tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-83448534202207773822024-03-13T21:27:54.955-07:00Iceberg InkChris & Scott dig into the past, present and futureUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger506125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8344853420220777382.post-58263316463234277512013-05-21T11:09:00.000-07:002013-05-21T11:15:27.514-07:00Review: Doctor Who - The Name Of The Doctor<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Let’s talk about the DOCTOR WHO Series 7 finale shall we? <br />
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No, I’ve not been reviewing anything from the strangely titled Series 7b (THE BELLS OF ST. JOHN to NIGHTMARE IN SILVER), and that’s really (sadly) come down to an enjoyment level. When I used to watch RTD’s DW I was EXCITED to post about it, to talk about it with friends, and gush over what I liked. When Moffat took over in Series 5, I was excited-ish throughout (nothing reaching the levels of my RTD-era love, but excited enough)…My feelings on the entirety of Series 6 are pretty well known (Read: I loathed it more than any whole series since DW came back in 2005). Series 7 has been “meh”. The only truly standout eps for me were Neil Cross’ HIDE, and the Xmas special THE SNOWMEN…everything else could be easily swept under my WHO-rug and forgotten about. It should, therefore, speak volumes that the ONLY thing that’s been able to rouse me out of my review-malaise concerning this show is to pontificate on what I felt was a relatively disjointed and ultimately pointless Finale for Series 7. <br />
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THE NAME OF THE DOCTOR, written by showrunner Steven Moffat (a man whom Chris and I used to look upon with wonder for his TV writing), is not a mess persay (at least not like 2011’s A GOOD MAN GOES TO WAR), but it’s a straightforward thought essay on the Doctor. <br />
<br />
Again. <br />
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For the 3rd Series finale in a row. <br />
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History Check: Series 5 – The Doctor must solve the mystery of the Pandorica (a box designed by his enemies to keep him from his future), and stop the TARDIS from exploding in the future. <br />
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Series 6: The Doctor has gotten to big for his britches, and his very “name” has caused an entire religion to be crafted around capturing him, and killing him…to keep him from his future. This time we get the mention of that future in Trenzalore, where the question cannot be asked “Doctor Who?” <br />
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Series 7: We go to Trenzalore, and proceed to go through 45-odd minutes of that journey and what happens there. <br />
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The issue? That for the third series running the show isn’t about the Doctor saving a planet, or people, or the universe…it’s instead all about the Doctor. Hell, it’s not even really about his companions. <br />
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This inward looking Doctor Who is about as far from the original series and mythos as it gets…but it’s also about as far from the storytelling that RTD gave us that you could get. <br />
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So we go to Trezalore. Does the “name” of the Doctor get said? Yep. But like all Moffat’s “This will happen, and it will change the Doctor forever!” proclamations…it’s all bullshit, a fake out. The name gets said, by River Song, off-screen. And there is no clever story (as was eluded by David Tennant in the Library when he said to River “there was only one time he COULD tell someone his name”) associated with her knowing of it. She literally found out “Because she badgered him about it”. <br />
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You get that? She badgered him about it. A Time Lord…scratch that, the Runaway Time Lord who for over a thousand years has kept the secret of what his name really is…gave in because his (briefly) wife badgered him about it. <br />
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Wow. Just wow. <br />
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And that’s just for starters. <br />
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So, “name” thing aside what happens on Trenzalore? Well, it’s a battlefield. “Sweet!” you say “Tell me more!” Err…well nope. It’s an old battlefield, and is “supposedly” where the Doctor died. His tomb is his TARDIS which is “leaking” it’s bigger onto the outside. So his tomb is a giant TARDIS. Cool. What’s inside? Well this kind of Swirly Light Tree thingie…and it’s basically the remnants of the Time Lord…a map of his life through time leftover as some kind of echo (I guess?). <br />
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Enter our villain. The Great Intelligence (a creature from another universe trying to get into ours VIA proxies) in the form of THE SNOWMEN’s Doctor Simeon and his Whispermen (beings that ominously whisper, and who’s powers are the ability to become incorporeal enough to squeeze your heart so you die) has shown up at the Doctor’s Tomb, and wish entrance, and after threatening the Doctor by saying he’ll kill his friends if he doesn’t speak his name and open the door to his tomb. River helps him avoid this, and everyone trundles inside where they find the light tree thingie. Then the villain does the DW Villain equivalent of a filibuster and tells everyone there his plan is to go into the Doctor’s Light Tree and screw up his every success throughout his timeline and thus undo all he has done. This would be really interesting if he had: <br />
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A) Not SPELLED OUT his plan to his enemies in the room, like a hackneyed Bond villain. <br />
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B) Found some way to close the Doctor’s Light Tree timeline map thingie after he goes into it so no one follows him…because… <br />
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C) …seconds after he goes into it, Clara decides to sacrifice herself and follow him in to “correct” all that he screws up. Negating his entire (stupid) plan in seconds. <br />
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I’m serious. The Great Intelligence, a villain whom the Second Doctor fought, and who has been tipped as the “big bad” since the Christmas episode and has been pretty much behind all the stuff that’s occurred since then…the creature that you want to see a showdown with…spells out his plan and has it foiled in less time than it would take a Dalek to say “exterminate”. The Whispermen (his lackeys on this plane) had more teeth than he did. <br />
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Okay, now let’s leave aside the silly and toothless villain. Let’s deal with Clara’s reveal. It turns out that because she chases The G.I. into the Light Tree she essentially “dies” and “scatters herself” across the Doctor’s Timeline, which is why he keeps meeting her and why she keeps dying and seemingly is resurrected in different times and places. Cool. I can totally buy that, and it’s MUCH less messy than any other Moffat-ism “timey-wimey” thing he’s chucked at us in recent seasons. If it weren’t for the idiocy of the villains it would be a very elegant solution to the “impossible girl” that actually echoes Rose and Bad Wolf. <br />
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“So what’s the problem then?” you ask. <br />
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Well, it’s in the emotional resonance of her sacrifice. She literally says she will die to save the Doctor from this fate. River actually tells her that she will cease to exist and what is left will be scattered pieces across time saving the Doctor…that the person she is, will no longer be. <br />
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Okay great. Gotcha. Poignant, and even though I’m not as emotionally invested in her as I was Rose and Donna, I’m quite fine with that. But the Doctor almost immediately goes into his own timeline (paradox much? But nevermind) to rescue her. He actually breaks the rules of the show…rules which (for example) disallowed two Amy’s, one younger and one older, into the TARDIS at the same time…an arguably WAY lesser paradox than crossing your OWN timeline…to save the girl who just had an emotional scene “rescuing” him. So we decide to steal ANY emotion I had for the scene by reversing it almost right away. That such things are happening on DOCTOR WHO is baffling. <br />
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I mean how do you even associate this Moffat-written moment with stuff like “Everybody Lives” from THE DOCTOR DANCES, or Sally Sparrow saying goodbye to a dying old man who moments before was young and hitting on her at the end of BLINK, or even the tear-jerking letter that Madame De Pompador left for Ten in THE GIRL IN THE FIREPLACE? How? The answer is that you can’t. They don’t even exist in the same universe. <br />
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Refer to my old post: Steven Moffat CAN be a brilliant writer…when someone else is in control…but when he’s in control of the show as a whole his writing becomes something unrecognizable. <br />
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Lastly we have to talk about John Hurt. <br />
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So at the tail end of the ep, when The Doctor goes into his own timeline to rescue Clara from her rescue (don’t get me started on why this doesn’t UN-DO her rescue…) and there are various incarnation of the Doctor walking by her…we see the back of an unrecognizable man staring out into the rain…and he is revealed (quite brashly in text on screen…cause apparently we are all dumb and need it spelled out?) as “The Doctor”…and Eleven says that he’s not really allowed to have that name cause of “what he did.” And Hurt’s version says “I only did what I had to do” Speculate as you will. I’m cool with Hurt playing some lost or evil version of the Doctor’s past (even if it renumbers the Doctors) if only because I’m sure whatever it is, won’t stick. Whatever happens with the character in the 50th Anniversary will be timey-wimey’d out of existence, and things will settle back to the status quo. As far as the reveal is concerned, I like that he was in it, to link the finale up with the 50th…but I REALLY could have done without the big, bolded text on screen. It’s almost like Moffat and Co. were like “See, look what we did! Ain’t we tricksy? What’s going on?! You must watch to find out!”…when in my mind, just having Hurt turn around and deliver his line ominously with no reveal about “what/who” exactly he is and running the credits would have been MUCH better as a cliffhanger-y moment. It’s typical of Moffat’s “tell don’t show” approach to WHO…which is the opposite of good storytelling. <br />
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Think David Tennant in years past finale epilogues. <br />
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Bride in TARDIS: “What? Whot?! WHAT?!” <br />
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The hull of the TITANIC: “What? Whot?! WHAT?!” <br />
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…it was always some visual cue, and that’s it. Imagine if RTD had put text on the screen saying “There is a BRIDE in the TARDIS?! What the?!” or “The Hull of the TITANIC? What has the Doctor gotten himself into?!” <br />
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But no, instead we get the equivalent of Moffat telling us that our attention spans are SO short that he feels the need to type out on the screen what we are seeing. <br />
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Did I like the episode in the end? Yeah, the opening nods to past Doctor’s and the like was fun, if short. The Clara reveal appeased me…if making me realize that for whatever reason Moffat needs to make his companions always be a “mystery” for the Doctor to solve…instead of just letting them be…you know, people. How can Clara grow organically as a character if all we (and the Doctor) are doing is trying to “figure her out” from ep to ep. Sad really. I miss Donna…the temp from Chiswick, and Wilf, her dreamer, stargazing grandpa. Seriously. <br />
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I liked it, and it’s SCADS better than last years ridiculous finale…but it’s not remotely close to Series 5 THE PANDORICA OPENS / THE BIG BANG, and isn’t even in the same ballpark as RTD-era finale’s like DOOMSDAY or THE LAST OF THE TIMELORDS. <br />
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Lacking doesn’t cover it, and I’m more inclined to talk about what didn’t work for me, if only because what DID work for me in the episode is very little. <br />
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And that all makes me sad. <br />
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8344853420220777382.post-6142860589333035922013-03-11T07:00:00.003-07:002013-03-11T07:28:49.933-07:00Movie Review: Why Wreck-It Ralph is one of the best animated films in years!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Sometimes when you see a movie on DVD / BluRay (or OnDemand), you sit back afterwards and think to yourself “Damn, I wish I saw that in the theatre! That was SO good!” <br />
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WRECK-IT RALPH is not only one of those movies, but probably one of the finest animated movies in recent memory. <br />
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One of the things that comes from watching Anime, especially family oriented Anime like Studio Ghibli films, is that the writers refuse to pander to their child audience. Life has heartbreak, life has sacrifice, and life is filled with a myriad of emotions, which can range from blissful happiness to lonely despair. I have always felt that the best family films are the ones that don’t sugar coat those things, but also still find a way to tell them in an interesting way. <br />
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WRECK-IT RALPH is a film that begins from a very sad aspect. Ralph is the bad guy in a Donkey-Kong-style arcade game from the 80’s called “Fix-It Felix Jr.” in which he….well, wrecks things for the hero to fix. He lives in a dump, sleeps under a blanket of bricks and for the most part is very lonely and disgruntled with his lot in life. No friends and basically being excluded from the celebratory proceedings of his game on any given day…Ralph goes off in search of a medal that might make HIM the hero for once. Through an arcade game nexus (cleverly designed as a joint outlet that all the games share) where the avatars of different games can interact, he battles his way through a modern combat FPS game called “Hero’s Duty” to get his medal. But on the way back things go awry and he ends up in a candy-based Kart racing game called “Sugar Rush”, and meets up with a game glitch named Vanellope. And that’s where things take off and never stop. <br />
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So, why the review title? Well, that’s easy. From the writing, direction, the character design, the setting, the clever video nostalgia in-jokes, the humour, and most of all the heart…this movie has absolutely everything going for it and nearly no stumbles at all. <br />
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The jokes are really funny (helped in no small part by perfect voice acting delivery by the likes of Sarah Silverman, and John C. Reilly), and clean. I find that these days comedy films tend to think that “pushing the boundaries of uncouth humour” and “making people laugh” are one and the same. But when a script like WRECK-IT RALPH comes along and can make lines of dialogue hilarious without the need to resort to anything really low-brow, it shows me that this doesn't have to be the case. Both the leads have a verve and rhythm to their witty repartee which was not only refreshing, but actually helps to cast the “boundary pusher” comedies further into the spotlight as “smacking of effort”. WRECK-IT RALPH seems effortless in this regard. <br />
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The second thing that will resonate (especially with older viewers) is the video game nostalgia. If you played video games in the 80’s and 90’s there is an absolute plethora of nods to your childhood here. They range from the very present and plot specific (Q-Bert and his pals being homeless but helpful, or a bunch of classic game baddies who attend a support group together, run by the lead ghost from Pac-Man), to the much more obscure easter egg stuff (like graffiti that says “Aerith Lives!”, a reference to FINAL FANTASY VII). There are loads to see and find hidden in the film and none of that ever feels like it is taking away from the story. I happily glanced around during larger crowd scenes to catch references (like the Joust birds, Sonic The Hedgehog, and Street Fighter characters like Blanka and Chun-Li). <br />
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Another aspect about it that kind of floored me (if only because I usually key into these things earlier), is that there are multiple plot points that when they are introduced are innocuously a part of the story and don’t seem to be anything further than that. But in the third act a few of them come into play VERY cleverly none of which I was expecting. So I got to be enthralled when they did and not feel like I saw them coming ahead of time. <br />
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Lastly I’d like to mention is that the story is absolutely 100% charming, and earns every single emotional beat that is offered up. I found myself getting misty more than once, and smiling like a madman more than once as well. I can’t tell you how wonderful the final act of the films plays out, it’s just well written, acted and presented and you owe it to yourself to watch and find out why. <br />
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As entertaining for kids as much as it is for adults, WRECK-IT RALPH is a triumph of filmmaking in a way that not a lot of films GET to be these days. It is allowed to be bright, colourful, whimsical and a whole heck of a lot of fun. In a medium in which audiences are increasingly asking to be wowed on a high level, and who demand every film to blow them away otherwise it was a waste…WRECK-IT RALPH succeeds like old 80’s movies did. It takes a very simple premise, and then expounds upon it in a number of unexpected ways and allows itself to still be high-caliber fun in the process. What you end up with is something I am glad to called one of the best animated films I’ve ever seen. Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8344853420220777382.post-76166463320214572472013-03-08T06:13:00.000-08:002013-03-08T07:02:34.022-08:00Doctor Who - Crackpot Theory: Is Clara Oswald actually Romana IV?!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Been a while. What with these sporadic mid-series breaks in the show (don’t get me started), DOCTOR WHO news has been slow to leak out. However, we have had two; count ‘em, two episodes which feature (versions) of the new companion Clara Oswald (played exquisitely by Jenna Louise-Coleman). The first of which was in the Series 7 opener ASYLUM OF THE DALEKS, in which she was the disembodied consciousness of someone who was once called Oswin Oswald (whom had once worked aboard a starship) and had since been mutated and turned into a Dalek…but had no idea what she is and had been placed in the Asylum’s (by presumably the Dalek high Command) “Intensive Care” unit, where the Daleks who survived great battles reside, weaponless. This is where Oswin is, locked in a room on her own. This will be important later in the post. Stay tuned. <br />
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The next time we see her is in the most recent Christmas Special THE SNOWMEN. She is now Clara Oswald, Victorian barmaid and secret governess to a wealthy family’s children. With the help of Silurian ‘Sherlock Holmes’ Madame Vastra, her wife Jenny, and the Sontaran Nursemaid (now Butler) Strax, the Doctor is in hiding, refusing to save the universe any more. Then Clara comes along and mucks things up by getting him involved. She’s quick, she’s clever and nine times out of ten in this episode she is smarter than the Doctor, or at least on par with him mentally. They spar back and forth and it all... sounds very familiar. <br />
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CRACKPOT THEORY time! <br />
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During his 4th Incarnation (Tom Baker), The Doctor spends an entire series on a quest for the various pieces to the Key To Time. On this quest (given him by the mysterious White Guardian) he is joined by another Time Lord, one fresh out of the Academy on Gallifrey. Namely, Romanadvoratrelundar (Mary Tamm), or Romana for short (though she prefers Fred). At less than 100 years old she is still a raw recruit, but being a Time Lord she can spar with the Doctor on his level. In fact he’s initially very unsettled by how much she knows. She’s a strong character, and one I really enjoy watching. Now, after the various pieces of the Key To Time are found and then re-dispersed (I’m not telling you why, go watch THE KEY TO TIME), Romana regenerates into Romana II (Lalla Ward). Romana II stays on board with the 4th Doctor for a long time (nearly until his regeneration into the 5th), but when she finally takes her leave, he gives her K-9 and off she goes. <br />
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Now that’s where vaguely the TV story of Romana ends. Thankfully the books and Audio drama’s continued her story (most especially in the political drama series from BIG FINISH called GALLIFREY). It turns out that some years after leaving the Doctor, Romana II returned to Gallifrey and ends up as its President. She and K-9 have to jump through a myriad of political hoops and nefarious plans to unseat her for many years. <br />
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And that is where some Dark Times occur during which we know very little. We only know that at some point down the line the Lord President becomes Rassilon, and the Time Lords engage in a large scale war across many systems with their most hated enemies the Daleks, in the Last Great Time War. The Doctor (in his Eighth incarnation at this point) sees many things that unsettle him about his own race. Having lived through them being stagnant, unbending, and basically arrogant…he then sees them descending further and further into madness and violence. In the final days of the Time War the Doctor time-locks it so that it doesn’t tear reality itself apart and dooms his own race and planet to eternal torment. <br />
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But what happened to Madame President Romana II? Well the books tell us that she regenerated into a third incarnation prior to this, but they never tell us how she lost the presidency, nor what happed to her during the Time War. We know that a Rival Time Lord tried to unseat her and kill her after the Second Great War In Heaven…but Eight stopped this. <br />
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The Crackpot theory part is about what I think COULD have happened. What if Romana III objected to the Last Great Time War (having survived the Second War In Heaven, and assassination attempts), and the CIA (the Gallifreyan Celestian Intervention Agency) found a way to unseat her and put Rassilon on the seat. Might she have been imprisoned for her views? What if while in prison (and in the still current locked state of the Time War) she found a way to project herself outwards. Used regeneration energy to get through the Time Lock and offworld into…a passing Starliner perhaps? What if a human aboard that ship was converted into a Time Lord, and the official 4th incarnation of Romana allowing her to escape? Her old body imprisoned on Gallifrey would die, but she would go on in a stolen human body effectively regenerated into a Time Lord. Then travelling back through time and basically BEING these other versions of her new self, on a skipping loop that repeats when she dies. She DID have a TARDIS when we last saw her, so it could be disguised as something very small. What if Oswin Oswald was that human? It would explain both her variations so far (neither of which is the main one we will be introduced to in THE BELLS OF ST. JOHNS on March 30th) being so terribly clever (smart enough to spar with a genius Time Lord who is over a 1000 years old), and seemingly un-phased by the alien nature of the plight of the Doctor against the Snowmen. <br />
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I add to this a few nuggets from things we hear in the trailer for the second half of Series 7. <br />
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1. She is referred to as the girl twice dead. So she is somehow the same person over and over again even after dying. Sounds like regeneration but the switch is stuck and instead of changing to a DIFFERENT body she’s being given new same ones instead. This could be explained by the fact that Romana needed to steal a human body. <br />
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2. The Doctor clearly says, “She’s not possible.” To me this could be a big pointer at the fact that it’s Romana IV…since her being out of the Time War would seem next to impossible. But where Rassilon failed at unlocking the Time War as a whole…perhaps One Time Lord could survive. After all, Dalek Caan rescued Davros from the Crucible and brought him across the Lock barrier. One could interpret the Doctor’s statement as simply being that she’s died twice, how can she exist a third time in the same “look”…but that’s a little too simple for DW in my eyes.<br />
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A variation on this theory (which I've seen around), with the same results is based on something talked about in THE SNOWMEN. A specific story about being "born behind Big Ben" and how this accounts for her impeccable sense of time. What if, Romana III wasn't imprisoned, but rather escaped BEFORE the Last Great Time War...but needed to hide. Enter the Chameleon Arch (the Fob Watch) that Time Lords use to hide their identities disguising themselves as human. What if Big Ben is her Fob Watch? And not only that, what happens when a Time Lord disguised as a human VIA a Chameleon Arch dies? Do they regenerate normally? Or is it possible they continue to regenerate but into the same form over and over again since that's the form they took when disguised? She keeps telling the Doctor to "Run" and to "Remember". We know from John Smith and the Master's use of the Fob Watch that little bits of their time lord personality leak out form time to time when disguised. This would explain her smarts, her ease with the decidedly alien events, her seeking out of the Doctor, and her treating him like an old friend. So this is another way that Romana could have survived and become Clara.<br />
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So that’s my theory. Clara is not only a Time Lord, but she is the 4th incarnation of the prior Lady President of Gallifrey, whom has travelled with the Doctor before. She is likely some 700 years of age and escaped the Time War. What a boon that would be going into the 50th Anniversary events storywise. The avenues and story aspects that could lead to (including multiple Doctor appearances) begin to boggle. But to be quite honest…I’d just like to see Romana make an appearance in NuWho. She is just such a great character with a lot of depth, and I think she deserves to come back. Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8344853420220777382.post-21408848244066285022013-02-20T08:27:00.000-08:002013-02-20T08:27:58.593-08:00Doctor Who - Big Finish Audio Adventures - 1.4 Phobos<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">Eddie Robson (who writes for Big Finish) really does waver up and down in his DOCTOR WHO stories, but they are never bad. Even the lower register ones are quite fun and enjoyable. I started this review off that way because when Robson is on…he’s really on. <br /><br />We’ve jumped briefly back to Eight and Lucie’s S1 adventures to cover 1.4 PHOBOS, which we missed when I first did these as I’d not had a copy yet. <br /><br />PHOBOS is really Eddie Robson’s writing firing on all cylinders in the DOCTOR WHO arsenal. It’s got it all, an interesting setting (in this case Mar’s moon Phobos), compelling secondary characters, a creepy set of monsters who are not what they appear, emotions, running, witty banter. It’s all here. <br /><br />The Doctor and Lucie have arrived at Phobos, which is now the center of an extreme sports phenomenon in the form of a huge stationary wormhole on the surface from which they bungee. But of course not is all it seems and people have begun to disappear. <br /><br />Seems rather generic yes? Ah, but that is the genius of the episode. For on the surface it is generic, but underneath lays one of the best, albeit darker, stories in the whole first series. For once the villain is properly discovered, the Doctor delves into things to a level that is unexpected not only to said villain, but to those around him and even Lucie herself. It’s one of the darkest moments in the whole of Eight’s adventures, and gave me a chill towards where he heads in the future, up to and including the Time War. I don’t want to give away too much so I won’t tell you more, but sufficed to say that the Doctor owns this episode for sheer brass. <br /><br />PHOBOS is a really interesting look at what humans seek, what they strive for and why, but most of all what happens when they find more than they bargained for. Like I mentioned above the story has all the hallmarks of a classic DW story, but it will be the final ten minutes that will haunt you and really get under your skin. I loved that feeling, as it’s not really something you often get to see of the Doctor as a character. <br /><br />Stalwart director Barnaby Edwards ought to be praised for always paying attention to pacing and layout of the episodes he directs…and PHOBOS is especially no different. Give this one a listen, as it is easily the match of the other really standout episodes from Series 1. <br /><br />NEXT TIME: S2.5 GRAND THEFT COSMOS in which the Doctor and Lucie become embroiled in a heist…but on which side? </span><br /> </span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8344853420220777382.post-68696614850677135652013-02-13T06:52:00.000-08:002013-02-13T08:20:42.777-08:00Doctor Who - Big Finish Audio Adventures - 2.3 Brave New Town<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Contrary to his Series 1 outing (IMMORTAL BELOVED), writer Jonathan Clements Series 2 outing BRAVE NEW TOWN didn’t leave me with the same warm fuzzies. This is not to say that it was bad, more than it was just a step down from his previous script, as well as from the two preceding Series 2 stories. Instead of coming in at Great, or Solid, I think it just <i>kind</i> of succeeds by the use of a classic villain in an interesting way...and Is. <br />
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Nitty Gritty. The Doctor takes Lucie to a seaside town in 2008, just not the one she thought it was going to be (she was thinking of her home, Blackpool). The town has a few anomalies though. It’s seemingly not by the sea (though it is called Thorington-on-Suffolk), and instead rests at the center of what looks like a dried up lakebed. The people who inhabit the town think it’s Sunday Sept. 1st 1991…everyday. Brian Adams is annoyingly still #1; there is no food, no gas in the cars, and no electricity. So what exactly is going on? <br />
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Enter Classic Who villain the Nestene Consciousness and the Autons. More importantly Autons that look and act VERY realistic because instead of merely being remote controlled by the Consciousness, they have a small piece of it inside them. <br />
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Now, while the Autons work fine on Audio (something the producers at Big Finish revealed initially being leery about), the telltale arm gun sound is pretty much all you need. It’s about as recognizable as “Exterminate” and “Delete”, so there was really now worry there. However, because of the nature of the tale, one in which these Auton’s don’t really KNOW they are Autons, and aren’t really doing any kind of attacking, they come across as far less scary than they could/should. I get that we are seeing the Audio Drama equivalent of the TV episode DALEK in which we take a Classic villain and put them in a situation that humanizes them…but where DALEK still maintained the scare-factor of the villain, the Autons all but have their teeth removed by being too humanized. So in the end the Doctor is simply working against the connection to the consciousness VIA the control box that gives them orders, and That’s. About. It. If there is anything scary about the episode, I’m not sure what it is. That’s obviously not a prerequisite to a DOCTOR WHO story, but it is nice. My fave thing about DW is the running, and the action, mixed into a good story. There is little of that in BRAVE NEW TOWN. <br />
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That’s not to say there is nothing good. It’s a rather compelling mystery to begin with before the Auton’s are introduced. It’s just afterwards that it becomes a bit plodding. Or at least it did for me. McGann, Smith and their co-stars (Adrian Dunbar, Derek Griffiths, Lorna Want and Nick Wilton) all do an admirable job of performing the script, and Lucie especially gets some plum funny lines (“Where does plastic come from?” “Taiwan!”), but overall that’s the only thing I come away with having enjoyed. The tale itself was probably one of the more mundane ones I’ve listened to since I stared the EDA’s. <br />
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So all in all, I think my experience with BRAVE NEW TOWN comes down to match the final line by Lucie. <br />
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Doctor: I saved a brand new race from certain destruction! <br />
Lucie: With a little help from me. <br />
Doctor: … <br />
Lucie: You’ll never admit it will you? Never in a month of Sunday’s. <br />
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So yes, that’s a bad pun on the fact that it’s always Sunday on Thorington, and that’s the final flavour I walk away from this story with. It’s decent enough, but is about as entertaining as a weak pun. <br />
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NEXT TIME: We skip 2.4 SKULL OF SOBEK (mostly because I don’t have it yet) and move onto 2.5 GRAND THEFT COSMOS. Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8344853420220777382.post-49033661792387256022013-02-11T07:34:00.000-08:002013-02-11T07:48:55.172-08:00Doctor Who - Big Finish Audio Adventures - 2.2 Max Warp<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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As much as the Series 2 opener (DEAD LONDON) was an irreverent and yet mostly effective (if odd) way to start the 2nd series of Eighth Doctor & Lucie Adventures…the second episode, MAX WARP, makes up for that by being pretty much everything we love about DOCTOR WHO in any medium. <br />
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The story begins with the Doctor and Lucie attending a Motor Show. Well, it’s technically a very popular Spaceship Show. If you’ve not already guessed it from the title and that small description, this really is TOP GEAR in space. Strangely, or perhaps not-so-strangely, this premise fits into the DW mythos and story-style like a leather driving glove (yeah, I went there). From the multiple, and varied hosts talking about the newest, sleekest spaceship, to the Doctor behaving like a proper Ship-Enthusiast like a gleeful 12-year old, to Lucie calling it all boys-with-their-toys and making jokes at the Doctor’s expense, this is everything you love about TOP GEAR transferred into DOCTOR WHO. <br />
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So where does the intrigue come from in this episode? Well that’s an easy one. The show Max Warp is filming live from the Sirius Inter-G Cruiser Show, which was installed as an event to bring two previously warring worlds (the Varlon Empire and the Kith Oligarchy) together, and is set in a station orbiting nearby. The two hosts, smarmy, sexist Geoffrey Vantage, and spaceship enthusiast, Vantage-whipping boy O’Reilly are seen commenting on their fellow Max Warp member, and hotshot pilot Timbo “The Ferret” just before his ship malfunctions and plows into a nearby moon. The intrigue and investigation (launched, of course by our intrepid Doctor and Lucie), begin in earnest with Lucie attempting to guess whodunit, and the Doctor trying to methodically interview people. Because Timbo was clearly murdered, and the uneasy peace between the Kith and the Varlon is at risk. <br />
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Lucie is absolute, 100% pure gold in this episode. Sheridan Smith just nails the comedy in Jonathan Morris’ script. I kept laughing at her comments as she gets <i>most</i> of the plum lines, up to and including her final line (which I won’t spoil for you, but it’s hilarious!). Her verbal sparring with Eight (one of the best bits about their relationship) is in fine form in MAX WARP. Not only do we get Paul McGann doing a proper fanboy excitement about the fastest and the sleekest ship (listing off features like he’s read multiple magazine articles about it), but we also get a wonderfully diverse secondary cast. Graeme Garden is suitably nasty, sexist, and just deliciously horrible (read: hilarious) as Geoffrey Vantage. I seriously could not believe some of his script beats (‘It’s a mans spaceship! Literally fuelled with testosterone! Ladies bring a toothbrush and a spare pair of knickers!’ or ‘Just smile and stick out your bits!’ to Lucie), but I adored how well Lucie sparred with him and put him in his place without him really catching on. Further still to the sexist angle we are given a different, but no more unwanted bit of that with mousy O’Reilly attempting to get Lucie to go to his room with him, and she kind of beats around the bush to let him down easy, but even he doesn’t get it and she has to end up rather sternly telling him “No.” I loved that aspect of the script as it showcases that sometimes even the nicest of guys can say and do the wrong things without realizing they are, and they need to be told they are out of line. It’s an attentive moment that I noticed and enjoyed, because Lucie really does give him a second to realize (and he’s just totally oblivious) before getting more direct with him. <br />
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The mystery/motive is fairly well hidden amongst a few red herrings and plot twists, added to by Lucie throwing out suspect after suspect and giving Sherlockian reasons for their guilt. The SpinDroid (a politician’s assistant / crutch) is wonderfully whimsical when he is on scene and sounded suspiciously like the droid from RETURN OF THE JEDI who tells R2 that he “has need for him on the master’s sail barge, and that he’d soon learn some respect”.<br />
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The political machinations at work are light, but given gravity due to the instability of the two world governments, and add tension to the proceedings of the investigation. The whole thing (the event, the crash and the murder) begins to stink of an elaborate scheme and it's up to the Doctor and Lucie to sort out what and why. It's quite satisfying on that end when all is said and done, and that's really all you can ask of a DW mystery. I should not be able to guess the final outcome, and I think in MAX WARP, this is achieved well. But it's more than likely going to be how fun and hilarious this episode is that will sit with you afterwards. It's pure enjoyment for 50 minutes.<br />
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The aspect of envy on the part of the Doctor, who adores his stolen TARDIS, towards these super sleek, fast spaceships was palpable and entertaining. It’s always funny to think of it, since the TARDIS really does trump every other mode of transport, but the Doctor can’t help but feel a little envious. But it’s like owning a Smart Tank than can roll through anything and survive (and travel in time and space), but being jealous of a Ferrari, which is shiny, fast and nice looking, but could be ripped through like tin foil (BTTF reference intended). <br />
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Big Finish has their first big hit of their second Series with MAX WARP, as entertaining as some of the best from Series 1. The comedy and action are both spot on, and character interaction is tops. I’d ALMOST want to say if you were thinking about giving Series 2 a go and were wondering if it was worthy, that you should put DEAD LONDON off (briefly) and hit up MAX WARP first, as I feel it’s probably more entertaining to the casual listener.<br />
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NEXT TIME: The Doctor and Lucie visit a seaside town, in the middle of nowhere in 2008 that is seemingly stuck on a Sunday in 1991 and so are its inhabitants, in BRAVE NEW TOWN. Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8344853420220777382.post-7825353778701384742013-02-07T19:54:00.003-08:002013-02-07T19:54:40.242-08:00Doctor Who - Big Finish Audio Adventures - 2.1 Dead London<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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The 2nd Series opener for the Eighth Doctor Adventures is a bit of a gamble. We start things off in DEAD LONDON with the Doctor and Lucie Miller separated. Considering how solid their bond was by the end of Series 1, it's quite a bold choice to begin the second Series this way, but it pays off as far as I am concerned. It only pays off though because the story is such a clever spat of time shifting.<br />
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Basically this episode drops our TARDIS team into a very strange London where a parking violation in 2008 can earn you a hanging in the 1800's. Time is seemingly shifting around both Lucie and the Doctor, and there are only a few connecting threads that allow the two to sniff out the trail of what is going on. The Doctor, charged with parking the TARDIS in the wrong place, links up with a fellow lawbreaker in Victorian London named Spring-Heeled Sophie. The two eventually find Lucie and attempt to sort out what exactly is going on and why the Judge in one time looks like the chief of police in another time who looks like a hangman in another time. In any other tale it might seem convoluted, but in DOCTOR WHO it's par for the course for our intrepid Time Lord.<br />
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The best bit about this opener is the rivalry between Sophie and Lucie. It's only slightly there as Lucie is too proud to actually comment on it aloud (ala Rose Tyler), and instead just tries her very best to trump Sophie in the companion category at every chance. It's incredibly fun to watch as Lucie really does trump Sophie for me...Sophie is interesting, but she just can't match the sassy, strong nature of our companion.<br />
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The story in DEAD LONDON is a great little diddy. It's interesting without being over the top. It's got different timelines, scattered characters, and crazy alien connotations. Great voice acting form the guest stars, and a really, solid opener to the series. Is it great exercise in Doctor / Companion relationship and it is really just a good DOCTOR WHO story at the end of things.<br />
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There's not much more to say. It's not as good as some of the previous stories in the range, but it certainly is a cool, irreverent choice as an opener for the 2nd Series and for that I applaud Big Finish.<br />
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NEXT TIME: Stay tuned for one of the most fun DW Audio Drama's in the EDA range, MAX WARP!Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8344853420220777382.post-24154314440263724222013-02-06T06:48:00.001-08:002013-02-06T06:48:18.650-08:00DNF: The Mad Scientists Daughter - Cassandra Rose Clarke<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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It’s only the beginning of February and we’ve already reached my first DNF (Did Not Finish) novel of 2013. And this one was a heartbreaker, since everything I’d heard about this book was that it was a totally stellar, if tragic read. I was prepared to be wowed, and ended up more than disappointed. <br />
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<b>The usual caveat is employed here folks. Since I didn’t read the whole book, this is NOT a review, just thoughts on the portions I DID read of the novel and why I chose to put it down. </b><br />
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THE MAD SCIENTIST’S DAUGHTER by Cassandra Rose Clarke. Here is the synopsis which hooked me: <br />
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<i>There’s never been anyone - or anything - quite like Finn.</i><br />
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<i>He looks, and acts human, though he has no desire to be. He was programmed to assist his owners, and performs his duties to perfection. A billion-dollar construct, his primary task is to tutor Cat.</i><br />
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<i>When the government grants rights to the ever-increasing robot population, however, Finn struggles to find his place in the world. </i><br />
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So I read roughly 40% of the book on my Kindle before putting it down. A few things to start with. This book is not YA…at least I don’t think it’s meant to be YA…but that doesn’t stop Clarke from writing it like YA with jarring Adult moments that jump you right out of the story. Some truly incongruous swearing (I have no issues with swearing, but when it's applied in this novel it's totally out of place and occurs at the strangest moments), a protagonist (Cat) who, though she ages throughout the narrative, always seems to act like a petulant, uninformed teenager (at least as far as I got). Other than Cat and Finn the rest of the characters are cardboard cutouts at best. Her mother and father basically have the blinking word “parent” hanging off them and not much else. You can sense Clarke attempting to make the father sympathetic, and the mother stern…but both those attempts just kind of float by with no real digging into such character growth. For her part Cat is about as unlikable a protagonist as I’ve come across since I started the blog. Like I said, she never acts like anything more than an angsty, melodramatic teenager. Following her around was…off-putting to say the least. I've heard tell she doesn't improve either, though I can't be sure since I didn't reach the end. Finn is…interesting, but he’s not really all that realistic as AI and to be honest I think the idea of the sentient doll (which this story is trying to be) has been done by other author’s in much more realistic, interesting, and believable ways. That's not to say that Clarke doesn't put effort forth. She certainly tries, but I feel she kind of missed what it might be to be AI, and how such a being might interact with a human. <br />
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The setting also bothers the heck out of me. This is supposedly a future, post-disaster earth where to pick up the pieces afterward these disasters, robots, or automata were employed to help rebuild. But then those robots were left to wane and while there used to be many, there are far less of them and most now sit dusty in old electronic shops…and thus Finn is a miracle of wonder who looks human but is a machine and is apparently SO special that people come from miles around to study him. I assume this is because these humans don't associate Finn with his automata predecessors...but that seems incongruous since he works much the same with simple programs dictating his behavior...and so perhaps the newness to these studiers is that he looks human? I honestly don't know. The cities and even the country towns seemingly still depend heavily on technology…houses are smart houses with main computer systems, and people use tablets to read, write and do everything else. There are still traffic jams and multiple shops and businesses operating. But for some reason they stopped using robots? <br />
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Wait, let me write that again. <br />
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Humankind developed robots to rebuild. And then abandoned them once things were rebuilt. <br />
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What? <br />
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Is this the same human race that currently populates this planet? The same human race that can’t get off their smart phones at the dinner table? The Same human race who looks for faster and more efficient ways to build and produce everything? <br />
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Okay so we made a breakthrough in Artificial Intelligence so that we had worker robots…and the various world governments…all of them…just abandoned them to become dusty relics. <br />
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What the? I. Don’t. Even… <br />
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Calling that unbelievable as a setting is an understatement. <br />
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On top of that, the most interesting part of the story for me would be humans and robots (or AI) interacting and the politicking that goes on in such a relationship. And if we forget the above anomaly, then Finn is seemingly the perfect being with which to explore such a facet. Awesome! Let’s do that. The back cover implies that’s part of what we are getting. <br />
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Eh…not really. It gives a LITTLE time to that, but not enough to keep my interest. Instead we get a story mostly concerned with an ill-behaved girl and her “love” for Finn, a machine. Which could be interesting, if it wasn’t treated as a typical Human + *insert supernatural or otherwise ill-matched love interest here*. <br />
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I guess the bottom line is that I’ve seen this story done before, and done far better. Where it should concentrate largely on the connection a human and a machine would have, how others perceive such a relationship, and perhaps the ideals of what makes humans “human” in contrast to what makes a machine a “machine”. Instead we get scads of melodrama written in a YA format without an eye towards dealing with those topics. Sure we get smatterings of that topic, but it always feel like an afterthought that Clarke felt the need to address briefly. <br />
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Perhaps I’m spoiled by such phenomenal novels about this topic such as <a href="http://icebergink.blogspot.ca/2012/05/book-review-stories-of-ibis-hiroshi.html">THE STORIES OF IBIS by Hiroshi Yamamoto</a> which made me totally change my perception of a world in which AI interacts with humans. But even that had love and friendship stories between humans handled in a solid, and interesting way. I think the one thing I will take away from this novel is that when telling a story like this, attention needs to be paid to MORE than just that relationship to make it work. In this novel, as far as I got, it didn’t work. It uses Finn as a plot point, a toaster (Battlestar reference intended), instead of a character proper.<br />
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It could just be me though, and perhaps you might find this novel is really great. I sadly, did not. Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8344853420220777382.post-69900759294282344732013-02-04T11:27:00.000-08:002013-02-04T11:27:47.456-08:00Doctor Who - Big Finish Audio Adventures - The Human Resources Part 1 and 2<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<a href="http://www.bigfinish.com/">Big Finish</a> should be exceedingly proud of what they accomplished with Series 1 of the Eighth Doctor Audio Adventures, starring Paul McGann and Sheridan Smith. It was a well-wrought and thrilling ride through the Eighth Doctor’s Era that I was sad to see come to an end. <i>Not for long obviously, as the Eighth Doctor Adventures (EDA's) continue through 3 more Series and are still going today thankfully. </i><br /><br />The Series finishes the same way it began - another two-part story, with another Classic Fan favoruite villain. And as such an outing it almost succeeds more than the Series opener does, there is a hardy and ingrained quality to the Doctor and Lucie by the time the finale rolls around and it helps in making the story utterly engrossing. <br /><br />THE HUMAN RESOURCES PART I & II, chases upon the last few minutes of NO MORE LIES, in which the nefarious “Headhunter” (played by Katarina Olsson), who has been menacing and following our Lucie since Ep1, finally catches up with her and steals her away from the Doctor. This episode begins non-chalantly enough though; seemingly in an ordinary office building. But appearances are deceiving. Naturally. <br /><br />On the day Lucie was to have met the Doctor she had gone for an interview in London to work at an office. Well, in this story she finds herself on her first day of work at such an office building and doesn’t have anything but very scattered, fuzzy memories of her time in the TARDIS. The Doctor is simply a name that she sort of recalls, and those around her begin to help her integrate into cubicle life instead which she hesitantly allows. The Doctor, distraught after losing his companion, is visited by Straxus (whom some may recall is another Time Lord from Gallifrey), who tells him Lucie is very important and allows him to go rescue her. Straxus gives him a Time Ring which can get him to where she is without being discovered. Once he agrees and arrives at the office he quickly finds that things aren’t what they seem. The office isn’t really an office and the people who run it are actually being manipulated to do something more far-reaching and evil. <br /><br />Spoiler: Enter the villains of the piece, the Cybermen (the Mondasian Cybermen, BEFORE they eventually settled on Telos in the Classic WHO story THE TENTH PLANET), who…for at least part of the narrative are on the defensive against mercenaries in possession of tech they shouldn’t have. <br /><br />I won’t talk more story, but sufficed to say these two episodes are an absolutely humdinger of a finale. And both Eps are less about the Cybermen, than they are about politicking and war. I honestly could not have asked for a better story to end on. It has action, intrigue, comedy, mystery, twists and turns, and even some arc-wide plotting resolutions. It neatly spends the first hour establishing the bizarre events and setting with enough nods to keep you moving along and understanding while still keeping you relatively in the dark. The reveal at the end of the first hour is very interesting and the subsequent hook for the next half is well played indeed. The second hour gets to the meat of solving the problem, which puts the Doctor’s wits VERY much to the test, and simultaneously allows Lucie to shine herself in that same category. The two spend time both apart and together solving various issues, but what seems to come out most overall is that this is the episode where the bond between them is solidified. It’s at this point you realize “come hell or high water” these two are now the very best of friends and anything that threatens that bond is going to pay dearly. You will notice this from the outset since the Doctor is willing to leave his TARDIS (a vehicle he is well known to have stolen) in the hands of his people (whom he rejected years ago), and use only the Time Ring to go rescue Lucie. That’s friendship. <br /><br />We also come to the resolution of WHY Lucie was placed in the TARDIS under the Doctor’s care, and just what the Time Lords were up to when they did that. It’s a resolution that I particularly liked to be honest. They could very well have chickened out on the reasoning behind her appearance and this whole business of the “witness protection program” and chalked it up to nothing much…but the writers go out of their way to make it a compelling reasoning, and tie it into her personality and the rest of the arcing story. It’s believable, because it is believable. Which seems like a copout statement, but you’ll have to listen to know what I mean by that. Trust me, it works very well. <br /><br />One thing I always liked about RTD’s Era of DW on TV was his skill at wrapping up arcing plotlines while still allowing some parts of them to organically move forward still (example: Sealing Rose off on Pete’s World at the end of S2 [making way for Martha and Donna], and then letting her story loop back into S4). The same is true here, in that at the tail end of THE HUMAN RESOURCES the slate is wiped clean for The Doctor and Lucie. They now get to choose what they do and where they go, because they’ve dealt with the “How she got in the TARDIS and Why” plotline…but it allows other things (like the “headhunter”) to move forward on their own headed off in their own directions. I like seeing that knitting up of arcs that doesn’t also cut off all ties to what came before…but still managed to give me the standalone “ending” aspects I was looking for to feel satisfied the Series had a beginning, middle and an end. We don’t have to say goodbye to Eight and Lucie, but we close out their first chapter and look forward to the second. <br /><br />I’ve loved, loved, loved my time with Eight and Lucie and feel that McGann and Smith deliver an impressive TARDIS team that I will be overjoyed to continue following through the next few Series (of which I have the entirety of S2, and the first ep of S3…with an eye to purchasing more when the time comes). <br /><br />I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. The Big Finish team (casts, crews, and everyone involved) are delivering DOCTOR WHO to the fanbase on a level that I can only describe as sparkling. If you think the TV show is all there is, I think you may owe it to yourself to seek out these Audio Drama’s (and if Eight isn’t your cup of tea there are also Audio’s for the 4th, 5th, 6th and 7th Doctor’s as well) and treat yourself to the hidden gem of DW fandom. I can’t praise the quality enough and I look forward to many more hours of enjoyment! <br /><br />NEXT TIME: We start Series 2 with Eight and Lucie being shifted around time in the wonderful opening story DEAD LONDON! Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8344853420220777382.post-55922941405076861642013-02-01T09:49:00.000-08:002013-02-01T09:49:01.851-08:00Doctor Who - Big Finish Audio Adventures - 1.6 No More Lies<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<b>Editorial Note:</b> <i>This review may contain trace amounts of minor spoilers…and peanuts…but mostly minor spoilers. You have been warned. </i><br /><br />There are a few things I absolutely <i>love</i> in my fiction, and writer Paul Sutton’s script for the 6th Episode in the Eighth Doctor's Audio Adventures, NO MORE LIES, has two of them in spades, and it even tickles at a third of them. <br /><br />It has, in no particular order: <br /><br />1. It begins <i>In Medias Res</i>. Which means that it starts midway through a story as opposed to at the beginning.<br />
<br />2. It concentrates on character first and foremost and story second. Though it allows neither to languish, but rather finds a way for them to work in a wonderful harmony. <br /><br />3. This is the tickler one…it has a monster which is being manipulated by another monster or set of monsters. <br /><br />Basically, when this one started I actually pulled out my iPhone, paused it, and double checked I’d started it at the beginning. We are thrown headfirst into the deep end and understand nothing of the situation which The Eighth Doctor and Lucie Miller find themselves in. There seems to be a criminal of some kind that they are attempting to stop, they are aboard some sort of time ship, there is a race of beings called the Tar-Modowk (who seemingly exist only in the Time Vortex) who ride pterodactyl type creatures called Vortisaurs. It is literally chaos from moment one. In those first 10-15 minutes of the tale, those are the few things I grasped. Well, Zimmerman (the criminal) escapes with the time ship, leaving the Doctor and Lucie to chase him down…only to find themselves on earth at a posh evening garden party, where it looks to be as if Zimmerman has been settled for 30 years and is married to a woman named Rachel. Huh? "What's going on?" you ask.<br /><br />How this connects to the chaotic beginning of the story is what Sutton spends the second half of the script revealing. And boy does it work well. The characters absolutely pop through your headphones. We can start with the guest stars. The wonderful Nigel Havers (who would go on later to star in the DW spin-off THE SARAH JANE ADVENTURES in THE WEDDING OF SARAH JANE SMITH) plays Zimmerman and the equally stellar Julia McKenzie plays his wife Rachel. Both are in middle-to-old age and have spent 30 years together. The chemistry they share is absolutely one of the shining moments of this episode. They act as close to a married couple of their age would be. It’s very realistic and believable and both actors sell each line they deliver. One of the nice things about these Audio’s is that you get to imagine a lot of the visuals yourself. Monsters, spaceships, lasers, battle, villains, planets ect. It’s all up to your thinkymeatz to discover…but when it comes to character interaction and depth, that’s up to the actors alone to sell you. So when both Havers and McKenzie emote through voice alone, it just locks the narrative in and you are invested, and that was something I was pleasantly surprised by. Well done across the board.<br />
<br />By this point The Doctor and Lucie have had a few adventures together and their relationship is growing and the bond they are forming is becoming a little more solid. Paul McGann and Sheridan Smith continue to prove to me, with each subsequent outing, that they are a TARDIS Team to be reckoned with. Not only that, I am (at episode 6 of the 1st Series) totally 100% a fan of Eight and Lucie. Call the papers; we can now add them to the master list in my head: Ten and Rose, Ten and Donna, and now Eight and Lucie. They just work so bleeding well together, and I find myself self-consciously grinning at their various scenes of clever back-and-forth. And the key here is a gradual growth, Eight and Lucie start out totally wrong footed, and through their own set of trials and tribulations they begin to not only trust each other but form something of a bond. That bond is not totally there just yet, but it’s getting there and in NO MORE LIES, a tale which showcases such character acting, it’s on display. It's nice to see we dind't make any logic jumps from "snarky, untrusting Doctor and Companion" immediately to "Bosom buddies Doctor and Companion". There's a number of steps involved and this one seems to have them on the cusp of that final solid relationship.<br /><br />Not to be undershadowed (a word?...not a word), the story itself in NO MORE LIES is wonderful. It’s clever and well executed, and the <i>In Medias Res</i> thing works to its advantage. It takes your eyes (or in this case ears) off the things which might reveal end-plot to you and leads you astray for a bit. When it comes back in and you begin to have your end-plot revelations…well then they hit you like a ton of bricks. It might seem a small tactic, but it truly works here. There are many plot strands at work in this episode, but the ones that need to shine…are allowed to shine properly by the end. It left me very contented when it finished and the credits ran. To me it’s the best of the 1st Series so far. But then again, I love character episodes, and this is definitely a character episode.<br /><br /><b>Sidenote:</b> <i>It’s probably a little weird to admit this, but in the wonderful "CD Extra’s" included after each disc/episode (interviews with the casts and such) when Nick Briggs, in a monster voice, says “CD EXTRAS”…it always makes me laugh and usually I repeat it in my own monster voice out loud...even on the subway. It gets weird looks. As well it should I suppose. </i><br /><br />NEXT TIME: A two-fer review for a Two-Parter. I look at the Series 1 Eighth Doctor Finale, 1.7 and 1.8 THE HUMAN RESOURCES Part’s I & II. Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8344853420220777382.post-18230187770465960242013-02-01T06:34:00.000-08:002013-02-01T06:44:04.139-08:00Doctor Who - Big Finish Audio Adventures - 1.3 The Horror Of Glam Rock<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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This is going to be a shortish review, if only because while I enjoyed THE HORROR OF GLAM ROCK, there is not oodles of meat to it to discuss. I’d call it a character / relationship building episode. <br />
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Following the harrowing, darkish events of Lucie Miller’s first trip / adventure in the TARDIS with the 8th Doctor (Paul McGann) (<a href="http://icebergink.blogspot.ca/2012/12/doctor-who-big-finish-audio-adventures.html">BLOOD OF THE DALEKS PI & II: See Review</a>) it seemed like time for a little lighter fare. And that is exactly what writer Paul Magrs delivers in THE HORROR OF GLAM ROCK. <br />
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Realizing that they’ve been manipulated by the Time Lords (see Ep I &II) to have Lucie in the TARDIS for “witness protection”, the Doctor attempts to take her home to Blackpool in 2006. Sadly, because of the machinations of his race, the Doctor can only get to 1974 and miles away at a service station on the M62 Motorway. Lucky for him (or unlucky I guess?) there are nefarious things going on in and around that service station. Something is killing people, rending and tearing them into pieces. The latest victim is a glam rocker. The two find that another pop group, The Tomorrow Twins (played by Clare Buckfield, and Stephen Gatley), their manager (the always amazing Bernard Cribbins…who would go on to play Donna Noble’s father Wilfred Mott on TV in Series 4) and a couple of employees at the place (Una Stubbs and Lynsey Hardwick) are being besieged by bearlike monsters and they have no idea why. Something sinister is definitely at work, but what is it, who is orchestrating it, and what does it have to do with this new Pop band and their manager?<br />
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I won’t spoil any more of the plot, but it’s certainly a lot of fun. Like I said, compared to the opening two-parter, this one allows for a lot more comedy and I think that’s a nice breather to have. Is it groundbreaking DOCTOR WHO? Nah, but it’s still well written, solidly acted and paced splendidly. The hour was over before I knew it. Cribbins kind of steals the show in this one. He’s just perfect in the role. It’s not hard to see why we ended up loving Wilf in later DW Series 4 on TV…Cribbins just steals your heart (even here where he is technically playing a nasty guy). McGann and Smith get a few moments to begin the fleshing out of their characters and the relationship. It’s not deep or anything, and there are only a few moments of it…but you can see that each writer is giving a little bit more to these two. It’s hard starting out how they did, being totally suspicious of one another, to build a friendship, so it happens in fits and starts in this script and I liked that. <br />
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The last thing I want to note is that the one character (Pat) turns out to be Lucie’s future Aunt Pat…and in any other story that would seem too much of a coincidence. That said, since this particular Doctor/Companion Arc has Eight attempting to bring Lucie home and not getting too close (time-wise or location-wise), it made immediate perfect sense to me that the TARDIS brought him to a place where a member of her family who shares her DNA would be. I thought it a nice touch, and I like that Lucie doesn’t pretend this is not the case, she immediately tells her Aunt Pat who she is. <br />
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THE HORROR OF GLAM ROCK is quite a fun tale, and while it’s not necessarily the best of Eight’s Adventures, I still had a blast listening to it. Oh and the included Glam Rock rendition of the DOCTOR WHO theme is just wonderful and kitschy, glad it was included!<br />
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Next Time: Ep 1.6 NO MORE LIES <br />
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<b>Series Note:</b> <i>You might notice that we are going from 1.3 to 1.6 and that is because I don’t yet own 1.4 (IMMORTAL BELOVED) or 1.5 (PHOBOS) …I hope to get them at some point in the future and review them, but for now we’ll move on. </i>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8344853420220777382.post-67872829552827879672013-01-23T10:13:00.002-08:002013-01-23T10:26:22.816-08:00Anime Wednesday: January 2013!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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It’s been a while. <br />
<br />
Sorry about that. My issue was not to do with there being a lack of good Anime out there, and much more to do with the time I had to devote to it recently. <br />
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So lets jump back in the water shall we? I was recommended a few different shows that are currently airing in Japan and therefore airing on CrunchyRoll… <br />
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The first of those shows is the topic for today’s Anime Wednesday feature is SHIN SEKAI YORI (FROM THE NEW WORLD), which is based on a novel by Yusuke Kishi, that’s been adapted to Anime by A1 Pictures. <br />
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I don’t know if it’s evident from my enjoyment / championing of things like EVANGELION, STEINS;GATE, and SUMMER WARS but I like Anime that is twisty, brain-melty, and makes you think…and then makes you rethink what you thought from a different angle…and then beats that theory all to hell and presents you with something that makes your jaw drop and in hushed tones you whisper “Sweet gods…that is brilliant." before passing out in your fishsticks and custard. <br />
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SHIN SEKAI YORI (SSY) is a show that does that. In fact it does it from the very outset prologue. It begins in 2011 when people start appearing to have strong psychokinetic powers…but instead of being a good thing, what follows are shots of young people standing and the people around them being obliterated into smears of blood and goo. It appears that they can’t handle these powers and in some cases allow the darkest parts of their personalities to take over and commit horrible atrocities. <br />
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That was in the first 3 minutes. <br />
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I was agog…and hooked. What the hell was going on?<br />
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Then we jump forward in time 1000 years. In a secluded rural village, the young people (whose powers have awakened) are taught in school to control, and use those powers for benign goodness and to help in everyday life. They are closely watched and any behaviour of an offensive nature is quickly stamped out. This is evident in a game they play with clay dolls and constructs where they must move a giant ball from one end to the opponents end and try to score, but you cannot directly offensively attack the ball, and instead have to manipulate the clay constructs <i>around</i> the ball to try to defend your goal. It’s idyllic, or at least it seems idyllic.<br />
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Enter our various protagonists. Two girls and three boys. They are: Saki, Maria, Shun, Satoru, and Mamoru respectively. As we first look in on them, they range in age from 12-14. Slowly, and seemingly innocuously in the first episode, one of Saki’s friends who is shown to have weaker powers than her classmates disappears. But it’s not until the second episode (when a student is accused of cheating in the game) when another child disappears that the audience is hat-tipped to something “going on”. <br />
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Intrigued? Me too. <br />
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The key event that tempers their youth is a summer trip, which all students must take, up the river to a location where they must examine the natural world and write reports on it. But after a campfire-story about a creature called a Minoshiro (who won't let you past it and kills you) scares/intrigues them, they head out in search of one…but when they find one they realize that the creature is not what it seems to be and may not be natural at all. What follows is an absolutely ENTHRALLING episode in which the young, naïve children are told a large selection of the bloody, violent history of the last 1000 years that they knew nothing about. That’s about as far plotwise as I’ll go, since you need to watch this show yourself, but hell, aren't you curious?!<br />
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So, why should you watch SSY? Well, quite frankly the writing, though subtle, is delectable perfection. Every single time I thought I had a grasp on what the show was trying to tell me, or assumed I’d unraveled a mystery…it would spend the next episode throwing curve balls at me. The best feature of SSY is that you don’t know who to side with from episode to episode. Upon an initial watch of the first few eps you begin to think that the children of this peaceful town are obviously being manipulated by someone…but then you’ll get a few eps where they spin you around and you get a different angle where you almost side with whomever is manipulating things, and then you’ll get another episode from another angle entirely which flips your POV even more. It’s like the thought patterns of SSY are on a gyroscope and can turn and twist at any moment….but it never loses track of the tale it is telling in the process. It’s a difficult type of show (I am sure) to write, but it has nonetheless not yet faltered. There is a side story with these anthropomorphized Rat societies (some warlike, some slaves, and some peaceful) that seems like it’s not part of the main story, but the more they concentrated on it, the more I realized it actually IS part of the overall tale…their position on the game board just hasn’t been solidly established yet. <br />
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The show also time skips at episode eight forward two years, and we get the same tale being told, but this time it’s with hormonal teens as well, so you can add romance, jealousy, rebellion, and other teenage issues to the mix…which on another show might add an unwanted complication to the narrative, but here it actually works, since the ages of the characters are very important. <br />
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My single favourite thing about the show (other than finding out how humanity progressed after 2011’s gruesome beginnings), is the fact that we are actually being told the story from a further 40 years in the future by an aging Saki…and she is wont to pepper her narrative with nods, secrets and cryptic phrases that make you question even what you are watching and look at it harder. <br />
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As far as I am concerned this show is utter and complete genius so far (They are 16 episodes into what I assume will be a 26 ep season) and that if there was a short list of television that was airing in Japan that you OWE it to yourself to be watching, SHIN SEKAI YORI would be very near the top of that list (if not the very top). <br />
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Head on over to crunchyroll.com right now and check it out for yourself (streams with ads for free), you WON’T be disappointed! <br />
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Teaser Trailer:<br />
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Stay Tuned next time for an article about the other show I recently discovered there called BLAST OF TEMPEST! Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8344853420220777382.post-17006468522812146192013-01-21T07:31:00.003-08:002013-02-06T13:05:29.118-08:00Book Review: A Memory Of Light - Robert Jordan & Brandon Sanderson (Scott and Chris Review)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<strong>SCOTT:</strong><br />
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This is going to be a rather shortish review since to do a long one would require spoilers and I’d rather not spoil anything. <br />
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I came on board The Wheel Of Time late. I began the first book sometime in 2003-04 but didn’t actually get around to finishing it till probably 2007-ish. Slowly over the course of the next few years I caught up. So I have only TOWERS OF MIDNIGHT and (now) A MEMORY OF LIGHT in hardcover as books I awaited for release on. Everything else was already out and in paperback when I read them. I’m not going to go into the particulars on the series that everyone knows. The bloating of the story, the books where nothing happens, Jordan’s sad premature death, Brandon Sanderson finishing the series ect. It’s all common knowledge. So 23 years (and fourteen books) after the story was begun, we finally have an ending. <br />
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Was it worth it? <br />
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I’m a little under a week removed from finishing the book (which immediately afterwards I found I’d enjoyed it more than I realized I actually did now in hind sight), and in those few days I’ve gained some perspective, and the resounding answer to that question is…no.<br />
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A lot of that has to do with the fact that the story (initially meant to wrap up in 3 books) became an unwieldy behemoth with a thousand plot strands (some worthwhile, some not) that for all intents and purposes slowed to a crawl and should have been edited far better. It’s basically (in my head) a six book series bloated to fourteen unnecessarily. Perhaps it’s the fact that I recently finished Steven Erikson’s Malazan 10-book series and the fact that for the most part Erikson kept everything arrow straight and headed towards the ending he gave us (even with multiple plot strands and a thousand characters)…that the meandering of The Wheel Of Time ends up causing me major issues. I don’t truly know why. <br />
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Was it a good book? Yes, absolutely. Was it <i>worth</i> reading? Yes…to finish the series and put it behind me. <br />
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Let’s get down to it. The book is (for the most part) a 900-page battle. The Last Battle. Is it good as a battle? Err…yes and no. It has a few heroic moments (only a few), but more often than not you saw the words “trollocs”, “weave”, “gateway”, “channeling”, “exploding earth” simply repeated ad nauseum. It was one battle section after the next in which small things might be slightly different on a character level, but it was still just hordes or trollocs, evil channelers, and one or more of the Forsaken causing our heroes further problems. The character stuff ends up either falling short of what one might wish as a fan (some characters get throwaway deaths or unresolved abrupt endings), or ends up being something abhorrent to serve the story (ie. Tuon and the Seanchan not changing their slavery/torture ways and Rand and Co. having to accept this for the help the Seanchan will be against Shadow) which I find convenient and horrible. <br />
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Everyone gets a <i>bit</i> of the spotlight in this book, and while some characters sing in their roles, others kind of flop lifelessly around on the page. Like Boba Fett showing up in the re-mastered STAR WARS: A NEW HOPE, they are only there to say “Look, here I am!” or fulfill some other needed plot point which was left hanging by RJ and Sanderson needed to tie up. The main characters get the most screen time and that is fitting of course, but once you’ve waded through 500 pages of these activities, even <i>their</i> plotlines become more of an “Okay, let’s move this along now please?”<br />
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The one thing I find really works in AMOL is the use of the Forsaken in a subverted way to try to win against the armies of Light. I enjoyed how that was accomplished and resolved in the book and it’s probably one of the things I came away from enjoying most. It's a small thing, but it seems more than plausible and in character, aside from the armies of Light not expecting it.<br />
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Does the book resolve things? Yes and no. Like I said, the book is nearly 900 pages of battle. That includes the fact that the only epilogue we get is one chapter, and it takes place right after the battle and concerns one event. So where I assumed we might have gotten through the Last Battle and then had a hundred or so pages of wrapping up (this is the finale a fourteen book series FFS!), we instead finish the battle and get a short chapter after that explaining one immediate aftermath event, and that’s about it. <br />
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Are. You. Kidding. Me? <br />
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Consider me disappointed by that. Jordan can take like six WHOLE books to tell us about every damned Leatherleaf tree and hummock of ground surrounding our heroes as they wander around aimlessly...but we don't get ANYTHING <i>after</i> the biggest Battle in history? Right. Good. I see.<br />
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<br />
Ugh.<br />
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So what should have been a book that was full of win, ends up being just a book that finishes. It wraps up enough overall to be satisfied, but I am FAR from impressed. Where THE CRIPPLED GOD (the final Malazan book) left me bereft, emotional, impressed, and basically cradling my own brain and heart from the excellence (leaving me with a book hangover that lasted nearly two weeks)…A MEMORY OF LIGHT on the other hand felt like a petered out, final ending that I enjoyed, but it did not impress, it did not stun, or leave me with a book hangover of any kind. It just kind of IS. <br />
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“But Scott…” you say “The battle scene’s must have been worth it, right?” <br />
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Eh. <br />
<br />
Yes and no. There was some VERY cool stuff, very heroic charges and last stands…but a lot of it was posturing and action with stolen payoffs. In fact I think Perrin says things to himself along the lines of “Once more into the fray” or “here I go, one last time” about 4 or 5 times. The second time he does it, I remember thinking, “Oh, he’s doing this again.” It’s kind of a thunder stealer. The same can be said for Lan who has more than one heroic <i>final</i> charge. Demandred seemingly existed as a rock for heroes to throw and break themselves against. And while that plotline was amusing to watch, it also felt like a way to carve some characters out of the final book…but then again kind of steals something from them in the process. That is one of the worst offenses in the book; the stealing of emotional beats. It's rife with that sort of nonsense, and always felt like "chickening out" to me. Don't chicken out. This is book fourteen; big stuff is GOING to happen, be okay with that and let it happen.<br />
<br />
A MEMORY OF LIGHT is not the ending I think I expected or wanted from this series, and even though it began well (the first 200+ pages absolutely SANG by) I felt it drew on far too long, ended too abruptly and became a manic tying up of loose ends instead of the dovetailing it should have been.<br />
<br />
It’s not the ending I expected or wanted, but it was AN ending. Let’s leave it at that.<br />
<br />
And now I can sell the books to the used book store. <br />
<br />
<strong>CHRIS:</strong><br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">You can review A MEMORY OF LIGHT as a standalone novel, in and of itself, or you can view it in the larger context of the Wheel of Time saga.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Both approaches are equally valid and both will spit out some pretty interesting conclusions. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Regardless of your approach the end result is, unfortunately, supremely unsatisfying. The WoT story has been a going concern now for nearly a quarter of a century. It’s reached powerful highs, equally formidable lows, had an aborted prequel, lost its author (Robert Jordan), found another (Brandon Sanderson) and finished with a 900 page bang. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">As time wore on and the series ground closer to its conclusion readers met new entries to the saga with a snazzy set of emotional baggage and an increasing amount of fatigue at having to remember all the ins and outs of an incredibly expansive story with a growing range of characters, settings and increasingly convoluted plot points. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Somewhere around book six or seven I started to lose track of some of the C-listers swirling around Perrin, Rand, Mat and their chummy fantasy entourage. And I didn’t have the patience to start from the beginning every time a new book came out just so I could find the two paragraphs buried a third of the way through some early novel that summarized everything I needed to know about a particular character. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">But I knew that the WoT series was in trouble when some of the original three characters stopped appearing in the books entirely. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">It’s a failing common to any long running narrative. As our principal heroes travel to new places and have new adventures they quite naturally meet new companions who have their own ongoing stories. To his credit Jordan refused to take the easy way out, embracing these new characters and enfolding them into his increasingly ambitious chronicle. But with so many new faces clamouring for the reader’s attention the pacing of the story started to buckle and the whole damn thing threatened to derail. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">(see George R.R. Martin’s struggles with the same expanding cast problem in his A Song of Fire and Ice series for context)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">AMOL isn’t like any previous entry to the WoT story. The bulk of the ongoing sub plots and character development came to a close at the end of Sanderson’s previous entry TOWERS OF MIDNIGHT. With a clean slate to work from Sanderson has changed genre gears in AMOL, moving from a dramatic epic fantasy to a higher octane action adventure with fantastic trappings. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Essentially AMOL is one long battle scene, punctuated by short intermissions to pull back the curtain and check in on our ever dwindling cast of lead characters. If that set up doesn’t sound like your flavour than you probably won’t find this book to be your speed. If you’re a dedicated WoT reader like myself then you’ll definitely have to jigger a couple mental switches or two to get on board with the new mood.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">AMOL has some failings. It’s hard to keep the workings of what is essentially 900 pages of a pitched running battle fresh and interesting. Sanderson tries his best switching rapid-fire between locales, switching up characters, strategies, tactics, threats, whatever it takes to help the reader escape the monotone nature of the material. And I think he succeeds for the most part. The ebb and flow of an ongoing battle with multiple fronts is going to result in the overuse of some awfully familiar plot motifs. (Seriously, how many one on one sword fights is Demandred really going to have in this story anyway? I’d think awfully hard about doubling my honour guard after the first one slips through.) And yes, Sanderson does stumble occasionally here, putting characters on a treadmill of repetitive story actions. But thankfully the rapid swift cutting between scenes ameliorates the worst of this ongoing déjà vu and quickly deposits us in another scene before too long.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Sanderson uses the Last Battle as a background to finally experiment with new uses of the One Power in earnest. Whereas new uses for the One Power used to be teased out over the course of book suddenly anyone who can channel a lick is testing the limits saidan and saidar in order to save their lives. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">It’s fascinating to see the transformative effect these new weaves have on the WoT world, turning tried and tested military tactics on their head. Like everything else in AMOL these new additions to the One Power tool box come fast and furious, tumbling out fully formed onto the page. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Although I’m sure the odds are stacked against it I couldn’t help but wonder what a WoT sequel would look like now that the Age of Legends had seemingly been rediscovered, perhaps a less traumatic version of Aviendha’s vision of the future.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">It was nice to see almost every surviving character from the entirety of the WoT saga get a paragraph or a moment in which to shine. Supporting players who’d been waiting in the wings for their part to play in the Last Battle are almost too numerous to mention. Some get only a passing reference, others get whole chapters. Readers will surely argue amongst themselves about whether Character A deserved more screen time than Character B. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">But on the whole I think Sanderson respected the material and the characters who populate it as much as he could. There are simply too many ongoing characters in the WoT saga to give each one their proper due and it’s inevitable that some of them will be given short shrift. Having said that I was impressed how Sanderson was able to give some of the smaller characters moments to excel that could have easily been given to one of the central protagonists. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">The ending was a bit disappointing, but not very surprising. AMOL suffers under the expectation of a thirteen book lead in and regardless of Sanderson’s interpretation of this epic showdown the end result was always going to be vaguely unsatisfactory. I think Sanderson did his level best to portray Rand’s final showdown with the Dark One in the only way that made sense. And his cute little time dilation trick was an interesting hook that allowed him to spread out a short conflict over almost the entirety of the book. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Final thoughts? I’m just glad the series is over to be honest. Good, bad, indifferent – at one point or another the Wheel of Time saga embodied all of these aspects. There’s just so much real estate to the story that at times I feel buried under the weight of it all. It was still possible to enjoy the finished product, but more and more reading it felt like work that I was lucky enough to enjoy. But no matter how much you like your job, work is still work and it takes something out of you in the end.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">I’ve suffered through the bad parts, been swept up in the good stuff and slogged through endless pages of unneeded description in order to get to a paragraph of actual content. It’s the first serialized fantasy story that I’ve ever liked and at one point I used to fret for years between new books. I’ve paid my dues. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">A MEMORY OF LIGHT perfectly encapsulates the extreme swings of WoT saga, a somewhat flawed but ultimately enjoyable read. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m glad to know that, even if it was unfulfilling at times, the story has come to an end and I feel like I can move on to other tales that don’t have so much mental baggage to weigh it down. So I doff my hat to Rand, Mat and Perrin. A trio of lads of whom I have many warm memories but I don’t think I’ll be checking in with them again anytime soon. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8344853420220777382.post-12206820076179850702013-01-10T19:58:00.000-08:002013-01-10T19:58:17.490-08:00Doctor Who: The Snowmen (review)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />I was waiting. The boy who waited, if you will...for THE SNOWMEN.<br />
<br />
DOCTOR WHO’s 2012 Christmas Special. <br /><br />When last we left the Doctor, he was stuck in THE ANGELS TAKE MANHATTAN...his best friends had slipped away through a plothole you could drive a mack truck through, in an hour where that wasn’t even the biggest plothole or script gaff. Bottom line: He was in rough shape. So he moved...to Victorian England where old friends Madame Vastra, Jenny and the Sontaran named Strax (reconstituted after his death in A GOOD MAN GOES TO WAR [thus removing ANY sentimentality you had about how heroic his death was...but nevermind eh?]by some process known only to Vastra) protect him and allow him to be a grouchy old miser who refuses to save the world, let alone be bothered by it...<br />
<br />...Sorry. Are we watching DOCTOR WHO? The man who always saves the world starts refusing to...<br /><br />Nevermind eh? <br /><br />So. That’s pretty much where we stand as the episode opens. But not to leave him alone in his grouchyness and Victorian hat, the universe has other plans in the form of nasty snowmen who seemingly feed off bad thoughts. Er...yeeaaahh...okay...<br />
<br />
<br />
Never.<br />
Mind.<br />
Eh?<br />
<br />
Brass tacks.<br />There are some significant changes to the show that appear in this episode. They appear to stem from the 50th Anniversary coming up in November. <i>These are, I should note, the things I REALLY liked about the episode.</i> The opening sequence and title song are new...and the former even shows the Doctor’s face in the vortex (which hasn’t been done since the 7th Doctor), the later has some nice audio ticks and clicks to hearken to Classic Who. The biggest Classic Who nod here though is most certainly the new TARDIS interior. It’s stark, mainly metal, cool toned (blues, silvers, greens) and is not even a shadow of the warm, scatterbrained, yet inviting interior from his time with Amy and Rory. My feelings on that are that this new interior mimics his own new grumpy exterior, and perhaps even hearkens back to the look of the 5th Doctor’s TARDIS as something he KNOWS, something that comforts HIM....if no one else. Bottom line, I like it and it feels RIGHT for the 50th as a nod to days gone by. He also has new gear, a Victorian look that I’d say probably hits up the style of the 3rd and 8th Doctor’s gear (prior to the 8th Doctor's gear changing recently)...and the glasses-he-doesn’t-need have made a return appearance, which I always liked on Ten, so I’m cool with Eleven adopting them as well. <br /><br />The last change, but biggest is the addition of the newest companion Clara Oswin Oswald (even though TECHNICALLY this version from the Xmas special isn’t the one he’ll travel with...yeah, I’ll get to that). Jenna Louise-Coleman is a wonderful, heartfelt actor whom I know from previous shows and love her (she can act circles around Karen Gillan). If anyone has a chance to be a really great companion to Eleven, it’s her...now if Moffat would just let her be the caliber that Rose and Donna were on an emotional level...anyways... <br /><br />The episode’s actual story is totally beside the point. No honestly, it’s not even really there. It’s a by-the-numbers ep that requires nothing much from our intrepid Time Lord to deal with. It’s here only to introduce the new features I mentioned above...and present us with a big bad for Series 7.5 (don’t get me started on him breaking seasons up into pieces)...in the form of Yog Sothoth, otherwise known as The Great Intelligence...a creature from another dimension who can’t exactly enter ours...so uses proxies to do so instead and carry out his will / do his bidding...ah yes, in the from of the eponymous snowmen! So yeah, we’ve not seen TGI since the 2nd Doctor battled it many years ago. And again, part of me sincerely hopes that TGI is a cover and the real villain leading into the 50th will be Omega (another baddie from another dimension, but one with far greater connotations to the Time Lords). I digress. Either way, TGI is voiced by the stellar Ian McKellen and he does a wonderfully menacing job at the role. In the end though the doctor doesn’t really even defeat him and sort of sends him on his brief way from infecting Snowmen and terrorizing children. What astonished me is Eleven doesn’t immediately recall fighting TGI. He just mulls the name over and over saying it "rings a bell". I’m fine with that as TGI is definitely a cool villain and will make for something interesting down the line. But I wonder at his overall arc and how it will tie into the 50th.<br /><br />But yeah, as fun as the episode actually is, that fun has nothing to do with the story itself, and much more to do with the introduction of all this new stuff. If you go in looking for the new shinies, you won't be disappointed. If you go in looking for a meaty Doctor Who adventure, this isn't really it. It’s like a new show now, and I can’t help but hope that it’s a sign that things will be getting better. <br /><br />Oh, and Clara. <br /><br />SPOILERS! <br /><br />Yes, the Victorian Clara dies at the end, but it’s shown that she is linked to Oswin Oswald (from the future who was a Dalek in ASYLUM OF THE DALEKS) and apparently to a modern day version who will likely be the companion (she is briefly shown in modern day clothes at the grave of her “ancestor” at the end). The trailer talks of the girl who dies twice ect. I’m not buying that she’s another Rory. I think she’s either a Time Lord (possibly Jenny, the Doctor’s Daughter), or perhaps even my theory about her being a regeneration of The Master will pan out. Either way, there is no way she’s a normal human. I don’t know who she is, but I suppose we’ll find out...in APRIL! Again, don’t get me started on Moffat breaking up the seasons...just don’t, it will only end in tears. <br /><br />THE SNOWMEN is a blast to watch, but it’s not the most substance-filled of episodes. It’s also not Timey-Wimey (I’m actually glad of that to be honest). It DOES, however, have the briefest moment near the end where the Doctor is trying to get Clara to hang on and he promises to save her...the emotion that passes between the two in that minute or so is probably the MOST I’ve seen Eleven bond with anyone since regenerating from Ten. I’m not kidding, that little moment gave me a LOT of hope for the dynamic Matt and Jenna have. I'm hoping for a Ten and Rose style relationship...and if not that, then at least a Ten and Donna caliber one.<br /><br />So, bring on April now and let’s see if we can’t make this show sing again! <br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8344853420220777382.post-22451926261103642362013-01-07T11:42:00.000-08:002013-01-07T11:47:51.368-08:00Iceberg Ink Awards 2012!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>Best Read of 2012</b></span><br />
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<b>Scott </b><br />
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<b>THE COLDEST WAR – Ian Tregillis </b><br />
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This book, the 2nd in the Milkweed Triptych Series, took the enjoyment I had for BITTER SEEDS, amped it up to eleven, made it grittily real, pushed it past the point of no return, and then beat me in the brain meatz until I submitted. This book was such an amazing accomplishment that I IMMEDIATELY picked up the 1st book again to re-read passages of it (while attending a noisy football game no less!). If the 3rd book (NECESSARY EVIL, coming in April) is even a shadow of this one, then we are in for a serious treat. Tregillis is the 3rd member of George R.R. Martin’s “Wild Cards” writing collective that I have read and adored. Methinks they might be onto something down in New Mexico. <br />
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<b>Chris </b><br />
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<b>GUN MACHINE - Warren Ellis </b><br />
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This book technically deserves consideration in next year’s ‘Best of’ post. But seeing as how I finished the book before starting this entry I feel fairly comfortable in being flexible with the rules here. As a writer Ellis has long been a favourite of mine through his comic book leavings. He crafts sardonic, intelligent and flawed characters across a backdrop of near-future science fiction. And while Ellis has been slowly disappearing from comics over the last handful of years, his emergence as a novelist ensures that I’m still able to get my fix of whatever madness is running through his skull. Ellis’ first crack at long form writing, 2008’s CROOKED LITTLE VEIN, read like a who’s who of his personal hobby horses roughly hewn together to create a single narrative line. With GUN MACHINE Ellis has polished his approach creating a more narratively driven story that still manages to reflect his own personal interests. While Ellis’ futurist sci-fi bent is largely absent throughout the story echoes of its passing can still be felt within the book. At times I found that Ellis was tapping into the same vein as William Gibson, offering an otherworldly or alien slant on reality that most people are completely oblivious too. One of the best indicators of what makes a book a best read is how quickly I consume it. Once I started GUN MACHINE I just couldn’t put it down. The story is fascinating and the characters compelling. (GUN MACHINE is populated with heavy living characters, full to the brim with unbridled wit and misery.) I’d give myself one chapter more before turning in for the night and find that each new chapter left me more excited and intrigued than the last. GUN MACHINE should come with a bottle of whiskey and a warning that you’re about to kiss the next few hours of your life goodbye. It’s a book so big that it will simply push everything else in your life to the periphery and demand your complete attention. <br />
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<span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>Best New Fantasy Novel 2012</b></span><br />
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<b>Scott</b><br />
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<b>COLD DAYS – Jim Butcher </b><br />
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Of course technically Urban Fantasy, this book was nonetheless the book that left me with the warmest fantasy feeling this year. I’m not going to go on and on about why Dresden Rulez (It does)…but sufficed to say that aside from this book giving me more Dresden goodness, it did a few things to catapult the series into the stratosphere and make my jaw drop and shatter on the ground. Brilliant. Throughout. Seriously, 14 books in and the Series is STILL getting better. <br />
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<b>Chris<br /><br />THE DEATH OF NNANJI - Dave Duncan </b><br />
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Sometimes you do get to go home again. Dave Duncan’s Seventh Sword trilogy (SST) is one of those rare fantasy series that actually had a lasting impact on me as a reader. First published nearly a quarter century ago the trilogy was an epic fantasy story, starring a contemporary hero and containing an almost sci-fi underpinning to the whole narrative. THE DEATH OF NNANJI picks up the story again, roughly 15 years after the SST. More of an extended coda to the original tale than unnecessary add on the story allows readers the opportunity to check in with their favourite characters one final time. There are no sacred cows in this story. Just because a character was ‘big’ in the original series is no guarantee they’ll make it through this final chapter intact. It’s this willingness to mix things up that keeps Duncan’s work so interesting and enjoyable to me. THE DEATH OF NNANJI is a rare opportunity for fans to check in with characters and a world whose canonical appearances had seemingly run their course. If you’ve never checked out the Seventh Sword trilogy now is the perfect time to run out and see what the fuss is all about. Duncan has created strong and moving characters whose fate you can’t get help but get caught up in and a world as rich and layered as our own. <br />
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<span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>Best New Sci-Fi Novel 2012 </b></span><br />
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<b>Scott</b><br />
<b> <br />THE STORIES OF IBIS – Hiroshi Yamamoto </b><br />
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Released by its North American publisher, Haika Soru, this collection of short fiction connected loosely from tale to tale is nothing short of an emotionally packed, tour-de-force sci-fi that will flip every notion you have of a future where robots or A.I. rule the earth, instead of us, on its ear. I can’t say enough good things about it, and look forward to re-reading it down the line. Wonderful, Whimsical, and utterly engaging. <br />
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<b>Chris<br /><br />THE COLDEST WAR - Ian Tregillis </b><br />
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I can and do quibble with some of the individual creative choices made by Tregillis in THE COLDEST WAR. But what I can’t do is argue with the overall impact of the finished piece. THE COLDEST WAR takes a hodgepodge of disparate genre motifs mixes them all up in a blender and then creates one of the most captivating pieces of revised historical sci-fi I’ve ever read. This is a generational story told over decades with characters who’s sharply distinct personal struggles will pull you into a ferocious battle for the fate of all humanity. An epic battle between the will of man and the bloodthirstiness of dark Lovecraftian gods WAR enters your brain like a drug and leaves you frantically counting the days until your next ebullient hit. <br />
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<span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>Best Author 2012</b></span><br />
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<b>Scott</b><br />
<b><br />Ian Tregillis </b><br />
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Because his second book affected me how it did, this goes to Tregillis again. He wins this for pulling out all the stops, twisting my mind every chance he got, for keeping EVERYTHING straight, and most of all…for making it all look effortless. All new authors should be looking to him for advice. He knows how to weave tales, and I’m in like Flynn. <br />
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<b>Chris<br /><br />Ian Tregillis </b><br />
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BITTER SEEDS and THE COLDEST WAR were two of the best books I read this year.<br />
Period.<br />
End of Sentence.<br />
A future science struggle between the forces of science and magic set in and around the Second World War, what’s not to love? Tregillis spins a complicated cosmic level plot and roots it firmly in the blood and earth and guts of WWII. He gives us deeply flawed characters whose struggles and foibles provide fertile material for absolutely compelling storytelling. And he plays the long game, which is easy to do, but hard to do well. COLDEST WAR starts to reap many of the plot points sewn in SEEDS without telegraphing the coming harvest or connecting the dots for the readers as if they were children. I can’t wait for the closing book to this trilogy and see what else Tregillis has in store for me. <br />
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<span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>Best Graphic Novel / Comic Book or Series 2012</b></span><br />
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<b>Scott</b><br />
<b><br />THE SIXTH GUN – Cullen Bunn & Brian Hurtt </b><br />
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I initially got into the first trade and put it down finding it a tad not my bag….but Chris told me to give it another chance and once I did I was not only pleasantly surprised, I found myself snapping up the other existing 3 trades. GREAT weird West stuff! Better than anything the Big 2 are currently putting out. <br />
<b><br /> Chris<br /><br />THE SIXTH GUN - Cullen Bunn and Brian Hurtt </b><br />
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I’ve got a weakness for genre story telling. When a creator knows what motifs and themes to hit, and more importantly, how they can play about with those themes but still retain the essential character of the genre the ends results can be spectacular. THE SIXTH GUN is that that series. Part western, part old tyme magic costume piece this comic is genre story telling done right. For nearly 30 issues Bunn and Hurt have been note perfect in their story of six unholy handguns with the potential to cause hell on Earth. It’s an epic fantasy tale told through the prism of a grim and gritty western and I am utterly captivated by this comic on a monthly basis. The plotting, story, characters and art are absolutely phenomenal and lend the series a richness and vitality that you simply won’t find in 99.9 % of the other mainstream comic book offerings out there. Don’t be afraid if magic and/or westerns aren’t really your bag. If you enjoy good storytelling then you will enjoy this series. <br />
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<span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>Best Old Book Read of 2012 </b></span><br />
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<b> </b><b>Scott</b><br />
<b><br />THE SILMARILLION – J. R. R. Tolkien </b><br />
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I had said how I tried to read this a few times before and failed miserably. It isn’t just getting through it that pleased me though, it was achieving a level of understanding of Tolkien’s world that enriches ALL the other works he wrote…that’s why this award goes to Tolkien’s Elvish tome. <br />
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<b>Chris<br /><br />THE KING’S DAGGERS TRILOGY - Dave Duncan </b><br />
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Although ostensibly billed as a YA companion trilogy to the King’s Blades stories I challenge anyone to read the Daggers’ books and find any appreciable difference in tone or subject matter to Duncan’s adult offerings. The Daggers’ stories should be viewed as a companion piece to the larger, more interconnected Blades’ tales. While the Daggers’ books do have a perfectly serviceable plot all their own, for fans of Duncan’s expanded universe like myself it’s interesting to have these books fill in some of the character beats in the ‘central’ story and poke around a bit in areas of Chivial that are only briefly touched on in the main books. <br />
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If you’re already familiar with the Blades books then you’re going to love what Duncan is doing here. If you’re not, don’t worry, the Daggers’ books are completely readable and enjoyable as a standalone tale. You’ll never feel like you’re missing out on a larger story. Once again, another Dave Duncan book I highly recommend. Feel free to slap on your shocked faces. <br />
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<i><b>And that’s it for this years Awards. I’m actually quite impressed at how may of my picks lined up with Chris’ picks. We normally don’t coincide or agree as much as we have here. I think we can unequivocally say that Ian Tregillis affected us on similar levels in 2012. </b></i><br />
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8344853420220777382.post-32551528492252135672013-01-07T08:11:00.004-08:002013-01-07T08:11:48.603-08:00Book Review: Gun Machine - Warren Ellis<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br /><i>After a shootout claims the life of his partner in a condemned tenement building on Pearl Street, Detective John Tallow unwittingly stumbles across an apartment stacked high with guns. When examined, each weapon leads to a different, previously unsolved murder. Someone has been killing people for twenty years or more and storing the weapons together for some inexplicable purpose.<br /><br />Confronted with the sudden emergence of hundreds of unsolved homicides, Tallow soon discovers that he's walked into a veritable deal with the devil. An unholy bargain that has made possible the rise of some of Manhattan's most prominent captains of industry. A hunter who performs his deadly acts as a sacrifice to the old gods of Manhattan, who may, quite simply, be the most prolific murderer in New York City's history.</i><br />
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Warren Ellis, like Neil Gaiman and Bill Willingham (amongst others) before him, began his author life penning comics. Warren Ellis penned some of the greatest comics of the 1990’s and 2000’s. Titles like PLANETARY, THE AUTHORITY, GLOBAL FREQUENCY, and TRANSMETROPOLITAN have actually help to shape modern comics and set the storytelling level that is now expected from the books. Without people like Ellis, Morrison, Gaiman, Vaughn ect. we wouldn’t have young bucks like Scott Snyder absolutely winning at writing superhero books. <br /><br />So it’s kind of a no-brainer when someone like Warren Ellis pens a prose novel that a fan like me (I’ve met the man, and he is that awesome) will be picking it up. His first foray into such a media was 2007’s CROOKED LITTLE VEIN, a bizarre, compelling little volume about a washed-up P.I. who is hired to traipse across America’s seedy underbelly looking for a fabled, secret 2nd United States Constitution. I recall what stuck out about it when I read it was the infinite “readability” of it. The story could have been about a sentient washcloth and Ellis could have made it an engrossing read. It just so happens that he finds the most insane, yet interesting stuff to write about. He always has. <br /><br />And GUN MACHINE (his latest prose effort) is no different. <br /><br />The premise is wholly clever, bizarre, and interesting in equal measure, but it’s Ellis’ skill evident in his writing that will keep you reading well into the night. He can make the most pedestrian scene or set of events pop off the page like it’s some secret history. In this case VIA characters who are brilliantly fleshed out. The lead is John Tallow a detective at the end of his “caring” rope who is thrown into an unbelievable situation, and two CSU officers join him to solve it all. Scarly is a self-claimed autistic with a potty mouth, and then there is Bat, a nerdy guy with a temperamental stomach and has a penchant for the strange and robotic. There is a churchlike apartment filled with mosaics of guns from throughout history, each of them used in more than one crime and some of them over 100 years old. A madman named only “the Hunter” who crafted that room for his own purposes. John and crew must attempt to get to the bottom of why the Hunter has done what he did, how he’s gotten away with it for twenty+ years, and at the same time deal with more than 100 unsolved cold-case NYC murders that have come to light with the guns. <br /><br />When I reached the end of the novel, it had followed a progression. Not a guessable one, but neither was it filed with twists and turns. Once you realize where it is headed you won’t be wholly surprised it went there. This is a story that has a compelling mystery at its heart, but its true success lay in Ellis’ prose which is so spot on that even a pint and bite to eat while chatting about the case sizzles off the page. The man is simply a wordsmith, and can craft a sentence that would be at home with literary masters. But what feeds through even that is the sensibility of someone who knows how people talk, communicate, and interact with each other on a REAL level. One imagines it comes from his years of blogging, tweeting and commenting on the internet, but Ellis knows people. In that vein, he then knows characters. So his characters sing, and we listen. <br /><br />A wonderfully addictive read GUN MACHINE holds up under the most scrutinized eye. It’s at once a thrilling read with tension and danger at the fore, and also a quiet introspective look at inner feelings, turmoil, and personality. John Tallow is a POV character that it’s easy to get behind because even when he’s not being necessarily heroic, he’s being realistically heroic. It makes him flawed, but it makes him better than the more flawed villains. He’s not Sherlock Holmes, but he at least tries to look at things in more than one light at a time. <br /><br />So, the first proper read of 2013 is Warren Ellis GUN MACHINE and I couldn’t be happier with how it turned out. It’s out in stores now, so you too can read it! <br /><br /> Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8344853420220777382.post-5323709989823791842013-01-03T07:07:00.001-08:002013-01-03T07:20:59.824-08:00DNF: City Of Dark Magic - Magnus Flyte<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<i>Once a city of enormous wealth and culture, Prague was home to emperors, alchemists, astronomers, and, as it’s whispered, hell portals. When music student Sarah Weston lands a summer job at Prague Castle cataloging Beethoven’s manuscripts, she has no idea how dangerous her life is about to become. Prague is a threshold, Sarah is warned, and it is steeped in blood.</i><br />
<i> Soon after Sarah arrives, strange things begin to happen. She learns that her mentor, who was working at the castle, may not have committed suicide after all. Could his cryptic notes be warnings? As Sarah parses his clues about Beethoven’s “Immortal Beloved,” she manages to get arrested, to have tantric sex in a public fountain, and to discover a time-warping drug. She also catches the attention of a four-hundred-year-old dwarf, the handsome Prince Max, and a powerful U.S. senator with secrets she will do anything to hide. </i><br />
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I do believe there is only one other DNF (Did Not Finish) “review” on here, so it’s not often I don’t finish a book. It has to be extraordinarily bad or boring to make me put it down without intention of giving it any further chance. <br />
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CITY OF DARK MAGIC by Magnus Flyte (pseudonym for Meg Howrey and Christina Lynch) is one of those novels. And to be honest I'm kind of glad I began reading it in 2012, so I don't have to say it's the 1st book I read in 2013.<br />
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It had a significant amount of buzz surrounding it, a lovely looking cover, a compelling synopsis on the back cover, and a blurb on the cover by funnyman Conan O’Brien (who called it “madcap”). It SEEMED like a win. <br />
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In this case, the marketing dept. should be sat down in the boardroom and congratulated on swindling the random reader into reading this vacuous crapola. <br />
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It actually started decently enough. An interesting premise, a somewhat compelling protagonist, some bizarre characters and a few mysteries…and lastly a city that, for all intents and purposes, is still relatively medieval. That was the first 50 pages-ish. After that things go downhill fast. I’m not going to write long diatribes about the badness, but I’ll give you a point form list. <br />
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- Protag (Sarah Weston) is a Beethoven and music scholar (top of her class) who apparently finds all other history boring. So much so that anytime anyone else talks about their area of history while exporing Prague…Sarah drifts off and talks about how bored she is. Riiiiiight. That’s plausible. If someone is into Music History, one imagines they wouldn't be ANNOYED by history.<br />
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- Sarah is a very sexual creature. In fact, she’s not about sex as an act as anything other than stress relief to help her think. No seriously, She will talk about how her mind is so foggy and that if she’s too horny she can’t think straight. Cue random bathroom/religious statue “bent over” sex with quasi-stranger. Ah! That’s better. Riiiiight. Let me be clear I don’t mind sex scenes at all, when they have a purpose. But here they are used in a totally out of the blue, random manner with zero relevance to the plot. And it happens OFTEN. <br />
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- My, but these characters are beige. The duo of authors introduce no less than 10 other researchers in Prague, and not ONE of them is memorable. Even the Texan weapons expert is a bleeding caricature/stereotype. They all traipse around saying things, none of it all that important, and attempt only to move the plot forward.<br />
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- The villain is LAUGHABLE. Like not quietly reserved in her goals as a villain should be. Not menacing. Not scary. Just an out and out evil 60's Bond villain archetype (without the charm of one). Pitiful.<br />
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- Beethoven. Hmmm, the first 50 or so pages were treating the composer like he’s a huge part of the plot. He is and he isn’t He’s forgotten for long sections and then the spotlight will spin back to him. It’s…scatterbrained. <br />
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- History is a second class citizen in this book. The author’s spent some time on Wikipedia for names, dates, and small portions of text about historical events…but it is largely un-researched and is then spouted by characters who A. Don’t seem to care much, and B. Don’t really know what the hell they are talking about. <br />
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- Prague. From what I hear it’s a beautiful city, but you wouldn’t know it form this book. It’s all about dropping names of places, and nothing really about description. You NEVER feel like you’re in Prague. You could be in any number of old world cities from the lack of description. Hell, even the castle where the majority of events take place is never really described in any detail. <br />
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- Old Toenails are chewed to induce time travel of a sort. No, seriously. I don’t even…*shakes head* <br />
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The book I kept comparing this one to in my head was Elizabeth Kostova’s THE HISTORIAN. That book was amazingly well written, compelling from page one to the final page, with relevant, deeply explored characters, and a protagonist who you could get on board with. It treated history with the reverence required, the cities it moves through with thought and description, and most of all it stays with its own main mystery throughout, barely wavering from the goal and sees it through to a satisfying resolution. <br />
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CITY OF DARK MAGIC on the other hand is scattered, ill-researched, jumps around like a drug-addled monkey, with an unlikable protagonist who doesn’t even ring true to her own supposed character, who likes bouts of stress relief sex for little to no reason. The further I read, the worse it all got. Terrible book in my opinion. You might like it, but it was most definitely NOT for me.<br />
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Lastly, please note: The use of my biggest pet peeve written on book covers by Publishers. "A Novel" under the title. Yes, because clearly it needs to be written there... otherwise people would think they were purchasing an 8-track player or a fire engine? Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8344853420220777382.post-18963986928307944292013-01-02T12:02:00.001-08:002013-01-02T12:02:36.521-08:00Update: Long DelayHey All,<br />
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Yes we are still here.<br />
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Chris has had about a month or more of familial obligations to deal with. I myself have been spending most of November & December with major familial illness (my mum was in Hospital a number of times) and Holiday obligations, and then on Christmas Day I was taken down hard by a cold (given around to us all by a niece in the family), as were those around me. I'm still not wholly better, but I am back at work and trying to catch up with holiday delays and sick delays there.<br />
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So the posts exist...but they exist in only our heads for the time being.<br />
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Just on schedule. Last week we MEANT to get the 3rd Annual Iceberg Ink Awards out for our Best Of...but both Chris and I didn't get the time or energy. We are looking at doing it soon. I'm slowly cobbling mine together. So that will likely be the first new post you see here over the next few days. Beyond that I have not one but TWO Anime Wednesday posts ready to go, and a review of LES MISERABLES. You MAY get a review of the Christmas DOCTOR WHO Ep...but I also might just keep the enjoyment of that for myself. Selfish, I know.<br />
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Currently Reading: CITY OF DARK MAGIC - Magnus Flyte<br />
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On Deck: A MEMORY OF LIGHT - Jordan & Sanderson<br />
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Stay Tuned.<br />
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8344853420220777382.post-90034187893429949582012-12-05T10:40:00.001-08:002012-12-05T10:48:04.394-08:00First Look: ENDER'S GAMEI can't tell anymore if ENDER'S GAME is actually a good story or if my warm and fuzzy feelings for it are simply a result of childhood nostalgia overpowering critical thinking.<br />
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Orson Scott Card's stances on many contemporary social issues have ruined his writing for me. I read EMPIRE and HIDDEN EMPIRE over the summer and found the quality to be strictly middle of the road but littered with political and social perspective that seemed to be transparent strawmen (or strawwomen) for the author's personal belief system. <br />
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Soapboxing aside, the idea that we were this much closer to an ENDER'S GAME movie gives me a bit of a thrill. I can't wait to see the Battle Room scenes in action. <br />
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I'm going to hide behind my default position and say I'm cautiously optimistic. <br />
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Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10779195119344405605noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8344853420220777382.post-40729251881453181362012-12-05T07:55:00.002-08:002012-12-05T08:11:29.722-08:00Doctor Who: Big Finish Audio Adventures - 1.1 & 1.2 Blood Of The Daleks<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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After finishing and thoroughly enjoying my first Big Finish DOCTOR WHO Audio Drama (the 8th Doctor’s latest series, DARK EYES), I decided to go back to the beginning of the 8th Doctor’s main line of episodes (can I call them episodes?). <br />
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And I got to meet the indomitable Lucie Miller (Sheridan Smith)! <br />
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BLOOD OF THE DALEKS is a two-part story set around 2006 (Lucie’s earth-based time) and produced by Big Finish at the end that year, and stars the amazing Sheridan Smith as the 8th Doctor’s latest companion. It’s technically considered the first two episodes of a series (1.1 and 1.2 respectively) which runs 8 episodes. <br />
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I just want to get something out of the way first. I actually can’t truly describe the joy I get from listening to these Audio Drama’s; they are an absolute treat, and I hold myself back from listening to each episode in a row so I can savour them. <br />
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So this story begins much the same way that the 10th Doctor’s Series 2 Christmas Special (THE RUNAWAY BRIDE) did, with a random human woman appearing in the TARDIS, defying all logic and TARDIS defenses. The difference here being that it’s not some nefarious ploy by an alien race which causes it, (wait, maybe it is!) but this time the Time Lord High Council have put Lucie Miller in the Doctor’s TARDIS as a sort of Witness Protection Program to a mysterious event she witnessed that was otherworldly, and locked her there. The Doctor is taken totally by surprise by her and decides to immediately take her home (2006 Northern England)…but the Time Lords have thought of that and the two end up shunted onto a world called Red Rocket Rising. The planet has recently been struck by an asteroid and is experiencing a sort of nuclear winter, REAL acid rain is falling and the people who remain on the planet are furiously attempting to get off but being stymied by a lack of governmental coordination. Said government, in the form of a woman named Eileen Klint, have sent out a distress call and had it answered by a race of beings who have promised rescue. There is only one problem…those rescuers are a fleet of Daleks. Further interesting is that a local, recently deceased, scientist has created his own versions of Daleks and his apprentice has taken up his work at trying to make them the new form of dominant life on the planet. <br />
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It’s a really interesting tale all told, and explores things like the Dalek’s TOTAL ethnocentric personality. They view these new Daleks (created with the remnants of the people of Red Rocket rising) as abominations, impurities of the Dalek pure bloodline. In that vein, the Doctor has to switch sides a few times to defeat both the real Daleks and the new Daleks, but for him they are both enemies. Again it’s interesting to see a pre-Time War Doctor tackle the Daleks. He’s not QUITE the 9th Doctor level of hatred for them…but you can see it building here. As far as the Daleks go, they are still in “conquest” mode as opposed to their later “destroy the universe” mode, so I’m curious to see when that transition happens, and maybe even why. <br />
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Paul McGann and Sheridan Smith are absolutely on game here. While their relationship begins rather rocky, with each one spitting barbs at the other due to a mutual mistrust (brought on by the Time Lords secrecy to both of them), by the end you CAN see the hinting of the relationship to come, the friendship. Perhaps that’s why they work so well together, she’s full of fire and vigor, and he’s full of energy and drive. I mean you really come away thinking there’s nothing they CAN’T accomplish. I love this Doctor/ Companion relationship…it’s just so easy to get on side with them. The peripheral actors are no slouches either, Anita Dobson (as Eileen Klint), Kenneth Cranham (as Tom Cardwell), and especially Haley Atwell (as the scientists’ apprentice Asha) all do a wonderful job at filling out the cast. <br />
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As a DOCTOR WHO story goes, this one is easily right up there with anything on the TV series. Classic villain, Doctor and Companion in a really complex situation that neither fully understands, and a whole world and its people at stake. What’s not to like? This is how I like My DW. The production is stellar as per usual, creaking doors, pulsing rain, space ships, TARDIS beeps and whistles, and (my personal favourite) the TARDIS in the middle of a road crashed into by a car and not getting a scratch! That was a great moment on an "audio" level for me. Fun stuff!<br />
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I find it endlessly impressive that Audio Drama's can really bring these stories to life to this degree. I mean they must have it tough getting across what's happening, script, sound effects, acting...all has to happen without the visual. Well, not only do they pull it off, but they pull it off splendidly in a way that makes me proud to display the discs next to my TV Series DVD's and BluRays.<br />
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I love this series and as soon as the Christmas Gift Buying season is over, I will be buying and reviewing a bunch more. So please stay tuned, and I hope you are enjoying these reviews for the Big Finish Audio Drama’s <br />
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<b>Note:</b> I have the first part of the Series finale (THE HUMAN RESOURCES) already and listened to it (couldn’t help myself!), and I also have an episode from the 2nd Series (DEAD LONDON, ordered VIA Amazon with some Xmas gift orders…again couldn’t help myself), which I’ve not listened to yet… <br />
<b><br /></b><i><b>Trivia: When is a form of genre media an addiction?</b> </i>When you listen to the same Audio’s more than once and revel in the special feature interviews…yeah…that’s what this is like. Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8344853420220777382.post-63806302949504424162012-12-03T12:43:00.001-08:002012-12-03T12:43:30.166-08:00MAN OF STEEL: New PosterShamelessly spotted at <a href="http://www.bleedingcool.com/2012/12/03/new-poster-for-man-of-steel-sees-superman-in-chains/">Bleeding </a>Cool and transported here. I love it. A nice hint of things to come and a completely different take on Superman in the movies than we've seen heretofore. <br />
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I do believe this has whetted my appetite. Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10779195119344405605noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8344853420220777382.post-17718900320517245462012-11-24T19:24:00.000-08:002012-11-24T19:24:18.612-08:00Doctor Who: Big Finish Audio Adventures - DARK EYES<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-vTwIxEp5-0w/ULGOa9U8CSI/AAAAAAAABes/U0ADt4zJhu8/s1600/Dark+Eyes.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="568" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-vTwIxEp5-0w/ULGOa9U8CSI/AAAAAAAABes/U0ADt4zJhu8/s640/Dark+Eyes.jpg" width="640" /></a><br />
<b>Let's begin with a small bit of history on my experience:</b><br />
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My DOCTOR WHO fandom stretches WAY back to being probably about 5 years old and having PBS on while my mum made dinner and watching the 4th Doctor battle Daleks or the Master. That familiar time vortex visual, the blue box, the spooky theme music, the scarf, the jelly babies. It always takes me back to that time. The DW-related phrase “watched hiding behind the sofa” definitely applied to the 5-year old me. That fandom never ended and though my knowledge and viewings of Classic Who are rusty at best, I watched it till it went off the air in the late 80’s. At the time there was no internet and all I could be was a little baffled that my show was off the air. <br /><br />In 1996, at the age of 19, the BBC and FOX (of all networks) I saw that they were going to air a new TV movie. I still recall being over the moon excited. Here was this icon, one a lot of my friends here in Canada didn’t have the foggiest clue about at the time, coming back to TV for one night only. I was not only home to watch the event, but I think I may have had it on tape for a while. In retrospect, it’s has a LOT wrong with it: The Master being on trial on Skaro (the Dalek homeworld), the Daleks (the Time Lord’s mortal enemies) apparently trying a human (something they’d never do, you know... as a conquering genocidal race) and then allowing him to leave in chains escorted home to Gallifrey for death by none other than their very worst enemy The Doctor. Yeah, add to that the nutty, overacting of Eric Roberts (overacting a character who is KNOWN to be over-the-top and overdoing THAT) and you have the makings of a canon-istic DOCTOR WHO nightmare that is still argued over by fans to this day. <br /><br />What they don’t seem to argue over is the canon of the 8th Doctor. Portrayed in that 1996 film (the 8th Doctor’s only TV appearance...so far) by the wonderful, adept Paul McGann. He has always been undoubtedly the 8th Doctor. It doesn’t really matter that the 1996 film itself is argued over...HE is canon. <br /><br />He is canon not just because his performance was so good in that film (though it certainly was), but also due to the existence of the company known as BIG FINISH, and the fact that they set out (probably around the same time as the 2005 re-launch of the TV show and the 9th Doctor’s adventures were getting underway) to continue the adventures of DOCTOR WHO. In 2006 they broadcast the first of the 8th Doctor’s Full Cast Audio Adventures...and the series has been a hit ever since. Now I say all this in hindsight, since I’ve only as of (...*checks watch*...) just last week discovered BIG FINISH and the Doctor’s Audio Adventures (which also include adventures with the 4th, 5th, 6th, and 7th Doctor’s) for the first time. My route there was a little superficial I admit. I’ve been excited since it was announced about the 8th Doctor’s new outfit (which he had designed, the sonic even was done by WETA) about the prospect of McGann appearing in the 50th Anniversary, as I loved him in the 1996 movie. My favourite thing about the 8th Doctor is the fact that technically, historically he would have been the Time War Doctor, and the new outfit (a shorter haircut, a leather Naval Pea coat, a shoulder bag and a brand new Sonic Screwdriver) just suits that. So it was in my frequent DW Google Image searches I came across the image you see at the top of the post for the latest 8th Doctor Audio Adventure from BIG FINISH (DARK EYES) and was blown away. Wow, does he look great! So it was that I decided that the DARK EYES boxed set (4 episodes and a 5th hour of bonus behind the scenes features) would be my first DOCTOR WHO Audio Adventure. <br /><br />I listened over the course of two days on my way to and from work. And when I finished listening, I put it on one more time to give it an immediate second listen. Yes, this means it was THAT good. I was in fact, so impressed after hour one, that I tweeted about it to fellow DW fans who may not have heard about it, I shouted about it to local friends and scared people at work, and I immediately began considering purchasing more. Imagine what it is like to be a fan of something and assume you’d seen or read the majority of things to do with that subject, that there was simply little more to consume and it was a wait for each new episode of the TV series...only to discover that there were YEARS worth of the series, simply in another media format. It was like Christmas and my Birthday occurred at once. That’s probably going to sound a tad obsessive....but have you MET me? I like to frighten my cat with my remote control Dalek. I own 3 sonic screwdrivers and umpteen gajillion t-shirts. I’m a DW nerd, through and through. This is what I do! <br />
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<br /><b>DARK EYES </b><br />I realize that my first 8th Doctor Adventure should probably not be one that’s the most recent, and especially tailing on apparently big events (TO THE DEATH), but I’m rectifying that now. After I finished DARK EYES, I bought 3 more 8th Doctor Adventures from BIG FINISH beginning at the beginning, so don’t scold me too much. DARK EYES caught my eye, so it was the one I purchased. From the very beginning, McGann makes himself the center of the story. He’s just such a commanding presence. Always has been. Even on BBC’s LUTHER I can’t take my eyes off him, he’s simply wonderful. If there is an actor who belongs next to the likes of the other men who have played the roll, it’s him. I’m convinced i could listen o him talk for hours (he narrates a few Bernard Cornwell Sharpe Books I have). In DARK EYES, the Doctor is still reeling from some pretty heady, disturbing loss and is out to search for some “hope”. He’s despondent, scatterbrained and broken. From the very first scene before the theme plays you can feel that this man is in a bad place. Enter another Time Lord (Straxus), as the Doctor attempts to go to the end of the universe to look back upon it and see how it turned out, the other Time Lord stops him telling him it’s forbidden by those that make the rules (his fellow Time Lords and the High Council of Gallifrey), but offers him hope in another way and sends him on a mission instead. <br /><br />Said mission takes him to the First World War and to find the woman known as Molly O’Sullivan, though you don’t find the specifics of the mission till the second episode, it’s clears from the outset that she’s important. I don’t want to go too much into the content of the 4 episodes that comprise DARK EYES, but sufficed to say that they include the Daleks and the Time Lords in equal measure, and the story is a rip-roaring, time jumping adventure you won’t soon forget. It’s literally brilliant. Writer (and voice fo the Daleks) Nicholas Briggs has done a wonderful job of crafting a tale that is at once VERY DOCTOR WHO and at the same time emotionally resonant and compellingly interesting. I adore the tone of the story. This is the 8th Doctor and this is presumably one of the events that starts the slow and agonizing road to the eventual Last Great Time War. It’s a disassembly of this man. The 9th and 10th Doctor are absolutely, guttingly broken by the events of the Time War, the (as I’ve frequently mentioned) PTSD Time Lord. Well, at some point Eight needs to be broken. We know those events will happen slowly over time and that the Time War will be the last few straws that do it. It’s really nice to see attention to that detail happening in DARK EYES. He’s already damaged as the Time Lords continue to show their disregard for life and their machinations here are just one more example to him of how that corrupt power will feed the eventual conflict. You can see how Rassilon will eventually become the desperate man we see in the 2009 special THE END OF TIME. Eight is not fracturing yet, but the strain is beginning to show and I LOVED that aspect here. There is also plenty for Classic fans to sink their teeth into with this story arc. There are nods to previous companions (Lucy foremost amongst them obviously), and events that have occurred. When the Doctor speaks of the Daleks (for example) he says how they were created by a madman for one propose and one purpose only, and later on mentions the Kaleds. It was a small moment that for any Classic Who fan brings to mind the 4th Doctor and the GENESIS OF THE DALEKS. There’s plenty of running (which I always love) and oodles of time jumping. <br /><br />The acting is wonderful across the board. Everyone brings their A game and I swear to you that if I didn’t know better and I closed my eyes I could have been just been watching episode on TV with the visual. And I suppose that’ the point isn’t it? Well, Briggs and Co. have totally pulled it off. Paul McGann and Ruth Bradley especially make this just a great outing all together. I relished every moment I got to spend with the Doctor and Molly (not to mention Straxus, the Dalek Time Controller and even the villainous Kotris). On par with any of the episodes of the Re-launched TV series, BIG FINISH Audio Adventures are an absolute joy for the casual fan and a dream come true for the die-hard fans. DARK EYES was a wonderful experience and obviously it was one that caused me to begin buying the other Audio Adventures. You don’t have to start this far into the series and it’s probably a good idea to go back and start at the beginning of Eight’s Adventures...BUT, if you are at all on the fence about the ideas of the format, then give DARK EYES a go. <br /><br />The Audio’s are assembled and edited with such a splendid eye as to be seamless from track to track. The music is lovely, bombastic when it needs to be and emotional when it needs to be, and is again seamlessly integrated with the special effects and the dialogue. It’s worth noting that the post production is damn near flawless as I never felt that I was listening to something with “tracks” and always felt like the whole hour was one large chuck with no dividers. These people know what they are doing and this speaks highly of the post-production team involved who do just a stellar job! <br /><br />As for myself, like I mentioned earlier I’ve gone back to the beginning of Eight’s Adventures now. I’ll be listening to the two-part BLOOD OF THE DALEKS this coming week and will be reviewing that as well when done. So stay tuned for that! <br /><br />And if you’ve not discovered them yet, please go to the <a href="http://www.bigfinish.com/hubs/v/doctor-who">BIG FINISH</a> website and have a gander at the DW Audio’s they offer. There’s an entire library of them and any DOCTOR WHO fan would think they’d died and gone to Valhalla. They are reasonably priced, offered in CD or Download format (Collector Note: buy the CD and you get the Download as well) and buy purchasing them you will be assuring that they will continue bringing us the Doctor’s Adventures in this format and keeping us entertained. <br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8344853420220777382.post-44664695871274595172012-11-23T07:06:00.000-08:002012-11-23T07:14:25.885-08:00Book Review: Cold Days - Jim Butcher<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<i>After being murdered by a mystery assailant, navigating his way through the realm between life and death, and being brought back to the mortal world, Harry realizes that maybe death wasn’t all that bad. Because he is no longer Harry Dresden, Chicago’s only professional wizard.</i><br />
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<i>He is now Harry Dresden, Winter Knight to Mab, the Queen of Air and Darkness. After Harry had no choice but to swear his fealty, Mab wasn’t about to let something as petty as death steal away the prize she had sought for so long. And now, her word is his command, no matter what she wants him to do, no matter where she wants him to go, and no matter who she wants him to kill. </i><br />
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<i>Guess which Mab wants first?</i><br />
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<i>Of course, it won’t be an ordinary, everyday assassination. Mab wants her newest minion to pull off the impossible: kill an immortal. No problem there, right? And to make matters worse, there exists a growing threat to an unfathomable source of magic that could land Harry in the sort of trouble that will make death look like a holiday. </i><br />
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<i>Beset by enemies new and old, Harry must gather his friends and allies, prevent the annihilation of countless innocents, and find a way out of his eternal subservience before his newfound powers claim the only thing he has left to call his own…</i><br />
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<i>His soul.</i></div>
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Only once before during my obsession with Jim Butcher’s DRESDEN FILES have I found one of the books on the shelves early (CHANGES), I proceeded to lose my shit for a moment in the bookstore, squeeing like a Twilight fan, came to my senses, collected myself and walked calmly and confidently up to the counter hoping against hope that they didn’t realize their mistake in putting it out early. They did not and I escaped with my purchase in hand and scampered down the street to get home and crack it open. Well, make that twice now. The latest (14th) DRESDEN FILE titled COLD DAYS, was out over a week early at my local bookstore. I stumbled across it almost by accident…and then repeated the above procedure amplified by ten. <br />
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COLD DAYS follows on a book where Harry Dresden has spent a while in a sort of dead not-dead ghostlike state. In such a situation it means that the majority of his friends (even though he saw THEM in GS, they did not see him) have not seen him since he was shot and presumably killed at the end of CHANGES. It turns out they went to his funeral and have spent months mourning their wizardly friend. For his part, after being saved by the sentient, genius loci island Harry calls Demonreach combined with the machinations of Mab (Queen of the winter Fae), he has survived his ordeal and been nursed back to health and in return has taken up the empty Winter Knight mantle (last occupied by the evil Lloyd Slate, who Dresden killed in a previous book) and now works for Mab. So the book starts in the Nevernever and more specifically in the Winter Palace called Arctis Tor. It is there that he spends months training to be Mab’s Winter Knight in which she tries in every elaborate way to kill him to hone his skills…he hopes. <br />
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That’s enough plot for you, you plot-mongers. I refuse to take away from you what will inevitably be one of your favourite reads in the entire series (after finishing it I easily placed it at #4 in my rankings, behind PROVEN GUILTY, DEAD BEAT, and CHANGES) so stop looking. No more spoilers, not even minute ones. <br />
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What I’d like to tell you about COLD DAYS is that it’s a nice nod to the beginnings of the series. Even though Harry has long ago stopped doing regular P.I. work, this book contains a plot that includes a numbers of villains and thugs, a tight timeline or things go boom, and even a kidnapping or two. It’s a kind of classic look back at Dresden through the eyes of who he has become 14 years on. The long established cast of secondary characters are once again featured (almost in full, though no Marcone in this one sadly), and there are a few new faces to see as well. <br />
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If I had to call this book a spiritual successor to one of the previous volumes, it would definitely be SUMMER KNIGHT. There are events in this book that directly reference the events in that book. Especially the ending of SUMMER KNIGHT, so prepare yourselves for a crash course in your own memory, not that Butcher doesn’t fill the gaps though. <br />
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It’s funny, as much as a book like CHANGES was a game changer in the series, I feel that there are one or two events in this book that would stand a hundred feet taller over the game-changing events in CHANGES, look down upon those events and laugh heartily while showing us all what a REAL game-changer looks like. Yeah. It’s THAT staggering. It’s also executed so cleanly on Butcher’s part that I didn’t see it coming for one moment before it happened. When it happened I sat there gobsmacked, gooseflesh and all. Basically what this means for the series is that there are a couple of chapters in this book that will be known as defining moment in the storyline and have ramifications for the long arc. <br />
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Harry’s relationships are further tested with even things as simple as everyone having thought him dead, and where he’s been in the months he COULD have called from Arctis Tor and didn’t, are shown in a realistic and human light. It’s really interesting to see how each of his friends reacts to that differently. There is also a broadening of older characters. Mac (of Macanally’s Pub) for instance get’s some cryptic, but ultimately interesting growth here that makes you realize he’s not just a guy who runs a pub. It’s also interesting to note that the events of CHANGES and at Chichen Itza have taken enough toll to still be affecting people, like Molly. The gravity of that weighs heavily on Dresden, but he’s also learning his lesson about not letting people in to try to keep them safe. Especially with people like Molly and Murphy he’s come to the conclusion (about time Dresden!) that keeping them out of the loop to keep them safe is not really the most ideal plan. <br />
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The pace, I don’t think I need to tell you, is a rocket-shaped madness that will grip you by your unmentionables and pull you along until done. No seriously. I read it in less than 2 days. 515 pages of pure, unadulterated Dresdencrack injected directly into your thinkymeatz. If you are a fan I don’t need to explain that to you. If you’re not a fan or haven’t read the books, what the hell are you doing reading a review of the 14th book? <br />
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This book is simply stellar. How Butcher can continue to surprise and amaze me fourteen books in is a feat I’ll never understand but he does it. Every. Damned. Time. <br />
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And now, I only have to wait a year for the next one. Sigh. Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8344853420220777382.post-47038459696698870972012-11-20T10:56:00.000-08:002012-11-20T10:57:52.064-08:00Doctor Who Crackpot Theories: 50th Anniversary story theory and which Doctor's could come back!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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</span></span>I honestly don’t know how Steven Moffat (and RTD before him) and Co. and the BBC keep ANYTHING secret before it airs. Seriously. With fans as ravenous for information as us, I’m quite surprised they keep the scripts under wraps for as long as they do. I think the best they’ve done so far in Moffat’s time was keep Jenna-Louise Coleman’s pre-Christmas special debut in ASYLUM OF THE DALEKS under wraps and that probably only succeeded because the whole thing was shot on a soundstage and people probably assumed she was shooting the Christmas Special. In his book about S4 and the Specials, A WRITER’S TALE, RTD’s emails continuously point out how insanely surprised he is that both Martha and Donna’s casting were outed as companions by the ravenous DW-rumor grapevine even before their predecessors were done their series. In the world of a show with this hardcore a fanbase (and one that is constantly growing), I imagine keeping things secret is a full time job that never really works. It must be daunting. <br /> <br /> That said, this week it became even harder to keep things under wraps. I know what you are thinking, and yes this IS a Crackpot Theories post, and yes I WILL get to the theory in a moment, but first I’d like to round up some of the Speculations, interweb buzzing and general comments about the forthcoming 50th Anniversary of our show. <br /> <br /> First up, David Tennant. I think it goes without saying that the majority of DW fandom WANTS, no NEEDS to see Tennant return (whether that is as Ten himself, or even the human/time lord Ten Clone that lives with Rose on Pete’s World) to the role. It’s kind of a no-brainer. Well Tennant himself has been asked multiple times and up till a few weeks ago he gave the equivalent of non-committal hand waves “If they asked me…” ect.. And this was on top of the rumour that Steven Moffat had lunch with Tennant in the late summer and dinner with Peter Davison (5th Doctor) as well. Well Tennant is now making the media rounds for his part in NATIVITY 2 and he’s been asked two more times about the 50th, but his answers have gotten a lot more interesting: <br /> <br /> First one, when asked if he’d be part of the celebrations for the 50th Anniversary he coyly replies “I don’t think there is going to be any celebrations are there?” and smiles. This is classic evasion and I love it. <span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
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</span></span>The second one (starts at 49 seconds) is more telling. When asked he briefly says “Welll…” as if to answer the question and then catches himself and says “Oh, I nearly said something I shouldn’t have.” And then goes on to give similar stock answers he has been giving up to this point. <br />
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</span></span><br /><br />Last on the Ten front is that late yesterday Bleeding Cool reported that they had a very “solid” source telling them that: <br />
<i><br /> Yes. David Tennant will be back in time for the Doctor Who anniversary. Be prepared to be surprised… </i><br /><br /> <br /> Is it wrong that I focus on the words “in time” implying that he might even be back BEFORE the 50th. This would fit with other reports that the Anniversary will be marked by not just one episode but two or more. It would actually make decent sense to me for the 50th to be celebrated as a set of 4 or 5 eps in the fall of 2013, and that would fit with Moffat’s schedule change for the shows 7th series. On top of that the dinner with Davison is telling, making me think that he’s looking to include 5 in the specials as well. I think it was a few months back when Paul McGann (8th Doctor) was asked and gave the stock non-commital “If they asked me…” answer, but that has changed more recently to a more explained answer about not yet being asked and that speaks more of evasion to me. Lastly, Matt Smith actually told someone in an interview that “it would be great to see Tennant and Eccelstone back for the 50th” and something tells me that’s not just Matt Smith giving fanboy’s hope, it seems like he’d be in the know. <br /><br /><br /> Now, prepare thyselves: <br /> <br /> CRACKPOT THEORY time! <br /> <br /> So. Let’s assume they want multiple Doctor’s for the 50th. Let’s take that as a given. Well, they’d need villain wouldn’t they? It can’t be the Daleks, or the Cybermen, or the Silence….too easy and overdone right? So what? <br /> <br /> <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omega_%28Doctor_Who%29">Omega</a> <br /> <br /> For those who don’t know about Omega, click the link and edumacate yourself. <br /> <br /> Now, we have known since the S5 episode THE BIG BANG that the TARDIS explodes at some point in the future. It created the cracks and the Silence at least had SOMETHING to do with that. We know that this was avoided with the help of River Song. What we don’t know is who or what caused it to explode and why. Okay, so stay with me here. In THE END OF TIME, Ten stopped Rassilon and the other Time Lords from using The Master as a link to reality and coming back, essentially unlocking the Time War and all that came with it. Basically unleashing hell. Well, there was once a person who was even more powerful than Rassilon and was (for a time) considered a hero amongst their lore. Omega was the man who set Rassilon on the path to harnessing a dying star to create the power source for the TARDIS and essentially allowing Time Travel. Omega disappeared in the attempt and Rassilon went on to found the Time Lords. When Omega returned (from a parallel anti-matter universe) he was upset and thought he’d been abandoned, and tried twice to destroy the universe (in THE THREE DOCTORS, and ARC OF INFINITY). What if Omega survived the events that the Time Lords thought were his final demise. Remember that the "omega symbol" seems to be the avatar of the Clerics and Headless Monks (there were Greek omega symbols all over Demon's Run) in Series 6. What if he tried to unlock the Time War using his not inconsiderable powers and the resulting reality clash causes time and space to splinter. This splintering could cause the only Time Lord to have escaped unscathed to break into his previous incarnations as pieces. So 11 incarnations of the Doctor could exist at once, but the 11 TARDISES existing together was too much for the universe to handle and THIS is what causes the explosion. The power of 11 supernova stars but all are still the same star….paradox of universe destroying proportions. So 11 versions of the doctor have to work separately to restore time and space to it’s unsplintered existence while fighting Omega and trying to stop him. This would allow for the older actors who are still alive to account for their aging and the like (AKA in these timelines they never died or regenerated just kept on living their lives), and would account for the Doctor crossing his own timeline not causing a paradox.<br /> <br /> In my head I can see the 50th being a really BIG event, and I just think that Omega fits the bill. You could also allow The Master to come back, and you could show bits of the Time War. You could have Smith, Tennant, Eccelstone and maybe even McGann on screen together quipping with one another…which I don’t need to explain would be GOLD! <br />
<br />Whatever happens, I cannot wait! Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8344853420220777382.post-53439558432291291322012-11-19T19:17:00.002-08:002012-11-19T19:18:35.407-08:00Podcast: The Giggle Loop #11 - Daleks, Walkers, & MusicalsIt's been a while, but here is the long awaited 11th episode of The Giggle Loop where we discuss everything you are interested in. EVERYTHING. don't miss out another second, just click play or download the MP3 for your iPod machine listening earhole pleasures.<br />
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Download <a href="http://ia701204.us.archive.org/20/items/TheGiggleLoop11/TheGiggleloop11.mp3">MP3 HERE</a><br />
Running Time: More than an hour. But it's like more beer, more beer is good.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3