's very effective as a character, with her intelligence and antisocial attitude adding a certain pizazz to every scene she's in. Most of the returning characters also feel very familiar, which makes reading about them a lot more interesting.

The one main problem I have with this book (which yes, you guessed it, I mentioned in my first review) is that the writing style is still very utilitarian, penned without flair or originality. It reminds me of reading a Dan Brown novel (a suitable comparison, considering how similar Blomkvist and Robert Langdon are), in that it's heavy on description but quite light on creative prose. However, in the book's defence, it was originally written in Swedish, and translated into English by somebody who wasn't the author, so it's entirely possible that Larsson's distinctive style was simply lost in translation - a point that, for the love of god this is getting old, I also made in my first review.

Bits and Bobs

• I've never been to Sweden, so I don't know if this is what it's actually like or not, but it's almost ridiculous how many characters there are whose surnames all end in the '-son' prefix. Erikkson, Svensson, Johansson, not to mention several different minor characters and one-off extras. It makes reading scenes with multiple characters almost laughable at times.

• The 'Best Quote' award goes to 'There were not so many physical threats that could not be countered with a decent hammer, Salander thought,' a line in which Salander contemplates the plus points of carrying a hammer round with her at all times. It is made all the more hilarious by the deadpan way it's delivered, as if the translator didn't see that it was a funny line.

• One point that confused me in the book was a discussion on hunting ammunition at the police station. Basically, hunting ammunition is a special kind of bullet that expands upon entering the victim, causing massive internal bleeding which makes death much more likely. The confusing line is 'But hunting ammunition is forbidden for use in war by international law, because a soldier hit by an expanding bullet almost always dies.' Again, I haven't researched it and I don't know if it's true or not, but if this quote is to be taken at face value - how do you 'forbid' certain types of weaponry in war? If two countries are going to war, they aren't going to use only certain, less lethal types of weaponry, are they? Moreover, how do you enforce the law? If, say, France went to war with Germany, and Germany started using hunting ammunition, what's everybody else going to do about it? Wage war on Germany as well? It's a confusing point.

In conclusion, I enjoyed this book more than it's predeccesor, because it was faster paced and had more interesting character developments, but thought the writing style was still only average. I'm looking forward to reading the last book in the series, The Girl who Kicked the Hornet's Nest.

Having said that, I probably won't be reading it or reviewing it for a while, because I've got a bit of a backlog of books to get through first, starting with Charles Yu's How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe. I'm four or five chapters in now, and it's an odd book to say the least, but I'm enjoying it and I'll have a review up as soon as I'm done. I'm also probably going to start reviewing the new Torchwood episodes as soon as they come out. Only four days left until Series 4 starts, hurrah!

Thanks for reading, and bye for now!

Friday Night Who UK: 15th July 2011

(If you don't know what Friday Night Who UK is, please click on this link.)

We had a couple of problems this week for Friday Night Who UK - due to some Internet connection troubles, me and Mark ended up desynchronising midway through the night. The timing was all a bit messy, but thankfully we were the only ones watching on this occasion and so we managed to sync up again without too much bother. We enjoyed watching Day of the Daleks and can't wait to see more Pertwee stories!

As I announced last week, for this Friday's episode we'll be watching another Pertwee story - The Curse of Peladon. More by coincidence than anything else, this episode aired directly after Day of the Daleks, so this week's story will follow on from last week's.

If you want to join us, then use the #FridayNightWhoUK hashtag and also the #TheCurseOfPeladon hashtag if possible. Remember also to follow me (at @KingOrokos) and Mark (@VortexTravel). We should be starting at 7pm, the usual time, but that could change so please follow along on twitter to stay notified. That's all for now!

Awesome Websites

In a couple of recent entries I mentioned several different websites I liked a lot, and said I'd talk about them more later. Rather than make individual blog posts about each of them, it made more sense to just write one blog that talked about all of my favourites sites on the web. And, you guessed it, that's what this post is.

The Escapist: My favourite video game site on the web, the Escapist is an online community that loves video games with a passion. It's one of the most intelligent places I know in terms of video game discussion (I had a 'wannabe game designer' phase a few years ago), and everybody on the forums is really helpful and funny. They publish weekly e-magazines that are free to read, which cover a wide variety of interesting topics, And they also host a bucket-load of entertaining video series, including Extra Credits (which I've mentioned before, and is a fantastic topical video game show), Zero Punctuation and Escape To The Movies (two of the funniest review series I know of), and Loading Ready Run (A comedy sketch show). It's just fantastic, and if you like video games, there's no place better.

Traveling the Vortex: What's that? I've mentioned I like Doctor Who before? Oh, shut up. Traveling the Vortex is my favourite podcast, and yes, it's about Doctor Who. Run by three American Doctor Who fans, one of whom is a 'Doctor Who newbie', the show reviews Doctor Who stories both New and Classic, and in a highly amusing way. They've also got one of the friendliest fan communities I've ever seen - speaking of which, Vortex guys, surely I get fan points for mentioning you in a blog? Tally 'em up :) - and if you like Doctor Who, you should definitely give them a listen. Just watch out for the Myrka.

Doctor Who TV: Doctor Who has a lot of merchandise, spin offs, etc, so keeping up with all the Doctor Who news out there can be difficult. Fortunately, Doctor Who TV keeps all that news in one place. One of the sites I visit near-daily.

Lost Garden: A fantastic video game blog with lots of interesting essays, and a couple of great games as well.

TARDIS wiki: If wikipedia was purely about Doctor Who, it would be this site. A full-on encyclopedia.

The Cave of Dragonflies: I'm also a fan of the Pokemon video games, and in terms of fansites this is as good as it gets. It's got an absolute lorry-full of interesting facts, thoughts and essays, a brilliant guide on creating fake Pokemon, and also a section of Poke-fanfiction (the best I've ever read).

Doctor Who: Re-Incarnated: Yeah, so I have my own Doctor Who fanseries. It's a work in progress, but what-in-the-hey. Please check it out. I'll talk about it more in a later blog entry.

And that's all for now. I'll admit, this has turned into a bit of a dull list, but I needed to get it done. I hope at least now you've got some great websites to check out.

Friday Night Who UK: 8th July 2011 And Beyond

(If you don't know what Friday Night Who UK is, please click on this link for an explanation.)

First off, thanks to everybody who took part in Friday Night Who UK this week. We had great fun watching The King's Demons, and I'm proud to say that for the first time, we had somebody else apart from Mark and myself watching along - @Wildcat_Media, AKA Chrissy. Thanks for joining us! Also thank you to @VortexKeith and @VortexShaun for chipping in.

Now, as to this week's episode. We've actually got a schedule for the next three weeks so I'll reel it off to you.

On the 8th July 2011, we'll be watching Day of the Daleks, starring the Third Doctor and Jo. Then, on the 15th July 2011, we'll be watching The Curse of Peladon, which directly followed Day of the Daleks in the original run, and therefore obviously also stars the Third Doctor and Jo. Last but not least, on the 22nd July 2011 we'll be watching Death to the Daleks, another Dalek story, again starring the Third Doctor but this time accompanied by Sarah Jane. After we've completed our little 'Third Doctor' trilogy... Well, who knows?

So, for this weeks Friday Night Who UK, we'll be watching Day of the Daleks. Be sure to follow @KingOrokos and @VortexTravel, and use the #FridayNightWhoUK and #DayOfTheDaleks hashtags. We should be starting at the usual time of 7pm, UK time.

Thanks again everybody involved!

The Coming Of The Terraphiles

It took me longer than I had anticipated to read The Coming of the Terraphiles, almost a week in fact, but I finally finished it last night. It's another Doctor Who book - obviously I'm quite fond of reading those - so here's a sort of reviewy type thing.

The plot of the book is actually quite difficult to pin down, which I'll get to in a minute, but basically the 11th Doctor and Amy receive a mysterious message, that summons them to the planet Peers in the year 51007. Quickly they discover that the Arrow of Law - a legendary, mythic device which maintains the stability of the universe - has been stolen, and is now available as the top prize in the Terraphile Tournament; a sports league which consists of 're-enacting' old Earth sports, with distorted versions of games like Cricket, and so on, in the spotlight. The two of them join 'the Gentlemen', one of the competing teams, and set off to retrieve the Arrow before it can fall into the wrong hands, which could ultimately cause the destruction of the universe.

It's an odd book to say the least. First and foremost is the writing style; the whole thing is penned in a very unusual way. Micheal Moorcock (the writer) seems to revel in writing everything in an overly-complex, overly-verbose manner. I'll give you an example. There's one scene, quite early on, where one of the guest characters (Mr. Banning-Cannon) is describing his phobia of spiders:

"These said creatures were inclined to fill him with a mixture of nausea, dizziness and an irresistible tendency to race into the world cawing like a rook and tearing off all his clothes until he had located a small, dark place into which he could lock himself and give vent to his inevitable diarrhoea."

See what I mean? Now, once or twice in a book, I understand why writers would use this sort of over-elaborate style of writing, and in small doses it can be quite amusing and entertaining to read. But when great swathes of the novel are written like that, it can become almost a chore to figure out what the writer is trying to say, and ultimately I began to hope the prose would just revert to something more simplistic and functional as the book went on. It didn't. I'm all for writers having their own distinctive flairs and styles (See Neil Gaiman for an example of an author with a great writing style), but when those styles are as confusing as this I'd rather they just kept it simple. I can see why Moorcock is so lauded as an author, as the text is well-crafted, but it just isn't as reader-friendly as it could be. If your writing is so complex that the reader is having difficulty understanding it, you've gone too far, and I think Moorcock is pushing the boundaries of 'understandable' in this book.

Then there's the plot, which is interesting if a little vague. After a rather hazy start, which flicks between several different characters, the book gets going proper around 40 pages in, with the Doctor kicking off his involvement in the Terraphile re-enactment tourney. From there the whole thing seems to meander through the tournament at a really leisurely pace; 50 pages, give or take, are spent solving the mystery of a stolen hat. There is a valid reason for the mystery, and it does become more important later in the novel, but considering that the 'Arrow of Law' is at stake, and the Doctor only has a finite (if undefined) amount of time to get it before the universe begins to collapse, it seems ludicrous that he would just go along with the hunt for clues. Surely he would stand up and say 'Look, the whole of creation is at stake, can't we look for the hat later?' but instead he merrily sits back and chats with his fellow team members of the Gentlemen. That seems to be the case for much of the novel, with the Doctor happily accepting any delays the team suffers on it's journey to the finals of the tournament, whilst at the same time ominously intoning how little time they have left. It's a bit of a pacing problem, I think, and it makes the story feel padded and dreary.

This would be a good time to link in to the characters in the story, who are a mixed bunch in terms of quality. I mentioned above the Doctor's willingness to sit back and let the tournament take it's course; why doesn't he just park the TARDIS right next to the Arrow, and steal it, if it's so important? Yes, the Arrow is in a 'Time Vault', which will only materialise when the tournament is over, but as the TARDIS can go anywhere in space-time it wouldn't be too difficult to just land at the reward ceremony after the finals, and nab it then, would it? The Doctor's reasoning against this - and against using the TARDIS is general in the book - is because it would risk inciting the attention of 'Frank/Freddie Force and the Antimatter Men.' Now, they may sound like some sort of band, but actually they're the titular villains in this book, or so it seems. Frank/Freddie Force are two brothers forced into one body (for reasons I won't go into here), hence the flip name, and they and their 'Antimatter Men' are beings from a different universe, one composed entirely of antimatter, who have travelled across into our reality to steal the Arrow.

The problem I have with Frank/Freddie is that the threat they pose seems very half-baked. They are set up throughout the book as the bad guys, the evilest of the evil, the Ones Who Must Be Stopped. The Doctor is constantly worrying about them, and what they might be up to, and as I said above he is very reluctant to use the TARDIS in case they notice him and realise he's trying to stop them. You would think, therefore, that Frank/Freddie Force and the Antimatter Men would pose a very tangible threat within the novel, constantly opposing our heroes in their mission. Nope. Actually they're barely in the book. Despite the constant name drops from the Doctor, Frank/Freddie and co get exactly one scene in the entire novel. It's not even at the climax of the book; it's near the middle, and they don't even have much to do in it. They basically just argue with the Doctor for a bit, and then get sent packing by a well-fired arrow (not the Arrow of Law, just an ordinary one - Archery is big with the Terraphiles), threatening to return to get their revenge at a later date. When they do show up again, they've been captured and imprisoned, 'off-screen' as it were, by a group of side characters called the Bubbly Boys, who I won't go into detail about. It's not a very climactic end for the big villains of the book, and since the real threat is that of the universe's imminent collapse, I got the feeling that Frank/Freddie existed purely to give the Doctor a reason for staying in the tourney, instead of nabbing it with the TARDIS as I suggested. They basically just seem to exist as a convenient plot device for the author.

Some of the other characters fare a little better. Captain Cornelius, for example, is a charming and intelligent character who gets some great scenes with the Doctor, and establishes himself as both an old friend and an old rival very quickly and efficiently; his dialogue is often where Moorcock is at his finest, writing-wise. I'm still a little confused as to why Cornelius features in the blurb of the book - after appearing in the prologue, he's almost entirely absent until past the 200 page mark, and plays very little part in the story overall - but I'm willing to overlook that small problem as it isn't really important. Some of the other guest characters are even better, with Robin 'Bingo' Lockesley and the Banning-Cannon family standing out as particularly well written characters. Bingo is sympathetic, amusing and his relationships with the other team members and characters were a joy to read. The Banning-Cannons, meanwhile, were a posh, upper-class family on holiday, and their scenes are the only places in the novel where Moorcock's over-the-top style fits and seems natural. As a result, reading them was often more fun than reading any of the other characters, including the Doctor and Amy.

And so, at last, we come to the heroes of the piece, 11 and Amy. Sadly, the two of them are not at their best in this story. The book seems to have been written before series 5 had aired, and the author quite clearly didn't have much access to scripts or character specifics. As a result, the 11th Doctor lacks his quirky sense of humour, and seems to have been written as almost the archetypal Doctor. I read somewhere that his mannerisms in this book are very reminiscent of the 4th Doctor, Tom Baker, and I agree with that. Amy, similarly, lacks the kookiness that she so often displays in the show, and most of her lines could probably have been said by Rose, or Peri, or Jo, or Sarah Jane, and you wouldn't have been able to notice the difference. In fact, save the names and the odd description of their appearances, you could probably read this as a 4th Doctor/Sarah Jane book and never notice anything was off.

Overall, I don't think The Coming of the Terrahpiles is one of the better Doctor Who books out there; perhaps you have to be a Moorcock fan to really get it, or something. I definitely don't think it justifies the £17 retail price. You'd be much better off buying two New Series Adventure books with that money instead.

I was in Liverpool today, and I bought three new books that I'm very much looking forward to reading; Borrowed Time, a Doctor Who NSA book; Anansi Boys, a Neil Gaiman book (I'm a huge fan of Gaiman); and How to Live Safely in a Science-Fictional Universe, an extremely unusual looking book by Charles Yu. I'll probably review all of them in due course, but next up on the firing line is The Girl who Played with Fire, the sequel to The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. I lent it almost a week ago now and I still haven't started reading it, so I need to get started on that one sharpish. I'll write a review as soon as I'm done, but until then, I guess it's bye for now!

PS: I just had the pretty brilliant idea of inserting a picture of the book I'm reviewing into each book review; it would have been better if I'd though of it before I'd started reviewing, but I can just go back and retrofit all of the old reviews. There's only about two of them.

Awesome Things About This Week

I realise that recently I've promised quite a few specific posts; a review of The Coming Of The Terraphiles (which I still haven't finished), a little bit on the Travelling the Vortex podcast I listen to, and also an entry about my Doctor Who fanseries. This post, unfortunately, is not any of those things. It's been only a week since I started this blog, and unlike my other blogs it's actually lasted (though I realise a week isn't exactly a great length of time), so I wanted to make a sort of celebratory post that talks about the many, many awesome things that have happened in the week since I started writing. That's what this is. Sorry to anybody waiting for those other posts, but they'll be up as soon as is possible. For now, though...

1. Piano Man, by Billy Joel



My friend Mark, who's a fan of the likes of Billy Joel, Elton John, Frank Sinatra et al, has been trying to get me into their music for a while now. I've mostly been unenthusiastic about it, but that was before I heard Piano Man. Why Mark didn't just give me this to listen to, straight off the bat, is beyond me. It's one of the best songs I've ever listened to. I love everything about it; the harmonica, Billy Joel's voice, the video, the lyrics... It's so amazing. Certainly my favourite thing about this week.

2. The Theory of Evolution T-Shirt



Do you see that? Look at it. Look at it. That is Charles Darwin studying a pokeball. There are Charmander-line skulls on his shelf. And a Togepi egg. And a Blastoise shell. He has a Seadra in a jar. Now imagine that image was available for print, on a T-shirt. Oh wait, it is. I have never seen a cooler Pokemon based image.

3. Extra Credits on Race In Games

The Escapist : Extra Credits : Race in Games

Extra Credits, for those who don't know, is a video series (and a damn good one) about video games as a medium. They've been doing great videos every week for a while now, and sometime I'll have to do a blog post about them, and the website that hosts them, the Escapist. Add it to the list of future blog ideas. But anyway, this week they did a video that stood out to me especially. Not because of the topic ( though that was very interesting, and is definitely worth listening to), but because of an announcement they made at the beginning and end of the video. I won't go into detail here - you'll have to watch the video for that - but basically the crew of Extra Credits asked for help when they needed it, and the internet responded in force. The whole thing just made me feel happy for a little while.

4. the A-Team by Ed Sheeran

Blogspot isn't letting me post two youtube videos in one entry, so I'll have to give you a link to this one.

This isn't usually my kind of music, but after someone on twitter posted a few lines of the lyrics, I gave it a listen and I really enjoyed it. It's just a great song. Not really much else to say about it, but yeah.

5. Jake's Porn Shorts

It was only a matter of time before I brought up Jake in this blog. Jake, for the uninformed, is a friend of mine famous (or perhaps infamous) for his legendary antics and misadventures, most of which make amusing ancedotes, and this one is no exception. Basically, for our school sports day, anyone involved in a race/sport thing had to turn up in shorts, or 'PE clothes', and as Jake was doing the tug-of-war he came in shorts. The shorts were the funny part.

Basically, they were black, but covered in pictures of, shall we say, scantily-dressed women on beaches, with every picture a different pastelly colour of orange or blue or green. The spectacle of Jake, sitting there wearing these shorts, was funny enough, but it became better when he explained that 'His nan had bought them for him, because she couldn't see the pictures and had thought they were just colourful.' Things just went uphill/downhill from there, depending on your perspective, with several teachers wandering past and spotting the shorts, with varied reactions. Mrs. Lee's cry of 'But those are erotic shorts!' probably wins the award for funniest reaction.

The climax of the hilarity was when the headteacher, Pout himself, turned up and, when quizzed on the shorts, said 'Yes, they're fine.' We're almost certain he didn't see the pictures properly and just thought they were colourful, but still, it was absolutely fantastic. The funniest thing that's happened all week.

That's all for now. Hopefully I'll get one of the many blog posts I actually promised done sometime in the near future. Until then, adios!