Viewing Memories

So, Let's Kill Hitler aired on Saturday, and by god it was great. Funny, emotional, thrilling, everything a good Doctor Who story should be, but with that indefinable Moffat twist. That isn't what this blog post is about. I'll be doing a review of Let's Kill Hitler very soon, but for now I wanted to talk about something else (don't worry though, as it's still related to watching Doctor Who).

I've been watching the show for more than five years now, and over the course of those years I've slowly become more and more addicted to Who. It started off as a show I caught if it was on, during Tennant's first year. Then Martha came along, and it was a show I planned to watch every week. Then Donna was on board the TARDIS, and I would watch it alone, drawing the curtains and banning anyone from entering the room, like it was some sort of sacred ceremony. By the time Matt Smith took the reigns and Steven Moffat sat at the helm, I wasn't just obsessed with it while it was airing; I was obsessed with it 24/7. Even in the several-month gap where it wasn't on TV, between Series 5 and A Christmas Carol, I was living, breathing and thinking Who. It was (and is) more than a TV show to me, just as it is more than a TV show to many of its fans. And if you watch a TV show as religiously as I did, then you're bound to pick up a lot of memories. Moments that made you laugh, or cry, or jump out of your seat, or yell 'Oh my god, that was Rose!' Of course I've got a lot of memories of the show itself. However, that also isn't what this blog post is about.

This post is getting a bit rambly, so to cut to the point; I'm talking about memories you have of watching the show. Now, you probably can't see the difference between a memory of the show, and a memory of watching the show; but if you've ever watched Doctor Who like I've watched Doctor Who (and some of you have, I'd wager), you might know what I'm talking about. There are certain episodes that I remember, not because of the episode itself, but because of where I was when I watched it, and who was with me, and what happened while I was watching it, and I've definitely used the word 'watch' too many times in this post already.

So now I present for your reading pleasure (the 'pleasure' there is in inverted commas), ten episodes that I remember watching, some of which have little stories to go with them.


1. Carnival of Monsters

Until about a year and a half ago, I'd never watched any classic Who, as I couldn't really get into it. The slower pace and the antique special effects put me off, especially when compared to the flashy, snappy new Who. However, this time was to be different.

I was going with my family on a long holiday to the Peak District, and because we didn't have any luggage restrictions (because we were driving there, obviously), I could bring my laptop. This, luckily, meant I wouldn't have the suffer on the mind-numbing car journey. Not so luckily, I very quickly realised that I wouldn't have any Internet connection for the duration of the stay, which invalidated most of my streams of entertainment. My only option, then, was to download some TV show episodes to watch prior to leaving, which I could then spread out across the journeys there and back. Naturally, my brain went straight to Doctor Who. I started rooting around, and the first thing I came across was an old-looking story called Carnival of Monsters. It looked very out of date, and Jon Pertwee did not seem very Doctor-y at all. Nonetheless, it was a quick and simple download, so I saved it onto my computer as a last resort.

Because I am lazy, and have the attention span of a squirrel or a magpie (ooh, shiny!), I promptly forgot to download any more episodes of Doctor Who. I only realised my mistake when we were fifteen minutes away from my Internet connection, in a car, on the way to the Peak District. You can already see where this is going, so long story short: I eventually relented and watched Carnival of Monsters, sat there in a cramped car filled with suitcases, with headphones in, and I loved it. Jon Pertwee? Awesome. Katy Manning? Superb. The Drashig? ...Well, it still looked like a really big finger puppet, but that's not the point. It was the first classic Who story I really enjoyed, the first one I watched from start to finish, and also the first one I ever watched entirely inside a moving vehicle (that last one is a bit more contrived, I'll admit). The episode left me with a new found admiration for the Third Doctor, and for classic Who in general as it happens. And for that, I can't thank it enough; think of all the gems I would have missed out on if not for this!


2. Adrift

I have to apologize for this one, twice. First of all, even though I said that these were all Doctor Who memories, this one isn't. It's a Torchwood memory, which I suppose is still technically Doctor Who-ish enough for me to get away with, right? The other thing I have to apologize for is this; I lied in the last story, because Carnival of Monsters actually wasn't the only thing I downloaded for my holiday. I also downloaded Adrift. But again, this is Torchwood, so technically I didn't lie? Oh, I'm sure you'll forgive me. Let me explain...

I was running through Torchwood at the time; I had finished Series one, and was nearing the end of Series two. I would download each episode of Torchwood, watch it, then delete it (to save memory space, you see). At the time of the holiday, the episode I happened to be on was Adrift. I didn't intend to have it on my laptop while we were there, but by stroke of luck, I found it inside my videos shortly after we arrived. Excellent, I thought, something good to watch for the journey back. That, unsurprisingly, did not go to plan. I actually ended up watching the episode inside the hotel's drawing room. Seriously, what sort of hotel has a drawing room? With a piano and a chess set and a roaring fire and everything! It would have been like stepping back through time, if I hadn't been carrying my laptop under my arm. Anyway, there isn't really an inspiring reason I remember this particular story. There isn't even a mildly uninspiring one. It's just the fact that the image of the hotel drawing room, toasty and cosy, has etched itself firmly inside my head, and Adrift is part of that memory.

Now, time to leave the Peak District, and get back to Doctor Who.


3. The Age of Steel

This memory takes place a little further back, in the days when I was young and naive. Alright, the days when I was younger and more naive. I was ten years old, and Doctor Who had only just found its way into my life. I had watched my very first episode, School Reunion, a few weeks ago (that particular memory isn't on the list, because it's all a bit hazy unfortunately. I have bad memory, it's a wonder I can do this list) but the show wasn't yet something I was really into. I had missed out on watching it for two weeks following School Reunion, and it was chance more than anything that put me down on the couch, ready to watch the Age of Steel, on that particular Saturday night.

This should, in all sensibility, be the point where I tell you how the episode made no sense, because it was the second part of a two-part story, and that I couldn't follow the plot, and the characters all spoke too fast for me, and after that I gave up on the show and went off to take up canoeing or something. But it isn't. Despite all of those things, and despite the fact that it left me utterly confused, I loved it, because this 'Doctor' fellow was absolutely awesome. And so I came back next week, and the week after, and the week after that as well. I became a whovian, slowly but surely, and it all started with the Age of Steel.

As for where I was watching it; it was on TV in my living room. Pretty mundane, although you should keep in mind two things: one, this was my old house, before I moved away, and so that room holds a lot of nostalgia value for me these days. Two, I was never (seriously, NEVER) allowed in the living room when I was ten. I always spilt orange juice on the floor. I'm not sure what possessed my parents to let me in there on that occasion, and I'm sure they regretted the decision.


4. Boom Town

Christmas 2006 was a memorable one for me. Having waited a good six months without any Who whatsoever, following Rose's departure from the TARDIS, I finally got my fix on Christmas Day. I had, of course, pestered my parents to grab any Who DVDS they could get their hands on, and they came back to me with Series one and Series two of new Who; ie Eccleston's only season, and Tennant's first, the two most recent series. I was ecstatic.

I remember the day very well; we had gone round to my Granddad's house, because he was in charge of Christmas dinner that year, and all the adults went into the dining room to drink wine and laugh at things. I, meanwhile, was left alone in the living room (as my Granddad was a lot more relaxed about such things than my parents. I'm pretty sure I spilled orange juice on his carpet as well) with my Eccleston boxset, and a huge TV. I was sucked in, enthralled as only a child can be, and for going on ten hours. I could have picked any of the stories I watched that day, but Boom Town sticks in my mind especially, for two reasons. Firstly, while I was watching it I was also opening up one of my other presents - it was my first ever mobile phone. And I was messing about with it, as you do with your new phone, doing everything you can do without except actually phoning anybody, and I took quite a few photos of the episode I was watching at the time, which just so happened to be Boom Town. I don't know what happened to that old phone, but if anybody ever finds a battered brick of a thing, filled with grainy, blurred pictures of a Slitheen, let me know.

The second reason Boom Town ingrained itself into my head is because it is intrinsically linked to this next memory...


5. The Runaway Bride

Now hang on just a second. Christmas Day 2006? Doctor Who? Surely I knew about the brand new Christmas special that was coming out?! Of course I did. David Tennant was back in the TARDIS, and the mysterious bride who had popped in from nowhere at the end of Doomsday would be explained. I couldn't wait; brand new Who on telly again? It was the best Christmas present I could have imagined.

Now, I've already mentioned in this post more than once that my memory is less than stellar. In fact, it's pretty bloody terrible. So you can already guess what happened next. Granddad's house, living room, Eccleston boxset, Lots of Planets Have a North, and the Christmas special just slipped right out of my head. It was as I was watching Boom Town, and messing about with my new phone, that my granddad peaked round the door and said 'Is this that Christmas Doctor Who thing you were going on about?'

And I replied, 'No, this is Christopher Eccleston, and he's the ninth Doctor, and he came before David Tennant...' and then the penny dropped. Naturally I lunged at the controller, somewhat fiercely, but already I knew I was too late. I had missed the Runaway Bride - though, by cruelty of timing, I did catch a glimpse of the TARDIS dematerialising from a snowy street, right before the credits rolled. A teaser to something I wouldn't get to see. This made me very upset for about five minutes, until I remembered I still had two-and-a-half Eccleston stories left, plus an entire season of Tennant to watch and rewatch. So it didn't really impact on the day for me, but it was a bit annoying nonetheless. Fortunately, I was able to borrow a DVD a few days later, from a friend who had recorded the episode (the same friend, incidentally, who recommended Who to me in the first place) and I was able to see the Doctor and Donna bickering in full. So as I said; Christmas Day 2006, a memorable one.


6. The Shakespeare Code

Picture the scene. We're sat at a table, absolutely loaded with empty plates and glasses, at the Black Horse pub, a short walk away from home. Everybody is stuffed from a brilliant meal. Our cousins, who live in Birmingham, have driven on up to pay us a visit and to celebrate Easter with us. Everyone's having a great time, and we're just starting to think that maybe, just maybe, we've got room for dessert. It's been an excellent evening so far. Me and my cousin James, a fellow Doctor Who fanatic, are excitedly discussing Smith and Jones, which aired just last week. Martha! Judoon! I Even Brought a Straw! And what about that next time trailer, eh? Shakespeare, how about that. When does the next episode air, again...?

A moment's pause. I glance at my watch. I remember I don't have a watch. I look at my dad's watch. We have exactly fifteen minutes until the Shakespeare Code starts, and the DVD recorder isn't set to tape it. There's only one thing for it. We'll have to run.

That was how me and my cousin ended up legging it out of the pub, abandoning all thoughts of dessert, down the road and up the path that lead to my estate. To hell with apple pie, we're going to miss Shakespeare! We ended up getting in just as the title sequence was playing, so we caught pretty much the entire episode - back in the Tennant era, the 'proper' plot never really got going until the titles were finished, and the pre-titles sequence was just a teaser. It was a great evening, even if our relatives were slightly annoyed we had abandoned their company to go and watch a Scifi show.


7. The Unicorn and the Wasp

By the power of serendipity, this next memory also concerns a Gareth Roberts story; namely the Unicorn and the Wasp. Now, this was right before we moved house, maybe a couple of months prior, and by this point in the show's life I had become a true Whovian. Watching the show was an almost religious experience for me now, and every episode was sacred. I liked watching the episodes alone - I like watching TV alone in general, but when it came to watching Doctor Who I absolutely had to watch it alone. Even somebody sitting still, not saying a word, in the same room as me would break the spell. If I sound slightly crazy at some point in this blog post, it's because I am.

Now annoyingly for me, on this particular week my family had decided to take an interest in this show I loved so much, and sat down to watch it in the front room. At this point I was no longer so prone to spilling orange juice (or drinking it, come to mention), but still I prefered to watch the episode on the tiny, back-room telly, where I could be left in peace to watch my Who. And it was on this day that the gods chose to spite me. The Doctor was about to reveal all. He was pointing fingers around the room, solving mysteries, uncovering secrets. Here came the biggest reveal of them all, the true identity of the Wasp. The Doctor pointed, Donna followed his gaze in shock... And the screen froze.

For the rest of the episode.

AHHHHH.

So, naturally, I spent the rest of my evening with my fingers in my ears, shouting 'lalalalala, can't hear you,' while my sister did her best to try and spoil the ending for me (because she's that sort of person). I then spent the whole of my Sunday sitting patiently, waiting for the repeat, so I could watch the last fifteen minutes of the episode. It was, let me tell you, a traumatising thing for a Who fan to go through. The lesson I learnt from this memory was, always record the episode while you're watching it, in case of a sudden explosion that renders your TV unusable for 45 minutes.


8. Victory of the Daleks

Like most people who joined the show during Tennant's era, I was worried when he and Russell T. Davies stepped down. Despite my love of Moffat, and my cheers of joy when he was announced as successor, I was worried that he and Matt Smith would change the show for the worse. What if it just wasn't the show I fell in love with anymore? Oh, the horror. Don't worry though, as the Eleventh Hour put those thoughts firmly in their place. I was immediately reassured, and I was confident that the Smith/Moffat era would be just as golden as the last. I did, however, experience just one more flicker of doubt, a fortnight later, and that's what this memory is.

Two of my friends were staying over for dinner, the Saturday that Victory of the Daleks was airing, and I was looking forward to it. As we were all Doctor Who fans (that friend who lent me the Runaway Bride, Adam, was here on this occasion also), we sat down and flicked over to BBC1. For 25 minutes or so everything went swimmingly. Then suddenly, the new Daleks appeared. As the first one rolled out of the progenitor, we gasped in shock. Not an 'Oh my god that looks so cool,' gasp, but an 'Oh my god why are they power rangers,' gasp. Then a red one rolled out. Then a yellow one. 'I'll bet an orange one comes out next,' said my other friend sarcastically - and then one did.

It was madness. Moffat had made a lot of changes to the show's design; he had altered the TARDIS exterior (which I liked) and the TARDIS interior (which I was fine with) and the title sequence (which was alright), but this was one redesign that was 100% misjudged. Rainbow Daleks could be threatening in the Peter Cushing films, but not in a modern environment. New Who had done an excellent job keeping the show contemporary, refusing to let it slip into antiquity, but on this one occasion Moffat dropped the ball. And for just a moment, I was worried that there was a microscopic chance that the show was going to go down hill.

Then, of course, the Time of Angels came along, and all was forgiven. Still, it was a scary moment.


9. The Hungry Earth

Time for a much more positive Who memory, I think. This is the most recent memory I'm going to retell, and it happened about a year ago. I was at a party, which would in theory be going on for the whole of the night, and right back round into the early hours of tomorrow morning. By about 3am though, several people had collapsed onto the couch to watch I-Robot, and most of the energy had drained away. It was then that my friend Logan said to me, 'Wasn't Doctor Who on yesterday?'

I remembered, yes it was. The Hungry Earth had aired the evening of the party, and I had completely forgotten about it (Have I mentioned my bad memory? Maybe I have, maybe I haven't. I don't remember). At the time I had been too busy partying hard to catch the episode (I say partying hard, we were watching Shaun of the Dead). Now it was pitch black outside, on the Sunday morning, and the episode would surely be available on Iplayer by now. So I replied to Logan, 'Yes. Let's watch it.'

So this particular memory concerns me and Logan, huddled around a friend's borrowed laptop, at 3 in the morning, watching Nasreen Choudry and co annoy the Homo Reptillia. Now that's how to party.


10. The End of Time

Come on, you knew I was going to bring this one up. This is the most important memory of them all, to me at least.

I don't think I can sum up in words how much David Tennant and Russell T. Davies influenced me as a child, or how much I took away from the show. Even though the show would continue without them, it was like a part of my childhood was ending. For that reason alone, the End of Time was always going to hold a special place in my mind and my heart. But of course there's more to the story than that.

The End of Time aired in two parts, both on big occasions; Christmas Day and New Year's Day. I'm pretty sure that part two was one of the most-watched episodes of Who ever watched. It was a massive event, though to me it felt very personal. I was waving goodbye to a childhood hero. Even though I normally have my little obsession with watching the show alone, for this massive moment in Who history, I wasn't alone. My cousin James, who I mentioned above, had come down to celebrate Christmas with us, and we were over at my Granddad's house on both occasions. He was still the one cooking Christmas dinner. I watched both parts of the story in my Granddad's living room, with James on the couch next to me, and we watched David Tennant's final moments with almost numb disbelief. People have bashed the End of Time for lots of things, but really, for me, it came down to David Tennant, John Simm, and Bernard Cribbins, giving absolutely perfect performances when it mattered the most.

I'm not a cryer. I'm not the kind of person who gets emotional from watching TV or films. But on this occasion, I might just have had tears in my eyes. Several of them, actually. So yeah, I was crying watching it. Kind of embarassing actually. Good thing I haven't posted that on the internet or anything. That would have been monumentally stupid.

***

So there you have it, ten of my viewing memories of Doctor Who. Now, if you look outside you will see that, while you've been struggling through the above massive wall of text, the sky has changed colour, and you should have gone to sleep four hours ago. Sorry about that.

Coming soon to Not Entirely Incoherent: Reviews! Gibberish! More reviews!

Thanks for reading.

Friday Night Who UK: 2nd September 2011

(For more information on Friday Night Who UK, click here.)

I was pretty busy last week, so there was no Friday Night Who UK update - because of that, you're getting this week's update very early. In fact, we only finished watching the Krotons about an hour ago. So, to recap; two weeks ago me and Mark watched the Rescue with William Hartnell, which was fun and had a pretty neat twist (neat by 60s standards, mind you). This week, we saw the Krotons, with Patrick Troughton. It got off to a shaky start (Mark forgot it was Friday and wasn't at home), so we ended up starting a half hour late. Fortunately, after that there were no major problems and we had a great time - our friend Luke, who can be found on twitter at @LukeMurphy96, even joined in. It's an average story, but the Doctor, Zoe and Jamie make it worth watching. The twitter discussion was also especially good fun this week - we had a great talk about esteemed Classic Who writer Robert Holmes, and Luke's comment of 'Why do the Krotons sound like they're from Yorkshire?' was absolutely hilarious.

But anyway, the update. Obviously you can usually find out what we're watching via the Friday Night Who UK page on this blog, or via my twitter stream, but I like to let you know through blog posts as well. Next Friday we will be watching a Third Doctor story, the Daemons. The story is particularly popular within the Doctor Who fandom, and is the origin of the Brigadier's famous quote, 'Five Rounds Rapid!' so it should be good fun. We will be airing at the usual time of 7pm, or 1pm across the pond (assuming Mark remembers what day it is next time) and of course we will be discussing the episode on twitter as usual. If you want to join us please use the #FridayNightWhoUK and #TheDaemons hashtags, and follow me @KingOrokos and Mark @Marcus_Joan.

Thanks for reading, and I hope you can join us for Friday Night Who UK next week! Also, a side note: Doctor Who is back on TV tommorow! WOOH!

Anansi Boys

In my last book review I said I would be doing The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest as my next book; however, on reflection, having already reviewed the first two books in the series, I don't feel like I have anything important left to say about them. The third book basically continues on in much the same way as the second, and there wasn't anything in particular to differentiate the two - it's like the second half of one really long novel. So instead, I decided to review another book I read recently, Neil Gaiman's Anansi Boys.

The main character of Anansi Boys is Charles 'Fat Charlie' Nancy. Fat Charlie spent most of his formative years living under his embarrassing prankster of a father; twenty years on, when he receives an invitation to his father's funeral, he learns that Mr. Nancy was actually a God (magic powers, psychic suggestion, the whole lot) and that he actually had two sons - and it was Fat Charlie's brother who inherited the God-ness. And of course, all hell breaks loose when Fat Charlie invites his newly discovered brother round to stay...

First off, the writing. I don't really have anything to say about it, other than this: it's Gaiman. If you've ever read one of his novels, or graphic novels, or short stories, or film scripts, you know exactly what I'm talking about. As far as I'm concerned, Gaiman is unmatched when it comes to writing. Even if his stories were god-awful (and they aren't, by the way), reading them would still be fun because he tells them so interestingly. There's a quote from a review somewhere that says Gaiman's prose 'dances and dazzles', and I couldn't put it better myself. It is simultaneously fascinating and unusual in it's style, and clear in such a way that every sentence feels hand-crafted. It combines the verbosity of Micheal Moorcock with the concise readability of Chris Wooding. It dances and it dazzles.

The novel has often been reported as a sequel to one of Gaiman's more well-known works, American Gods, as Mr. Nancy, who is a minor character in this novel, also appears in that story, again as a minor character. Gaiman himself, however, has stated that '...it's set in the same world as American Gods.' I have to go with Gaiman on this one; the books are connected, certainly, but this definitely isn't a sequel. There are some similarities between the two, such as the 'dreams' that are actually connections to the world of the Gods, but Anansi Boys is a very different style of tale to American Gods, as the former is a small, personal story, with a main cast of maybe six characters, and the latter is a grand, country-spanning, almost war film level epic. The two also have very different themes, as American Gods is all about the heart of America, which Anansi Boys (set as it is mostly in London) obviously is not.

The story of the book is typically brilliant (I expected nothing less from Gaiman), though it isn't quite up there with Neverwhere and American Gods. Some of the characters are just a tad one dimensional, though these characters are mostly played for comic relief and so it doesn't harm the story too much. The more interesting characters (special mention to the wonderful creation that is Grahame Coats) make up for this, and some of them are among the best of Gaiman's fictional persons. It is these characters that make the story, as the plot itself is fairly straightforward, with no real twists or turns after the initial revelation of 'your father was a god'; aside from one rather obvious betrayal that I saw coming a long way off. But the characters, as I say, are what makes the book so special, with the likes of Fat Charlie and Spider developing in interesting and unexpected ways. Fat Charlie in particular has a really spectacular arc during the course of the story, and by the end of it he's changed in the most wonderful of ways. He becomes everything you want him to be, and it's a sign of how excellent Gaiman's characterisation is. I really empathised with the character, more so than I have with most protagonists.

There isn't much else I want to say about the book, so in conclusion; it's another absolutely outstanding novel by one of my favourite authors. Definitely check it out, or check out one of Gaiman's other works at least.

I'm probably going to take a break from book reviews for the time being, as I haven't got anything new to read and I was falling behind on them anyway. Not sure what I'll write instead, but I guess I'll find out? Thanks for reading.

Friday Night Who UK: 18th August 2011

(For more information on Friday Night Who UK, click here.)

Since I've been in Greece for the past ten days, I'm not absolutely certain how the last two Friday Night Who UKs went. I know that our viewing of the Ark in Space was cancelled because Mark didn't have his laptop, but I have been informed that Mark (along with Keith of Traveling the Vortex) pulled off the viewing of Revenge of the Cybermen without a hitch. Finally, last week's viewing of Dragonfire also had to be cancelled because Keith was moving house, and Mark was out doing... Well, whatever it is Mark does.

Now it's time for another update, because once again, I have messed up the dates for friday night and will be busy on the 19th. That means that once again (we tried this with the Ark in Space, with mixed results. By which I mean no results.) we will be moving Friday Night Who UK to a Thursday. So, if you want to join us for this week's episode, be there at 7pm UK time, 1pm US time, but on Thursday. Also known as tomorrow, of course. You can find me at @KingOrokos and Mark at @Marcus_Joan. This week, our episode of choice is Hartnell's the Rescue, which introduces the companion Vicki to us. So remember to use the #TheRescue hashtag, as well as the usual #FridayNightWhoUK hashtag (even though it technically won't be on Friday...)

Thanks for reading, and remember to come back again next week for a Friday Night Who UK that goes exactly as we planned it! *

*May not actually go exactly as we plan it. We reserve the right to mess up in every conceivable way.

Triumphant Return

I've just got back from Greece! ...Okay, that's a lie, I actually got back yesterday at about 11:30pm. But I haven't had a chance to write about it until now. I've spent most of today catching up on things that I've been missing while I've been away, watching episode 4 and 5 of Torchwood Miracle Day and getting filled in on the riots.

I had a great time in Greece - probably the coolest thing we saw was the Mellisani Lake, which is a big underground lake inside this massive cave. It looks amazing, plus it's really refreshing because it's a lot colder in the caves than outside. The days were hot, so it was nice to spend some time cooling down. I'll do a proper post about what we did in more detail when I can get some photos or something uploaded onto my laptop from the camera, but for now you'll have to do with this.

I did a lot of reading on holiday, mostly because the temperature was so high that we couldn't go outside between 11am and 3pm without melting. Because of that, I'm even more behind on my book reviewing schedule than I predicted. In order to combat that, I'm going to cover every book I read on holiday in this blog post! And awaaaaaay we go!

The first book I read was I Am Number Four, in which John (one of nine survivors of an alien race known as the Loriens) is hunted down by the Mogadorians, another alien race who are trying to wipe out all traces of the Loriens. It has a lot going for it; it's fast and action-packed, and I did end up staying up into the small hours to finish it off, so it's definitely a compelling novel. I think a lot of that is down to the way it's written, as it's done entirely in the present tense. On the minus side, a lot of the characters are pretty uninteresting, including John, and some of the plot holes are patched up in really flimsy, unbelievable ways.

Moving swiftly on to Paradox Lost, which is the first of three Doctor Who novels I read; the plot concerns the Squall, alien parasites who are bleeding through a rend in time caused by a paradox. It's got a little bit of timey-wimey messing about, but mostly it's a straightforward adventure with some strong characters and fairly interesting enemies. Of the other DW books I read, Prisoner of the Daleks was unusual, as it was a lot bleaker than the average NSA books; lots of dying and hard moments from the 10th Doctor. Meanwhile, Parasite was a much older 7th Doctor novel set on a planet with no gravity, which was pretty confusing in parts but overall enjoyable.

I also read two Neil Gaiman books, Stardust and the Graveyard Book. The former (man sees falling star, man promises to retrieve the star in exchange for woman's love) was classic Gaiman, fantastic writing and a great sense of fun. It shares a structure that I've seen in a lot of Gaiman books; the main character is thrust from a world of normality into a world of chaos. He spends much of the book trying to get back to his old world, only to eventually get there and realise he prefers the world of chaos. The latter book (boy grows up in a graveyard, raised by ghosts) is a little more subdued, but still retains the great characters and themes of all Gaiman's novels.

The other books I read were only average; Vegas Knights is about two young wizards scamming a casino using their powers - described on the cover as Harry Potter meets Ocean's Eleven - while the Name of this Book is Secret is all about... Actually, I can't explain that one. After all, it's a secret. In both cases, I found them mostly uninteresting, and the characters were in need of more development. They weren't all bad though; Vegas Knights had some pretty clever references to historical magicians that fans of magic will like, and the Name of this Book is Secret had a very novel writing style.

And that's that! Hopefully you enjoyed my compact run-through of what I read on holiday. Coming soon: proper book reviews, Friday Night Who updates, and a proper post on Greece. Thanks all for reading.

I Need A Holiday

Any excuse to mention Scouting for Girls... But anyway!

Tomorrow morning I'm going on a ten day holiday to Greece! I honestly can't wait another second, I went last year to the same place, and it was brilliant. The food was the best I've ever had - no, literally, the best food I've ever tasted in my life - the weather was great, the beaches were beautiful. Everything was awesome. This post is just a little note to inform you that, for the next ten days, I'll be going off the grid - I won't be posting here, and I won't be available via twitter. For anybody involved with or interested in Friday Night Who UK, my friend Mark will be in charge until I get back. Yes, Mark is in charge of something which involves timing and organisation. God help us all. To contact him, go to @Marcus_Joan on twitter, but don't expect a reply because he's never on there.

As for me, I'll be doing what I do best on holiday (and in general): nothing at all. Sunbathing, swimming, swallowing unhealthy amounts of Kefalonian meat pie, etc. I'll also be reading: I always pick up a couple of books to read on holiday, and they generally come in especially handy on the plane trips to and from. I've got Parasite, a novel I picked up at an absolutely fantastic second-hand bookshop in Wales, which was published in the ancient far-flung year of 1994; surprise surprise, it's a Doctor Who book, but one featuring McCoy's 7th Doctor. I've never read a classic Who novel before, so that should be fun. I've also got Paradox Lost, a Doctor Who novel (Again) from the modern day NSA range, featuring 11, Amy and Rory. And last but not least, I Am Number Four - a book that ISN'T about Doctor Who! - a science fiction novel that was recently adapted into a film. I haven't seen the film, but maybe I'll check it out if I like the novel. I'm also probably going to buy another book at the airport, because airports always have the coolest bookshops.

That does of course mean that I'll be very behind on book reviews by the time I get back; I finished The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest recently, and just today I polished off Gaiman's Anansi Boys. So I'll have at least five, probably six books to look over by the time I get back to England! But who cares, I'm on holiday.

This is the part where I post an interesting short story I wrote to tide you over until I get back, or rather it would be if I had remembered to write an interesting short story to tide you over until I get back. Which I haven't. So, um, you'll just have to make do with a consolation prize.

Bye everybody!

(PS: Thanks to the Travelling the Vortex podcast for their extra-long episode 31, for giving me something to listen to on the journey there!)