Latest / A Hamster With a Blunt Penknife - a Doctor Who Commentary podcast / Hamster Book Club - Eaters of Wasps by Trevor Baxendale (featuring David Gillespie-Pratt, Dan Pinn & Gareth Bowley)

Transcript

Hamster Book Club - Eaters of Wasps by Trevor Baxendale (featuring David Gillespie-Pratt, Dan Pinn & Gareth Bowley) · A Hamster With a Blunt Penknife - a Doctor Who Commentary podcast

• 0:01
  Hilary Pink's body lay on one of the examination tables under a
• 0:05
  shroud. Gleve caught a glimpse of the
• 0:08
  man's feet poking out from beneath it before the doctor
• 0:11
  swept the shroud away to reveal the corpse in full.
• 0:15
  He was recognizable, but only just.
• 0:18
  His skin was sallow and waxy, his face strangely gaunt where
• 0:23
  gravity had already begun its remorseless pull on the lifeless
• 0:26
  flesh. The eyes were sunken into stiff
• 0:29
  little folds of yellow skin. His Raven black hair looked
• 0:33
  brittle and stark against the white scalp.
• 0:37
  The doctor proceeded to examine Pink's face very closely, his
• 0:41
  nose almost touching that of the corpse.
• 0:44
  There was some scarring visible around the unshaven jowls, the
• 0:48
  lips in particular seeming puffy and purplish.
• 0:51
  Wasp stings, presumably, Commented Professor Jacobs,
• 0:55
  virtually relegated to peering over the doctor's shoulder.
• 0:59
  Yes. Notice how they're concentrated
• 1:01
  around the mouth and nose. What does that tell you?
• 1:04
  Well, based on the Wasps I found in the other dead man's mouth,
• 1:08
  I'd say they were trying to get inside exactly what said the
• 1:12
  doctor. Question is, how far did they
• 1:16
  get? He tucked his fingers into
• 1:19
  Pink's mouth and slowly priced the jaw open.
• 1:22
  Glee felt his guts tightening. He found the doctor's clinical
• 1:26
  detachment rather disconcerting. He couldn't detect even a shred
• 1:30
  of sympathy. He watched, faintly nauseated,
• 1:34
  as Hilary Pink's teeth became visible, the gums whitish blue,
• 1:38
  the tongue black and swollen. Yes, murmured the doctor,
• 1:43
  peering into the orifice. Plenty of Wasps still in here,
• 1:47
  all dead by the look of them, Probably crushed during the
• 1:49
  death throes. Stethoscope.
• 1:52
  Would he be so kind? The doctor hooked it into his
• 1:55
  ears and held the instrument against Hilary Pink's chest.
• 1:59
  Professor Jacobs gave a snort of contempt.
• 2:03
  Chimney, what are you listening for?
• 2:04
  A heartbeat. The man's dead as a doornail.
• 2:09
  The doctor continued to listen, carefully moving the stethoscope
• 2:13
  down Pink's body towards the abdomen.
• 2:16
  We'll open him up here first, I think.
• 2:19
  Jacobs duly supplied the doctor with a fresh scalpel, muttering
• 2:22
  that this was almost unconventional.
• 2:25
  What do you expect to find? You might be surprised.
• 2:30
  He made the quick confidence incision of a practice surgeon.
• 2:33
  From just below pink sternum down to the navel, the skin
• 2:37
  parted stiffly, revealing a layer of white fat and purple
• 2:40
  muscle. Hilary Pink's intestines
• 2:43
  resembled nothing Gleeve had ever seen before.
• 2:47
  The gut was hideously swollen, a dull yellow colour, webbed with
• 2:51
  thick green veins. Now, that stated, the doctor, is
• 2:58
  not how it should be. Completely abnormal, agreed
• 3:02
  Jacobs. Some kind of freak perhaps?
• 3:06
  No, no, no, at least not until this morning.
• 3:09
  What we have here is evidence of incredibly rapid cellular
• 3:12
  redesign. I beg your pardon.
• 3:16
  The tissue has been deconstructed cell by cell and
• 3:19
  then rebuilt to a different pattern.
• 3:21
  Rubbish. Professor, the proof is here,
• 3:24
  right before your eyes. But what could do that?
• 3:28
  I think we'll find the culprits in here.
• 3:30
  Replied the doctor, lowering the scalpel again to make a further
• 3:34
  incision. The tawny flesh parted and a
• 3:37
  small jet of blood erupted, causing the doctor to flinch in
• 3:40
  surprise. The wound suddenly turned
• 3:43
  Crimson as more blood welled up into the cavity.
• 3:47
  That shouldn't be possible, said Jacobs.
• 3:50
  This man's been dead for over six hours.
• 3:54
  Small crawling shapes were floating to the surface.
• 3:57
  They quickly resolved into blood slicked insects.
• 4:00
  Shiny yellow and black bodies emerging from the gore Wasps.
• 4:06
  Said the doctor quickly. Professor, give me something to
• 4:09
  catch them in a jar, A container of some sort.
• 4:11
  Come on, man, there's more coming, noted the professor
• 4:15
  shakily. I had no idea the infestation
• 4:18
  was so large, said the doctor with some fascination.
• 4:22
  Oh Lord, breathed Jacobs. As the cadaver began to tremble.
• 4:27
  More Wasps were boiling up out of the wound.
• 4:30
  Hilary Pink's body was shaking uncontrollably now, legs and
• 4:34
  arms moving with stiff, urgent jerks as though it was about to
• 4:38
  leap off the table. Don't worry, said the doctor.
• 4:42
  It's just a reflex reaction. The Wasps must have been trying
• 4:45
  to rewire his central nervous system as well.
• 4:48
  Don't worry, we've got to do something.
• 4:51
  The doctor instantly seemed to snap out of his fascination.
• 4:55
  He grabbed a bottle of laboratory ethanol from the
• 4:57
  nearby bench and poured it liberally over Pink's exposed
• 5:00
  innards. The Wasps immediately began to
• 5:03
  stir quickly. Professor a match, Jacobs
• 5:07
  recoiled. You can't mean to.
• 5:10
  Have you a better idea here, Doctor, Said Gleve, offering his
• 5:15
  box of swan vesters. Do it.
• 5:18
  Grim faced. The doctor quickly struck one of
• 5:21
  the matches and dropped it into the mass of soaking Wasps.
• 5:25
  Blue and orange flames washed into existence as the ethanol
• 5:29
  ignited. The Wasps were swallowed up in
• 5:32
  the conflagration, curling up and blackening within seconds.
• 5:36
  Slowly, the angry buzz was replaced by the pop and crackle
• 5:40
  of roasting flesh. Hamster Book Club, The Doctor
• 5:55
  Who Novel Review Podcast with Joe Ford, David Gillespie Pratt,
• 6:01
  Dan Penn and Gareth Boli. Eater of Wasps by Trevor
• 6:15
  Baxendale. Hello and welcome back to the
• 6:26
  Hamster Book Club. I have been joined this evening
• 6:29
  by three very entertaining guests to look at the 2001
• 6:34
  Doctor Who novel The Eater of Wasps.
• 6:37
  So let's go. I'm going to go around the room
• 6:39
  and introduce everyone or Dan introduce themselves and how are
• 6:44
  we all doing? So Gareth, how are you doing?
• 6:47
  I'm very, very well. Thank you.
• 6:51
  And we also have Dan. Hello, David.
• 6:54
  Yeah, I'm, I'm really, really looking forward to discussing
• 6:57
  the book. So I'm quite excited.
• 7:00
  And the man who probably needs no introduction because this is
• 7:03
  his podcast and he's foolishly let me take over for this
• 7:06
  particular episode, it's Mr. Joe Ford.
• 7:09
  You've just promised that we're going to be very entertaining
• 7:12
  without hearing anything we've got to say yet.
• 7:15
  It's on you, all right? If we're really boring, well, I.
• 7:20
  Genuinely do not think that we could be boring as a group.
• 7:22
  We haven't been so far and we have and we've had to slog
• 7:25
  through Dalek generation and Time of Your life.
• 7:29
  That's right, we've been the negative Nellies of the book
• 7:32
  club. I think we may be turning it
• 7:33
  around a little bit tonight. Who will be all the buzz with
• 7:37
  this one? Oh.
• 7:39
  Well done. Oh I tried to be clever.
• 7:41
  I thought was there is there a proper scientific term for the
• 7:44
  study of Wasps? So I googled it just before we
• 7:46
  came on and said what is the proper term for the study of
• 7:49
  Wasps? To which Google AI came back and
• 7:51
  said wasp studies. Oh wow.
• 7:57
  I'm hoping to get something clever and something scientific.
• 8:00
  And it's like, yeah, WASP studies I.
• 8:02
  Mean we could. Make something up buzzology or
• 8:04
  something like. That you know.
• 8:06
  There'll be somebody will come along and say that it's this
• 8:08
  specific, specific scientific term.
• 8:10
  But you know, I thought wasp studies kind of weird.
• 8:15
  So we always like to open with an icebreaker and you know, we
• 8:19
  we know some of the questions that we have with these things
• 8:22
  can be kind of, you know, your experiences with Doctor Who or
• 8:25
  something deep and meaningful. But I was inspired by the cover
• 8:28
  of this book, which how to describe it.
• 8:32
  It is basically a mouse covered in Wasps and it is quite
• 8:37
  possibly one of the grimmest images.
• 8:40
  And that's before we even get into the book.
• 8:43
  So the icebreaker I dared to come up with with.
• 8:47
  Yes, you. I came up with this.
• 8:49
  Yes, let's be clear. What's the strangest or grossest
• 8:53
  thing you've had in your mouth? And I'm not coming to Joe first.
• 8:57
  I'm going to go to. Dan first for this one, yeah.
• 9:03
  I when, when you pop this one into our chat, I was like, oh
• 9:08
  man, I I think I'm going to be quite boring with this because.
• 9:12
  Be boring, it's a loud. Yeah, yeah, I'm.
• 9:14
  Not feeling that. Yeah, it's going to get, it's
• 9:17
  going to get saucy as it goes on.
• 9:19
  Yeah, yes. So, so I mean, I, I don't tend
• 9:23
  to put anything in my mouth that I don't like, so.
• 9:28
  How do you know if you like it though until you put it in your
• 9:30
  mouth? Well, I'm 46.
• 9:32
  I kind of know what I like now, you know what I mean?
• 9:35
  But yeah, yeah, yes. So it's, I'm kind of going back
• 9:39
  to my childhood and I can remember that my dad, he was a,
• 9:42
  he was a, he was a, you know, meat and veg kind of guy.
• 9:46
  And that's what we have most of the time.
• 9:48
  And, and, and I wasn't too fond of certain vegetables.
• 9:56
  And I was forced to to sit at the table until I'd finished
• 10:03
  every single morsel that was on my plate.
• 10:06
  And the vegetable that I hated the most was, was sprouts.
• 10:09
  I they are just, they're just rank.
• 10:11
  I, I don't understand why people want to eat these things.
• 10:15
  It's like, it's like a solid fart.
• 10:18
  That's what it tastes like. It's just gross.
• 10:21
  And I mean, like people go, Oh yeah.
• 10:24
  But but if you, you cook it with, with, you know, bacon and,
• 10:27
  and chestnuts and stuff like that, it's really, really nice.
• 10:29
  No it's not. The bacon and the chestnuts are
• 10:31
  nice, but the sprouts are still rank.
• 10:34
  So yeah, it's it's Brussels sprouts.
• 10:36
  Bloody hate them. Don't you tell me I'm.
• 10:38
  Going to lower the tone when he's putting solid farts in his
• 10:40
  mouth. I, I, I'm not sure whether or
• 10:44
  not we can go, you know, with the toad.
• 10:46
  Are we going to go higher or lower?
• 10:47
  Guarantee where? Where are we going to go?
• 10:50
  Oh well yeah, funnily enough I went down a similar Ave. with
• 10:55
  down when I first started thinking about this, but lettuce
• 10:58
  seemed to be far too boring. So the worst thing that I've
• 11:01
  ever had put in my mouth was what someone else put in my
• 11:04
  mouth. And was a needle from a dentist
• 11:09
  when I was when I was about age 11, they had to extract a
• 11:12
  healthy tooth from my mouth because I got adult teeth coming
• 11:16
  through and all my baby teeth had dropped out by that point.
• 11:18
  And the dentist wasn't a particularly nice dentist.
• 11:21
  I never had any dental work done.
• 11:23
  And it was one of the most horrific experiences in my life
• 11:26
  of just having this massive whacking needle.
• 11:28
  And he forcibly grabbed the head to put the needle in as well.
• 11:31
  So it was, yeah, thoroughly unpleasant, let's put it that
• 11:34
  way. Was he called Rigby?
• 11:37
  We do. Make sense if it was?
• 11:39
  Was the needle coming for his ass?
• 11:42
  I certainly felt the sting that day, I can tell.
• 11:46
  I've been there. I had a wisdom tooth taken out
• 11:48
  about 10 years ago and they numb you all up and the sensation of
• 11:52
  when they break it. Although you're numbed up, you
• 11:55
  can. Feel you kiss.
• 11:57
  The noise. The noise.
• 11:59
  Head that you hear the. Dentist is the only thing that
• 12:01
  scares me more than a wasp, you know?
• 12:03
  Oh God, I'm in like horror territory here today.
• 12:08
  Joe, what have you got for us? Well, I was going to say a
• 12:14
  beautiful caramel covered 6 foot two Colombian model because I
• 12:20
  mean, that was probably the nicest thing I've ever had in my
• 12:22
  mouth, but. I won't do that as a child.
• 12:26
  I did used to I'm being serious. I'm was a bit of an eccentric
• 12:31
  child. I did used to dip cough tissue,
• 12:34
  you know, like just tissue you get in a box in coffee and eat
• 12:37
  it. I'm.
• 12:38
  I'm used to say you've got to clog up your innards and I used
• 12:42
  to do it all the time. I don't know when it stopped.
• 12:45
  Maybe I should try again. Actually, I don't know.
• 12:46
  It didn't seem to do me any harm.
• 12:48
  But the weirdest thing I think I've ever put in my mouth and
• 12:51
  swallows is. I was desperate for some
• 12:56
  attention, all right, was a paradise from a board game and I
• 13:01
  was rushed straight to hospital and they had to try and get
• 13:05
  these dogs out of me somehow. And my stomach was pumped and Oh
• 13:10
  my God, yes, it was very unpleasant.
• 13:13
  So my answer is. A pair of dice.
• 13:17
  Did did they get them out or are they still there?
• 13:20
  Who knows? And what score did you get?
• 13:23
  Like a 66. Flying out, yeah, I'm still
• 13:28
  doing it with you guys here. At this point in my life, I
• 13:31
  think I've got a double 6 right? I'm not.
• 13:35
  I'm I can't beat those. The worst thing?
• 13:39
  So many years ago when I signed up to Slimming World, that's
• 13:44
  when they give out their recipe books and they do this big thing
• 13:48
  of like, these are wonderful, tasty recipes.
• 13:50
  They're brilliant. They'll help you lose weight.
• 13:52
  And friends of mine are joined up and they said, there's this
• 13:55
  thing in here called a Curry loaf.
• 13:56
  Oh, it's amazing. It's really, it's what it's, it
• 13:59
  was called a Curry loaf, which was made of sort of chickpeas
• 14:02
  and spices. And then you sort of baked it.
• 14:07
  And I, I thought I'd try that. And it was quite possibly just
• 14:11
  one of the worst things I've ever eaten because yes, I need
• 14:15
  to lose weight. Yes, I need to eat healthier,
• 14:17
  but I'm not going to eat this shit.
• 14:19
  It was just. I mean, if you was putting in
• 14:21
  right curried chickpeas, yeah, for your body.
• 14:25
  I mean, you must have lost some weight that way.
• 14:26
  You can't tell. Me now, I mean, the thing was
• 14:29
  slimming, but they come up with some bizarre recipes.
• 14:32
  The other one, although not bad, it was just bizarre.
• 14:35
  It was around like Easter time and it was like, it's the
• 14:38
  Slimming World doughnut, which was basically you get a
• 14:41
  wholemeal bread roll, you get a mini egg which you insert into
• 14:46
  it, you cover it with sweetener, you stick it in the oven for 5
• 14:49
  minutes. And, and, and the consultants,
• 14:52
  because they call themselves consultants, like it's like
• 14:54
  eating a doughnut. It's like, no, it's like eating
• 14:56
  a hot bloody roll with a mini egg inside.
• 14:57
  That. Is not a doughnut, no.
• 15:00
  It's not. Was she intolerable?
• 15:02
  Your consultant when I went to Weight Watchers that you know,
• 15:06
  that terrible parody they did on Little Britain, you know,
• 15:08
  that's, that's it was so accurate.
• 15:11
  The one I had wasn't too. She was very Essex and very
• 15:14
  London Essex. But you know, kind of you
• 15:18
  wouldn't mess with her because there was one point where they
• 15:20
  were doing the rounds in the group therapy and they were
• 15:22
  like, did you have a good week and or you know, not really.
• 15:25
  And she'd looked at me and said no, no, you're meant to be
• 15:27
  positive. Was that right?
• 15:30
  You know, you wouldn't mess. I think you know she'd hunt you
• 15:33
  down. Did you eat anything bad this
• 15:35
  week? No, she puts a gun to your head.
• 15:36
  Did you eat anything bad this week?
• 15:39
  I did. Just a chickpea loaf.
• 15:44
  Back to more sensible conversations.
• 15:46
  Let's talk Doctor Who and the Eater of Wasps by Trevor
• 15:50
  Baxendale. First question is basically,
• 15:54
  what did we make of this book? And Joe, I'll come to you first.
• 15:59
  This, I think I've told this story on quite a few podcasts
• 16:02
  now because this is a very important book to me.
• 16:05
  This was the Doctor Who book that got me back into reading.
• 16:11
  So this is like my Terence Sticks book.
• 16:12
  You know, people say when they're a kid and they read a
• 16:14
  target and it just encourages them to read because it was such
• 16:17
  an exciting story. I remember picking this up from,
• 16:21
  I think it was Otica's in Crawley and gobbling it up.
• 16:28
  I'm just wanting more of this. And so I started buying the 8th
• 16:33
  Doctor books every single month after this, Buying the back
• 16:36
  catalogue that I've missed out on.
• 16:38
  And I've read and I read. And when I've read every single
• 16:40
  Doctor Who book I could possibly get my hands on, I kept on
• 16:43
  reading. So thank you very much, Trevor
• 16:45
  Baxendale, because thanks to you, I'm reading out a voracious
• 16:49
  right now. And I am happy to say upon
• 16:53
  reread, I think this is a little gem.
• 16:58
  I don't think it's too showy. I don't think it's it's like
• 17:02
  trying to make huge waves. I just think it's a very well
• 17:06
  written horror book with some deft characterization in it and
• 17:12
  just a a pleasure to. Read Gareth, What do you think?
• 17:19
  I think if anyone's been following our adventures over
• 17:22
  the last few months that I've heard my top ten by now, in
• 17:26
  which Eater of Wasps was my number two book, I I think it's
• 17:30
  a fantastic, absolutely fantastic read.
• 17:34
  I read this about 20 years ago. I read it again middle of last
• 17:37
  year and I've had to try and slow myself down to read it for
• 17:41
  this because I find it such a pacey page Turner.
• 17:45
  I think it's absolutely fantastic and while there, there
• 17:49
  isn't a bad thing to say. But I would give this book to
• 17:51
  someone who's never seen or even read a doctor book before
• 17:54
  because there's not tied into any other continuity.
• 17:57
  You can just enjoy it at your own pace for exactly what it is.
• 18:01
  And I've got to say that it's not left me with any cravings or
• 18:06
  anything this time round, you know, So that's the main thing.
• 18:13
  This is where you know if if you need all your description.
• 18:16
  Gareth is eating a mint humbug, Which?
• 18:19
  I'm glad someone said it. Which the doctor in this book
• 18:22
  quite enjoys. That's two positives, Dan.
• 18:26
  Can you keep it positive? Yeah, I, I can.
• 18:29
  I, I've got a similar story to Joe's because I had this, I've
• 18:35
  had quite a, a checkered history with the, the EDA.
• 18:38
  So, you know, I, I, I got the 8th doctors when it, it, it
• 18:44
  first came out kind of thing. And I, I kind of went through
• 18:47
  them and didn't enjoy them as much as, as, as the, the new
• 18:52
  adventures. And and I, I bailed out probably
• 18:57
  around the time that the John Peel dialect books came out
• 18:59
  because they are dreadful. Sensible.
• 19:03
  And then I was on holiday in, in North Devon, gone back home for
• 19:10
  a bit and I'd, I'd read the books that I decided to take
• 19:16
  with me on holiday. So, so I was kind of looking for
• 19:19
  another, a book to, to kind of read to, to, to, you know, and I
• 19:26
  just so happened to go in like there's a comic book shop in
• 19:30
  Barnstable and basically in there, they had brand new EDA
• 19:38
  there. There are about 3 or 4 of them.
• 19:40
  And obviously the, the cover of it kind of caught my eye and
• 19:44
  thought, oh, that looks, that looks, that looks good.
• 19:47
  So yes, so I picked, picked this up.
• 19:49
  So it was, it was purely by chance.
• 19:51
  I mean, I could have, I could have got something else and it
• 19:54
  may have, may have killed, killed the EDA totally for me.
• 19:58
  But I read this, I loved it. And then since, and this, this
• 20:02
  was about five years ago, and since then I've, I've
• 20:05
  endeavoured to complete the, the, the EDA range.
• 20:10
  So I've had to buy some off of eBay.
• 20:12
  Some of them have been quite expensive and what have you kind
• 20:14
  of thing. But it is, it's just a fantastic
• 20:16
  book. This didn't make it into my top
• 20:18
  10, but it, it, it was very, very close.
• 20:22
  It, it, it, it. There were a couple of books
• 20:24
  that kind of bounced in and out, and The Eater of Wasps was one
• 20:27
  of them. But I think, I think like, like
• 20:29
  the like both Joan and Gareth has said, it's, it's just such
• 20:36
  an easy book to read. And I don't mean that in a, in
• 20:39
  a, in a bad way that it's, it's sort of like a Terence Dix kind
• 20:42
  of he said, she said kind of thing.
• 20:44
  It's just like, it's got these lovely short, punchy chapters,
• 20:50
  which really appeals to me. I like that, that they're short
• 20:53
  and not too long and you kind of think, oh, just read one more
• 20:56
  and before you know it, you've read three or four more because
• 20:58
  you, you just don't want to put, put it down because it's, it's
• 21:01
  so engaging. And I, and I think, like Joe
• 21:03
  said, I don't think it's, it's telling anything new.
• 21:06
  If anything, it's quite a traditional Doctor Who story.
• 21:10
  There's nothing particularly ground breaking in here, but
• 21:15
  it's just written in such like a engaging way with lots of great
• 21:19
  characters in it that you kind of within within a few chapters,
• 21:24
  you really care about them, you know, And I just, yeah, I just
• 21:27
  think it's brilliant. It's it's a great one.
• 21:29
  It's it's the best, the best book that we've read as a group,
• 21:32
  I would say. I'm going to have to agree with
• 21:34
  you as well because compared to some of the books that we've
• 21:37
  had, this was a this was a great, this was a really good
• 21:41
  book and an easy read as well. I think one of the criticisms I
• 21:44
  put at a time of your life was the God awfully long chapters
• 21:48
  that felt like they went interminable and also the number
• 21:52
  of characters in that book as well.
• 21:53
  I feel this feels in some some ways almost like the opposite of
• 21:56
  that book in that it's relatable.
• 21:59
  It's got characters that you remember.
• 22:01
  It's got a pace to it. I read this when it came out.
• 22:04
  So when like in 2002 thousand and one, I was kind of buying
• 22:09
  them every month. I started with the ancestor sale
• 22:11
  randomly for on holiday and then I just kept buying them every
• 22:15
  month. And this was just after the
• 22:18
  Doctors got back into the TARDIS.
• 22:19
  I think it's his first visit back to Earth post the Earth
• 22:22
  arc. But I think as you said, Gareth,
• 22:26
  it doesn't really have any huge story arc significance.
• 22:29
  It really does stand alone. I think that's also what made it
• 22:32
  quite a good read this time is that you're not trying to remind
• 22:35
  yourself where you are in the story, roughly.
• 22:38
  It sits where it sits, but it has no real bearing.
• 22:41
  So when we did Seeing Eye, it's like the third part of a trilogy
• 22:46
  and what's happened in there and it's kind of dealing with
• 22:48
  consequences of other books. There's bits and pieces in
• 22:51
  there. There's a really nice call back
• 22:52
  to, is it casualties of war in there as well?
• 22:56
  So there's little bits of continuity.
• 22:57
  And I think if you've been reading the books regularly,
• 23:00
  it's quite rewarding. But it was an easy, easy read.
• 23:04
  And I mean I, I I also do not mean that in a bad way, I think.
• 23:08
  It. It's one that if the TV series
• 23:11
  of Big Finish wanted to do an adaptation of an Eighth Doctor
• 23:14
  book, this would be a really straightforward 1 for them to
• 23:17
  do. I think it's got that sort of
• 23:20
  pace of of the modern series. It rattles along at a heck of a
• 23:25
  pace and it's got a really good story.
• 23:30
  And that kind of brings me nicely to Curve.
• 23:32
  The next question is, what did we make of the story of the
• 23:35
  book? Gareth to come to you first.
• 23:41
  The pace comes first and foremost on it because it
• 23:45
  doesn't really let up for a second.
• 23:46
  And it's a very it's it's a very straightforward story on the
• 23:51
  face of it. When, when, when you break it
• 23:53
  down to its component parts, there's there's nothing.
• 23:58
  There's no dare use the term timey whiminess about it.
• 24:02
  It is essentially a romp, a run around.
• 24:05
  It's it's got it's yeah, really, absolutely.
• 24:08
  It's got what I always call the ticking time bomb scenario,
• 24:12
  which helps to give, give it its pace as well.
• 24:14
  Something like Angels and Demons has got, you know, with the
• 24:16
  bombs in the back to cannon, everything is going towards
• 24:20
  that. It kind of feels like it's
• 24:21
  building that because you see Rigby's developing over time and
• 24:25
  it's always a little bit more, a little bit more, a little bit
• 24:27
  more. And then you get the future guys
• 24:30
  coming into it and we've got to stop this weapon.
• 24:32
  And then something else comes in and there's something else and
• 24:34
  it rattles very much like a train moving along, which which
• 24:37
  seems adept when you looked at where it actually ends up at the
• 24:41
  end. So literal ticking time, Bob.
• 24:45
  By the end of the book. But it doesn't pretend to be
• 24:48
  anything else other than keeping literally on a steady track.
• 24:51
  And that's exactly what you want.
• 24:53
  It literally just takes you through it I think.
• 24:57
  I'm going to insert a question at this point, which is how long
• 25:00
  in terms of time? How many days do you think this
• 25:02
  book is set over? There's definitely one evening,
• 25:05
  isn't there because. They're over.
• 25:07
  The Squires house overnight because they go.
• 25:11
  They go, don't they? They go to investigate that
• 25:13
  house in the evening. When they black up fits with
• 25:17
  soot and draw a massive moustache on his face.
• 25:20
  So it's definitely at least two days.
• 25:22
  Yeah, it's. 2 day, according to the TARDIS, Vicki, it's two
• 25:24
  days. So it, it crams into this book
• 25:27
  quite, you know, not a huge amount of time.
• 25:29
  It's just, but it's full of incident.
• 25:33
  Dan, what did you make of the story?
• 25:35
  Yeah, I mean, I think again, it's really I because I suppose
• 25:45
  at the end of the day, it's sort of like this idyllic country
• 25:50
  setting, which that really appeals to me.
• 25:53
  I love those Doctor Who stories where they're set in similar
• 25:57
  environments to what I grew up in, you know, so I like the
• 26:02
  demons, I like, I like the Android invasion, you know, sort
• 26:05
  of thing. So it's so it was onto a winner
• 26:07
  anyhow because of that. Let's do it.
• 26:09
  It's top three there from later. Yeah, well, no, no, none of
• 26:14
  those are in there. Yeah, but then you throw in this
• 26:21
  enormous dollop of body horror. But I think what what's really
• 26:28
  clever about it is like those passages of the body horror,
• 26:32
  which we're probably going to talk about in a bit more detail
• 26:34
  later on, are quite graphic. But I never feel like they take
• 26:41
  over the book. They're just passages that that
• 26:44
  kind of happen that are necessary rather than it, you
• 26:48
  know, gore, guts and you know, all this sort of stuff.
• 26:52
  So you've got that that, you know, that transformation of of
• 26:56
  Rigby, you know, from quite a decent human being.
• 26:59
  We've shown that in that first couple of chapters and it's
• 27:03
  quite tragic that, you know, he's men turning into this this
• 27:07
  monster that he he he just can't control it.
• 27:09
  And it kind of kind of reminded me a little bit of like Keeler
• 27:12
  turning into the kernel. He didn't incedes of Oh I.
• 27:14
  Was getting Noah in the arc in space as?
• 27:18
  Well, yeah, you know, but yes. And, and I think, I think
• 27:23
  that's, that's the thing, you know, again, it goes along a
• 27:26
  terrific pace. And I, there were, there were,
• 27:30
  there were bits of the book where I was reading it and I,
• 27:33
  and I realised I was holding my breath because I was so caught
• 27:36
  up in the, in, in the action and that was going on.
• 27:39
  But yeah, you know, so I, I think it's a fantastic story and
• 27:42
  it, it's, there's a lot of heart in it, not, not just the autopsy
• 27:48
  in the in the middle. I, I almost think the story
• 27:54
  doesn't matter in this book because it's basically like a
• 27:58
  Hollywood blockbuster, right, where there's a central threat
• 28:03
  and we're chasing after the threat and then there's another
• 28:05
  threat of the chicken bomb and we're chasing after that.
• 28:08
  So we're doing a lot of running from here to there all the time.
• 28:12
  I think the character work is probably the more sophisticated
• 28:17
  of the two, but I wouldn't underestimate the horror in this
• 28:21
  as well. And whilst you said like it
• 28:23
  never really tipped over the edge, Dan, I mean, there was
• 28:26
  points when I was recoiling from the page in this book and I was
• 28:30
  going, oh, that is so nasty. And what Baxendale does is he
• 28:35
  does it too. Nice characters, and that's what
• 28:39
  really gets under like, you, you get close to people and then
• 28:43
  they die in the most spectacularly horrible ways and
• 28:48
  you're like, Oh no. And then of course, you get to
• 28:50
  see their family and the Doctor and Fitz and Andrew, they've all
• 28:53
  made sort of relationships with some of these people.
• 28:55
  So their reactions as well. So I I think.
• 28:59
  More. More than the.
• 29:00
  Story I just loved hanging out with these people and well some
• 29:05
  of them not for long, but and just and seeing all the
• 29:08
  relationships on how how they were reacting to the frankly
• 29:12
  insane situation of mutant alien evil Wasps on the on the move.
• 29:19
  It's it's a cracking TARDIS team as well, isn't?
• 29:23
  It it's. Doctor it's and Andy I I I'm
• 29:27
  quite underrated as well. I I, I I.
• 29:29
  Think my favorite? Damn.
• 29:31
  They're my favorite from the books and I've done a lot of
• 29:34
  their stories lately. I've done Maddox and Englishman
• 29:37
  Anachrophobia. What else have I done?
• 29:40
  A year of intelligent tigers and they reap rewards, these three,
• 29:45
  because they're really different people.
• 29:48
  Yeah, yeah, because that was that was kind of what I I
• 29:51
  enjoyed was kind because I've I've I've read yes.
• 29:57
  So I've, I've read Angie's first five books.
• 30:00
  So, so up to intelligent Tigers and I haven't I haven't read
• 30:04
  many beyond that. But I just love the way that the
• 30:09
  the, the dynamic because you've got the doctor is the polar
• 30:13
  opposite almost to Angie. And then you've kind of got fits
• 30:18
  in the in the middle because he's, he's got this admiration,
• 30:22
  this love of the doctor. But he can also see, you know,
• 30:27
  why that behaviour gets the reaction that it does from from
• 30:31
  Angie as well. And I just, it was just kind of
• 30:33
  interesting how that that, that they kind of, you know, that
• 30:36
  worked. But yeah.
• 30:39
  In a Wick saying is the is the next question on the list, which
• 30:43
  is what? How do we think?
• 30:45
  What do we think about this particular TARDIS team?
• 30:47
  Seeing as we're already there? Let's keep that going because I
• 30:50
  bloody love this team. I think this is I think
• 30:53
  particularly Fitz, who is one of those characters is in so many
• 30:57
  books and he's one of the characters you just love
• 31:01
  spending time with in in the book.
• 31:02
  He's always there's a was a twinkle in his eyes always a bit
• 31:08
  there's always I feel like he's up to something.
• 31:10
  But what I like about him is that he's kind of got this puppy
• 31:14
  dog thing with the Doctor. He's got total faith in him,
• 31:18
  even though sometimes he's not entirely sure.
• 31:19
  He knows he's changed since being on Earth, but he's utterly
• 31:24
  loyal to him. Oh, he's into the Doctor, I'm
• 31:26
  telling you that now, all right. No one would go through hell and
• 31:30
  back like Fitz dolls without being completely beside with the
• 31:33
  Doctor. And I think Fitz when he's in
• 31:36
  the right hands and the right authors, because he could become
• 31:39
  maybe a bit too comedic or a bit too stupid or whatever.
• 31:42
  But I think here he's really nicely balanced.
• 31:45
  You know, he's still a man slightly out of time.
• 31:47
  He's from a little bit into the future for when the book is set,
• 31:50
  but he's still sometimes on the back foot.
• 31:52
  And then you're so you know, he's bowing around in cars
• 31:55
  blocking up with almost getting mustaches on.
• 31:58
  And he's, he's always bringing a little bit of humor to it as
• 32:01
  well. So that's, and Angie's a really
• 32:05
  good character. This is her third book, 3rd or
• 32:07
  4th book. And, you know, still having that
• 32:10
  sort of doubts. What does she want to be with a
• 32:12
  doctor? Does she want to be travelling?
• 32:13
  And on the last page, she's like, I'm staying, I don't want
• 32:17
  to go home. I don't want to go back to my
• 32:19
  previous life. She knows it's dangerous.
• 32:21
  She knows the Doctor's dangerous.
• 32:22
  There's a point in the confrontation with Rigby at the
• 32:25
  end where she genuinely thinks that the Doctor wasn't going to
• 32:28
  come back to save her because he is a little bit blurred around
• 32:33
  the edges sometimes with his morals.
• 32:34
  There's a couple of points in this book where the Doctor is a
• 32:38
  little bit more dangerous than it's that weird thing.
• 32:42
  He's like Tigger at one point with his mint humbugs, and then
• 32:45
  all of a sudden he's like, you know, kill him.
• 32:47
  Kill him now. It's really fascinating.
• 32:51
  I love how unpredictable he is. I think this is him as sort of
• 32:54
  his most unpredictable as well. Where where he's going to go
• 32:57
  from 1 scene to the next, you know?
• 33:00
  But I think I could hear McGann performing it as well.
• 33:04
  And I did. I checked the dates.
• 33:05
  The Big Finish, first Big Big Finish McGann series had only
• 33:09
  just come out just before this book.
• 33:12
  So it's not as if he'd had a chance to hear McGann in the
• 33:15
  part he was picking up just on the movie.
• 33:17
  And I think he captures the 8th Doctor.
• 33:20
  McGann is spot on. It's exactly the same in the
• 33:23
  Deadstone memorial as well. It's just the dialogue is spot
• 33:26
  on, I think to the TV movie. You can really hear hear the the
• 33:31
  sort of the way that McGann talks.
• 33:35
  I, I, I think it's a really interesting depiction of the 8th
• 33:39
  doctor because he's all in this and, and, and, and is kind of
• 33:43
  explored a little bit in, in the next book, the the year of
• 33:46
  intelligent tigers that he's almost, he's almost bipolar
• 33:51
  because we've, we've kind of got everything we know and love the
• 33:58
  the 8th doctor to be. He's charming, he's excitable,
• 34:01
  he's this romantic. He's, he's kept that letter
• 34:04
  from, from Mary in, in casualties of war.
• 34:08
  You know, but, but, but, and he's focused and, and, and what
• 34:11
  have you. But then it feels you've also in
• 34:15
  this, you've, he hasn't felt this alien or the Doctor hasn't
• 34:21
  felt this alien probably since the 4th, the 4th Doctor, You
• 34:25
  know, because there's sort of like behaviour in this book
• 34:30
  where you think, wow, that, that, that, you know, that is,
• 34:33
  that is, and, and that's the thing.
• 34:35
  It's sort of like you've got, you know, there's nothing in the
• 34:37
  middle, but you've got these two poles with this Doctor, this
• 34:40
  depiction of the 8th Doctor. I was thinking of Colin as well,
• 34:43
  how Colin can go from being super charming to being just
• 34:48
  totally alien and and a bit abrasive and violent and
• 34:53
  unpleasant at times. I think what they've done here,
• 34:56
  because obviously when in the new adventures with the 7th
• 34:59
  Doctor, you know, he's committing genocide or being
• 35:02
  horrifically manipulative and everything.
• 35:05
  And I hate the idea that was going to make the Doctor an
• 35:06
  interesting character. And it's like it does, but it
• 35:09
  makes him incredibly unlikeable, is that the 8th Doctor here does
• 35:14
  certain things that in the wrong hands could have made him really
• 35:17
  unlikeable, but it makes him interesting.
• 35:20
  It's just adding layers to a character who sometimes the
• 35:23
  Doctor isn't the most interesting character in a
• 35:25
  story, and it's like in these books, he definitely is.
• 35:29
  Again, I'll sort of like stepping back from the page
• 35:31
  going what, that bit where he goes, kill him, just kill him,
• 35:34
  he's dead anyway. I was like, wowzers.
• 35:36
  Although just a quick word for Angie.
• 35:39
  Angie, it's such a great game. So you're right, Dan, so
• 35:42
  undervalued as a character. And so much of this book is told
• 35:46
  from Angie's point of view, which is why the Doctor comes
• 35:49
  across so, so alien. And so, you know, a bit.
• 35:56
  Do what? Do we trust him or not?
• 35:58
  Because it's her taking her first steps into the universe
• 36:02
  with him, and she can't figure him out.
• 36:05
  And so we can't quite figure him out either.
• 36:09
  And also. You've also got that flip side
• 36:11
  from Fitz, though, haven't you, as well, where you're saying,
• 36:13
  you know, another doctor's been gone for a long time and you
• 36:16
  know, he's he's, he's still the same guy.
• 36:18
  Don't worry about it. And and you know, we as a
• 36:20
  reader, if, if we've been following some of the continuity
• 36:23
  of that, but we don't know that it is the same character.
• 36:25
  We've we've known all this time. So we're kind of in that same
• 36:28
  headspace as Angie. But she literally.
• 36:30
  Says to Fitz at one point. You'd do anything for him,
• 36:33
  wouldn't you? You're an idiot.
• 36:35
  You would literally walk into any danger for him.
• 36:38
  And he's he can't say no because we all know the truth, you know,
• 36:41
  But there's, there's a really nice rapport between Fitz and
• 36:44
  Angie as well, which which goes for their entire run.
• 36:49
  And while she sort of looks at him as this sort of weird, you
• 36:53
  know, ageing hipster that she's stuck with, you know, this
• 36:56
  smelly old tramp that she's got, she just adores him and he
• 36:59
  adores her. And they go on this mad series
• 37:02
  of adventures right away through to to what Time Zero and then
• 37:05
  Timeless. And it just gets better and
• 37:07
  better as they go along. But it was really interesting to
• 37:10
  do the sort of faltering first steps of this team coming
• 37:14
  together because it does feel like they've sort of made some
• 37:16
  progress by the end of the story.
• 37:18
  I mean, being dragged off into the sky by a mutated wasp, man's
• 37:22
  going to do it for you, right? And.
• 37:25
  I think I think as the reader, because you, you know, as fans
• 37:27
  of the book, you're either going to be in fits of shoes or anti
• 37:29
  shoes with this new, slightly new take on the doctor.
• 37:32
  Are you going to be a Fitz and kind of going No, still the
• 37:34
  doctor. He might be a bit different, but
• 37:35
  still the doctor or you can be Angie kind of I don't trust the
• 37:40
  character anymore. So I think that's really quite
• 37:42
  interesting that you through the two companions as fans.
• 37:46
  You might treat it either or. There was, there was one another
• 37:52
  line as well. I just loved about Angie being
• 37:55
  back on Earth. And she says, you know, oh God,
• 37:59
  no, not yet. I don't want to be back on Earth
• 38:02
  yet. There's things I want to see.
• 38:04
  And she's still trying to forget that that Dave, her boyfriend
• 38:09
  who died in Escape Velocity, is no longer with her.
• 38:13
  I don't think she's ready to sort of come back and confront
• 38:15
  it yet. When you do get right back in in
• 38:18
  the future in Time 0 and she breaks down when she goes back
• 38:22
  to earth and and and cries over him, it's like, yes, she's ready
• 38:27
  to do it. But I I liked all of that.
• 38:29
  I I liked where this was in her run just a couple of books in
• 38:32
  because it it means there's tension within the regulars
• 38:36
  without it being too forgive me early new adventures.
• 38:43
  I thought you were going to say say word where they're just
• 38:45
  bickering. And they could have been, they
• 38:47
  could have gone down that path and had them kind of being
• 38:49
  antagonistic or bickering or whatever.
• 38:51
  But there is almost a brother and sister relationship between
• 38:54
  Fitz and Angie in terms of they will make fun of each other, but
• 38:57
  she'll make fun of him. But deep down, they care about
• 39:00
  each other as well, and that's really important.
• 39:03
  But I mean, in the same breath we talked about, you know, the
• 39:06
  mustache being put on fits and the humour between them.
• 39:09
  But the doctor and Angie as well, the bit where he drags her
• 39:12
  on the train, she don't want to go and she I'll bloody kill you
• 39:15
  for this. She's stuck at, you know, stuck
• 39:18
  on that or God awful train with the wolfs trying to get in.
• 39:22
  Oh boy. So moving on from our TARDIS
• 39:28
  team, what about the other characters in the book?
• 39:31
  Because I think we've kind of said this is there are some
• 39:33
  vivid characters in this book and I think Joe, you, you're
• 39:36
  championing them. So come to you.
• 39:38
  What about the guest? Cast I like our busy body who
• 39:43
  comes along at the start and thinks that these hoi polloi,
• 39:46
  these gypsies turning up with this machine that sounds like a
• 39:50
  honking elephant. You know, no vicar, Vicar,
• 39:53
  what's happening to our lovely village?
• 39:56
  And yeah, even even a a stereotype.
• 39:59
  Like, is it Miss Havers? That's what.
• 40:00
  I mean Miss Havers. A stereotype like miss Havers in
• 40:03
  this book where she and for the first half of the book she's
• 40:06
  literally that busy body right she's.
• 40:08
  In and out. Of scenes you know, and causing
• 40:11
  gossip and scandal in the second-half of the book where
• 40:13
  things get serious. She realizes the doctors finding
• 40:18
  solutions to what's going on and she basically says to him, well,
• 40:21
  what can I do to help you know? And then you get the
• 40:25
  extraordinary moment when? She opens her mouth and all
• 40:30
  those Wasps come vomiting out and you realize she's been taken
• 40:33
  over ages ago. So I just, I adored her.
• 40:37
  So I'll take Miss Havers. I'll leave the rest for
• 40:39
  everybody else. Did anybody else, when they when
• 40:42
  they kept reading Miss Havers think of Nigel or was that just
• 40:46
  my brain? Nigel.
• 40:49
  It's clearly. No, no, I had.
• 40:51
  I hadn't. I had Miss Hubbard from Postman
• 40:54
  Pat in my head who always used to go around with the bicycle.
• 40:57
  Miss Hardacre from Curse of Fenrick, that's who I was
• 41:00
  seeing. The thing, That's the thing,
• 41:02
  Neither of those characters vomited Wasps, Mary.
• 41:04
  That's probably what Postman Pat was missing.
• 41:09
  I would have watched it if they had, yeah.
• 41:12
  Dan, what do you think of the guests?
• 41:14
  Yeah, no, I mean, just just to to follow up from, from Miss
• 41:17
  Havens kind of thing, because, because it's she reminded me of
• 41:20
  one of my mum and dad's old neighbors.
• 41:24
  So, so even, you know, even sort of like bringing up to a modern
• 41:27
  day, they've still, you've still got characters like this in
• 41:30
  Rural England, you know, that, that are busy bodies sticking
• 41:35
  their noses in where, you know, and spreading gossip and all
• 41:39
  that sort of stuff. There are there are plenty of
• 41:41
  those. So it, it felt, she felt really,
• 41:43
  really real to me because of I've kind of seen that kind of
• 41:46
  first hand. But yeah.
• 41:48
  Wasps Dan No, but she had a she had a quite a tongue on here as
• 41:55
  in like, you know, very acid tongue, you know, kind of thing
• 41:58
  with some of the put downs and what have you sort of thing.
• 42:01
  Venomous tongue, yeah. It was a bit.
• 42:02
  Yeah, it was. A bit of a sting.
• 42:04
  Yeah, yeah, I think like I'll go with probably the the obvious
• 42:10
  one really, and how likeable Hilary Pink is right from the
• 42:15
  moment he walks into the book, you know, it's, you know, he's
• 42:20
  he's kind of like, although he's like sort of I suppose landed
• 42:24
  Gentry. He's kind of he, he's gone a
• 42:30
  very different route to his, to his brother, who's obviously the
• 42:33
  Squire, you know, kind of thing that he's, he's more of a kind
• 42:36
  of a restless character, more of a free, a free spirit a bit bit
• 42:39
  sort of bohemian. So.
• 42:41
  So he is this kind of black sheep, not only of the family,
• 42:46
  but also it would seem of the village as well, because these
• 42:50
  tiny communities have long memories.
• 42:52
  And obviously, you know, we go, we learn throughout the the
• 42:56
  course of of the book that he was a a conscientious projector
• 43:00
  and and didn't go to fight in World War One.
• 43:05
  And it's funny how, you know, because of that people what
• 43:07
  certainly Miss Hayes, she was very, very, very dismissive,
• 43:10
  very looking down on him and what have you.
• 43:13
  But but the fact that, you know, he doesn't know these three
• 43:18
  people and he goes, yeah, come and stay in our house, you know,
• 43:21
  sort of thing. And and he's really very
• 43:24
  accepting of all of these bizarre things that are going on
• 43:27
  around him kind of thing. Whereas whereas his brother is,
• 43:29
  is a bit more stoic and and just can't the rationale and and you
• 43:35
  can't kind of fathom out these weird things going on and just
• 43:38
  kind of almost denying them. Whereas although they're
• 43:42
  unbelievable to to to Hillary, he he's going with it, you know,
• 43:46
  sort of thing. You can see the adventure in
• 43:47
  this and I just love that sort of he's quite a joyful
• 43:52
  character. You know, despite the fact that
• 43:55
  there is obviously because there's a lot going on inside,
• 43:59
  you know, when it find we find out that that Liam's son, you
• 44:03
  know, he's had a relationship with Gwen when when she was
• 44:06
  still still married because her husband was off fighting in the
• 44:09
  war and what have you. And he kind of missed his chance
• 44:14
  to kind of kind of marry her. He he he went off and travelled
• 44:18
  the world instead of settling down, which which is a strange
• 44:21
  thing. But, you know, so, you know, at
• 44:23
  points he kind of hits the drink because he's you know, he's
• 44:27
  masking those those inner demons, I suppose a little bit.
• 44:31
  And but but yeah, so that's sort of I suppose that joyful is a
• 44:36
  sort of element to him is kind of facade at the end of the day.
• 44:39
  But but, yeah, I think he is a brilliant character.
• 44:43
  And then you know, what is it? It's about page 100, isn't it?
• 44:47
  I think very quite early. Yeah.
• 44:49
  Where where he he he's attacked by, by Rigby, smothered in the
• 44:54
  Wasps and, and dies due to the the shock of all those things.
• 44:58
  So it's yeah. And it's quite a graphic, his
• 45:03
  horrific description of his death as well sort of thing, you
• 45:06
  know, the, the howling in pain and the fear in his eyes.
• 45:09
  And you know, the, the way that his, his, his body is spasming
• 45:13
  in, in pain and what have you. You know, it's quite, quite
• 45:15
  horrible to a character that we've learned to live quite
• 45:18
  quickly. And, and you can kind of
• 45:20
  understand why that has quite an impact on on Angie and why, you
• 45:28
  know, because the doctor's going and and it is cold and it is
• 45:33
  very detached. But obviously it's a it would
• 45:36
  have been a mercy killing if, you know, when the doctor's
• 45:38
  shouting kill him, kill him, you know, kind of thing.
• 45:41
  But but you can understand, you know, Angie became quite fond of
• 45:45
  him quite quickly. And then, yeah, you know, and,
• 45:50
  you know, so, yeah, I think it was a brilliant character.
• 45:52
  And then you get that amassed that, you know, it's a massive
• 45:54
  rug pull that he doesn't, he doesn't survive to the end of
• 45:58
  the book. You know, what's so clever about
• 46:00
  the whole him being Liam's dad thing was that could have been
• 46:04
  packaged as, like, a big soap opera twist right in the book.
• 46:09
  And that's not the important thing.
• 46:10
  And I think there's a scene just after he dies between the Squire
• 46:15
  and Angie where that's drops quite casually.
• 46:18
  He left, Gwen had a boy, and Angie puts two and two together
• 46:24
  and goes, all right, OK. The important thing is Liam
• 46:27
  doesn't know. And that's the important thing
• 46:30
  in the second-half of the book is that he discovers that his
• 46:33
  dad was, what's his name, Hillary.
• 46:37
  I can't remember his name, sorry.
• 46:40
  But but that's also that's also quite clever that you know, his
• 46:43
  dad that he idolises. This is Liam, his dad that he
• 46:47
  idolises when was a, was a war hero, died, died in action.
• 46:52
  And, and, you know, Liam's kind of holding him up on a pedestal,
• 46:56
  whereas his real dad, unbeknown to him, is the person that he
• 46:59
  detest because he wouldn't go and fight, you know, So it's,
• 47:03
  it's quite interesting that dynamic.
• 47:05
  I thought it was quite interesting that when push came
• 47:09
  to shove towards the end and Liam's held captive by Rigby and
• 47:13
  that, you know, could he fight or flee or anything?
• 47:14
  And he doesn't, he just freezes. And so he doesn't do either of
• 47:18
  the options of what his biological father and his other
• 47:24
  father did is that he just shut down.
• 47:27
  So he didn't. And it was interesting.
• 47:30
  There's like, when push came to shove, he didn't fight.
• 47:34
  So he, you know, he's quite closer to Hilary Pink than he
• 47:36
  is. I can't remember his father's
• 47:38
  name. Gareth.
• 47:41
  Did any of the characters stand out?
• 47:42
  Sorry, Joe, What were you saying?
• 47:43
  Well, I was just going to say, when Hilary dies, there's a
• 47:46
  beautiful scene between the Squire and Angie where she
• 47:51
  doesn't know what to say to him. And I think in her head she just
• 47:54
  goes, what can I possibly say to this man that is going to
• 47:57
  comfort him? And again reminds us that she's
• 48:00
  lost Dave, you know. And she and she's running from
• 48:04
  her grief and that's the thing. So we're trying to comfort
• 48:06
  somebody else in their grief while you're running from your
• 48:08
  own. Don't they?
• 48:10
  They really hit in this. I think that they hit us in
• 48:13
  their great set pieces and Grizzly, but they hit because
• 48:16
  they have impact on the people in the book.
• 48:19
  And I think what I quite liked about how Hilary Pink has
• 48:23
  written is that, you know, his conscientious, conscientious
• 48:25
  objector and that in other things like I think the probably
• 48:29
  the most famous thing people might know conscious objectors
• 48:31
  from his Dad's Army when Private Godfrey's revealed to be a
• 48:35
  conscientious objector. And obviously he was a hero.
• 48:37
  And you know, these were people who had strong values and
• 48:41
  morals. And there's you presented a
• 48:44
  repositive way that these, I thought it was interesting that
• 48:47
  Hilary Pink wasn't painted like that.
• 48:49
  He was a very flawed person. He was principled, but he was
• 48:53
  having an affair with a married woman.
• 48:55
  He disappeared, he went travelling the world.
• 48:57
  He's a bit of a potentially a bit of a CAD as well.
• 49:00
  And I said that, you know how this character, it's almost
• 49:02
  like, you know, we're not being led to how to interpret this
• 49:07
  character. It's you.
• 49:09
  Like him though, don't you? You do like him.
• 49:11
  He's he's a likeable. He's a likeable, you think?
• 49:15
  He's going to be the local help in this, don't you?
• 49:17
  The the way he's teed up for that first 100 pages, he's going
• 49:20
  to be the person that's going to help him through everything and
• 49:22
  then he will be there till the end.
• 49:24
  And then look before they all shake life hands and get off in
• 49:26
  the TARDIS. And so the fact that he expires
• 49:29
  so quickly, such a thoroughly nice chaff it, it just gives the
• 49:35
  whole jeopardy to the entire story thereafter.
• 49:39
  And I like, I liked the Squire. I mean, the Squire wasn't as
• 49:42
  likeable, but I really liked when they sort of scratched the
• 49:44
  surface of as far as the village was concerned, as far as society
• 49:48
  was concerned. This is what he thought of his
• 49:49
  brother and everything. But it's like deep down he loved
• 49:53
  his brother no matter what. And I thought it was the way
• 49:56
  that was brought out, particularly the conversation
• 49:57
  with Angie. I thought that was really nicely
• 49:59
  done. I did.
• 50:01
  I did like the Squire character in it.
• 50:02
  I really did. I mean, I think you you
• 50:04
  ultimately got a sense for him towards the end when they seize
• 50:08
  it job running from out of the church because you're not sure
• 50:11
  what headspace is in at that point.
• 50:12
  And he just turns around and goes right over there then and
• 50:15
  just kind of gets tries to get stuck in.
• 50:18
  He almost tries to become the local help after after the loss
• 50:22
  of his brother without actually openly saying that's what he's
• 50:25
  going to do. You know, Squire, Squire was a a
• 50:28
  nice guy who had a facade that he obviously had to have, but
• 50:33
  he's a bit soft on the inside. The good hearted man at the end.
• 50:37
  I liked Carla as well. I thought these two, the time
• 50:42
  travellers, they could be quite forgettable, but I love the fact
• 50:48
  she's sort of all business, you know, she's very competent at
• 50:51
  her job and this eccentric madman just keeps coming along
• 50:55
  and spoiling. Everything she's trying to do
• 50:57
  all the time, there's a wonderful exchange of where she
• 51:00
  goes to the doctor is all I know is at best you're a meddling
• 51:03
  interloper and at worst you're a criminal.
• 51:05
  And he just goes with a big smile.
• 51:08
  Yes, that's the story of my life.
• 51:10
  You know, and they, they have some great interactions.
• 51:14
  He did, but he does do a black orchid on her, which is, you
• 51:17
  know, can I trust you, Doctor? Whoever.
• 51:19
  Just come in the TARDIS, have a look around.
• 51:21
  Yeah, we're all fine. Because.
• 51:22
  She is from the future as a bit different.
• 51:24
  From black orchids than taking it in the local Bobby.
• 51:27
  And he does judo chopper in the neck and knock her out.
• 51:32
  Did he go? I I hope so.
• 51:37
  And even like fat boy the boy, you just wouldn't say it that,
• 51:41
  would you? Fat Boy the The Walking talking
• 51:45
  nuclear device, which was a great twist.
• 51:48
  I love the fact that it's a person.
• 51:52
  I think there's even a few scenes from his point of view is
• 51:56
  isn't there where it's like what the hell does a bomb?
• 51:59
  Think now it's your chance to find out.
• 52:04
  Did anyone else sort of see the similarities between those three
• 52:09
  in the the three rebel guerrillas in Day of the Daleks?
• 52:13
  Yeah. Because because you've got like
• 52:15
  Carla is is is on that, isn't she?
• 52:18
  And you know, that sort of hard nose, sort of principal leader.
• 52:22
  And then you've got Jode is is the Boaz character that that's
• 52:26
  sort of a bit of a hot head and think thinks their leader is is
• 52:32
  is is soft and and always questioning that her authority.
• 52:37
  And then you've kind of got you've got Fat Boy, who is sort
• 52:39
  of like the Shura character, you know, quite quiet, the one in
• 52:43
  the background and also the one that he's got a.
• 52:47
  Blower capable blowing him. Yeah, it's like we said earlier,
• 52:52
  right? Yeah, you've got.
• 52:53
  The gorillas from Day of the Daleks you've got the village
• 52:55
  from. The demons you've got Miss
• 52:58
  Hardacre from Cursor Fenrick, you've got giant insects from
• 53:02
  every other John Perky story. It this whole story is built up
• 53:06
  of Doctor Who cliches. It really shouldn't work.
• 53:10
  We should be just going, oh good God, you know, all the bloody
• 53:14
  stereotypes because they've done so well.
• 53:18
  He gets away with it. He gets done with with such
• 53:22
  style as well, and it's a good Horror Story as well.
• 53:25
  I think at the heart, that's what this is.
• 53:26
  You know, at times I don't think there's a huge amount of depth
• 53:29
  to it, but I don't think it's trying to have a huge amount of
• 53:31
  depth to it. It just wants to tell a
• 53:33
  straightforward good horror tale with some interesting
• 53:36
  characters. Well, let's not forget the best
• 53:38
  characters of the entire book, of course.
• 53:41
  The Wasps. Does it work as a Horror Story?
• 53:46
  I wrote that down and I think we've kind of answered it's.
• 53:48
  Fucking horrible in places. I think there are some
• 53:52
  incredibly well written but grim passages, particularly if
• 53:58
  Rigby's transformation is so well described, maybe just a
• 54:02
  little bit too well. I think when he's got bits of
• 54:06
  coming out of him and it grows wings at one point and it's.
• 54:11
  Great. The abdomen split.
• 54:12
  Yeah, the segmented body that, yeah.
• 54:16
  The bit that really freaked me out was in the autopsy Bay with
• 54:22
  the corpse and they suddenly become aware that the flesh is
• 54:26
  moving and they slice it open and.
• 54:30
  He even describes it as bloody Wasps come wriggling out of the
• 54:33
  corpse's guts. Right, So then the goes set him
• 54:37
  on. Fire.
• 54:39
  And so suddenly this fucking corpse with Wasps flying out of
• 54:42
  it is on fire. And this is the description.
• 54:44
  Are you ready? Yeah, yeah.
• 54:46
  Slowly, the angry buzz was replaced by the pop and crackle
• 54:50
  of roasting flesh. I was like, I think I'm done for
• 54:54
  tonight, thank you very much. Put down.
• 54:57
  Crackle and Wasps. Oh.
• 55:00
  I think some of those early wasp attacks as well.
• 55:04
  Is it the end of chapter 4? Chapter 5?
• 55:06
  Is it Even through the haze of pain and panic, Carlton realized
• 55:09
  the most terrible thing. The Wasps were trying to get
• 55:11
  between his lips, into his mouth.
• 55:14
  And you could you? You can picture it.
• 55:17
  You can feel it. It makes your skin crawl.
• 55:21
  There's a moment on the train, right?
• 55:23
  And oh, I fucking love scenes on a train.
• 55:25
  I just love Doctor Who on a train whenever it does it.
• 55:29
  Mummy on Urine Express, Power of the Doctor, This.
• 55:33
  That train at the start of the burning.
• 55:35
  I don't care. I just love the train.
• 55:37
  We've gone through all this fabulous stuff of the doctor,
• 55:40
  you know, what is it? I think you want to know.
• 55:42
  I knew Cassius Clay is on top of the on top of the train roof and
• 55:46
  he's fighting the boss man, but inside the carriage.
• 55:50
  All because because Rigby's controlling all the Wasps, he
• 55:53
  has them all cover all the windows.
• 55:56
  This will be my worst nightmare. I'm allergic to bee things and
• 55:59
  wasp things and I'm claustrophobic.
• 56:01
  So all the train goes dark and then suddenly, you know, it's
• 56:05
  coming, Rack, and they're all coming in.
• 56:08
  Oh God. Awful.
• 56:11
  I mean great, but awful. Doesn't the doctor let them in
• 56:15
  as well? That kind of.
• 56:16
  That's his. That's his solution to the
• 56:18
  problem. He's let them in.
• 56:19
  I'll. Never forgive him.
• 56:21
  Doesn't he say to Angie, I've got a plan, but you're not going
• 56:24
  to like it? It's basically another one of
• 56:28
  those unpredictable moments, isn't it, where we're not quite
• 56:31
  sure which way he's going with this.
• 56:34
  That's what keeps it interesting.
• 56:36
  They are just was was such a brilliant choice, wasn't it?
• 56:40
  I think you take something that everybody hates.
• 56:43
  They're horrible, you know, they just one and the stings as well,
• 56:47
  because I think there's the, the describe the stings quite
• 56:50
  graphically at certain points. I think even when the doctor's
• 56:52
  diffusing the bomb, he's getting stung.
• 56:56
  Oh, that bit as a suspense moment, right?
• 56:59
  It's like, right, yes, I've got it, I've got all the right
• 57:01
  wires. Here we go.
• 57:02
  I'm going to defuse the bomb. And then the wasp lands on his
• 57:05
  hair. Oh fuck, I can't move.
• 57:09
  I'm pretty sure that was one of the moments where I I realized I
• 57:12
  had to stop breathing because I was like, yeah.
• 57:18
  Oh wonderful. Any other characters stand out?
• 57:24
  I'm trying to think who else? I think that's everybody, isn't.
• 57:26
  It he's just a very doubtable inspector.
• 57:28
  Yes, he's moulded out of the Inspector Japs school from Paro.
• 57:34
  He's. Very, very competent at doing
• 57:35
  his job and he's brought on site once, he's attended the autopsy
• 57:38
  and that said, he's there, he's got his folks mobilised in that
• 57:41
  town thereafter and he's right up to the end.
• 57:45
  He's got a good ally. Have I misremembered something?
• 57:47
  Actually, I was going to ask you chaps, this is it.
• 57:50
  Miss Haver's body that isn't burnt at the doctor's request,
• 57:53
  when it comes to her burial, I think burning both bodies.
• 58:00
  I think they bury her because she's fine even though she was
• 58:06
  completely transformed and the Wasps intelligence but I'm sure
• 58:13
  they have something about she can be buried while burn the
• 58:16
  rest. Yeah, I just wonder if there's a
• 58:19
  sequel in there somewhere. The resurrection of Miss Havers.
• 58:25
  Wasp Woman. Wasps. 2.
• 58:27
  Oh, there was what was what was Liam's mum's name?
• 58:32
  Gwen her her American partner, who was a the total twat of the
• 58:38
  kid and horrible about Mr. Rigby and horrible about Hilary Pink.
• 58:43
  He died horribly, didn't he? And good wisdoms, that was quite
• 58:46
  early. And he had a garish a garish
• 58:48
  checked jacket on as well. So he deserved it, truly.
• 58:52
  I never wronged it, that is. Definitely wrong, and of course
• 58:56
  not one of it. No one's mentioned yet.
• 58:58
  Poor, poor Charles Rigby. Oh, of course.
• 59:03
  Because I think it's such a tragic story because he gets
• 59:08
  transformed into basically an alien space wasp by accident.
• 59:15
  And and what's great about that is we don't really learn really
• 59:20
  much about the weapon. We don't really learn why it was
• 59:23
  created, just that I think the line is what you're a product
• 59:26
  of, a device created, designed to create a mutant life form, An
• 59:30
  appalling weapon from the distant future.
• 59:32
  That's all you get. But it's enough to give you the
• 59:35
  Mcguffin to turn him into a wasp man, you know, which is what we
• 59:38
  want. Yeah, I think like what David
• 59:42
  was saying, like it is sort of like he, he it's purely
• 59:46
  accidental that this happens. He finds he finds that artifact
• 59:50
  in his in his vegetable patch. And if I guess if he hadn't have
• 59:56
  shown that artefact to to Liam and Liam Hunter dropped it in
• 1:00:01
  the wasp nest probably would have would have been fine, you
• 1:00:04
  know, sort of thing. So he's a victim of being in the
• 1:00:08
  wrong place at the wrong time. You know that bit at the start
• 1:00:12
  where they all go running in the house because all the Wasps are
• 1:00:14
  coming out everywhere? Yeah, that literally happened at
• 1:00:17
  my ex mother in We're poking at it and.
• 1:00:24
  All of a sudden these fucking Wasps game, they were
• 1:00:27
  everywhere. We ran into the house and.
• 1:00:29
  Guess what? I wasn't quick enough.
• 1:00:30
  She slammed the door in my face. I was letting me in.
• 1:00:35
  I'm the one allergic to wasp. Things.
• 1:00:37
  Oh, she was a beast of a woman. Yeah, that was her way of
• 1:00:41
  getting rid of me. Who would want to get rid of
• 1:00:45
  you? Yeah, I'm glad it's here.
• 1:00:47
  We wouldn't be here now, you know, It just wouldn't be the
• 1:00:50
  same. Many people, David, many people.
• 1:00:54
  I want a few hit list. There was one other character.
• 1:00:58
  Can I? Can I?
• 1:00:59
  Can I? Go for it, go for it, go for.
• 1:01:00
  It wave the flag for another character please, which I think
• 1:01:03
  was probably the oh go on. What do you think it is?
• 1:01:06
  It's. The vicar, isn't it?
• 1:01:08
  No. No.
• 1:01:10
  It's not the verger. No, it's Marpling itself, the
• 1:01:15
  village beautifully captured, just that sunny, you know, Green
• 1:01:22
  Village, lots of lovely trees about and flowers and
• 1:01:26
  honeysuckles and it's just so well evoked.
• 1:01:30
  It's it's like the perfect summer village, isn't it?
• 1:01:34
  And it's called it marpling. It works.
• 1:01:38
  I. I was quite.
• 1:01:40
  Surprised that when I was looking up about Trevor
• 1:01:43
  Baxendale that that he, he wasn't born and raised in the
• 1:01:47
  country, He was born in Liverpool.
• 1:01:50
  Because I think he's so perfectly conjures up those
• 1:01:55
  images of, of those country lanes, you know, with the high
• 1:01:58
  hedges and the foxgloves and the wildflowers and, and what have
• 1:02:02
  you. And, and, you know, like you,
• 1:02:05
  you're there, you know, with the way, you know, the, the sort of
• 1:02:09
  like the, the, the words that he paints these wonderful pictures
• 1:02:14
  of, of and, you know, and it feels like such a real, a real
• 1:02:17
  place. But yeah, I was surprised it
• 1:02:19
  was. Yeah, you know that.
• 1:02:20
  That yeah, I had an interview with him and he was saying that
• 1:02:23
  he used this, the broad stereotypes of the 1930s, no
• 1:02:26
  research. And I think that's what makes
• 1:02:28
  it, that's what it, that's why it works, because it's, it's
• 1:02:31
  very much we somewhat we all recognise.
• 1:02:33
  You know what he did, Gary? He just watched a load of
• 1:02:35
  Marple. Yeah, because because that was
• 1:02:39
  one thing I was thinking, but I didn't want to say it because I
• 1:02:41
  know obviously there are some Agatha Christie experts on here,
• 1:02:45
  but it felt like there were a load of like those sort of
• 1:02:47
  Agatha Christie kind of kind of tropes.
• 1:02:52
  You know, you've got the sleepy English village, you've got the
• 1:02:54
  Manor house, you've got the the the village green and the landed
• 1:02:58
  Gentry, the vicar, the the, the busy body spins, you know, sort
• 1:03:02
  of thing. It felt, it felt like it was
• 1:03:03
  like does that. Make Miss Havers Miss Marple
• 1:03:08
  because I don't remember Miss Marple Wasps.
• 1:03:11
  That's that's the the addition that the 10th doctor kind of did
• 1:03:14
  away with because she remembered the Wasps.
• 1:03:18
  I mean, I found an interview with Trevor Baxter deal as well,
• 1:03:20
  and he was asked to list his literary influences.
• 1:03:22
  And so unsurprisingly, Agatha Christie is on there.
• 1:03:25
  And it's almost like what he's decided to do instead of doing a
• 1:03:28
  Miss Marple or Poirot pastiche and do a murder mystery,
• 1:03:31
  whatever. He's taken the setting, he's
• 1:03:32
  taken the characters and then stuck him in an Doctor Who story
• 1:03:36
  and not even trying to do a whodunit or anything like that.
• 1:03:39
  It's just, let's just see what happens when, you know, Saint
• 1:03:42
  Mary Mead turns up in a Doctor Who story.
• 1:03:46
  We threatened to blow it up with a nuclear bomb and take out
• 1:03:50
  everybody with a giant mutated boss man.
• 1:03:53
  Wonderful. It's what the books are missing.
• 1:03:59
  So we're we it's fairly clear that we have all enjoyed this
• 1:04:02
  book and it is this compared to the kickings that we have given
• 1:04:06
  previous book, this book is very well, but was there anything
• 1:04:11
  that didn't work? Let's let's bring up the
• 1:04:15
  negative question. Not, not for me, I don't think.
• 1:04:20
  I don't think there there was anything this tried to do that
• 1:04:24
  it didn't do brilliantly. It wasn't trying to be like
• 1:04:29
  massively ambitious, like we've already said.
• 1:04:33
  And so it doesn't fail at that. Unlike the Dalek generation.
• 1:04:37
  It's very well written, simply written, unlike the the hideous
• 1:04:42
  florist pros of Nicholas Briggs. You know, you can absolutely
• 1:04:46
  just the, the, the, the words just flow, fly into your mind,
• 1:04:50
  you know, nice and easy, unlike time of your life.
• 1:04:53
  It doesn't have a million characters in it.
• 1:04:56
  So it's just a handful of very well characterized people.
• 1:05:00
  So they're really nice to be around.
• 1:05:02
  So compared to the other ones we've read just by sort of
• 1:05:07
  almost pulling. Back from trying too hard it.
• 1:05:13
  Works like gangbusters. Sometimes less is more.
• 1:05:19
  I'll throw the question to Gareth.
• 1:05:20
  Is there any, is there anything in this book that doesn't work
• 1:05:23
  or is it just a really solid story?
• 1:05:25
  I. Think there were probably 3 laws
• 1:05:28
  in it for me and this, this is, this is really scraping the
• 1:05:31
  stuff. I will stress that right now.
• 1:05:35
  And it was, it was more, I think we've already alluded to Carla
• 1:05:38
  going into the TARDIS. It, it just felt like things
• 1:05:41
  kind of stopped a little bit. I lost some of the pace by that
• 1:05:44
  point just because we were taken out of literally a universe into
• 1:05:47
  another. The pathologists bit good though
• 1:05:55
  it was. I wasn't.
• 1:05:58
  I just again, I kind of felt like it was slowing things down
• 1:06:00
  for me. And my other problem is is the
• 1:06:03
  damsel in distress bit with Angie and Rigby grabbed, you
• 1:06:08
  know, taking her away. I felt like at that point Angie
• 1:06:15
  kind of got lost a bit in the whole let's take Rigby down
• 1:06:20
  getting somewhere safe. She almost became the and I and
• 1:06:23
  I I am air quotations here at Victoria, like at that point,
• 1:06:28
  but these are really, really mean scraping nickels out here.
• 1:06:33
  I I I, you know, I I love this book.
• 1:06:36
  I think it's great to me. Everything we've said about it
• 1:06:39
  is amazing. Makes me literally looking for
• 1:06:42
  something do. You know what's?
• 1:06:44
  Funny about that though. I mean, apart from the the the
• 1:06:47
  sheer horror. Of the thought of being strapped
• 1:06:51
  to the back of an enormous wasp. Because I can't think of
• 1:06:55
  anything worse. Yeah, it's as she's flying over
• 1:06:58
  the English countryside. I mean, it's absurd, isn't it?
• 1:07:02
  She's going, oh, the indignity of this, you know, like she's
• 1:07:07
  hanging upside down. God bless her.
• 1:07:11
  I'll be gone by the end of this story.
• 1:07:12
  I'm sorry. If I'd have gone through all
• 1:07:14
  this, I wouldn't have gone in to tell this.
• 1:07:18
  Same question to Dan. Anything you didn't like?
• 1:07:23
  No, I, I, I, I looked for things I didn't like, but I didn't, I
• 1:07:29
  didn't really find anything, you know, and I, I think, you know,
• 1:07:33
  if I, if I was I I would really, really nitpicking.
• 1:07:36
  And I think I think like the only, the only character in it
• 1:07:41
  that I didn't really chime with at all was was was the vicar,
• 1:07:46
  was it Fort Fordyke? Is it and I and I just think it
• 1:07:51
  just feels like a very boring generic vicar, you know, kind of
• 1:07:56
  character. But again, it is he's there
• 1:07:59
  because you know that it needed that that sort of setting of the
• 1:08:04
  church, you know, because honestly, that's where Miss
• 1:08:08
  Haver's is kind of gravitating to all the time to help with the
• 1:08:12
  hymn books and all that sort of stuff.
• 1:08:13
  And obviously to moan and and bitch about, you know, Hilary
• 1:08:18
  Pink and, and, and how insulting he is and, and, and his gypsy
• 1:08:22
  friends or whatever she was, she was sort of saying but yeah, you
• 1:08:26
  know, but but that that's my only real gripe, you know,
• 1:08:30
  because because there was one bit that I did feel was quite
• 1:08:34
  funny that he enjoyed making Miss Haver smile by calling her
• 1:08:39
  bicycle her conveyance. And I was thinking, what a
• 1:08:42
  joker, what a laugh a minute. You know, Doctor, a male.
• 1:08:48
  Isn't it so hilarious? But yeah, it is a really, really
• 1:08:54
  solid book and you are hard push to find anything.
• 1:08:58
  Anything dreadfully wrong with it because they're just not
• 1:09:01
  there. And and you know, like I say,
• 1:09:04
  I'm really scraping the barrel by by moaning about the vicar
• 1:09:06
  because because he wasn't, I feel that it was a necessary
• 1:09:10
  thing for him to be there and to be that vanilla as well, you
• 1:09:14
  know? If it's if it's echoing the sort
• 1:09:16
  of Christie style books, you've got to have a vicar in there
• 1:09:19
  somewhere. Yeah, I think this because I
• 1:09:22
  just because we've been so negative and then we've been
• 1:09:24
  suddenly also positive. It's like it's a bit of a
• 1:09:26
  loving, you know. But it is a really good book.
• 1:09:29
  I think the only bit for me that I thought that was a bit simple
• 1:09:33
  was there's a great thing. The artefact gets dropped, it
• 1:09:36
  smashes and then the wasp creature just dies.
• 1:09:39
  And it was very kind of RTD kind of, we're turning the plot off
• 1:09:43
  now. But if that's the complaint,
• 1:09:48
  it's very minor. But it just felt like, but what
• 1:09:52
  was really good about that whole scene, and I think we were there
• 1:09:55
  was a little bit of channeling of equator masks in terms of
• 1:09:58
  you've got the giant insect creature mutated, which kind of
• 1:10:01
  had throughout at the top of a church.
• 1:10:03
  And then the appeal to the humanity, which so does it work?
• 1:10:09
  Doesn't it work? But.
• 1:10:10
  Very Notre Dame. It is.
• 1:10:12
  And I thought, you know, the doctor basically lies as well.
• 1:10:15
  And I thought there was some really interesting choices.
• 1:10:17
  It was just, oh, the artefacts destroyed the end.
• 1:10:21
  It was just a bit something. Stupid isn't it?
• 1:10:23
  Trying to ration out ration with a a a giant wasp man?
• 1:10:29
  But then think of Arc in Space when he's talking to Noah as the
• 1:10:32
  weird. It's the same thing.
• 1:10:34
  I quite like the simplicity of how he did it though, because it
• 1:10:37
  felt in keeping with this particular doctor, especially
• 1:10:40
  with the way he's portrayed as the very innocent, the very
• 1:10:43
  Tigger like esque. A simple dropping of something
• 1:10:46
  you know, it feels really in keeping for him.
• 1:10:51
  And and also he's playing true to himself in the book as well.
• 1:10:55
  Isn't it because like on the train, he's got opportunity to
• 1:10:59
  kill Rigby there because he's got the is it the the Sonic gas
• 1:11:04
  in an instinct pan and but, but and and both both both Carla and
• 1:11:11
  Angie. So I'll go.
• 1:11:12
  What were you doing? You had a chance to to finish
• 1:11:14
  this here and he goes and but he wanted to reason.
• 1:11:17
  He wanted to find, I suppose, the the peaceful solution to it
• 1:11:23
  and he and he is trying that right to the end, isn't he?
• 1:11:26
  There had to be another way, yeah.
• 1:11:27
  Really. I really I think the climax of
• 1:11:30
  the book is the Doctor with the bomb.
• 1:11:34
  When the Wasp. Lands on his hand and then he
• 1:11:37
  describes it, doesn't he, Baxendale as he he pressed his
• 1:11:41
  sting into the Doctor's hand and the doctor as he's just
• 1:11:45
  diffusing the bomb goes. Ouch, that's what he'd say.
• 1:11:49
  That that bit feels so much like James Bond.
• 1:11:51
  And I know, and I know that's one of Baxendale's literary
• 1:11:55
  influences, isn't it? Yeah, he he this scene Fleming,
• 1:11:58
  you also this Paul Cornell as well, which I thought was quite
• 1:12:02
  considering that. I think politically they are
• 1:12:04
  certainly these days very different people.
• 1:12:08
  Leading onto my next question, which is dark, controversial.
• 1:12:13
  Don't worry. It's what do you make of Trevor
• 1:12:16
  Baxendale as a writer and a writer of Doctor Who?
• 1:12:19
  And I'm going to go to Gareth for that.
• 1:12:21
  I've. Always enjoyed his stuff.
• 1:12:24
  I pretty much find it really pacey.
• 1:12:28
  Did he do Prisoner of the Daleks as well?
• 1:12:30
  Yes, if I remember that correctly.
• 1:12:32
  Yeah. So I've I've always, always
• 1:12:34
  enjoyed his work. I'm desperately trying to think
• 1:12:38
  of 1 I don't like and I can't believe.
• 1:12:41
  One of those ones that you like that you was recommending to me.
• 1:12:43
  You know those the Kitty ones? Oh yes, he did.
• 1:12:47
  He did. And unfortunately I've got all
• 1:12:48
  my Cybermen in the way so I can't tell which one it is.
• 1:12:52
  That's such a Doctor Who problem.
• 1:12:53
  Heart of stone. Yeah, I did.
• 1:12:55
  Heart of Stone, Yeah, yeah, he did.
• 1:13:00
  Heart of Stone so. But yeah, I've enjoyed his
• 1:13:03
  books. But I do think Ether of Wasps is
• 1:13:05
  the best one and hands down. Yeah.
• 1:13:11
  Yeah, I think because is this his third book?
• 1:13:16
  Isn't it ether of Wasps? He did a couple before, that is
• 1:13:19
  what is it. Genus Conjunction.
• 1:13:22
  And cold heart. Yeah, I think he probably take,
• 1:13:26
  I think he takes a couple of books to warm up.
• 1:13:29
  I think those first two are for me his weakest that he's done.
• 1:13:35
  But then it doesn't. Wasp is just amazing.
• 1:13:39
  It's just the level step from, you know, from those two to that
• 1:13:43
  is just phenomenal. And I also really like, is it
• 1:13:47
  the Peter Davidson one? Is it Fear of the Dark?
• 1:13:50
  I think it was the one he did after this.
• 1:13:53
  Yeah, that's another cracking book that is a really good read.
• 1:13:57
  So I think it's sort of like it feels like from here on in,
• 1:14:02
  everything he does feels really, really good, you know, Prisoner
• 1:14:05
  of the Daleks, you know, is it Dead Stone Memorial as well, is
• 1:14:10
  it? These all feel like really,
• 1:14:12
  really good books. But I think he took, he took a
• 1:14:15
  couple to kind of get his hand in and then all of a sudden it
• 1:14:18
  was like there's no stopping him, you know?
• 1:14:21
  He also wrote The Dark Flame for Big Finish, which is.
• 1:14:24
  Well. Not a.
• 1:14:25
  Classic. No, but he did also write the
• 1:14:27
  Draconian Rage for Bernice, which also featured the Dark
• 1:14:31
  Flame cut, which was excellent. What about you, Joe?
• 1:14:37
  Sorry Dan, I actually disagree. I think the Janeus conjunction
• 1:14:41
  comes in for a lot of black and it's it's doing a sort of sci-fi
• 1:14:45
  pitch black, the movie sort of story for Doctor Who.
• 1:14:50
  That's got a race against time countdown at the end as well
• 1:14:53
  that I remember being really quite exciting.
• 1:14:57
  Cold Heart I don't remember a thing about.
• 1:14:59
  It's got another orifice on the cover.
• 1:15:01
  That's all I remember. But I do agree that.
• 1:15:05
  I think that this, this is where he really blossoms and he knows
• 1:15:09
  this is where he figures out this is, this is what I can do
• 1:15:12
  with Doctor Who. This is the sort of Doctor Who I
• 1:15:14
  can do that he found like a massive pleasure out of.
• 1:15:17
  So when he writes to Deadstone Memorial, he goes cozy again.
• 1:15:21
  It's the doctor in one house. He sets up house with one family
• 1:15:27
  where the kids being possessed, like think of anything, the
• 1:15:32
  omen, you know, it's like the Damien, the kid in the house and
• 1:15:36
  he befriends that one family and it's just beautifully done.
• 1:15:39
  I think Prisoner of Daleks is probably top three of the new
• 1:15:44
  series adventures. Really exciting, proper sort of
• 1:15:47
  Dalek mania. They've even got that crazy
• 1:15:50
  Dalek font from the comic strips in there as well.
• 1:15:53
  Just really. So yeah, I think he's great.
• 1:15:55
  I think he's a he is never trying to make waves, but he
• 1:16:00
  does what he does extremely well.
• 1:16:03
  Always readable. I'm not going to disagree.
• 1:16:06
  I think of the ones that I've read, I've read, not read all
• 1:16:09
  those books, but I've read quite a few is I think it's right.
• 1:16:12
  There's nothing he's not trying to be.
• 1:16:14
  It's almost like what's the message of the book?
• 1:16:17
  Is there a a moral or anything? It's like they're not so much,
• 1:16:21
  but then it doesn't need to be. Wasps.
• 1:16:24
  You know, be careful what you put in your mouth.
• 1:16:25
  Don't eat Wasps, so. His boys say that in putting a
• 1:16:28
  grave you should never sniff a live wasp.
• 1:16:31
  Miss Meldrew, that's good advice.
• 1:16:36
  I can't remember what I was saying now.
• 1:16:39
  Now I'm thinking about smelling Wasps.
• 1:16:42
  But I think, yeah, I think there's always this feeling
• 1:16:43
  that, you know, Doctor Who stories must have something
• 1:16:45
  deeper, meaningful or shattering in.
• 1:16:47
  And actually, there's nothing wrong with just having a really
• 1:16:51
  strong story, some interesting characters, a good Horror Story
• 1:16:55
  and, you know, some pretty graphic body horror.
• 1:16:57
  And you just get a very traditional, very pacey, you
• 1:17:00
  know, I was another one who will say short chapters.
• 1:17:04
  There's no, no more than 10 pages each.
• 1:17:08
  Sometimes you read. There's 36 chapters in total.
• 1:17:11
  And you just rattle through it out.
• 1:17:13
  There were times with time of your life where I was kind of
• 1:17:15
  willing chapters to end because I I'm one of those readers who
• 1:17:18
  hates kind of pausing mid chapter.
• 1:17:20
  I have to get to a chapter end before I put the book down.
• 1:17:22
  And then they look and go, Oh shit, this is got another 20
• 1:17:24
  pages to go. And I did and it starts to put
• 1:17:27
  you off the book. And I didn't have that with this
• 1:17:29
  at all. I I rattled through this so
• 1:17:31
  quickly when I eventually got around to picking it up.
• 1:17:35
  It's just really well written and really easy to to read or
• 1:17:39
  keep saying the same things. But it's like it just there's
• 1:17:43
  something to be said about straightforward and showy prose.
• 1:17:47
  And I think that was kind of with time of your life.
• 1:17:50
  It was, it was like it was trying to be big.
• 1:17:51
  I was like, I'm trying to say something about television in
• 1:17:54
  the world. And then the story kind of got
• 1:17:56
  lost as a result. Someone mentioned Terrence Dicks
• 1:17:59
  earlier and I think Baxendale has Terrence Dicks.
• 1:18:03
  His same skill, his ability to economically tell a story that's
• 1:18:10
  really exciting, that gets you really involved without
• 1:18:13
  overcomplicating anything at all.
• 1:18:16
  And that's a real skill, I think, because so many of these
• 1:18:20
  new adventure stroke EDA writers overcomplicate every fucking
• 1:18:24
  thing in their books and. Where they're pulling our air
• 1:18:26
  out, going, oh God, stop trying so hard, you know?
• 1:18:30
  And The thing is, it's a clever thing with like world building,
• 1:18:33
  you know, kind of reminds me of Crazy Mass and Nigel Neil as
• 1:18:35
  well. Is that instead of kind of, you
• 1:18:38
  know, taking several chapters to build up Markling Marpling in
• 1:18:41
  the characters, Is that the wasp?
• 1:18:42
  The first wasp attack is at the end of chapter 3.
• 1:18:45
  And it's kind of right there. It's done really early in the
• 1:18:48
  book. And then everything else, while
• 1:18:50
  this is kind of then goes a little bit in the background,
• 1:18:52
  everything else starts to build up around it.
• 1:18:54
  We meet the pinks, not probably no relation to Danny.
• 1:18:57
  You know that there's not many pinks in, you know the world,
• 1:19:00
  but Doctor Who has two sets of them and we need the characters.
• 1:19:04
  To be related to Danny Pink. So it's it's really well
• 1:19:08
  structured as well. It's kind of it sets the
• 1:19:10
  jeopardy, it sets the menace. It's growing slowly in the
• 1:19:12
  background. And some of those horror
• 1:19:14
  chapters where they break into Rigby's house and he's there in
• 1:19:17
  the dark, it's like, that's just horrible.
• 1:19:22
  It's just really, really effective.
• 1:19:25
  With everyone else like me, with every set piece, I was going,
• 1:19:28
  OK, that's as gross as it's going to get, and then and then
• 1:19:31
  the opposite for the next one right to the end of the book.
• 1:19:35
  It, it gets grosser and I mean, and it, it starts with the
• 1:19:39
  cover. Yeah.
• 1:19:41
  I mean, that is a, it is a grim cover.
• 1:19:44
  And I it's like, is that, whose mouth is that somebody's
• 1:19:48
  somebody's posed for? That Can I just say I've had
• 1:19:50
  this book for over 20 years and it's only today that I've
• 1:19:54
  realized there's a solitary wasp on the spine.
• 1:19:57
  Is there? The light just shone on it,
• 1:19:59
  Just, just, just on the letters. I've never.
• 1:20:02
  Seen that it was a real wasp. I've been out of my table
• 1:20:05
  earlier today and I was like, wow, I've never seen that.
• 1:20:08
  They've lined it up so there's just one wasp on the side.
• 1:20:11
  You know what bothers me about that cover?
• 1:20:13
  It's less the wasp is those hideous fucking teeth.
• 1:20:16
  They're horrible. Yeah.
• 1:20:19
  He's meant to be a dentist. The original cover was supposed
• 1:20:23
  to be more horrific. Yeah, and.
• 1:20:25
  It was in more of a Hammer Horror style apparently.
• 1:20:27
  Oh really? Oh, no, that's enough.
• 1:20:29
  It's I mean, there's many sort of beautiful pieces of Doctor
• 1:20:33
  Who cover are, you know, I'm thinking, what's that lovely
• 1:20:36
  fairy tale one right near the beginning of the new adventures
• 1:20:39
  which Mark. Which?
• 1:20:41
  Mark. You'd put on your wall, you
• 1:20:42
  know, April, you certainly wouldn't be putting this on your
• 1:20:45
  wall, would you? Good grief.
• 1:20:47
  You could, but you have to answer some very complicated
• 1:20:49
  questions when people come round.
• 1:20:50
  Oh. My God, look at Gareth.
• 1:20:54
  Don't say anything more. Leave it to the imagination.
• 1:20:56
  It's doing. The same things for that book.
• 1:21:01
  But yes, they've they've enjoyed putting the Wasps on that mouse.
• 1:21:06
  Although Dan, did you not have a a criticism?
• 1:21:09
  Yeah, yeah, my, the graphic designer me is coming out and
• 1:21:14
  it's sort of like those Wasps aren't quite at the correct
• 1:21:18
  scale. They are are too, too small.
• 1:21:22
  And and it was funny because because you sent over that
• 1:21:25
  interview that that Trevor Baxon did and and he he was saying
• 1:21:29
  about that, that he loved the the, the cover that black sheep
• 1:21:32
  done because those Wasps was a little bit too small.
• 1:21:35
  And I think, oh damn, he's stolen my Thunder there.
• 1:21:38
  Because yeah. And especially like how they're
• 1:21:40
  described in the book as being quite big Wasps that that they
• 1:21:43
  look quite teeny. It won't be the last time that
• 1:21:46
  black sheep got the details wrong, you know.
• 1:21:49
  I mean, it happens. Quite a bit.
• 1:21:51
  They definitely if. The wasp was too big.
• 1:21:54
  You'd end up with a death in the cloud situation where everyone's
• 1:21:56
  expecting a giant wasp be taken on an aeroplane, which never
• 1:21:59
  happens in that book. Well, it could happen.
• 1:22:01
  It is though, couldn't it? True, true.
• 1:22:04
  It does happen. We have we have Angie being
• 1:22:06
  ferried around while a giant wasp at the end which.
• 1:22:10
  As a method of travel, I wouldn't recommend it.
• 1:22:12
  She certainly didn't. No one star for that Uber
• 1:22:16
  driver. Just a great read.
• 1:22:20
  Just a really great read that I'll skip through in two days
• 1:22:23
  like I just flew through it. It's, it's an easy read.
• 1:22:27
  I've got to keep. I've said that so many times,
• 1:22:29
  but it's like, that's what you want sometimes from a Doctor Who
• 1:22:32
  book. You don't want something where
• 1:22:33
  you kind of dreading picking it up.
• 1:22:35
  Oh God, I've got to read another chapter of this.
• 1:22:37
  And there are some your adventures and EDA's where you.
• 1:22:41
  It's worth remembering, Yeah, Only half the amount of books
• 1:22:44
  that they brought out in the wilderness years fall under the
• 1:22:46
  bracket of easy read. OK, We're lucky that we got one.
• 1:22:51
  If no one, if anyone's listening to this, and if they're
• 1:22:55
  wondering what EDA to start on at all, I would heartily
• 1:22:59
  recommend this. Yeah, me too.
• 1:23:01
  Even if you if you if you've never read any other Doctor Who
• 1:23:04
  book, read this one, seek it out because you won't regret it.
• 1:23:08
  I think I've said this on my top ten.
• 1:23:10
  This is perfect reading on a winter evening with no one else
• 1:23:14
  around and you'll be fully absorbed into it.
• 1:23:18
  You know, I go back to, to what I said at the, at the start, I,
• 1:23:22
  I really struggled with some of those early EDA's to the point
• 1:23:26
  where I was like, I've just given up with these and I'll
• 1:23:29
  just read the, you know, the past doctor adventures or stick
• 1:23:33
  with what I've already got. And it, it took a book like
• 1:23:37
  this, I mean, this, this had to be good to kind of change my
• 1:23:41
  opinion of this range and think these are worth persevering with
• 1:23:46
  because the, a bit like the, the new adventures, they've
• 1:23:50
  obviously got that dodgy first bit where they're still trying
• 1:23:55
  to feel their way into it and, and what are we actually doing
• 1:23:58
  with these? And then when they hit the, the
• 1:24:00
  hit the ground running after that, you know, you, you, you've
• 1:24:05
  got a really, some really, really good books and.
• 1:24:08
  Excites me. Dan, do you know?
• 1:24:09
  Because you said that you haven't, you haven't really
• 1:24:12
  explored later than this. And I think the best EDA's come
• 1:24:16
  after this. Yeah, I mean, I'm, I'm super,
• 1:24:19
  I'm super excited because of like, you know, listening to
• 1:24:21
  everyone doing their their their top 10s and there's so many
• 1:24:25
  people within the various different book clubs that have
• 1:24:28
  kind of gone. This is a really good EDA and
• 1:24:30
  I'm thinking. I haven't read that one.
• 1:24:31
  I've got that to. Come so yeah, yeah, you know,
• 1:24:34
  I'm, I'm super stoked for that, but.
• 1:24:36
  Like we will cover. The one that you have done after
• 1:24:39
  this, which is reckless engineering.
• 1:24:42
  Oh yes, yes, I do. I do like that one.
• 1:24:45
  Oh, it really went in my top ten.
• 1:24:46
  I I don't know what why but. It just go and listen to the
• 1:24:50
  episode. You'll find out all right.
• 1:24:54
  The EDA is, it's a really strong run.
• 1:24:56
  There's, there's the odd Dodds here or there, but any run of
• 1:24:59
  stories is going to have them. But I just remember I bought
• 1:25:02
  them almost every single month when they were coming out and I
• 1:25:05
  was looking forward to them. And I think it was, they were
• 1:25:08
  enjoyable. There was a bit of a story arc
• 1:25:10
  building as well, but it wasn't at the certain points.
• 1:25:13
  It wasn't anything too heavy that that comes later.
• 1:25:16
  But I think if you read them every month, you're invested.
• 1:25:19
  So when the universe starts collapsing and then the
• 1:25:22
  multiverse starts collapsing. And yet they're still relatively
• 1:25:27
  quite well accessible. As long as you read in the
• 1:25:28
  books, they're still really well written.
• 1:25:30
  They're still really engaging, I think more so than some of the
• 1:25:34
  new adventures, which could just get very dense and.
• 1:25:38
  But it's so weird. It's so weird that both ranges
• 1:25:42
  sort of peaked at the same time, which is somewhere around the
• 1:25:46
  middle. You've got the Earth arc of the
• 1:25:48
  EDA's, which I think is probably the peak of the EDA's, and
• 1:25:53
  you've got human nature, sanctuary, original sin, all
• 1:25:57
  that right in the middle of the new adventures.
• 1:25:59
  And then both ranges just have this furious run to the finale
• 1:26:04
  of like, OK, we've learned the lessons now let's go.
• 1:26:09
  Or actually, I don't know what it is.
• 1:26:11
  You know what it is. It's the ladies, It's Rebecca
• 1:26:13
  Levine and it's Jacqueline Rayner.
• 1:26:16
  They're they're two consultants on those two ranges.
• 1:26:21
  And I think that just brings a bit of balance as well because I
• 1:26:23
  think certainly with the new adventures you've got that sense
• 1:26:26
  of like, you know, the teenage boys are in control.
• 1:26:29
  I think Joe, you've Joe has been sharing with us on our chats
• 1:26:32
  some of the passages from. I'm so sorry.
• 1:26:35
  Some very early new adventures, which has to say some of those
• 1:26:38
  bits have not dated, were terribly well.
• 1:26:40
  At all. I didn't have it off with our
• 1:26:42
  bloody Dalek, all right, God. It just trips off the tongue
• 1:26:47
  some of that prose. Different times.
• 1:26:50
  And yet that and that that was love and more.
• 1:26:52
  And that's kind of one of the acclaimed ones as well, so.
• 1:26:56
  We'll see about that, all right. It's coming out in a few weeks.
• 1:27:01
  I shall look forward. So before we move on to our top
• 1:27:05
  threes, our bottom threes, is there any other points or things
• 1:27:09
  from the Etho Wasps that we haven't covered?
• 1:27:13
  I just want to mention my favorite line, which is the
• 1:27:17
  Doctor referencing that he once met the Marquis of Bath when he
• 1:27:21
  stayed at Longleat, which I I thought was brilliant.
• 1:27:27
  And that really opened doors for him with Squire Pinked as well,
• 1:27:30
  wasn't he? I'm very impressed by that.
• 1:27:33
  Yeah. I loved the doctor's gleeful joy
• 1:27:37
  at driving a tractor and causing maximum destruction as he went
• 1:27:42
  through 1 field after on the way back to Marpling.
• 1:27:46
  That was very fun. I've, I think I've got, I've got
• 1:27:50
  two things. I really love that line where
• 1:27:56
  both at this point, I think Angie and Fitz are kind of
• 1:28:00
  arguing about the, the, the Doctor's behavior and Angie goes
• 1:28:05
  to him. You really love him, don't you?
• 1:28:08
  And Fitz goes well, I like to think that we're just good
• 1:28:11
  friends. And I just, I just, that just
• 1:28:14
  sums up the wit of Fitz so, so well.
• 1:28:17
  That's him in a, in a kind of nutshell.
• 1:28:20
  But also I want to ask, do you do you think the Doctor's
• 1:28:27
  flirting with Fitz? Where?
• 1:28:30
  Totally. Where it comes out about, you
• 1:28:33
  know, the doctor had been around at this point.
• 1:28:34
  He remembers that he was sailing around the the South Seas or
• 1:28:37
  something. And and Fitz goes, oh, a sailor.
• 1:28:41
  He goes do us a joke and he goes, was it something along the
• 1:28:43
  lines of not likely, but if you're lucky I'll show you my
• 1:28:48
  tattoo or something like that. Wonderful.
• 1:28:54
  Yeah. It's no wonder, you know, come
• 1:28:56
  half life, I'm going to mention it again.
• 1:28:58
  He's having dreams of him. I mean, when the Doctor's bums
• 1:29:02
  touching then the TARDIS, you know he's totally bewitched.
• 1:29:07
  And of course, in the joyous Mad Dogs, Mad Dogs and Englishmen,
• 1:29:11
  the doctor fits naked for a small amount of time together.
• 1:29:15
  Collars around their necks and leashes on them, Yeah.
• 1:29:18
  I mean the the the context of that particular scene is not
• 1:29:21
  quite what you would expect, because there are some.
• 1:29:24
  Desperately trying not to get an eye for though, but she fails
• 1:29:27
  with the doctor. She has to have a little peek.
• 1:29:30
  She does. There's a, there's a brilliant
• 1:29:31
  bit there. It would.
• 1:29:36
  Be so disappointing if he had a Weiner.
• 1:29:39
  Whatever. Oh really?
• 1:29:41
  Oh dear. It's just bigger on the outside.
• 1:29:44
  How did? We get here.
• 1:29:45
  Oh, Dad started this. Yeah, but you're curious.
• 1:29:51
  Yeah. What was he packing down there?
• 1:29:53
  I have no. Doubt that the Doctor is
• 1:29:55
  extremely well endowed in every regeneration, even William
• 1:30:00
  Harnell. I'm so glad you didn't put the
• 1:30:03
  opening question at this point. I've got to say that right now.
• 1:30:06
  Well, I. Was just going to say what?
• 1:30:08
  What about Jodie then? What about Jodie?
• 1:30:12
  You said all of them. Oh, she's got a fabulous pair of
• 1:30:16
  tits. You can see them in every
• 1:30:17
  episode. And on that.
• 1:30:22
  Sorry, I'm so sorry. On that note.
• 1:30:26
  Oh, I've got one more line. Can I quote one more line?
• 1:30:29
  Because this really made me laugh.
• 1:30:31
  And it's just a throwaway line. It's not about anything.
• 1:30:34
  When Angie goes to, I think it's to Hillary.
• 1:30:38
  You saw action in the First World War, didn't you?
• 1:30:40
  You look old enough. His response is.
• 1:30:43
  The First World War. It was an awkward conversation,
• 1:30:47
  that's true. Do you think Stephen Muffet read
• 1:30:50
  that line and used the almost exact same phrasing twice upon a
• 1:30:54
  time? I'm.
• 1:30:54
  Telling you now. Stephen Muffet.
• 1:30:56
  Read a lot of these books OK and cherry pick some tasty ideas.
• 1:31:02
  You read The Time Traveller's Wife.
• 1:31:04
  He definitely read that, yes. He didn't, did he?
• 1:31:07
  I didn't. I could.
• 1:31:08
  I could. I don't know what you mean.
• 1:31:09
  Any. Well, hang on a wing.
• 1:31:11
  The universe where Toby Hado went back in time and burned it.
• 1:31:14
  Yeah, well, we should say he wish he could, didn't he?
• 1:31:20
  Right, OK, let's move on to our top threes if we have nothing
• 1:31:23
  more to say on the joyously good Eater of Wasps.
• 1:31:27
  So obviously this is a book set in the village of Markling.
• 1:31:30
  Whether or not that's a mark or reference or not, we don't know.
• 1:31:33
  So I challenged our group to think of their top three or
• 1:31:37
  bottom 3 dock two stories set in a village or just Dock 2
• 1:31:42
  villages. So, Gareth?
• 1:31:46
  Off you go. I'll take me top spot 1st and
• 1:31:49
  it's Terror of the Zygons. Oh, of course.
• 1:31:53
  Because I really like Scotland and it's got a pub there you
• 1:31:58
  should like. Sussex.
• 1:32:01
  It's right. It's right at the right at the
• 1:32:02
  top of my list, which means my second place has to go to the
• 1:32:07
  Android Invasion because it's got a nice pub there.
• 1:32:13
  And my third one is going to be Delta and the Bannermen.
• 1:32:18
  Partly because I said, as I did on our top ten, that I always
• 1:32:21
  thought that each of the Wasps was a cross between Delta of the
• 1:32:24
  Bannermen and Terra, the Zygons. But also because in Shangri-La,
• 1:32:27
  I'm sure they've got a pub there as well.
• 1:32:30
  And if nothing else, I've got somewhere else for the rest of
• 1:32:32
  the family to enjoy themselves. Not a good pub, do you Gareth?
• 1:32:35
  There's a oh. Absolutely I do.
• 1:32:38
  Good man, good man. Dan, what you got?
• 1:32:42
  Right, so the first one is probably going to be people are
• 1:32:48
  going to where the hell is that from?
• 1:32:49
  So the the the first one I'm going for is is hex and bridge.
• 1:32:53
  Oh, that Is that the Hollow Men? Yeah.
• 1:32:57
  Yeah. Scarecrows.
• 1:33:00
  Yeah, yeah. So I, I think this is, this is
• 1:33:03
  obviously a really enjoyable book.
• 1:33:07
  I like the fact that there's a linkage with little Hodkin from
• 1:33:12
  the The Awakening. You know, it's only a stone's
• 1:33:16
  throw away and all that sort of stuff.
• 1:33:17
  But yeah, you know that, you know, you've got the scarecrow
• 1:33:20
  stalking the countryside, you know, and then the village into
• 1:33:24
  the control of the, the battle machine and all that sort of
• 1:33:27
  stuff. But yeah, so that was, that was
• 1:33:30
  my first one. Then my second one is Sheldon
• 1:33:35
  Boniface. It isn't that's the first time
• 1:33:45
  it appears, but I'm referencing it because it is also the the
• 1:33:49
  setting for for Benny's wedding to to Jason Kane in the very,
• 1:33:54
  very enjoyable happy endings. So so yes, I want to reference
• 1:33:58
  that. And then this, this, this my, my
• 1:34:03
  top, my number one has appeared in eight different stories.
• 1:34:09
  And it is Stockbridge. So yeah.
• 1:34:14
  So it's sort of like it's been in eight different DWM comic
• 1:34:20
  strips, starting with the 4th Doctors, the I Legion.
• 1:34:25
  You've had people like the 8th Doctor's companion for his run
• 1:34:29
  of comics, Izzy. That's where she lived.
• 1:34:32
  There's the recurring character of Max Edison as well.
• 1:34:36
  The Doctor played for the Cricket Club there, the the 5th
• 1:34:39
  Doctor, yes. So it's so so it's kind of woven
• 1:34:43
  through a lot of like Doctor Who's of comic book history.
• 1:34:49
  So yeah, that's my top one. Joe Well, I had all TV ones
• 1:34:56
  written down and then through the course of this conversation
• 1:34:58
  I've suddenly been remembering villages from books.
• 1:35:01
  So I thought I'll get I'll stay on theme.
• 1:35:04
  I'm actually currently reading Grave Matter by Justin Richards.
• 1:35:08
  Now it's set on a small island, but it's essentially a village,
• 1:35:13
  a church. It's like a little seaside
• 1:35:15
  island called Dorsal. And it's another very good sort
• 1:35:20
  of horror book. Zombies coming out of the sea
• 1:35:22
  and thing and then through the mist and it's a fabulous one set
• 1:35:25
  in the village. My second one is the village,
• 1:35:29
  which I can't remember the name of it, but I just remember it
• 1:35:32
  being a great setting in Casualties of War where the
• 1:35:35
  mental asylum is where he meets Merry minute.
• 1:35:38
  That's a that's setting a village as well.
• 1:35:41
  And it's a that's a very disturbing Horror Story, that
• 1:35:44
  one, both psychological and what is it about villages and horror?
• 1:35:49
  You'd never want to go to a village, would you?
• 1:35:51
  And my last one is Gray if from Father Time, which is the snowy
• 1:35:58
  village where the doctor first meets Miranda at the start of
• 1:36:01
  that book. And it is depicted like a fairy
• 1:36:04
  tale. It's beautiful.
• 1:36:07
  That's my free. That's brilliant.
• 1:36:10
  When I asked this question, I don't know why I had this in my
• 1:36:13
  head. It's like village.
• 1:36:14
  Village isn't Doctor. There must be there must be
• 1:36:16
  loads of them because it's, you know, the quintessential.
• 1:36:19
  We said about this book. It's very traditional.
• 1:36:21
  It's set in the village. And then if you look at the
• 1:36:23
  classic series, there's not much many, you know, there's there's
• 1:36:27
  little hot come and we've got obviously the one from Android
• 1:36:32
  invasion. But but I think once you get
• 1:36:37
  into the the kind of wilderness years and everything, that's
• 1:36:39
  when the village thing probably starting with, which is also on
• 1:36:44
  my list to Stockbridge because it appears so often.
• 1:36:47
  And it's it's it's just nice and reassuring to have in the
• 1:36:51
  comics, that place that the Doctor kept going back to and
• 1:36:53
  kept picking up with some of the same people.
• 1:36:55
  And the 8th Doctor run is one of my favourites and Izzy is one of
• 1:36:59
  the best companions I think from the sort of post TV movie era.
• 1:37:05
  So definitely. They even did three big
• 1:37:07
  finishes. Didn't they install?
• 1:37:08
  Yeah, they. Did.
• 1:37:09
  Yeah, right, right. So yeah, it's something that
• 1:37:12
  clearly they're like going back to.
• 1:37:13
  I would have said happy endings had I remembered about that one,
• 1:37:16
  because that is one of my favorite books.
• 1:37:18
  And even when you said children Boniface, I was like, where do I
• 1:37:20
  know that from going? Clearly it's one of my favorite
• 1:37:22
  books. I just.
• 1:37:22
  Did it on the list. It's not on the.
• 1:37:24
  List. I'll add it to the list.
• 1:37:26
  I'd love to read that one. Then I think Zygons because I
• 1:37:31
  think that's just tearing Zygons.
• 1:37:33
  That's just a great setting and it's done well.
• 1:37:36
  OK, it's not Scotland and you know, if you look closely, you
• 1:37:38
  probably spot it isn't. But I'm going to champion the
• 1:37:41
  demons, the demons because everybody gives it a kicking.
• 1:37:47
  It seems to be fashionable now to say, and it was on one of the
• 1:37:51
  Strictlys where it's like, oh, the cast are having fun, but
• 1:37:53
  we're not saying fuck that. I'm the bloody love it.
• 1:37:55
  What's? Wrong with them, people.
• 1:37:56
  There's magic in the world after all.
• 1:37:59
  And it's got a pub and, and we've been to that pub.
• 1:38:01
  We've driven to old born. It's it's lovely that it's
• 1:38:03
  nowhere near as big as you think.
• 1:38:05
  I think that's the thing. It's literally that fucking
• 1:38:09
  green and that's it. And you know what's really nice
• 1:38:13
  is that they've rebuilt the church as well, because I can't
• 1:38:15
  believe they blew that up for filming.
• 1:38:18
  That's such an obstacle. David, we must do the fertility
• 1:38:21
  dance. I don't know how to respond to
• 1:38:25
  that, but I'd rather have a pint.
• 1:38:30
  Well done gentlemen, it has been a pleasure.
• 1:38:36
  Where are we going or what are we?
• 1:38:38
  What are we due to receive next? Whose choice was this?
• 1:38:43
  All of yours, I think. I think it might have been rods
• 1:38:48
  wasn't. It oh much lamented and missed
• 1:38:52
  rods unfortunately, but I do believe it's a particular
• 1:38:56
  favorite of of your stand. Yeah, yeah, it was, it was in
• 1:39:00
  my, my top ten. Yeah.
• 1:39:04
  And I, I, I think it's, it's, it's one of the, the best new
• 1:39:09
  adventures. I, I, I just really, really
• 1:39:12
  enjoy it. I mean, that's the thing.
• 1:39:14
  It's got all of those tropes that you would expect from the
• 1:39:16
  new adventures. But but yeah, but it does it in
• 1:39:19
  a very a very thought provoking and evocative way.
• 1:39:23
  What's it called? Yeah.
• 1:39:25
  Exactly. Well, there's only one thing
• 1:39:27
  that can follow us having traversed through Eater of Wasps
• 1:39:31
  is that we're all in need of a dose of bad therapy.
• 1:39:35
  Thank you very much well done. I I have read the first chapter.
• 1:39:38
  I read it years ago. I read the first chapter last
• 1:39:40
  night and it's like this feels like this is going to be a good
• 1:39:43
  book, but in a different way for a meter of Wasps.
• 1:39:46
  Because even in that first chapter it feels like it's, I've
• 1:39:49
  got something to say, but in a really interesting way.
• 1:39:52
  So I'm really looking forward to one reading the book and then
• 1:39:56
  having this conversation. And if anyone on that call or I
• 1:39:59
  starts making dirty remarks about playing with toys, OK,
• 1:40:04
  keep being kicked off the call it.
• 1:40:06
  Depends on doing the opening question, surely?
• 1:40:10
  I think it should be done this time, giving us the opening
• 1:40:12
  question. All right.
• 1:40:14
  OK. What do you reckon?
• 1:40:16
  Yeah, I'm happy to do that. That means you've got to conjure
• 1:40:19
  up a top three as well. Top three explanations as to
• 1:40:23
  what happened to Perry. You could choose from about 20.
• 1:40:27
  Oh, sorry, I've just a massive spoiler.
• 1:40:29
  I'm so sorry. Don't worry, No.
• 1:40:32
  Does anybody get this fast? Listen to the book who've turned
• 1:40:36
  off the end, of course. I should have said top, top
• 1:40:40
  three explanations as to how William exited Doctor Who.
• 1:40:45
  Here we go. Is that her name?
• 1:40:48
  Gilliam, Gilliam, Gilliam, Yeah. It's.
• 1:40:52
  Award. I think it's a sign that we need
• 1:40:58
  to read the book. Gentlemen, it's been a pleasure
• 1:41:01
  to spend a Wednesday evening with you discussing eating Wasps
• 1:41:04
  and other nasty things. How do we go out on sort of a
• 1:41:08
  wasp based pond? I think that's where you cut it.
• 1:41:17
  There's nowhere to hive. Make a beeline for this book is
• 1:41:22
  great. Well done.
• 1:41:24
  Well, I'll cut it there.