Awesome Websites 2

Back in the long gone days of last July, I made a blog post all about websites I frequented and would recommend to other people. Obviously the list wasn't exhaustive and a lot of websites I'm very fond of weren't on there; some because I forgot about them, others simply because I only started using them after I wrote that post. I always intended to do a follow up post sometime, and as it's been nearly a fortnight since my last blog entry, I might as well do it now. So here are some places around the net that are worth checking out.

NaNoWriMo: I've mentioned NaNoWriMo more than once on this blog before, but for the sake of clarity; NaNoWriMo is short for National Novel Writing Month, an event which occurs every November wherein people across the world attempt to write a 50 000 word novel in 30 days. I took part in 2011's NaNoWriMo (and scored just over 16 000 words, so it wasn't exactly a roaring success) and hope to take part in 2012's event as well. The official website has forums where you can talk to other participants, but its main use during the event is to update your progress; the satisfaction you get when you watch the bar chart that represents your word count climb slowly higher is a great motivational tool.

Fanfiction and FictionPress: If I haven't made it obvious enough already on this blog, I love writing. Books, short stories, pretty much anything to do with the written word is my kind of thing. Fanfiction and FictionPress are two partnered websites that allow amateur writers to get their work onto the web, to be noticed and read. Fanfiction, as the name might have informed you, is all about fanfiction - works based on pre-established stories and worlds, ranging from Harry Potter and Doctor Who to pretty much everything else. FictionPress, meanwhile, publishes original stories in a variety of different genres. It's completely free to sign up and you can publish whatever you like. While this does mean there's a lot of sub par work on both sites that you'll have to sift through, it's worth it for the hidden gems you may find.

Tumblr: I won't go on about Tumblr too much, because I already did a post about it, but essentially it's a great microblogging platform that let's you share content created by other users, quickly and without hassle. It's also a great way of noting down quick thoughts that aren't really substantial enough for a proper blog post, but are too big to fit onto twitter.

Bulbapedia: Most of the independently run Wikis are quite low quality in comparison to Wikipedia itself, but this Pokemon Wiki is of an extremely high standard. It has over 20 000 articles, and is pretty much the go-to place for all Pokemon information and knowledge.

FutureMe: This is one of those websites that takes a really clever idea and runs with it. The concept of FutureMe is simple; you type up a message to your future self, set a time delay, and the message is sent to your own email address at that point in the future. As a result, you can write emails to yourself one year on, two years on, ten years on - or maybe just to the you of next week. Regardless of how far forward you send the email, it's a very clever and intriguing system that allows you to create a 'letter to the future you' without the risk of losing it or damaging it.

Nuzlocke: The Nuzlocke challenge is an immensely interesting idea that revolves around the Pokemon games. When playing any Pokemon game, you can take part in a Nuzlocke challenge by following the two rules; you can only catch the very first Pokemon you see in each area, and if any Pokemon on your team faints, it is 'dead' and gone for good, and you cannot use it again. While the challenge was devised to make the games more challenging, it also has the side effect of making you care much more for your slapdash team - the thought that you could lose a team member, permanently, is quite the ominous cloud that hangs over your head as you play. I tried a Nuzlocke challenge a while back on my copy of Platinum, and I actually did start to worry about my team member's safety. The Nuzlocke website is home to the Pokemon: Hard-Mode webcomic, a series of stories set in the Pokemon world following a character running through a Nuzlocke challenge, and they're drawn by the person who conceived the original idea of the challenge.

Rare Candy Treatment: Okay, this is the last Pokemon one, I promise. Rare Candy Treatment is a great, funny little website that infrequently publishes a Pokemon webcomic, filled with in-jokes and references to the games that make it a lot funnier if you're a big Pokemon fan.

Write Or Die: This website is a great way of boosting productivity while you're writing. The site tries to fight procrastination and distraction by punishing users who aren't writing. When you open the online version, you are given a blank text processor on which to type, after setting yourself a word count goal and a time limit. You are also allowed to pick from three different settings; gentle mode will pop up a box whenever you stop writing for longer than an allotted time period, telling you to get on with it; normal mode plays a really annoying noise out of your speakers at full volume whenever you stop; kamikaze mode will actually start to delete what you've written if you pause for too long. It's a really good way of getting first drafts done quickly and efficiently, though obviously it can sometimes be annoying if you need to stop momentarily to fact-check.

And with that, I'll wrap up on this edition of Awesome Websites. I realise that it's not a very content-heavy blog post, but in my defence I've been pretty busy recently, trying to get next month's story for Doctor Who: Re-Incarnated finished on time. Once February comes I'll be able to relax a bit and do something bigger, like a book review or something. Until then, thanks for reading, and please do check out some of those websites I've recommended.

The End Specialist

A few days ago I found a book tucked away on the bottom shelf of my bookcase. It was a novel, called The End Specialist, written by an author named Drew Magary, and I had never read it. I had picked it up from Waterstones on one of my trips into Liverpool and never gotten around to actually reading it. So, since I didn't have much else to do, I opened it up and started to read. I'm glad I did.

The End Specialist is the kind of story that takes a big, world-changing science fiction concept - what if a cure for ageing was invented? - and runs with it, spinning a tale of how the human race adapts to this new development. On this occasion, the story is delivered to us from the perspective of John Farrell, an everyman who begins the story by receiving the cure. The book then follows his life over the course of more than sixty years, as the cure spreads and the world's population balloons in size.

The most interesting thing about The End Specialist is the way it's presented. The story follows a blog format, with each chapter taking the form of a new post on John's blog. The majority of the chapters are from John's perspective and are tell the story of his day to day life, which is the main meat of the plot; however, several of the posts are links to interviews or news articles, and in these chapters we gain a wider insight into the world John is living in. The interviews range from scientists and politicians to pro-death terrorists and followers of a new religion, the Church of Man, which has sprung up in the wake of the cure. The news articles cover everything from wars and bombings to epidemics. It's very similar to the wide-reaching style of World War Z; however, because the central strand of John's life remains throughout the book, it gives the plot a structure, a sense of order that World War Z lacked. Because we keep intercutting from the zoomed-out, detached overview to a more personal perspective, the whole thing feels very interconnected, and you really feel like all of these different events are taking place in the same world.

Though the real advances in the plot often come in the wider form of news stories - the post-cure expansion of Russia, a theme which runs throughout the book, is rarely mentioned by John personally - John's story is still fascinating and entertaining. The book comes in four main phases; 'Prohibition', 'Spread', 'Saturation' and 'Correction'. Each phase is very different in terms of subject matter and tone, but as I said above, the recurring narration from John keeps the novel stable. 'Prohibition' deals with John receiving the cure while it is still illegal, and his reaction to that; 'Spread' shows how the human race begins to adapt their way of life to deal with an ageless world; 'Saturation' focuses on John becoming an End Specialist - this is an occupation which John takes up during the second half of the novel, and while I won't spoil what exactly that job entails, suffice to say it's an interesting and unique position, made possible by the cure. The book's final phase, 'Correction', sees the story take a dark and unexpectedly grim turn, as the vastly growing population begins to drain the Earth of its last resources. It's an unusual way to end a book, but it works, and it really serves to round off the theme of death that is omnipresent in the story.

In terms of characters the book is pretty mundane; John, while his motivations and personality are interesting and believably written, is not a particularly original character. None of the other members of the supporting cast jump out at me, except perhaps Matt, John's boss, who provides dark comic relief and several laugh-out-loud lines. Apart from him, though, many of the characters fit into basic archetypes. The worrying sister, the childhood sweetheart, the energetic best friend, and so on and so forth. It doesn't damage the story too much because of the wide, planet-spanning scope of the tale, but it would have been nice to see a few more creative characters in there somewhere.

Bits and Bobs

• The book was originally released in America, and I only found out after reading it that the novel's official title is actually The Postmortal. Both are appropriate titles, but because the English release was titled The End Specialist, and because I think the latter is a much cooler name for a book, I've stuck with that title for my review.

• I don't usually comment on a book's cover in these reviews because that's not really what books are about, but I just have to mention the image of the Grim Reaper, impaling himself on his own scythe, that appears on the front of this book. Not only is it mentioned in the story (John sees it in graffiti form, spray-painted on a wall somewhere early in the novel), it's also one of the cleverest visual metaphors for overcoming death I've ever seen. The whole reason I bought the book in the first place was this cover, which jumped out at me while I was browsing, so I suppose it can take the credit for finding me this novel.

When all is said and done, The End Specialist really is an excellent read. It gives us a strong central question, and succeeds in delivering on the answer. I haven't really gone into detail on how the introduction of the anti-ageing cure affects the world, but rest assured it's an intriguing and most likely accurate depiction of Earth following such a discovery. Yes, there are parts that fall a little bit flat, but as a whole it's a thought-provoking book, and an entertaining one. I definitely reccomend picking up a copy if this sort of high-concept science fiction is your thing.

Until next time, whenever that may be, thanks for reading my blog!

Beware of Panthers

I never got round to reviewing any of the stories from Doctor Who's sixth series because I'm not very good at keeping to deadlines, and by the time I'd managed to marshal my thoughts into something remotely sensible, weeks had passed and another episode had come out. That's why I usually review books, and not necessarily new ones; books have a longer shelf life than TV shows and as such, I don't have to rush to write a review while the subject is still relevant. But on this occasion, seeing as there isn't going to be another episode of Doctor Who for at least six months, I've decided to compile my thoughts on the recent Christmas special, The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe.

A quick summary of the story for those who haven't seen the episode; after a woman named Madge Arwell, living in 1930s England, saves the Doctor's life, he promises to repay the favour one day. Three years later, Madge and her two children are spending Christmas in an old mansion in the countryside, and the Doctor shows up to make their Christmas the best they've ever had. Things quickly go wrong, as the Doctor's 'present' - a dimensional portal to a snowy, wintry wonderland - leads the four of them into terrible danger.

As stories go, it's decent if not spectacular. Writer Steven Moffat got some criticism for making last year's Christmas special, A Christmas Carol, too complicated for the casual Christmas audience; this year, it feels like he has swung too far in the opposite direction, as the story feels almost dumbed down for the casual viewers. It's often said that some Doctor Who episodes are written for adults, and some are written for children; this is an example of a story written primarily for a younger audience, and while there's nothing wrong with that, it does leave some of the show's older viewers feeling disappointed. The main bulk of the story, set in the wintry, Narnia-esque world on the other side of the Doctor's portal, failed to captivate in the way that much of the last series did.

In the story's defence, however, it certainly could have been a lot worse. There was a point in the episode, after the true nature of the winter forest was revealed, where I cringed in anticipatory dread. The reveal was obviously the set up for a heavy-handed environmental metaphor, the sort of 'humans are destroying the planet' message that would be much more effective if writers could present it more subtly (for some reason, environmentalism is one of those themes that TV shows can never seem to incorporate into their stories without shoving it down the viewer's throats). But then, the metaphor never came. Nobody comments on the damage humanity is doing, and not once is deforestation - an obvious real-world comparison to the events of the story - even mentioned. As a result, Moffat manages to put across a message without forcing people into thinking about it, which as I've said is a rare thing when it comes to environmentalism.

Though the scenes set in Narnia 2.0 ultimately come off as rather dull, some of the earlier, more whimsical scenes fare much better. The fast-paced sequence of the Doctor showing the Arwell family around their new home is the best part of the episode, mainly thanks to Matt Smith's manic performance as the Doctor. He manages to bring all of the Doctor's most likable qualities to the forefront in this episode, from childlike enthusiasm on the whirlwind tour, to sincerity and sympathy in the few scenes he gets with Madge. Speaking of Madge, Claire Skinner does some great work in this story, wholly deserving her one-time place in the opening credits. Just like Matt Smith, her character displays a wide spectrum of emotion throughout the story, and she succeeds in convincingly portraying each of those emotions.

But while the two title leads get plenty to work with, many of the story's other actors are unfortunately shortchanged. Bill Bailey in particular, one of my favourite comedians, appears in a tiny role as an incompetent harvester, while Alexander Armstrong is given the small part of Madge's husband. It seems a shame to have cast such experienced and talented comic actors in parts that don't let them shine. It's similar to how Simon Pegg was cast in the role of the Editor way back in 2005's The Long Game - he does a flawless job of it, but he could have done so much more for the show if they had given him a better part. The only other actors who really get a significant amount of screen time are the two child actors, Holly Earl and Maurice Cole, in the roles of Lily and Cyril Arwell. They are a mixed bag; Lily is believably written and acted, whereas Cyril's character is all over the place - he is set up as being intelligent in the episode's earlier moments, but all he does is make stupid decision after stupid decision, ignoring all the obvious signs of danger and wandering into a trap.

Bits and Bobs

• The episode's final scene, where the Doctor reunites with Amy and Rory for Christmas dinner, lifted my spirits more than anything else that happened in the story. It could have felt tacked on, but instead they managed to seamlessly transition between the Doctor's goodbye to Madge and his visit to the Pond household. It also felt like a little bit more of a resolution to the series 6 finale, providing more closure than The Wedding of River Song managed to, so that the relationship between the Doctor and Amy/Rory is back to normal. In many ways, this final scene acts as set up for series 7, where the Doctor won't be travelling with the Ponds permanently, but instead popping back to visit them every so often.

• The pretitles sequence of this story has riled up a lot of fans because it's so scientifically inaccurate; the Doctor is essentially exposed to the open vacuum of space for several minutes. Now, while this isn't completely ridiculous if you look back to past stories - in Peter Davison's Four to Doomsday, the Doctor is also thrown out into the vacuum of space, so it's possible that Time Lords are naturally able to survive in those conditions - this doesn't fix all of the problems, because in Four to Doomsday the Doctor is holding his breath, suggesting he can't breathe in space; however, in The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe, he's shouting and gibbering to himself as he plummets, so he clearly isn't holding air.

• Both of Matt Smith's Christmas specials have been based off of classic literature; A Christmas Carol and The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe respectively. Unfortunately, whereas last year's special pays homage to its source material - the Doctor actually takes inspiration from the book, and pretends to be the ghost of Christmas past - in this year's special, Narnia and CS Lewis are never actually mentioned, and so it feels less like an homage and more like the writer borrowing ideas. That the whole thing is a lot less tongue-in-cheek about its source material is one of the story's flaws.

In conclusion, I have to say that The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe is a bit of a let down. It's by no means a bad episode, and for the massive portion of the Doctor Who audience in the 8-12 age bracket it will be a joy to watch. But in comparison with last year's Christmas special, and with the exceptionally high-standard series 6, it just isn't of the same calibre.

Since this is a Doctor Who-themed blog post, it would be wrong not to include a link to my fanseries, Doctor Who: Re-Incarnated. Feel free to read any of our stories, including our own Christmas special, Ghosts of Christmas Past (written by brilliant guest writer Shaun Collins), or our most recent story, The Blue Box (written by me). As for the next blog post, it will most likely be a review of a novel I started reading recently called The End Specialist. Or it could be something else entirely. Until then, though, thank you very much for reading!

The Festive Season

In the two weeks since I last wrote a blog post, Christmas, the new year, and my birthday have all come and gone. So I thought I would sum up the past two weeks in a short blog post, since quite a lot of stuff has happened.

My cousins from Birmingham came up to see us around Christmas, which was nice (me and my family actually stayed in Birmingham for a few days about half a week before, so we've seen a lot of each other recently). We took them on a 'scenic tour' of the area; which basically involved walking through quite a lot of fields, then going to a pub. We ended up taking them to see the Dream, which is a sculpture on an old mining site. I got a picture of it, and it's basically just a twenty meter high girl's head. It looks almost false up close, like the face is just shadows cast by the sun in a certain way. It's a little odd to look at.

Unfortunately, as you can see from the photo, there wasn't any proper snow this year. We got a couple of days of slippy, ice slush that might have technically been snow if you squinted at it, but nothing in the way of proper, snowman-building, snowball fight snow. I'm still holding out for some early January snow like we got last year and the year before, but it's getting less and less likely every day.

Anyway, after my cousins went home, the rest of the holidays were pretty plain for me. I spent pretty much a whole day rewatching old episodes of Misfits after I got a boxset for Christmas, and another day playing Red Dead Redemption non-stop. The non-excitement climaxed on new year's eve, which I spent sat inside listening to music and generally not having fun. We set off a couple of lanterns around midnight (two of which crashed landed into somebody's back garden, oops) and watched the fireworks for a while, but that was pretty much it.

Then there was my birthday, which is the 2nd of January. I've been sixteen for a few days, and so far it's pretty much exactly the same as being fifteen. Also, I got this:

Which, as you can see, is extremely awesome in every way.

And, well, that's pretty much it. No wonder I don't do blogs about my actual life more often, this was kind of dull. Oh well. Hopefully I can use 2012 to do more genuinely exciting things. Until those exciting things, however, I'm done for now, so thank you for reading.