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Hamster Book Club - David Gillespie-Pratt Top and Bottom Ten Books · A Hamster With a Blunt Penknife - a Doctor Who Commentary podcast

• 0:00
  Welcome back to the Hamster Book Club.
• 0:03
  My name is Joe Ford and today to what's the word, delect and
• 0:10
  delight you with his top ten and bottom 10 Doctor Who books.
• 0:15
  Not books, otherwise it'd be a very different list.
• 0:18
  David Gillespie Pratt. Hello, David.
• 0:21
  Hello, Joe, and good evening. Hello.
• 0:24
  Is it a good evening? It is.
• 0:26
  We both have sort of iffy days, aren't we?
• 0:28
  We've been sharing the hasn't it been a difficult day type
• 0:32
  stories and there was a point where you go, do I want you
• 0:35
  know, am I, am I tired? Has my brain gone going?
• 0:38
  No, I need to switch off from work.
• 0:40
  Doing a podcast talking about Doctor Who books.
• 0:43
  That's the sort of thing you need.
• 0:45
  Well, can I ask you a question immediately?
• 0:47
  Go for it. Well, so you know your day's
• 0:50
  been not that great. Would you rather live this day
• 0:54
  again or read Revelation of the Daleks by Eric Saywood?
• 1:00
  Oh, see, that's a tough one, because while this, this is,
• 1:03
  this has been a difficult day. It's been challenging.
• 1:06
  Challenging is also a very good word to describe Revelation of
• 1:09
  the Daleks by Eric Saywood, which I'm going to, I'm, I'm
• 1:14
  going to do my usual thing. I'm going to keep them apparent
• 1:16
  to dry because we have it on a book club coming up.
• 1:18
  We do, and I believe you know, on our group chat you said you
• 1:21
  was going to go looking for the gold in that one.
• 1:24
  Yes, that's that's a challenge. You'll learn to regret those
• 1:29
  words. I think there are books where
• 1:34
  there, you know, there's always something positive to say,
• 1:36
  there's some genuinely good bit about it or something and
• 1:40
  there's probably some good stuff in Revelation.
• 1:42
  But no, I'm not. I'm going to, I'm going to keep
• 1:45
  my power. But basically I don't want to
• 1:47
  end up doing the repeat. I'll just say to you, if you
• 1:50
  like Colin Baker dropping his trousers, you won't be
• 1:52
  disappointed. If you like repeated references
• 1:55
  to Colin Baker's weight and trouser trouser support.
• 2:01
  And hydrostatic technology, I'll feel very well educated on that
• 2:05
  now. Yes, it's it's an experience.
• 2:09
  I think it's probably the best way to describe it.
• 2:12
  David, I'm going to start playing the the, you know, the
• 2:15
  old Hovis advert music as we head back into the misty dawns
• 2:22
  of your life. And I'm going to ask you, David
• 2:25
  Glitzy Pratt, what is your Doctor Who book journey?
• 2:28
  Where did you start and what happened?
• 2:31
  Well, she felt a lot of people have said that to me over the
• 2:33
  years of like, what happened? Oh dear.
• 2:38
  Perfectly fine to me. Oh, that's everything's fine.
• 2:42
  I'm just being dramatic to the Doctor Who booked you.
• 2:46
  Well, in a way, we could have come in full circle because my
• 2:50
  my very first podcast was a book club going back about it'd be
• 2:54
  about a year ago. Now, and you know, when he was
• 2:56
  nervous, I never could have told you absolutely aimed for it in
• 2:59
  that podcast. And I think I mean talk about
• 3:03
  Doctor Who books and everything. It's, it's, it's quite easy.
• 3:06
  And I think I did the kind of brief version there.
• 3:08
  But I'm going to repeat myself. Why not?
• 3:09
  I'm going to repeat myself. But I because I came in to talk
• 3:14
  to in sort of early 90s, about 93 with the repeats.
• 3:18
  But I do remember watching it on broadcast in at least 88 watch
• 3:23
  the at the time of recording season 25 box sets just come
• 3:27
  out. Watched Remembrance of the
• 3:29
  Daleks at the weekend. And I remember that on
• 3:31
  broadcast. I remember Daleks in the
• 3:33
  basement so vividly. So I was I was aware of it.
• 3:36
  And at primary school there was a just a library across the
• 3:40
  road. So every week, because, you
• 3:42
  know, then you had to treat us back there.
• 3:44
  It's like we're going to go to the library this afternoon.
• 3:46
  And they had a handful of Target books.
• 3:50
  And the two that I and the two that I remember them having were
• 3:55
  the hardback, because I just remember them being the hardback
• 3:58
  versions. And apparently they're worth
• 3:59
  something now of Snake Dance and Inferno.
• 4:03
  Now, if you've never seen the covers to the hardback versions
• 4:07
  of Snake Dancing Inferno, they are pretty striking covers 1
• 4:13
  the. Swirly, whirly snake.
• 4:14
  One's the the snake and the other is the character turning
• 4:20
  into the primord. Yeah, and it's the big bright
• 4:23
  orange cover and it's just really striking.
• 4:27
  I didn't actually read them. I, I, I, I took them and I
• 4:30
  looked and I skimmed through, but I was probably a little bit
• 4:34
  young for them, but I was just interested.
• 4:36
  Studied the covers. I that's what you do when you're
• 4:40
  like six or seven years old and you're not, you're not, you're
• 4:42
  not engaging with the book. But they also had Doctor Who
• 4:48
  special effects. I'm just checking because it's
• 4:49
  on the it's on the shelf, which is the it's the Matt Irvin book,
• 4:53
  which I think goes up to at least the end of to the Colin
• 4:57
  Baker era. And it's just basically how they
• 4:59
  do all the visual effects and it's just full of photos.
• 5:02
  And it was very nearly in my top ten list, but again, poured over
• 5:06
  that a good few times I've. Not and wasn't that one you
• 5:08
  know? It's it's a really good, I mean,
• 5:11
  it's behind the scenes, it's how they do things.
• 5:14
  There's pictures of the models, there's bits about canine.
• 5:17
  It's a really good book and I just remember just looking at
• 5:19
  the photos. But this is before I came I
• 5:21
  found, so it meant nothing. It's less intimidating than
• 5:25
  prose as well, isn't it? Pictures.
• 5:27
  Yes, I mean them so much more straightforward.
• 5:30
  And then I kind of I didn't become a fan until the 90s.
• 5:33
  I did watch the repeats in 92, but and I started watching the
• 5:38
  series, started buying the videos, but I didn't really get
• 5:40
  into the books. And then it would have been like
• 5:44
  1995. I get a phone call from my aunt
• 5:48
  who's was a teacher in Glasgow and they were closing down or
• 5:51
  they were doing something in the school library and she says
• 5:55
  we've got some Doctor Who books here, do you want them?
• 5:58
  And for some reason I thought she meant new adventures and I
• 6:01
  was like, Oh no, no, I don't read the books or but she kept
• 6:04
  them anyway. So she posted them down and
• 6:07
  there was Face of Evil hardback Marco Polo Hard Pack 4 to
• 6:14
  Doomsday and probably the most one of my precious things.
• 6:19
  It is a second edition, slightly battered, missing its dust sheet
• 6:23
  of the first Dalek novel. So this is from the condition.
• 6:27
  It's from 60, I think 65 reprint.
• 6:31
  So it's a. You've got a high tech security
• 6:33
  system around that. It's it's fair, it's not worth
• 6:36
  much. The dust sheets missing, it's
• 6:38
  got some damage to it but and I didn't.
• 6:41
  Agree on that once I'm around your house tomorrow, nicking it
• 6:43
  all right? And so I've, you know, towards
• 6:48
  the end of primary school in 95, we did a school trip to Cumbria.
• 6:51
  We went for like a week and I took because everyone else was,
• 6:54
  you know, playing football or, or going to the disco they put
• 6:57
  on. Oh, no, I'm sitting there
• 6:58
  reading this book from 1965. And that's the sort of thing
• 7:02
  that's large. You might have read those four
• 7:04
  books and I really enjoyed them, but I didn't properly get into
• 7:07
  top two books until much later. Now this is the point where I'm
• 7:11
  going to be really sort of cliffhanger and teaser.
• 7:13
  He's saying the book that got me in to reading Doctor Who books
• 7:17
  proper is on my list. Oh, come on.
• 7:22
  OK, so that is to be revealed. So that is to be revealed and.
• 7:27
  Is it a target? Can you at least spoil that?
• 7:30
  It's an EDA. Oh, a bad off.
• 7:34
  Do you know what it was? It was a wasp that got me into
• 7:36
  reading properly. You know it's not that, is it?
• 7:39
  No, it is not. It is not.
• 7:40
  That would have been uncanny. And it's probably a book that
• 7:44
  most people probably wouldn't expect to be in a top ten list,
• 7:48
  but it's in mine. Thank God you've got one EDA in
• 7:51
  your top 10. Rod had none at all.
• 7:53
  I've got more than one. Oh fabulous.
• 7:56
  Oh my God. So hang on.
• 7:58
  So wait, you've got these targets.
• 7:59
  Yeah. And so did you read them then or
• 8:01
  do or you still wasn't really sort of bore frottle into the
• 8:05
  books? I.
• 8:05
  Did read them and I enjoyed. I enjoyed 4 to Doomsday.
• 8:08
  I remember reading 4 to Doomsday and being really excited at the
• 8:11
  when it came on UK Gold and I got a chance to watch it and
• 8:15
  I've got always got a soft spot for it because I just remember
• 8:17
  really enjoying the book because I went in before and
• 8:20
  preconceptions of what you should and shouldn't like.
• 8:22
  And I just remember I read this book.
• 8:24
  It was quite straightforward. Whoever this Adric is is a bit
• 8:26
  of a Dick because I've never seen him in any episode before.
• 8:31
  So I didn't know who the companions were.
• 8:33
  So it was those books definitely I enjoyed, but not enough to
• 8:38
  stop picking up. I did get someone bought me a 8
• 8:42
  doctors, the 8 doctors want Christmas which I did read but
• 8:47
  it wasn't it. Suffice to say, it didn't hook
• 8:50
  me. Spark you into a future with
• 8:53
  literature. The 8 Doctors.
• 8:55
  Sadly not. I mean, I've read it again and
• 8:57
  it's not, it's not as bad as people say.
• 9:00
  I think it's it has its problems.
• 9:02
  I loved it but it's really bad. It's really bad, and I think, as
• 9:05
  I might have said on our Seeing Eye podcast, it was a really
• 9:09
  bizarre choice to launch this new bold era of Doctor Who
• 9:13
  fiction by doing a big fan wank of a novel.
• 9:17
  Indeed, indeed. Well, OK, all right, Well,
• 9:21
  should we skip into your list? Because I think then when we get
• 9:24
  to the book, which is the one that sort of started your Doctor
• 9:27
  Who book journey proper, and then we can pick up the story
• 9:31
  there. And and hopefully it'll be
• 9:35
  enlightening and entertaining. If not, it will just be what the
• 9:38
  Hell's he picture? Well, the lady's a little.
• 9:41
  Secret. I do.
• 9:42
  I mean, I obviously I love hearing people praise these
• 9:44
  books. That's what the book club's
• 9:46
  about because I the bottom 10 list is absolutely my favorite
• 9:49
  part of every episode. So where do you want to start,
• 9:51
  David? Top or bottom We're.
• 9:53
  Going to start at the bottom and we're then we're going to end on
• 9:55
  a, we're going to end on a positive.
• 9:57
  Good place to start, right? So bottom 10 I've I've made a
• 10:02
  point, I've written notes, I've written it down bottom #10.
• 10:05
  Oh, so this is in like descending order, Yeah.
• 10:08
  I've actually tried to put it in some sort.
• 10:10
  Of sequence. That means you're going to
• 10:11
  identify the worst Doctor Who book of all time.
• 10:14
  And so at #10 on the bottom and I have met, I have some of this
• 10:21
  come up in our book club chat a few times and probably will not
• 10:24
  come as a surprise to yourself or anybody on that chat.
• 10:26
  But for everybody else it is the Evil of the Daleks. 2023
• 10:32
  Edition. Now, I've not read it, so you're
• 10:35
  going to have to educate me. So when it was announced, I
• 10:40
  think the indifference from fandom was telling because it
• 10:45
  was a case of, OK, what's OK? Fraser Hines has written a book
• 10:48
  well written in massive inverted commas.
• 10:51
  And then in the press release, it was like, oh, but actually
• 10:54
  it's a novelization of the repeat.
• 10:58
  So. So for some context, at the end
• 11:02
  of The Wheel in Space, Zoe's about to go flying off with the
• 11:05
  Doctor and Jamie and he says I'm going to show you an adventure
• 11:09
  of how terrible it always and proceeds to show her evil the
• 11:12
  Daleks. That's in context of the story.
• 11:17
  And this is the story of him showing Zoe on the screen evil
• 11:23
  the Daleks. So since he's not in though,
• 11:27
  well, believe it or not, they spend a good couple of pages
• 11:30
  explaining how we see the pictures we're not in.
• 11:34
  Oh, well, it's because of the and it's like, oh, OK, it's not
• 11:38
  even done in a kind of interesting way.
• 11:41
  It's kind of, oh, you know, that dialogue in Trial of a Time Lord
• 11:43
  explains that way. We'll just crip.
• 11:45
  We'll just crip that. Strange sort of Gallifreon
• 11:48
  technology, yeah. And it's in the, I think it was
• 11:51
  the TARDIS was in range. And it's like, that is literally
• 11:54
  what they say in Trial of a Time Lord.
• 11:56
  And what we get, bear in mind this is this range, unofficial
• 12:00
  range of these ghostwritten books.
• 12:02
  I'm going to say ghostwritten books because they are, that's
• 12:05
  what they are. Let's be blunt, the and these
• 12:08
  are also premium books as well. These are big hardback.
• 12:11
  The RRP is just I checked it just now it's 22 lbs.
• 12:15
  So this is a. Big ticket for Real Eva the
• 12:18
  Daleks is about 280 pages. Is it £22.00?
• 12:22
  The certainly the full price is 22 lbs Wow.
• 12:26
  And so you're, you know, and even with you know, your
• 12:28
  discounts and you can get it from various places with a bit
• 12:31
  of money off, it is still an expensive book.
• 12:34
  And what you get written by Fraser Hines with Stephen Cole
• 12:39
  and Mike Tucker White writing in the background.
• 12:41
  It's quite a straightforward, slightly uninspiring adaptation
• 12:49
  of this this script. And certainly in the hardback
• 12:53
  version between there's only 7 chapters, each chapter
• 12:58
  representing an episode. And between each one they cut
• 13:01
  back to the TARDIS. And instead of going let's do
• 13:04
  something interesting with those flips, flip backs to the TARDIS
• 13:08
  or anything, it's just the oh Doctor, we must see the next
• 13:11
  part of the story. Oh, it's quite tiring.
• 13:12
  And they're only a page long and it's like it's just breaking up
• 13:18
  the rhythm of the story anyway. At least like when you cut to
• 13:21
  the trial, in trial on the Time Lord, they're sort of taking the
• 13:24
  piss out of the material they're watching and things, you know,
• 13:27
  this is very brutal. Can we please keep these things
• 13:29
  to a minimum? Things like that, you know?
• 13:31
  And there's a there's a little bit of, you know, sometimes it's
• 13:33
  a little bit of an in joke or anything, but it's just it feels
• 13:37
  a bit if you're going to do, if you're going to go to the effort
• 13:39
  of taking a novel, making a brand new novelisation of doing
• 13:44
  something interesting with it. And I only was only only had
• 13:47
  time really to check against episode 1 because I'm the sort
• 13:50
  of person who's that I was listening to the audio book,
• 13:52
  which I have slated because I've never heard a reader so bored of
• 13:55
  their own prose in the freezer. And I shared a clip with you
• 14:03
  guys of the first minute or so of the second chapter.
• 14:06
  Yeah, she I was almost asleep by the end of the minute.
• 14:10
  I would change on listen to the first minute of chapter 2.
• 14:12
  Turn the volume up and tell me if you can hear where they have
• 14:15
  stitched together. Probably about 3 or 4 different
• 14:18
  attempts. It is just.
• 14:21
  Fraser, will you please? I'm more excited.
• 14:23
  Come on now. You you wrote this.
• 14:27
  Maybe. I'm selling this material come.
• 14:30
  On and so the adaptant part, pretty much all the dialogue
• 14:35
  from episode 1 is kind of in the book.
• 14:38
  It's and about 90% of it is as scripted.
• 14:41
  So it, it's no more. At times there's the odd bit to
• 14:45
  kind of get a bit of colour, a bit of flavour, but it's so
• 14:48
  basic. And it's like, if you're doing
• 14:50
  this premium book and if you're going to stick the actor's name
• 14:54
  on it, do something with do something interesting with it.
• 14:57
  One of the things if you're going to add, this is where my
• 15:00
  brain goes if you're going to do an adaptation of the repeat.
• 15:03
  So one of the things that happened during the repeat was
• 15:06
  that there was a technical breakdown during episode 3 and
• 15:11
  they've, you know, here is some music and they played it.
• 15:14
  And if you want to listen to it, it's on my YouTube channel
• 15:15
  because they didn't put it on the Blu-ray and just a bit of a
• 15:18
  plug. And you thought, well, if you've
• 15:21
  got this, this conceit, the doctor is telling the story and
• 15:24
  everything good. You could have written that in.
• 15:27
  You could have made that a plot point Very.
• 15:29
  Funny way, yeah, you. Could have done something with
• 15:30
  that and the fact that it's written by Fraser Hinds.
• 15:33
  You could have done it from Jamie's perspective.
• 15:34
  Oh, but what about the scenes Jamie's not in going well.
• 15:36
  Do something imaginative. Do something creative or the
• 15:40
  fact that the Doctors tell, you know, telling the story to Zoe.
• 15:43
  You could have them narrating at certain parts through the
• 15:45
  chapters, but that would make it difficult to make the target
• 15:49
  paperback version where they lift.
• 15:50
  A lot of the TARDIS intellutes are removed and I had a flick
• 15:54
  through it was given away in DWMI, had a quick flick so
• 15:56
  they've edited episode 1 down to about 10 pages it.
• 16:00
  Was given away in DWM for a reason, you know.
• 16:03
  And so it is. It feels like it feels like a
• 16:07
  cynical cash grab 20. £2.00 it is.
• 16:12
  It just doesn't feel like it's adding anything and it is part
• 16:15
  of these this run of we're going to and no, ghostwriting is not a
• 16:21
  new phenomenon and anything like that.
• 16:23
  But I can also get a bit eye roll when I see people on
• 16:27
  Twitter and everything going, oh, Bonnie's written such a
• 16:30
  wonderful book and you go, yeah, right.
• 16:34
  I mean, she probably had a little bit more involvement.
• 16:36
  You know, I imagine she probably would want to be a little bit
• 16:38
  more involved with hers. I reckon she took Jack Rayner
• 16:40
  out for a jacket potato or something like that and just
• 16:43
  said look, I'd quite like and here's a list of all the people
• 16:46
  I've worked with. Just throw that in as well.
• 16:48
  Thank you very much. I'll take the royalties now.
• 16:52
  And also when it came out, I don't think I saw anybody talk
• 16:56
  about it. No, except for Rod in his bottom
• 16:59
  10. That's one of his bottom 10s.
• 17:01
  He hated it. So these sort of niche books,
• 17:04
  now you've done the Fraser Highs one, the Bonnie Langford has
• 17:07
  been in someone's top, bottom 10.
• 17:08
  Michael Moorcock's coming in the Terrafiles has been.
• 17:11
  So you know they're not doing too well on these top ten and
• 17:13
  bottom 10 lists. If you're going to do a premium
• 17:16
  book, it has to you have to aim high with the quality.
• 17:20
  And I mean, at least with when you had Scratch Man by Tom
• 17:25
  Baker, at least it's based on a script that he wrote with
• 17:28
  Iamato. I mean, depends on who wrote
• 17:30
  that, but at least there was a bit of a, it certainly came from
• 17:34
  the mind of Tom Baker in one way or another.
• 17:36
  So I had a little bit of a connection.
• 17:38
  I never read the Sophie Aldridge one.
• 17:41
  I can't remember what people used to say about that one.
• 17:43
  It's on our list. I think it is.
• 17:45
  You know, we may read it at some point.
• 17:47
  I don't know if it's on ours, but.
• 17:49
  It's on my list. Someone's been bulged enough to
• 17:52
  suggest it. And yeah, it's just something on
• 17:56
  it quite uninspiring. It's like, if you're going to do
• 17:59
  some premium books, you're going to do some big hardback glossy
• 18:03
  volumes, for God's sake, Do something interesting with them.
• 18:07
  I mean, I I can't argue with you because I've not read this one,
• 18:11
  but I've not heard a good word about it.
• 18:13
  So let's start by saying what an excellent choice.
• 18:17
  Well, look, you know, come on, you've been part far too mean
• 18:19
  about Doctor Who books. Why don't you praise 1?
• 18:22
  Let's head to your top ten list. I'm going to my top ten and
• 18:25
  you're going to be so happy. This is the book.
• 18:28
  This is the book I was alluding to, Warmonger.
• 18:32
  It's the Ancestor Cell, which I don't think is a massively
• 18:38
  popular book. No, but it has appeared on one
• 18:42
  of the top ten list so unbelievably.
• 18:45
  So this book came out in it was 1999 and this is a point DWM
• 18:51
  wasn't really pushing the books massively.
• 18:53
  But for some reason they did decide to do a big feature on
• 18:56
  the burning and which is the book immediately after this.
• 18:59
  And they actually did some proper effort to market and
• 19:03
  promote the books again. And for some reason I was gone.
• 19:07
  I'm quite intrigued by this, this burning.
• 19:09
  It sounds quite interesting. They're rebooting it and
• 19:10
  everything. And I've kind of read in some of
• 19:12
  the Gallifrey Guardians, the TARDIS had been destroyed and
• 19:16
  this had happened. So there was a little something,
• 19:18
  it's kind of pricking away at my interest.
• 19:21
  And we were going going on a family holiday.
• 19:25
  And it was around the time, it was the time that my parents
• 19:29
  were divorcing or separating. And divorce came back ten years
• 19:31
  later. And I think I just needed some
• 19:36
  something comforting to read. I just needed something.
• 19:39
  And I think I also took, I think that's what I also bought.
• 19:42
  Oh no, it isn't on cassette as well.
• 19:43
  So OK, so I think I just stocked up with Doctor Who and Doctor
• 19:47
  rated stuff because I just needed to kind of close myself
• 19:50
  off a bit. So these purchases, you know
• 19:53
  that first Big Finish and the BBC books then led on to a
• 19:58
  massive loss of money after this.
• 20:00
  Absolutely. And so I read the ancestor set
• 20:03
  and bear in mind the way to describe it.
• 20:06
  It's like a series finale. It's, you know, this is story
• 20:09
  arc that's been running for years.
• 20:12
  It's quite complex, it's quite convoluted.
• 20:15
  But I didn't feel at sea with it.
• 20:17
  I kind of, I had vague idea of what had gone on before.
• 20:20
  I knew that something had happened in the Interference 2
• 20:22
  parter that involved changing the Doctor's timeline.
• 20:27
  But I found it really quite accessible as long as you go in
• 20:30
  and you prepared to take it at face value.
• 20:33
  And I think because they put Fitz front and centre quite a
• 20:35
  lot of the book and he's kind of you're in this on this very dark
• 20:40
  Gallifrey. Before Big Finish went and did
• 20:42
  multitude of dark Gallifrey, this Gallifrey that's going to
• 20:45
  war with the enemy, with the unidentified enemy.
• 20:48
  You've got these visuals, like the stone edifice hanging over
• 20:52
  Gallifrey, this big thing with the spiders inside.
• 20:55
  Is, yeah. It's the Doctors.
• 20:58
  So the Doctors TARDIS was destroyed in the shadows of
• 21:00
  Avalon, but then it turns out that the heart of it survived
• 21:03
  because in interference the Doctors timeline was split in
• 21:08
  two and the Doctors TARDIS was anchoring the corrupted timeline
• 21:13
  and the true timeline. I mean, those are big ideas.
• 21:16
  And at the end of the and the there's some great visuals.
• 21:20
  So every now and again in the Anthestocell, they go back to
• 21:23
  the Perdopticon with his six sides.
• 21:26
  Then it's got five sides. And as they get closer and
• 21:29
  closer to the climax of the book, as history on Gallifrey
• 21:31
  starts to unravel and Faction Paradox are gaining more and
• 21:35
  more control, it's just really I see and subtly seeded.
• 21:39
  And it all ends with the Doctor destroying Gallifrey, the first
• 21:43
  for the first time, but he has a confrontation with him himself
• 21:48
  who's missing an arm. He's lost his shadow at this
• 21:51
  point as well. Father paradox isn't.
• 21:53
  It and the in the he drains the Tardis's last the his Tardis's
• 22:00
  energy and it collapses and it destroys the entire system and
• 22:03
  it's basically history's got a flip flop one way or the other.
• 22:08
  And it and the line I remember is basically at least to be set
• 22:11
  in stone, not set in bone or paraphrasing it, because bones
• 22:15
  are big with infection paradox and I just the the kind of that
• 22:19
  desperation and you can visualize this big.
• 22:22
  It's climactic, isn't it? It's.
• 22:24
  Climactic and so full of ideas and when you're a teenager as
• 22:28
  well and you're looking for some escapism, this just ticked and
• 22:32
  I, you know, if I went and read it now, I'd probably pick it
• 22:35
  apart and I'd probably say this is convoluted or whatever.
• 22:38
  But for me at that point, I read it, I enjoyed it.
• 22:42
  I didn't, and I got The Burning. As soon as I got back from
• 22:45
  holiday, I went and picked up The Burning and I read pretty
• 22:49
  much everything from that point to near the end.
• 22:53
  I've still never read the Gallifrey Chronicles because I
• 22:55
  can't, because I can't bring myself to read.
• 22:57
  It oh, it's. So good, but maybe coming to a
• 23:02
  book club near you it. Might be worth adding and if
• 23:04
  it's not, we'll add it. And I think I only missed five
• 23:06
  books. I think because some months, you
• 23:09
  know, when you haven't got the money or whatever, you miss one
• 23:13
  and you go, should I try and buy that and you go, no, I'll just
• 23:15
  get the next one. So I did, thanks to Rod for
• 23:18
  mentioning or doing something with spreadsheets.
• 23:20
  I sat down and thought I better just make a proper list of what
• 23:22
  I've got and from the Banquo Legacy, which is the book before
• 23:26
  I assess the sale, which I did go back and get.
• 23:29
  I think I'm only missing 5 books in that entire run, and that's
• 23:33
  about 30 or 40 novels. Does that mean that those 8th
• 23:38
  Doctor books are your first continuing original Doctor Who
• 23:45
  stories that you followed? Pretty much certainly one of
• 23:50
  them. Because we hadn't.
• 23:51
  We had an abundance of 8th Doctor in the late 90s and we
• 23:55
  might well be coming back to that.
• 23:58
  OK. But yeah, I just, it just drew
• 24:02
  me in and it did enough to make me go.
• 24:07
  I want to read more of these. These are really engaging
• 24:10
  stories and big ideas, bold and taking the cat.
• 24:15
  And and we talk a lot about, you know, how dark do the books get?
• 24:21
  And I feel like there were some dark elements to this, but it
• 24:24
  didn't feel certainly my memory of it anyway.
• 24:27
  It wasn't nasty. It wasn't cruel for the sake of
• 24:31
  it it everything served the story and it all worked so
• 24:35
  purely for the fact that it got me into reading new Doctor Who
• 24:39
  fiction and the fact I remember enjoying the hell out of it.
• 24:43
  That's why it's my number 10. Oh my God, what a fabulous
• 24:46
  choice. And not just because it's an
• 24:48
  EDA, because it's not an obvious choice of an EDA to choose.
• 24:52
  But you are right, they weren't afraid of ambition.
• 24:54
  I don't know if they always fulfilled the ambition, but they
• 24:57
  weren't afraid to just go for it, you know, and see what
• 25:00
  sticks. And it's fair to say another
• 25:04
  season finale type, EDA is coming up.
• 25:08
  Oh, but we don't know on what list.
• 25:10
  I'm not going to say. Well, let's swing round back to
• 25:13
  the therapy session for one writer and go back to your
• 25:17
  bottom 10 list. What's #9.
• 25:19
  Oh, the therapy set. Actually, I should.
• 25:21
  I should make a joke about bad therapy and see how many people
• 25:23
  can. Drop.
• 25:24
  Drop. Weep.
• 25:25
  Yeah, weep. If I suggest that, no don't
• 25:27
  worry, I'm not suggesting bad therapy.
• 25:29
  I thought being. Very sort of inoffensive, that
• 25:31
  book, and yet everyone's coming at me saying how amazing it is.
• 25:34
  So I can't wait to reread it. I'm hoping it's going to be a
• 25:36
  revelation. And that one is on our list, so
• 25:39
  oh. Bad therapy, Yeah.
• 25:41
  Bad therapy? Yeah, yeah.
• 25:43
  But my choice here is death and diplomacy.
• 25:47
  Oh my word, Dave Stone. Yeah, and it commits what there
• 25:53
  were, there were many crimes in Doctor Who's storytelling.
• 25:55
  There's being bad, there's being lazy.
• 25:59
  It's also being. Boring and the worst thing.
• 26:03
  It is the worst thing because at least with something like
• 26:05
  Revelation, the Daleks giving nothing away, at least there's
• 26:08
  something to talk about. At least it gives you something
• 26:10
  there. I just remember I was reading so
• 26:14
  while reading the EDAS, that's when I started collecting the
• 26:17
  Virgin books and I was reading as much as possible as I could
• 26:21
  get hold of them, reading them through in sequence at the same
• 26:24
  time. OK, I've said, like I've said
• 26:26
  this before, most people on their student days would be out
• 26:28
  hitting the clubs and enjoying themselves.
• 26:29
  I'm reading Virgin New Adventures and spending God
• 26:33
  knows how much money on them as well.
• 26:34
  David, given how I spent my youth, I think you've made the
• 26:38
  better choices all right. And I just remembered getting to
• 26:42
  this and possibly knowing that the big celebration book was
• 26:46
  coming up. I just found this this the chore
• 26:51
  to get through. And I just I go, you know, you
• 26:55
  remember the good books and you remember the ones that you
• 26:58
  struggle with. And this was one I just my
• 27:01
  overriding memory. If I sat down saying which ones
• 27:03
  did I really find a tediously sluggish read that even like the
• 27:10
  middle new adventures when they did go a little bit too far
• 27:13
  towards torture porn type thing and that at least that gives it
• 27:19
  something to talk about. That is it gives you kind of you
• 27:21
  know in if we ever were to do you don't forget them and I I
• 27:25
  was you know if my main memory is a very planet Zog type story.
• 27:31
  Jason Kay my experience with Jason Kane.
• 27:33
  That's the point I read the book was is it Stephen fuels
• 27:38
  performance in the in the beneath stories and where he he
• 27:42
  makes him likable and I found him quite unlikable in this
• 27:47
  book. Such a prick.
• 27:48
  Do you not remember he's talking in that weird alien language for
• 27:52
  no reason? Doctor annoyed Benny.
• 27:54
  And, and at the end, it's like, doctor, this is my my fiance,
• 27:57
  please don't kill him, which actually is not a bad kind of
• 28:00
  sentiment at the end, but. I'm telling you now, right, He
• 28:03
  either had a massive cock or he was great in bed because I
• 28:06
  couldn't see anything else I could appeal.
• 28:08
  I it was, yeah, I never bought that relationship, but I think
• 28:12
  none of the writers did because it didn't last for very long.
• 28:15
  And it was only when they did the audios, I think they
• 28:17
  actually when they got an actor in to give him some humanity,
• 28:21
  that the character worked. But certainly on the page he
• 28:23
  didn't work for. Me.
• 28:24
  Weren't they divorced? Come Eternity weeps.
• 28:27
  I think that's when they separate is eternity weeps.
• 28:29
  So that's really not many and I think isn't she doesn't she
• 28:34
  depart in happy endings? She's in return of the living
• 28:37
  dad, but then comes back for eternity, which we don't get a
• 28:40
  chance to see them together for all that long.
• 28:42
  I, I I know there's more of it in the Bernice novels, new
• 28:46
  adventure novels that come later, but.
• 28:48
  And some good stuff with Jason as well.
• 28:51
  I'll be honest, just when they introduced him.
• 28:52
  This is meant to be Ben Bernice had been for 40 odd books the
• 28:57
  the the big new character and everything.
• 28:59
  If this is the character you're bringing in to sweep her off her
• 29:01
  feet do better than this. She she deserves better.
• 29:07
  I mean, I think she would probably say that if you spoke
• 29:10
  to her in in character that she deserved better than Jason Kane.
• 29:13
  But. Paul and Martin right on.
• 29:16
  We're all stories in the end. And another.
• 29:18
  Fabulous book podcast. Said he wasn't good enough for
• 29:22
  her. I could have had her instead.
• 29:25
  I I would have to I would agree with the First off, not my time.
• 29:31
  But she's such a great character that you know, if you're going
• 29:34
  to marry her off and and don't give, I mean, the don't give her
• 29:38
  that I've met, I've met my husband at the start of the IT
• 29:41
  is a sort of impulsive thing Bernice would do.
• 29:43
  But it just never rang true. And I say it did.
• 29:47
  It was suffered slightly from having heard the audio, having
• 29:50
  heard a slightly more fleshed out, slightly more human
• 29:56
  character to go. I can't see in this book.
• 29:59
  I cannot see what she sees in him at all.
• 30:02
  Well, I'm so I'm so pleased that she got her own run of books
• 30:06
  with Virgin and then her own run of books and audios with Big
• 30:09
  Finish, because marrying her off is the most boring thing you
• 30:12
  could possibly do with this amazing character.
• 30:15
  This is where my my list gets the beginning of the
• 30:19
  contradictory, because I'm going to skip to top #9 and you're not
• 30:22
  going to be wondering if you can guess what number 9 is.
• 30:25
  Happy endings. Happy endings.
• 30:29
  It's great. No, it's really great.
• 30:32
  But that is what's annoying because it is a great book and
• 30:36
  she gets a really happy ending, literally.
• 30:40
  And it's like, why can't they let people be happy in the new
• 30:42
  adventures? Well.
• 30:44
  Why? And this is a staple of Doctor
• 30:47
  Who and I can't remember where we said it.
• 30:49
  It might have been on the hamster patron.
• 30:51
  If you haven't got it, go and sign up.
• 30:53
  Oh, thank. You.
• 30:55
  Very much, I think it was we were talking about Big Finish
• 30:57
  and saying knowing went to knowing when to stop.
• 31:01
  And it's like if you've got a character like Bernie's and
• 31:03
  you've married and you're OK, you've married her off, but
• 31:05
  you've effectively they were writing her out.
• 31:08
  Let's bring her back in a few books time and split them up and
• 31:12
  and that might be because they lost the license and they knew
• 31:14
  they were going to carry with the Bernice stories and they
• 31:16
  wanted to set it up. Isn't she back in a couple of
• 31:19
  books after Happy endings? Return of the living Dad.
• 31:22
  I think this was in the living Dad and then Eternity weeks.
• 31:25
  I think she, I think she pops Long Barrow.
• 31:27
  I think she pops up briefly in Survival of Sin at the end.
• 31:32
  And of course, the dying days. In fact, she basically didn't
• 31:35
  leave. Did she?
• 31:37
  It was like we've got too too good a thing here.
• 31:39
  But I've read happy endings in a day.
• 31:43
  I I, I am not the biggest Cornell Stan in the world.
• 31:48
  I'm I'm more to. Explore in that.
• 31:51
  I, I, I it's less of the it's a bit like another Doctor Who
• 31:55
  author. It's less to do with the author
• 31:57
  in their writing, but more to do with them as a person.
• 32:00
  Yes, I I do understand. That I I find I find him
• 32:03
  insufferable at times and and there's it's just anyway, but
• 32:09
  the this book was and Ben, like I said, I was reading these
• 32:14
  books through. So when you get to this is book
• 32:16
  50 and it's just it's full of callbacks.
• 32:20
  It's full of references. I think they've got something
• 32:24
  from each of the preceding 49 books and there is there not a
• 32:29
  chapter that is written. There's a paragraph written by
• 32:32
  almost every new adventure author in it.
• 32:35
  This book should not work. This is five Doctors 3 doctors
• 32:40
  in book film. Isn't it?
• 32:42
  It's. So self indulgent, but it's also
• 32:45
  just a really entertaining. It's fun and that's what some of
• 32:50
  the new, you know, let's be honest, not all the new
• 32:52
  adventures are fun and. I think the ratio of fun to
• 32:59
  miserable is about 9:00 to 1:00. It is just a wonderfully
• 33:05
  glorious celebration of the books, ironically doing it in a
• 33:08
  style that not many of the preceding 49 books have done.
• 33:11
  But I absolutely loved it. And the worst thing that
• 33:13
  happened when I I moved to London and I was broke.
• 33:18
  I sold so many of those later new adventures and including
• 33:22
  happy endings and I and the dying days and I just wish I
• 33:26
  hadn't and trying to get I've got most I've got some of them
• 33:30
  back now, but some of those late ones are just I, I refuse to
• 33:34
  spend more than about £30 on a on a book from 1996.
• 33:39
  And you see some of them as well.
• 33:40
  See see them on eBay. It's absurd.
• 33:43
  I mean hundreds of pounds and then all of those are.
• 33:47
  Saving someone therefore. And when they go cheap, you look
• 33:50
  at the quality of the book and it's like it's falling to bits
• 33:54
  and going, I don't know if I'm, if I'm going to spend £30 on a
• 33:57
  book, I want it to least be in good condition.
• 34:00
  I, I can't, I think was it, I was looking at eternity weeks
• 34:02
  because that is also on our book club list.
• 34:04
  And I was going, there was one on it.
• 34:07
  It was 30 lbs. I was going, it's practically
• 34:09
  falling to bits and I'm going, there's, there's a point going.
• 34:12
  I will I will find a way to read it.
• 34:15
  You, you know, when you read Eternity Weeks, you'll barely be
• 34:17
  able to see any difference between that and happy endings.
• 34:20
  So yeah, it's just a jolly. It's just a jolly.
• 34:23
  It's such an upbeat, light story.
• 34:25
  It really is when they melt Liz Shaw into a puddle.
• 34:29
  But you know, with happy endings because that was a mult opt in
• 34:31
  this as well. I think it's great that it hits
• 34:36
  when it does, because when the Dying Days fit rounds off the
• 34:39
  Virgin New Adventures, it it's not doing a big celebration of
• 34:43
  all the books. It's just doing a bloody good
• 34:45
  8th Doctor book with Bernice in it, setting up her range and
• 34:48
  just doing one story with him. But we've already had that with
• 34:51
  happy endings. We've had the big celebration of
• 34:54
  all these characters and running arcs and all these things that
• 34:57
  you've done, you know? So I'm so pleased it's there.
• 34:59
  Otherwise, there never would have been a big celebration of
• 35:01
  the New Adventures. And I think that it was good
• 35:04
  that it was there. It was light, light as they got,
• 35:09
  and it was, it was. There was a genuine sense of
• 35:12
  celebration to it as well. So even though she deserved
• 35:15
  better, she had a good day. Doesn't he sleep with ice
• 35:19
  eventually? On the wedding day, he does.
• 35:22
  I think he does or. Just ice to be, well, new slag.
• 35:27
  New Ace would do that. Yeah.
• 35:29
  Oh, she would, yeah. She'd be in that that weird
• 35:32
  costume that she wears, you know, the leather one.
• 35:36
  She checked the cover. What she what, because of the
• 35:37
  cover of the book is the wedding photo and there are two doctors
• 35:41
  in in the wedding party. But I wonder what they've got
• 35:44
  Ace wearing. I'll have to.
• 35:45
  Yeah, I might have to find a copy of it.
• 35:48
  Obviously I can't check a copy of it, but I will find.
• 35:51
  Out. Well, there was some bitterness
• 35:52
  in your voice. There, do you know I just say
• 35:54
  no. I thought all one.
• 35:56
  I mean, I made an absolute bloody mint and had an amazing
• 35:58
  holiday. I'll never forget that holiday.
• 36:00
  But I didn't wish I'd get those fucking.
• 36:02
  Books. I know.
• 36:03
  I mean, oh, there's some of them that I would love to get back.
• 36:07
  I would love to read. And I mean just War.
• 36:09
  I just remember I'd heard the audio 1st and then read the book
• 36:13
  and going this is a bloody good story.
• 36:16
  And and and it's just that is that almost made the list, but
• 36:21
  not quite. Given the the fact that the
• 36:23
  relationship didn't last, I should have sold him really
• 36:25
  rather than the books and then I I probably would have got more
• 36:28
  money as well. And you could have had a bit of
• 36:30
  holiday tick in the books with you, a bit a bit of light
• 36:32
  reading you could. Marvellous.
• 36:33
  Yeah, you. Could have taken the room with
• 36:35
  Tick in the room with no doors and enjoyed them just.
• 36:37
  Start organising my life, David, you know, welcome with them.
• 36:40
  Take us back to to the dirge. The dirge.
• 36:43
  And this is the pile. And this is a very much a
• 36:46
  personal choice, and in a way it's not the book's fault.
• 36:48
  And that is, it is the clockwise man.
• 36:52
  Oh, OK, Justin Richards, we're starting the new series
• 36:55
  adventures here. It's the it's the first one and
• 36:59
  it's in this list because it's for what it isn't.
• 37:02
  So I have been reading the 8th Doctor books religiously for
• 37:06
  about five, 5-6 years. I am completely immersed to
• 37:10
  them. I've been reading the new
• 37:11
  adventures at the same time the new the 8th sort of adventures
• 37:16
  were going to be wrapped up. They didn't quite finish it to
• 37:19
  it, you know, wasn't Gallifrey Chronicles then the new series
• 37:21
  books? There was a bit of an overlap,
• 37:23
  but it was the OK, I, you know, I these books have been a big
• 37:27
  part of my life monthly for years.
• 37:31
  I'm going to pick up these new ones.
• 37:34
  And there was these really nice, quite nicely done, hard little
• 37:38
  hard bucks. Tasting.
• 37:40
  And then you open it up and say, oh, this, this font is a bit
• 37:43
  bigger than I'm used to. And you might not be getting as
• 37:47
  many. Words as you're used to.
• 37:49
  And then you start reading it and, and always there's nothing
• 37:52
  fundamentally wrong with it. It's just really
• 37:56
  straightforward. It's a very straightforward
• 37:58
  expanded TV episode with bits that you probably couldn't do on
• 38:02
  TV, but not a huge amount, bearing in mind having had just
• 38:07
  described the ancestor cell. And then we have all the stuff
• 38:11
  that leads up to the infinite universe collapsing multiple
• 38:16
  timelines into all that that comes in the Edas, all these
• 38:20
  big, bold, massive ideas and storytelling that's doing all
• 38:26
  these things. And you've got characters like
• 38:28
  Fitz, who's got all these layers and even with Angie with tricks
• 38:33
  and all that, you've got these great companions as well.
• 38:36
  And there's nothing wrong with Rose on the page.
• 38:37
  But all of a sudden it really feels like whiplash going back
• 38:41
  to something so straightforward. Now I have on good authority.
• 38:44
  I did read the first six books and they were fine, but they
• 38:50
  just didn't scratch the the itch that I had for I liked reading
• 38:55
  my Doctor Who book book every month.
• 38:57
  And it was just that sadness of so if the party's over.
• 39:02
  Yeah, I felt the same. I I kept reading the NS as and I
• 39:05
  do think there are some bloody good NS as when they got going,
• 39:10
  especially around the 11th doctor's time.
• 39:12
  Really, really good ones. But yeah, that sort of bereft
• 39:16
  feeling of like something you look forward to isn't available
• 39:19
  anymore. And it was not the only one as
• 39:21
  well, because because of the revival, the 8th Doctor comics
• 39:27
  wrapped up, the big Finnish 8th Doctor stories wrapped up early
• 39:32
  there, the divergent storyline, although some people would say
• 39:35
  that was a good thing. It's worth, it's worth a
• 39:39
  conversation. And the books had to wrap up as
• 39:41
  well. So there was almost maybe a
• 39:44
  little bit of resentment to this new new wave coming in.
• 39:47
  And it that first realisation, it was probably the first time,
• 39:51
  and this has come more than a few times since of this isn't
• 39:54
  for me anymore, or rather, this is not aimed at me anymore.
• 39:58
  And actually, when you're a big fan of something that's quite
• 40:01
  difficult to take. And I can and I don't agree with
• 40:05
  the negativity in the nest and it comes out of certain sections
• 40:08
  of fandom. But that kind of mourning that
• 40:11
  you have when you realise that your favorite thing is no longer
• 40:15
  meant for you, it it takes a trap.
• 40:19
  But then you go, well, actually I've got. 60 books, 6070 books
• 40:23
  from 1 range here. I've got another 40 or 50 books
• 40:24
  from another range here, plus all my CDs plus the TV.
• 40:28
  It's like if I if I feel so bereft, I can always go back.
• 40:31
  You can always start Edas again although as.
• 40:34
  We are now right. Exactly.
• 40:37
  And you can go back. So I think you have that period
• 40:40
  of mourning, but then you go and then sometimes you just tell
• 40:43
  yourself to grow up a little bit and say, well, just enjoy it for
• 40:45
  what it is, not what it isn't. So it's in my, it's in my, it's
• 40:48
  in my bottom 10. But like I say, it's often the
• 40:51
  book's really done. It was, it's fairly standard
• 40:54
  fare. But for me, it's, I will always
• 40:57
  associate clockwise, man, because that was just, I don't
• 41:00
  know if there was an order to those three books and they came
• 41:02
  out. It was just.
• 41:02
  I think that's always considered the first one, isn't it?
• 41:05
  And I just felt that kind of like I say, that was the end of
• 41:10
  an era. So you know Justin Richards can
• 41:13
  deliver time 0. And then he's.
• 41:16
  Delivering the clockwise, man. You're like, oh, like I know
• 41:19
  this. These aren't aimed at me.
• 41:20
  These are aimed at younger kids. But I know you're capable of
• 41:24
  this. I keep one of these big ideas.
• 41:26
  This feels so small. It's a bit more limited.
• 41:29
  And he was just thinking about the cat, the paycheck, though,
• 41:32
  you know, they sold from in droves, those.
• 41:34
  Those those early books, I believe sold incredibly well.
• 41:37
  So that's why why they could they for a while they continue
• 41:40
  to do them. So you know.
• 41:43
  I think that is an entirely justifiable choice there, but so
• 41:48
  are you. I mean, I notice you're doing
• 41:50
  some great segue in here. Are we now going across to
• 41:52
  another transitionary book? In your list?
• 41:55
  No, we're going completely on target.
• 42:00
  There was a terrible segue. It's my first time I have the
• 42:02
  list. No, it's great.
• 42:03
  Thank you. It's the Romans.
• 42:08
  Oh yes. OK.
• 42:10
  Which is I've just written brilliant.
• 42:12
  Just brilliant. I'll.
• 42:14
  Just read it. It is and I actually didn't.
• 42:18
  I did didn't read it. I listened to the audio book 1st
• 42:22
  and the audio book is a work of genius because they've got 7
• 42:27
  readers for it for each. So for context, this is the
• 42:31
  Romans as told to a series of documents that are kind of found
• 42:36
  or uncovered, and they are. It's the Doctor's journal.
• 42:40
  It's Ian Chesterton writing to his headmaster.
• 42:42
  It's letters from Asterisk the the assassin, the mute assassin.
• 42:47
  We get his whole life story and this writing to his do you
• 42:51
  anxious mother. Why are you writing back to me,
• 42:53
  Mother? What did I do wrong?
• 42:55
  And just what a wonderful way to for Donald Cotton, this is this
• 43:03
  is the one book he adapted that wasn't his TV script.
• 43:06
  And he did a great job with myth makers, which we have talked
• 43:10
  about and was very nearly on this list.
• 43:12
  But well, we've, we've done the myth makers, we've talked about
• 43:14
  the myth makers. But this was just fun.
• 43:18
  And sometimes what you want from Doctor Who at times it's just
• 43:22
  something fun, enjoys witty. You know, the script already had
• 43:27
  a lot of humour in it. Don Cotton brings a whole load
• 43:31
  more on top the idea of Ask Us the the inept assassin who
• 43:36
  doesn't die in the early stages. He's present throughout the
• 43:41
  whole book, sort of kind of keeping the momentum of the
• 43:44
  story going. It's kind of an ever present
• 43:45
  figure. And I think I can't, not now I
• 43:50
  can't. I think it was Dan Starkey does
• 43:51
  the talking book version in this very black set and now can't
• 43:55
  read it now without hearing bizarre accent that he did.
• 44:00
  It's just what it's a great pick me up.
• 44:04
  It's funny. It's as well.
• 44:07
  It's so short. 120 pages, it's so quick to read.
• 44:12
  And it does the thing that some of those targets did at that
• 44:16
  point, which is instead of being like I criticised evil the
• 44:21
  Daleks for, which is just taking the script and sticking in some
• 44:23
  prose and maybe adding in adding a fraction of back story here.
• 44:28
  This makes virtue saying we're going to play with structure.
• 44:33
  You know, you you read certain targets and you know, the
• 44:35
  chapters end or the episode ends, because clearly that's
• 44:37
  where the scripts that they had says it's an end of a chapter.
• 44:41
  It doesn't do that. It completely decides to abandon
• 44:45
  a lot of the episode structure and also I think a lot of
• 44:48
  dialogue as well. It is a fresh interpretation of
• 44:52
  this. And there's a scrimp on the
• 44:54
  incident because the story still plays out in the same way.
• 44:58
  It is true to the story. It is so true to the story.
• 45:02
  And I think sometimes going back to criticizing something like
• 45:05
  evil, the dialects going. If you're going to do a brand
• 45:08
  new, particularly in 2023, 2020, 24, a new adaptation going,
• 45:13
  we've got the Blu-ray, we've got the soundtrack, we've got all
• 45:16
  this. If you're going to take a
• 45:17
  classic story and do a novel of it, just go for it, do something
• 45:22
  interesting or bold. And they were doing that in the
• 45:24
  80s. So it's it's a bit of a shame
• 45:27
  that that's something that kind of has been lost and that it has
• 45:30
  to end up being something a bit more straightforward.
• 45:33
  What I haven't read a huge number of the new series target
• 45:37
  books, but one of the ones I have read that I really enjoyed
• 45:41
  it was the Day of the Doctor, because that did something
• 45:43
  similar in deciding to completely restructure and tell
• 45:48
  the story in a very unique way. So it's it's very clever.
• 45:52
  Don't know you. Are we going to say that Stephen
• 45:54
  Moffett might have had a copy of the Romans when he was young and
• 45:56
  thought that's an interesting way of telling a story?
• 45:59
  Undoubtedly so. I mean Dalek and the giggle
• 46:03
  completely. They tell the story, but they
• 46:05
  abandoned the script to page thing completely as well.
• 46:10
  So I think the new series target ones are a bit more experimental
• 46:14
  than you know, some of the old targets.
• 46:16
  But but Cotton was a lawyer to himself.
• 46:18
  He was never going to do he said, she said.
• 46:20
  Was he ever? No, none of the three books he
• 46:22
  did are straightforward, straight adaptations.
• 46:25
  They're all told by characters from within or adjacent to the
• 46:30
  story because I mean, Homer telling the myth makers and that
• 46:35
  is bring it back, bring it back. It's a meta as well.
• 46:40
  And again, there's elements of that in the Robins as well.
• 46:42
  And again in the Gunfighters. It's just somebody who sat down
• 46:45
  and clearly they don't have the you.
• 46:47
  It must match what was on screen because that's what the punters
• 46:51
  want. It's cheeky as well, David.
• 46:54
  Nero writes Barbara a love poem, which basically says everything
• 46:58
  he's going to do to her. I mean, it's so naughty, that
• 47:01
  book. And what?
• 47:03
  There are things in the book that you probably couldn't do
• 47:06
  now, but it's worth seeking out either as the audio book or if
• 47:12
  you can get the paperback because that if you look on
• 47:15
  eBay, it's usually not too expensive.
• 47:17
  It is slightly rarer, but and you also get a chance to admire
• 47:20
  a cover that wasn't inspired by any of the production
• 47:23
  photographs because you've got apart from triple chinned
• 47:26
  Hartnell, you've got I think it's Peter Rusnoff playing Nero
• 47:29
  in the background because they didn't have any reference
• 47:30
  photos. It's it's great.
• 47:34
  I love, I really do love it. I remember a friend of mine at
• 47:36
  school had a copy of it and he just didn't.
• 47:39
  I never borrowed it at the time, but he just, he just said, I
• 47:41
  read it, it was pants and it's like, well.
• 47:44
  I think because a lot of people wanted accurate adaptation of
• 47:49
  the TV story, You know, it's weird how they've all been sort
• 47:52
  of re evaluated years old. I think when we stopped
• 47:56
  clutching our pearls and kind of being very serious fans, and I
• 48:00
  think when you lighten up, you there's just so much more to
• 48:04
  enjoy in some of these things. And you know, maybe is that why
• 48:08
  some of these adaptations? They they, they, they, the fans
• 48:11
  want an adaptation. They want a straight one going.
• 48:14
  You could have, hey, you could do something.
• 48:18
  If you want, you know it's on the iPlayer now.
• 48:20
  We don't want that. Do something different.
• 48:23
  Do something bold, do something fun.
• 48:25
  It goes back to fun. Been like happy endings.
• 48:27
  It's fun. That is a brilliant choice and
• 48:30
  there's been a extreme lack of Donald Cotton on people's top
• 48:34
  ten layer, so bravo Mr. Gillespie Pratt.
• 48:37
  I am bringing the fun, I'm being the fun and.
• 48:42
  Well, I'm going to assume your next bottom 10 list isn't so
• 48:44
  far. No, because I don't think a book
• 48:49
  needs. You need a spreadsheet in the
• 48:51
  diagram and. Spreadsheet in the diagram.
• 48:56
  To try and complicate it, then it's the last resort.
• 49:00
  Oh, I love the last resort. I know you do.
• 49:02
  You mentioned that before. Oh my God, no.
• 49:06
  I understand though that is a very complicated.
• 49:10
  It is. It's it's complicated.
• 49:13
  It's in the middle of this story.
• 49:15
  I'll look where for me, it felt like it's sort of not ground to
• 49:19
  a halt, but it felt like marking time a little bit.
• 49:23
  And it's just, it comes in a run of such strong run of stories.
• 49:28
  There has to be one that sort of kicks you out a bit.
• 49:31
  And this did. And I'm not against a
• 49:34
  complicated plot. I'm not against, oh, I don't
• 49:37
  want to say timely, why me? But it's helping us to say
• 49:40
  because it that's definitely a big part of.
• 49:42
  It we're there, I'm afraid we are there.
• 49:43
  You said it. And it just it's to the NTH
• 49:48
  degree. It's just coming away from not
• 49:52
  enjoying it. But because it's a bit boring
• 49:54
  death and poems, it was boring, didn't enjoy it.
• 49:56
  Or if it's bad like stuff that's coming later.
• 50:01
  But this was just in at times impenetrable.
• 50:06
  It is. It is, I think deliberately so.
• 50:08
  But yes, if. You don't like impenetrable?
• 50:11
  You're in trouble. And it's we're being clever.
• 50:15
  I mean, could this be something else that Moffett stole, which
• 50:17
  is I'm a very clever time around scripts that annoys people?
• 50:23
  Well, I mean, there's an argument there, yes.
• 50:26
  Similarities for sure. So it's, it's it's difficult to
• 50:29
  say a huge map. I just, I say a lot of it's
• 50:32
  based on I read them and the ones that stick in my mind are
• 50:35
  the ones I sat and read almost in one sitting are the ones
• 50:38
  where I was like, Oh my God, I, I am, I've paid for this book.
• 50:42
  I am going to finish this book, but my God, I am not enjoying
• 50:45
  this book at all. And this, this was one of them.
• 50:47
  And I'm, I'm I'm sorry, Paul Leonard, I appreciate that
• 50:50
  you're trying to do something big.
• 50:52
  And we say big ideas. They're great, but it has to
• 50:55
  work as a good story. It has to work as a story that
• 50:59
  engages something that the ancestor cell could be
• 51:02
  impenetrable, but it's written in a way that it isn't because
• 51:08
  I've read that without knowing much about it and I was able to
• 51:11
  still follow what was going on, even though if I try to explain
• 51:14
  it, it'll be like what? It works.
• 51:17
  I just felt this was. It was like banging head against
• 51:21
  a brick wall at times trying to follow the.
• 51:23
  Cover in the last resort. Yes, we are.
• 51:26
  Oh, David, I'm so sorry. Well, in a way I'm.
• 51:29
  Your sacrifice of your sanity will be worth it for the book, I
• 51:32
  promise. We've, we've, we've, we have got
• 51:35
  revelations, Alex. We have got the man in the
• 51:36
  velvet mask. I feel like we haven't chosen
• 51:39
  too many good ones, you know? Oh, we, we've got some good
• 51:42
  stuff coming up. We have, we definitely.
• 51:44
  Bad therapy, apparently. Bad therapy time of your life, I
• 51:47
  think. Have we got?
• 51:50
  I'll just check the massive. History books.
• 51:53
  We've got about three years worth of reading there, you
• 51:55
  know. We've got about 30 odd books on
• 51:57
  it. But yeah, so I'm it is one that
• 52:00
  I'm open to revisiting because I say that it's what you remember.
• 52:04
  It's what you remember of, you know, if it's a book, could be
• 52:08
  unput, downable or I want this to end.
• 52:12
  But my Scottish jeans, Oh, you've paid for it, you finish
• 52:18
  it. That's why I've never walked
• 52:19
  over a film in the cinema. I didn't realise how it was a
• 52:22
  Scottish thing. I've paid for it.
• 52:23
  I've got bloody finish the thing.
• 52:26
  Yeah, do you know what? There's so many books and I'm
• 52:28
  not saying this will happen with The Last Resort because it is,
• 52:30
  It is bloody complicated, but I have re evaluated so many of
• 52:35
  these books from when I first read them and most of them I've
• 52:39
  read two or three Times Now and some of them, yeah it's exactly
• 52:42
  Festival of Death. I loved first reading, I still
• 52:44
  love it now but there's loads like Eternity Weeps.
• 52:48
  I hate it when I first read it and now I really admire what
• 52:52
  it's doing whilst wanting to slip my wrists on a regular
• 52:54
  occasion whilst reading it. Yeah, what would be interesting
• 52:59
  to see. I'm looking forward to, I'm
• 53:01
  looking forward to all of them in different ways.
• 53:03
  I mean, there's there's some interesting choices in there and
• 53:05
  I'm resisting the urge to add more.
• 53:08
  But what I would love to do, maybe not evil the Daleks, but
• 53:13
  there were those books that have been novelised twice.
• 53:16
  So you've got Stones of Blood, Androids of Tara?
• 53:19
  I've got 2 versions. Oh, So what you mean what
• 53:21
  compare them? Compare the two sort of pick I I
• 53:24
  only would say Androids of Tara might be more fun because it's
• 53:27
  such a fun story. I'd say how Terrence Styx.
• 53:30
  And David Fisher. Yeah.
• 53:33
  Oh, I could almost guarantee that David Fisher Want to be
• 53:35
  more fun? I like Terry, but I.
• 53:37
  I think Terrence Styx's is short.
• 53:39
  David Fisher is just witty. It would.
• 53:42
  Be it would be interesting to compare the two and I think, I
• 53:45
  don't think I bring myself to read Evil of the Daleks again
• 53:48
  and again, the John Peel version, because I'm not a
• 53:51
  masochist. Jesus Christ, no.
• 53:55
  No, I don't even start paying your therapy bills.
• 53:57
  All right, we add these terrible books to our list.
• 54:01
  OK, well, let's swing back to the top ten list now.
• 54:04
  Where are we now 7? Number 77, right 7 go for it.
• 54:09
  Let's go for it. So this is I'm going non
• 54:11
  fiction. This is the scripts Tom Baker 74
• 54:14
  to 75. This was what I think was
• 54:17
  planned to be the beginning of a range of script books, but they
• 54:21
  only did one. And this is not like the script
• 54:24
  books you got in the 90s, which was those face small paperbacks,
• 54:27
  which was just the script. This these are annotated.
• 54:31
  These have got production. These are basically production
• 54:33
  notes before production notes was a thing.
• 54:36
  So this was 2001, the DVDs were just starting to come out and
• 54:41
  this is season 12 and it's got behind the scenes information.
• 54:45
  It's got cut dialogue. Basically.
• 54:47
  If you follow my YouTube channel, you know that I like
• 54:50
  delving into scripts and delving into behind the scenes detail.
• 54:54
  And I think I can trace it back. And I think I trace it back to
• 54:57
  this book and it. Was just, you know, the cut
• 55:01
  lines with the they're just scored.
• 55:03
  Through, aren't they you? Can still read the lines.
• 55:05
  Yeah, that's enticing. And you sort of hear Tom Baker
• 55:08
  and all that saying the lines. And the idea of reading deleted
• 55:11
  scenes from the Tom Baker era as well, and also seeing how things
• 55:15
  got restructured. I think Cliffhanger in Genesis
• 55:18
  Daleks got moved around. And it's also got appendices
• 55:21
  with all of the early drafts as well.
• 55:25
  So you can sit and read the Jerry Davis version of the Ark,
• 55:29
  Return of the Sign of Men and the John de Karate.
• 55:32
  The Ark, which read as One of the reasons why I never bought
• 55:36
  the Big Finish version of the Ark in Space is because I read
• 55:41
  the synopsis in this book and it's like, it sounds terrible
• 55:45
  and there's a reason. Why you were getting?
• 55:48
  And there's a reason why I got rewritten.
• 55:51
  I think it's also got Genesis of Terror in there, which also is I
• 55:54
  think the single was hated Big Finish release.
• 55:57
  So you've got big, big, big, Big Finish kicking.
• 55:59
  Going on, you need to warn me. When you're going to insult Big
• 56:01
  Finish or I think you spat out my.
• 56:03
  Wall over the screen. But you know this book is
• 56:07
  responsible for your fabulous YouTube channel.
• 56:09
  We've got a lot to thank it for. And it just, it was because I'm
• 56:14
  one. I'm one of those fans.
• 56:16
  I, I prefer the real world sort of stories rather than the
• 56:20
  fictional world. So I like to know more about
• 56:22
  why, how, how it's made, why things happen the way they do,
• 56:25
  Who are the actors? Where, what else have they been
• 56:27
  in? What's got cut, how it was made.
• 56:30
  That's what gets me, gets me going.
• 56:33
  That's such a horrible way to put it, but.
• 56:36
  We've all got different. Kings, Kate, David.
• 56:38
  All right, OK. Yeah, but not many people's.
• 56:40
  It's a script. Camera scripts.
• 56:44
  Listen, somebody sent me a copy of the War Machines camera
• 56:46
  script and I was. Very excited, Jesus Christ.
• 56:51
  What do you mean? It actually has a breakdown of
• 56:53
  all the captions that come up on screen with the words the war
• 56:56
  machines on it. It's like, yes, it does.
• 56:57
  It's like that's so for some people, that's exciting.
• 57:01
  You can send back all those bellamys or I don't need them
• 57:04
  anymore, just send me more camera scripts.
• 57:07
  I I have no idea what you're talking about.
• 57:10
  No, me neither. You know script book, right?
• 57:15
  Yeah, we just. Worry about that, won't worry.
• 57:19
  It's just great, it really is and it's a real show.
• 57:23
  I think if I remember reading right they were going to do
• 57:25
  Season 7 and that would have been a grateful on.
• 57:30
  Ambassadors of death, Imagine. I mean, that would just been
• 57:33
  scores of things just scored out and rewritten that was going to
• 57:36
  be volume to just. That all the different versions.
• 57:40
  And we know we've got a lot of the same stuff with the DVDs and
• 57:43
  the production notes and the behind the scenes stuff.
• 57:45
  But there's just something about having that book, having
• 57:47
  something to to pour through, reading the scripts, reading
• 57:52
  directions, reading some of the kind of annotations as well,
• 57:55
  saying that, you know, this is how it was realised on screen or
• 57:57
  this was changed or this was rewritten.
• 57:59
  I love all that I do. And like I said, this is kind of
• 58:02
  what kick started that fascination.
• 58:04
  I remember the series one Rusty Davis season scripts coming out
• 58:08
  and I was expecting something like this, the season 12 one and
• 58:13
  it just was nowhere near as good.
• 58:15
  Well. Should we?
• 58:18
  Oh. No.
• 58:20
  Oh dear. Is that loud in your?
• 58:22
  List. Oh, sorry, I I have deliberately
• 58:25
  when I structured my list, it's on no top #7 the scripts, Tom
• 58:29
  Baker, 7475. Bottom number six, The Shooting
• 58:31
  Scripts, 2005. My God, we couldn't make this
• 58:37
  shit out, could we? You.
• 58:38
  Couldn't go on because that book was not a season 12 script book
• 58:45
  because I I was the same. I bought it going.
• 58:48
  I loved the breakdown. I loved the behind the scenes
• 58:51
  detail. I loved all that minutiae detail
• 58:54
  so I bought that book expecting more.
• 58:57
  For me the same. I don't know who that book was
• 59:02
  for because it had some nice photos in it.
• 59:05
  We'd all seen the episodes, didn't we?
• 59:07
  So we don't really. Need the dialogue it.
• 59:09
  Didn't really some stage directions, the odd cutscene
• 59:14
  hero there, the fact. That a little bit from Rusty
• 59:16
  Davis on each one, but just a tiny bit.
• 59:18
  Tiny bit. I think the biggest revelation
• 59:20
  is that during the scene in passing of the Ways, when
• 59:23
  Mickey's trying to open the TARDIS with the big yellow truck
• 59:25
  that they were going to have. Can you feel it?
• 59:27
  Played by Fix as the track over it, which I'm glad they didn't
• 59:32
  do because that would have so badly.
• 59:39
  But yeah, actually remember there was just so little about
• 59:42
  the production, the making of. And obviously now I know there's
• 59:45
  probably a good reason why they don't have much production
• 59:48
  information and behind the scenes detail on that first
• 59:50
  series, because there's still a lot of shit no one officially
• 59:54
  talks about. A lot of muck to be raked up,
• 59:58
  yeah. So it's just a posh transcript
• 1:00:01
  with some nice photos it and it was again, it was not a cheap
• 1:00:04
  book. It's a really chunky volume.
• 1:00:08
  And I think it was about £20 or something like that.
• 1:00:11
  And it was just who's this for? What's this for?
• 1:00:14
  Who's? This for what's the kids wanting
• 1:00:16
  to get it and read them out with their mates.
• 1:00:18
  It's kind of, it's not for the kids.
• 1:00:20
  It's definitely a thing the fans buy.
• 1:00:22
  But if the if you're going to, you know, that's what the fans
• 1:00:25
  are buying. And I know that there are some
• 1:00:27
  series that bring out script books and that that's a bit of a
• 1:00:30
  thing, but I think if you're going to bring out a script
• 1:00:35
  book, and the same will apply to the Big Finish did a few script
• 1:00:39
  books as well. But again, it's just if I've got
• 1:00:42
  the audio and you're not giving much contextual information or
• 1:00:45
  behind the scenes information, you're not breaking it down,
• 1:00:48
  what's the point of this book? I'm going to sit here and just
• 1:00:50
  read Neverland because I think that's one of the day it's gone.
• 1:00:55
  I love Neverland, but if I want to experience it I'll listen to
• 1:00:58
  it. Or if you if you did a good
• 1:01:00
  novelization of it, I might pick that up.
• 1:01:02
  I'm not sure, I just want to read the script.
• 1:01:04
  I'd rather read something like the Writer's Tower, you know?
• 1:01:06
  Just give me all that production, behind the scenes
• 1:01:08
  gossip, you know, That's the stuff I want, you know, changes
• 1:01:12
  that were made and different versions of things like that,
• 1:01:15
  you know? Things that were abandoned or,
• 1:01:17
  or oh, you know, that shot of Rose, well, we shot that six
• 1:01:20
  months later we realised that we didn't have a a thing.
• 1:01:22
  And then you, you the sort of thing I would do is go and look
• 1:01:24
  at it and go, Oh yeah, you can bloody well tell.
• 1:01:26
  But you know, she's wearing a wig or something like that,
• 1:01:28
  because that's the sort of thing that I like to do.
• 1:01:30
  If I was stuck in a murder mystery, OK, you are absolutely
• 1:01:34
  the person I would the forensic detail that you can go into, the
• 1:01:38
  murderer wouldn't have a hope. Yeah, there's a reason why I'm
• 1:01:42
  not allowed to play Cluedo, unfortunately.
• 1:01:44
  In our house, I bet, Yeah. Oh no.
• 1:01:47
  You've figured it out before the 1st fucking moves gone.
• 1:01:51
  No, it's more fundamental than that.
• 1:01:54
  We were playing at Christmas with my family and I was
• 1:01:58
  responsible for setting the game up.
• 1:01:59
  And you're meant to put in the little envelope, you're going to
• 1:02:01
  put one murderer, 1 weapon, one room, or in my case, 1 murderer,
• 1:02:07
  2 rooms and. Oh dear it.
• 1:02:10
  It was about an hour. So there was no weapon involved
• 1:02:14
  at all. Nobody.
• 1:02:15
  And then someone clocked going hang on this game is impossible
• 1:02:20
  and they realized because I tested it up wrong.
• 1:02:22
  So there's now a running gag of I'm not allowed to set up Ludo
• 1:02:25
  because I get it wrong. What do I like the idea?
• 1:02:28
  You know that Professor Plumb was brained in the lounge with
• 1:02:32
  the entire kitchen. You know he threw the kitchen on
• 1:02:36
  his head. In a way, there's a Doctor Who
• 1:02:38
  novel in that somewhere, you know, with a Ascension house.
• 1:02:41
  That's, you know, actually I think that's been done.
• 1:02:43
  Starring Melanie and Glitz. Oh, no, wait, they've just done
• 1:02:48
  that one. Yes.
• 1:02:51
  And by all accounts, it's not what I'm going to read and let
• 1:02:54
  someone put it on the list. A script book that's full of
• 1:02:57
  fascinating insight. A script book which is, well,
• 1:03:01
  just a load of scripts basically.
• 1:03:02
  Just a load of scripts and in a way that's what it says it is.
• 1:03:04
  It's the shooting scripts. But it's just, it's that thing
• 1:03:08
  of who's it? Who's it?
• 1:03:09
  For it's it's who David can see exactly what Christopher Eckson
• 1:03:13
  saw when he got his scripts. Oh, thanks.
• 1:03:17
  I'd probably felt a similar level of disdain about it as
• 1:03:19
  well. Yeah, what's this?
• 1:03:21
  Boomtown? Oh dear.
• 1:03:24
  Well, come on then. Let's, let's, let's, let's bring
• 1:03:27
  the party. Let's bring the house down again
• 1:03:29
  with a positive book. A positive book.
• 1:03:31
  And I was listening to your commentary with sorry, Fraser
• 1:03:36
  and you say you can't do a podcast about somebody
• 1:03:38
  mentioning it. And I'm going to mention Fraser
• 1:03:40
  for, you know, an advocate of fun.
• 1:03:42
  And this is a book that is fun. It's it's another non fiction
• 1:03:47
  book. And I don't think anybody else
• 1:03:50
  would put this on the list unless somebody has I've missed
• 1:03:52
  it. These are the ones I love.
• 1:03:54
  Go on. It's the book of lists.
• 1:03:58
  Oh, I love the book. Is it the first one?
• 1:04:00
  The just the first one, yes. Oh man, I poured over that
• 1:04:03
  bloody thing. It's so there's a, there's a
• 1:04:09
  line from Red Dwarf, which sometimes I will quote at Fraser
• 1:04:12
  on Twitter. And now I've noticed he starts
• 1:04:13
  to use it. It's from Red Dwarf and it's
• 1:04:15
  Rimmer saying this is fun, are you mad?
• 1:04:17
  And I've written. That down.
• 1:04:19
  I've written that down. Are you responsible for him
• 1:04:22
  saying that? I don't know whether he said it
• 1:04:24
  and I just sent the clip or vice versa.
• 1:04:25
  I don't quite know how it worked, but it's kind of there's
• 1:04:28
  a couple of times he has kind of saying he's going to send that.
• 1:04:30
  It's like you can send the clip at home and it's like, I know
• 1:04:32
  will it's Doctor Who reference books at times can be really
• 1:04:39
  serious. I mean, I love things like the
• 1:04:41
  handbooks. My God, their reviews are
• 1:04:44
  serious and quite miserable at times.
• 1:04:47
  And towards the end of the 90s, I think we just got the seam of
• 1:04:51
  actually quite decent, entertaining books.
• 1:04:55
  There's the, IT was the eat a Set of Monsters, which came out
• 1:04:59
  again around that same time, so 9899.
• 1:05:02
  And then you get the book of Lists, which is basically, I
• 1:05:04
  don't know how to describe it for being initiated.
• 1:05:06
  It is basically a small paperback where it's basically
• 1:05:10
  each page is just a list of random things.
• 1:05:16
  It's basically every time the doctor has drunk a cup of tea
• 1:05:18
  and it will list them every time there is a cat in Doctor Who and
• 1:05:23
  it lists them. And I might not be selling it,
• 1:05:26
  but no. But it finds patterns in the the
• 1:05:30
  entire body of Doctor Who in ways that my stupid little brain
• 1:05:34
  when I was that age and had never made.
• 1:05:36
  And I was like, Oh my God, I didn't realise the time rules
• 1:05:39
  were mentioned in all these stories.
• 1:05:41
  You know, it was sort of putting it all together into one big
• 1:05:44
  series. Pick a number between 1 and 200.
• 1:05:48
  Oh, 44, my favorite number. Oh, it's, it's you had, you had,
• 1:05:55
  you had to pick one that's three pages long.
• 1:05:58
  Oh, go on, What's what's the it's?
• 1:06:00
  Identical. Yes, the same.
• 1:06:02
  No continuity errors in Doctor Who.
• 1:06:06
  Oh, that I mean. Oh, and.
• 1:06:08
  It's just, I mean, it's not everything.
• 1:06:09
  Give me a a particular example of a continuity error.
• 1:06:14
  Two of the side men. The picture of the Cyber
• 1:06:15
  Controller's voice changes drastically between episodes 1
• 1:06:18
  and 2. It does.
• 1:06:20
  It does. The Mind Robber.
• 1:06:22
  When Jamie attacks the red coat at the start of episode 2, his
• 1:06:25
  sleeves have rolled up, but the cardboard cut out has his
• 1:06:28
  sleeves rolled down. Oh.
• 1:06:31
  Does just the Riches have a copy of the Highlanders then?
• 1:06:34
  He must. He must do.
• 1:06:35
  I mean, yeah, but there's just some.
• 1:06:37
  And that's just. One you know, 3 pages of
• 1:06:39
  fabulous continuity errors. Can I?
• 1:06:42
  OK, what about page 7575? I'm I'm going to cheat site and
• 1:06:49
  go for 76 because 75 is another long one.
• 1:06:54
  This is references to Star Trek in Doctor Who.
• 1:06:56
  Oh no go on. I mean, I mean it's already
• 1:07:00
  laboured in the horns of Naiman. The Doctor complaints that
• 1:07:03
  people always for pointing phases at him.
• 1:07:06
  All or has a bit tenuous. They're all very I mean they it
• 1:07:09
  says here overt Star Trek references.
• 1:07:12
  Warp Dr. is mentioned in Planet and science, spiders and Earth
• 1:07:15
  shock. The Federation of the curse of
• 1:07:18
  Peldon. The monster of Peldon could
• 1:07:19
  easily be the Federation from Star Trek.
• 1:07:22
  It could also be the. IT could also be the Federation
• 1:07:24
  from Blake 7. Maybe this was the day when they
• 1:07:26
  were getting a bit desperate you.
• 1:07:27
  Know it's quite a shortlist. And then, oh, we'll do one more,
• 1:07:34
  one last. Hit me.
• 1:07:37
  Not actually. Actually, this is page 136 at
• 1:07:42
  your convenience. References to the toilet in
• 1:07:45
  Doctor Who. Oh God, the robots of death.
• 1:07:50
  All water on the sign Minder Sand Minor is recycled, much to
• 1:07:53
  Leela's distaste. Oh, yeah.
• 1:07:55
  Gross. Yeah.
• 1:07:56
  Horror, horror, horror. Frangrock Ben is thought Ben is
• 1:07:59
  thought to have stepped outside for a while.
• 1:08:02
  That's right, Rebus operation, the doctor says to canine don't
• 1:08:04
  stop at all the corners. And finally, power of Kroll, the
• 1:08:09
  vast amounts of methane being generated by Kroll's digestive
• 1:08:12
  process. Basically enormous farts, aren't
• 1:08:14
  they? That's.
• 1:08:15
  Right, it is the one the few Doctor stories based on farts,
• 1:08:19
  but we don't talk about it in the same way when we talk about
• 1:08:21
  aliens of London. No, that's very true.
• 1:08:23
  Oh, what a great choice. What a fabulous book that was.
• 1:08:27
  Just fun and tongue in cheek as well.
• 1:08:30
  It's even sometimes they'll they've even admit that there
• 1:08:34
  are times I'm sure I do remember they admit the list to get in
• 1:08:36
  tenuous as well. At the risk of pre empting
• 1:08:39
  another choice that you might make.
• 1:08:42
  It was another book of lists. You know there was nowhere near
• 1:08:45
  as good. I didn't know they did another.
• 1:08:47
  One. Oh yeah.
• 1:08:48
  No, it wasn't them. It was somebody else, but it was
• 1:08:51
  really boring, less of like, you know, certain continuity and
• 1:08:55
  things. Like that it was.
• 1:08:56
  Very dull, you know? No, no, no.
• 1:08:57
  I want to know when he wear every time he wears a cravat,
• 1:09:00
  you know? Every time they wear, the Doctor
• 1:09:02
  wears a hat. That's right.
• 1:09:03
  When or or when he doesn't wear his usual costume, I think.
• 1:09:06
  There was one that was every time he drinks alcohol.
• 1:09:08
  I remember that one that really excited me.
• 1:09:10
  I was like right? But I find them all.
• 1:09:12
  I think they've even got one on smoking as well.
• 1:09:15
  Yeah, there is, there is. Oh, I need to take that one out.
• 1:09:19
  When I took it out for this, I was just thinking through going
• 1:09:21
  this, this is so silly. And I can see what I can kind of
• 1:09:26
  see what people did. Thank.
• 1:09:28
  You, you know, because you really have dug up a part of my
• 1:09:30
  past that I'd forgotten about. That really delighted me.
• 1:09:33
  I just, I don't. The thing is, I just saw it
• 1:09:35
  reference somewhere a few weeks ago and then he bumped something
• 1:09:38
  else off the list and I'm going, I'm putting that in because I
• 1:09:40
  bloody love that book. I mean, I'm.
• 1:09:42
  Almost willing to bet you're right.
• 1:09:43
  Nobody else is going to put that one in.
• 1:09:45
  No, I mean people will go, are you mad?
• 1:09:47
  Yes. No, I don't think you're mad at
• 1:09:49
  all. Well.
• 1:09:50
  Until your next choice, of course.
• 1:09:53
  Oh, we're going back to the interminable, and it's another
• 1:09:57
  new adventure Bottom. It's the pit.
• 1:09:59
  It's the pit. Well, I mean, it's predictable,
• 1:10:02
  but it is ghastly. It is interminable.
• 1:10:08
  What's your reasons for the pit? I've heard many.
• 1:10:13
  It's another one that I just it was a slog.
• 1:10:17
  It was dull. You've got this storyline of the
• 1:10:21
  Doctor being in this funk because of some stuff that
• 1:10:26
  happened at the end of Cat's Cradle.
• 1:10:28
  Bernice. We don't really know massively.
• 1:10:31
  Is this a third book as well and I don't?
• 1:10:34
  She was possessed in transit. She doesn't have a great opening
• 1:10:37
  if I'm honest. And I don't think obviously that
• 1:10:42
  Neil Pendrick's got a massive handle on the character.
• 1:10:44
  It's profession. He's new.
• 1:10:45
  But again, because I was I was reading these having listened to
• 1:10:50
  the late the audio adaptations. So kind of going back to some of
• 1:10:54
  these early books going, Oh yeah, she's all over the place.
• 1:10:57
  You know, they haven't quite nailed the character.
• 1:11:00
  William Blake is in it for some reason.
• 1:11:04
  I mean, the fact that the cover has the doctor unconscious on it
• 1:11:09
  is a sign that something isn't right here.
• 1:11:12
  The fact. That I thought he was asleep
• 1:11:14
  after reading this. It's just, you know, it's sort
• 1:11:20
  of book that struck me with a dull foot, you know, it's just.
• 1:11:26
  It's. It's it's.
• 1:11:28
  I've written the word slog in capital letters and underlined
• 1:11:31
  it because it was just. You are bringing the drama
• 1:11:34
  tonight. Underlining, you say?
• 1:11:37
  It's that phase of new adventures when they were trying
• 1:11:40
  to be hard sci-fi and not being bring back to previous books.
• 1:11:46
  Not no sense of fun or joy or anything.
• 1:11:50
  You know, a lot of these books, watching season 25 again this
• 1:11:54
  week, you go season 25 is basically the beginnings of new
• 1:11:57
  adventures. Because those books, those
• 1:12:01
  stories are, you know, remembrance of the dialects is
• 1:12:04
  definitely the basis for a lot of books.
• 1:12:07
  So is the Happiness Patrol not the story, but just the basic
• 1:12:10
  structure the the doctors hidden past, or the doctors got
• 1:12:14
  something that he's done done before that he's got a hidden
• 1:12:16
  agenda about, or he's decided he's going to topple an empire
• 1:12:19
  overnight? His emotional journey.
• 1:12:23
  And so, but they all had a bit of character, bit of fun, a bit
• 1:12:26
  of life to them. And I found by after having read
• 1:12:30
  Love and More, which was a Red, I don't mind Cornell's writing.
• 1:12:34
  I didn't really enjoy a lot of more.
• 1:12:36
  Nightshade was really good. Transit was transit and has its
• 1:12:42
  issues, but this at least trans has got something interesting to
• 1:12:45
  talk about at least. You know, if you're going, it's
• 1:12:49
  bad in a way that it's actually you can talk about it and you
• 1:12:52
  can discuss the bad choices made.
• 1:12:54
  But something like the pit, it's just what was going on here And
• 1:12:59
  it takes, I think it's a height. Is it the highest science next
• 1:13:03
  to actually be a bit lighter and bring a bit more?
• 1:13:07
  And I remember, you know, it was like night and day between this
• 1:13:11
  horrendous slog of a book of a writer who they clearly didn't
• 1:13:14
  ask back. I think that they they had quite
• 1:13:17
  a lot of those early writers did more than one book, but Neil
• 1:13:21
  Pentrick only did the one. They read it before they
• 1:13:24
  published it. Some of these writers are they
• 1:13:26
  walk into our lives and just do one book, you know, Stephen
• 1:13:29
  Marley's People like that, and you go, wow, my God, they really
• 1:13:33
  made an impact. Others walk into our lives.
• 1:13:36
  We're like, fuck, they're gone, you know, and it's just.
• 1:13:40
  Interminable that that that it was.
• 1:13:43
  It was just one of those ones I. Just word that isn't it.
• 1:13:45
  It, well, it was, yeah, it was not good.
• 1:13:48
  Tedious, Tedious. Utterly tedious.
• 1:13:52
  Sorry Neil, I, I mean I we're sure you're a very nice bloke
• 1:13:55
  though. Oh, absolutely.
• 1:13:57
  He's probably, he's probably delighted parties.
• 1:14:00
  But don't. Write any more Doctor Who books?
• 1:14:01
  No more books. No more books.
• 1:14:03
  You know, OK, well, I mean, that was a bit of a Berry in there,
• 1:14:07
  so let's. Rise someone up to the heavens.
• 1:14:12
  We're sticking with a nonfiction, but this is this is
• 1:14:14
  a bit more serious. This is Adventures in Type and
• 1:14:17
  Space. This was published.
• 1:14:21
  It was published last year. It's basically the history of
• 1:14:26
  typography and the typeface and Doctor Who.
• 1:14:28
  It's one of those books that's more, it's not a bookshop book.
• 1:14:30
  It's when you order online the name of the company that
• 1:14:32
  produced it, but it's basically the history of graphic design,
• 1:14:38
  particularly the typefaces in titles, title sequences, Doctor
• 1:14:42
  Who it is. It's a gorgeous little book.
• 1:14:45
  It's very niche, it is. So niche, but this is where we
• 1:14:48
  are in 20 twenties publishing now because people can afford to
• 1:14:53
  do things either through print on demand or these small
• 1:14:55
  publishing houses and everything that you can afford to have
• 1:14:58
  books on sometimes the most minute detail so you can have
• 1:15:03
  it's no longer your fanzines aren't just, you know, cheaply
• 1:15:07
  put together things. You get nothing at the end,
• 1:15:11
  nothing at the end of the lane of warp these things.
• 1:15:14
  I. Those two put Doctor Who
• 1:15:15
  Magazine to shame and then some. You know, these are the the
• 1:15:19
  detail in some of these books, but this is a book on typeface.
• 1:15:23
  And it's not just that it's talking with the, the graphic
• 1:15:26
  designers you've got interviews with, but at large, you've got,
• 1:15:31
  there's a page where they've replica, they've got a
• 1:15:33
  photograph of the original diamond logo, the actual
• 1:15:39
  template for it as well, the actual size of it, the cut out
• 1:15:42
  of it or the, or the, the thing that they used to make it the
• 1:15:44
  original diamond and it, and it actually says actual size on it
• 1:15:48
  as well. It's, it's just, it's, it's a
• 1:15:52
  beautiful book. It really is.
• 1:15:53
  And it's this minute level of detail.
• 1:15:55
  And again, there's certain things I love in television
• 1:16:00
  production and I have a this thing for on screen titles.
• 1:16:05
  I just love seeing when the text comes up.
• 1:16:08
  I don't know why. It's just something I always
• 1:16:10
  quite like. I've I went through a phase for
• 1:16:13
  like my screensaver on my laptop and, and on the TVI had a folder
• 1:16:17
  where I just screenshot it all the original * treks.
• 1:16:21
  And I think I had all the heart and all individual episode
• 1:16:24
  titles and did The Avengers. And basically it would just
• 1:16:27
  flash these images up of all these title screens.
• 1:16:30
  And I just love them. And it's such a shame, certainly
• 1:16:33
  with something like modern Star Trek, that they've done away
• 1:16:36
  with a lot of their series of actually having the titles on
• 1:16:39
  screen, because that's. Remember that period like lost,
• 1:16:41
  lost sort of period where it was just like 5 seconds of a title
• 1:16:44
  sequence? Yeah.
• 1:16:45
  And just the words coming and that was it.
• 1:16:47
  And it's such a shame. And this is, this is a tribute
• 1:16:50
  to not just the title, but title sequences as well.
• 1:16:53
  And they don't just talk about Doctor Who, they look at, you
• 1:16:55
  know, the people who made the doctor sequences.
• 1:16:57
  They look at their careers and other and there's screenshots
• 1:17:01
  and examples of other shows that they did and just some of the
• 1:17:04
  imagination that goes on. I I can if you love production
• 1:17:09
  and detail and my new detail, I absolutely recommend this book.
• 1:17:12
  You know what it is? I feel like because of every
• 1:17:15
  single corner of Doctor Who has been explored now there are
• 1:17:20
  relatively few original angles to discuss Doctor Who in, and I
• 1:17:26
  can't imagine that book having mass appeal, but I can imagine
• 1:17:31
  it having huge appeal to those who are interested.
• 1:17:35
  In typography, and I think there's a there's a section of
• 1:17:39
  fans that love this sort of stuff and they say there's
• 1:17:42
  there's a lot of these. Looking at one right now.
• 1:17:44
  There's a lot of these niche books that come out.
• 1:17:47
  There's the Black Archive books as well, which are they're
• 1:17:51
  wonderfully detailed essays and everything and.
• 1:17:53
  And more plugged there for John Arnold's invasion of the
• 1:17:56
  dinosaurs, which is truly fabulous.
• 1:17:58
  And it was it James Crewe Smith did the myth makers, which I
• 1:18:01
  read leading up to the podcast that we did.
• 1:18:03
  And that was just a wealth of information on that story.
• 1:18:06
  So there we've got, and that's also taking, Oh, we've we've
• 1:18:11
  told the production of these stories going well.
• 1:18:12
  They do it in interesting ways. So I think there's still lots of
• 1:18:17
  things to talk about and the fact that you can do this glossy
• 1:18:21
  book on the text that comes up on the screen.
• 1:18:27
  And I think sometimes Doctor do fans sometimes just don't
• 1:18:30
  appreciate how fortunate we are that people aren't willing to
• 1:18:34
  write them. There's the ability to get them
• 1:18:37
  printed, get them out there and the information is so readily
• 1:18:41
  available. There's other series and shows
• 1:18:43
  that I watch and you just cannot get the level of production
• 1:18:48
  detail that you do with Doctor Who.
• 1:18:50
  If you, I mean, there's there's a handful of Star Trek books,
• 1:18:53
  particularly about the original series, where they've really.
• 1:18:55
  Gone to see the original series and and some next Gen. but after
• 1:18:59
  that very it's. Really scarce, and I know that
• 1:19:02
  it is and certainly judging by some of their documentaries that
• 1:19:05
  there are interesting stories to tell.
• 1:19:07
  They just haven't had the avenue to tell them.
• 1:19:10
  And maybe that will come in time.
• 1:19:11
  But you know, Doctor Who production history in the I
• 1:19:15
  mean, you, you can go and buy the production diary of the
• 1:19:18
  William Hartnell years, which goes into more mute detail.
• 1:19:22
  So we're in this new era of non fiction books which are so
• 1:19:28
  ridiculously detailed and that that appeals to me massively.
• 1:19:31
  Some, some shows are like, dissected with a block and
• 1:19:36
  tackle, a hammer and chisel, shall we say?
• 1:19:38
  Yeah, sort of a bit haphazardly. Some are done with a scalpel,
• 1:19:42
  you know, quite detailed. Doctor Who is dissected with
• 1:19:46
  the, you know, the most expensive laser ever created.
• 1:19:50
  So the most, you know, microscopic detail.
• 1:19:53
  And thank God it is. It and it is for fans like
• 1:19:57
  myself and all that it's just brilliant that it's there and
• 1:20:01
  they they know how to market towards us you've.
• 1:20:03
  Intrigued me. You know, I won't get this one.
• 1:20:06
  I mean, it's not my thing, but I'm intrigued.
• 1:20:09
  It's it's so. Wonderful.
• 1:20:11
  It really is. And it's just there's something
• 1:20:13
  quite joyous, the fact that this exists.
• 1:20:15
  We'll do it and I'll double bill with the book of lists on the
• 1:20:18
  book club. I can't.
• 1:20:20
  Wow, that was a positive. So it's time to be negative
• 1:20:23
  again. Now, you know I don't like
• 1:20:24
  making you negative. Maybe you're a cheerful chap,
• 1:20:27
  but come on, let's be really mean.
• 1:20:31
  It's. The quantum Archangel.
• 1:20:35
  We nearly did this, didn't we? We did and and, and it was part
• 1:20:39
  of our previous book club and we we just never had been, had the
• 1:20:43
  ability to finish it. I did and Oh my God.
• 1:20:50
  I mean, so Craig Hinton apparently is the originator of
• 1:20:54
  the term fan rank and. Self coined, yeah.
• 1:20:59
  And this book is pure fan rank. It's a sequel to The Time
• 1:21:05
  Monster. You was crying out for that, I
• 1:21:08
  think. If you want to understand the
• 1:21:11
  mating rituals of the Crone of Oz.
• 1:21:17
  What is wrong with these people? The, it's got such, the prose is
• 1:21:23
  not easy to read, it's not enjoyable to read.
• 1:21:27
  But the, the bit I really didn't like is this is the 6th Doctor
• 1:21:31
  in male we, you know, we only have 6 episodes of them on
• 1:21:34
  screen. The main thing for them is
• 1:21:36
  peppy, quite bright, quite fresh air.
• 1:21:40
  This book starts the base of the Doctor wiping out an entire
• 1:21:43
  civilization and now leaving him and it's miserable.
• 1:21:48
  You sure this one a virgin book? It sounds very virgin to me.
• 1:21:51
  And, you know, the the Doctor isn't accidentally a mass
• 1:21:55
  murderer and just wiped out. I think it's millions.
• 1:21:58
  It's entire civilization, entire planet's been wiped out.
• 1:22:00
  And it's like what? Does he go?
• 1:22:04
  Oh whoops, that's the third one this week.
• 1:22:07
  It's it's and it's so serious when it happens as well.
• 1:22:12
  There's none of the, you know, if you want a 6th Doctor in Mel
• 1:22:14
  book or even a 7th Doctor in Mel book, there's certain things you
• 1:22:18
  look for, which is a bit of fun, a bit of pep, a bit of life of a
• 1:22:21
  colour, because that's what Bonnie brought to the series in
• 1:22:24
  Child of Time Lord. And it's like, yeah, we're just
• 1:22:26
  going to bin all that and we're just going to do this really
• 1:22:30
  dreary book. And then she's.
• 1:22:32
  Written in a very melodramatic way as well, because she, I know
• 1:22:35
  Mel, was melodramatic, but it's operatic.
• 1:22:39
  And then the master turns up and and it's the Anley master as
• 1:22:43
  well and you get this whole thing about him breaking into
• 1:22:46
  the Gallifrey and archives and we should have been much more
• 1:22:51
  interesting than it was, but it just isn't.
• 1:22:56
  It was one that I just the more you read it, if you try to
• 1:23:01
  describe certain elements of the plot, it's like a fever dream.
• 1:23:06
  And it's one of the ways someone said, do you think we could do a
• 1:23:11
  sequel to the Time Monster but be absolutely batshit crazy at
• 1:23:14
  the same time? But do it in a way that because
• 1:23:17
  that we pick this on the back of doing Mad Dogs and Englishmen
• 1:23:20
  for Book Club, which is another book that is absolutely bombing
• 1:23:25
  in places, but that works because it it's not taking
• 1:23:30
  itself as seriously. This feels like it's very
• 1:23:34
  serious, but it it, it, there's a point where it needs to step
• 1:23:36
  back going. I'm writing a sequel to The Thai
• 1:23:39
  Monster. How seriously should I take
• 1:23:41
  this? This should basically be a
• 1:23:43
  comedy. This should be a comedy and this
• 1:23:45
  should, but it's like, no, no, we're going to take it
• 1:23:47
  seriously. So it was just, I'll be meant to
• 1:23:50
  have to get this off my chest because we, we, I read it.
• 1:23:55
  Please unload. And it's just, it was just not
• 1:23:59
  good. I can't, I can't really say much
• 1:24:02
  more. It's it's just there are books
• 1:24:06
  that are bad, but you can still enjoy them.
• 1:24:09
  And there are books you just read and you go, why am I
• 1:24:14
  reading this? I'm reading this because we've
• 1:24:17
  agreed that we're going to do a book club on it and.
• 1:24:20
  Because you're really kind and. You know, and the and the sort
• 1:24:23
  of underline of it. Whose suggestion was it?
• 1:24:27
  It was mine because I thought. Worse, because we didn't record
• 1:24:31
  the episode, the entire reading was fruitless as well.
• 1:24:35
  Well, it could work. Maybe you know, I should put it
• 1:24:37
  on our new list. Although no one, no one, no one
• 1:24:40
  would thank me. I I've I've I've.
• 1:24:44
  It's another book that's I would define as put down able put.
• 1:24:49
  Down. Really what I, I was, I think we
• 1:24:52
  were going on holiday at the time and I took it with me and I
• 1:24:56
  put it down and I didn't pick it up for months because it just,
• 1:25:00
  there was nothing engaging enough, nothing hooking me in
• 1:25:03
  enough to go. I want to read more of this.
• 1:25:05
  I want to get to the end of this.
• 1:25:07
  Eventually it did, but that's just through sheer bloody
• 1:25:09
  mindedness. I think they're putting that on
• 1:25:12
  the back, you know, of the your quotes going on the back of the,
• 1:25:15
  the new publishing of this. You know, I couldn't pick this
• 1:25:18
  book up for months. It's yeah, it's an, it's an,
• 1:25:24
  it's another slog. And that's probably a common
• 1:25:26
  theme to some of like bottom 10. It's.
• 1:25:28
  Just I've said this point quite a lot and I won't labour it, but
• 1:25:30
  basically I think there are writers in the Doctor Who lines
• 1:25:34
  that have careers ahead of them away from Doctor Who, and there
• 1:25:39
  are writers that people knew people in the know and had a
• 1:25:42
  chance to write a book. And this is definitely the
• 1:25:45
  latter. Yeah, this is.
• 1:25:49
  There's some imagination on display, but it's just not
• 1:25:52
  expressed in a good way. And I know, I know, Craig Hinton
• 1:25:58
  has a lot of fans. I don't know.
• 1:25:59
  He was well liked in fandom and gorgeous and wrote some really
• 1:26:06
  interesting reviews in Doctor magazine as well, I think.
• 1:26:10
  But this is just, you know. Like, people aren't averse to me
• 1:26:13
  too much, you know? But if I sat down and wrote a
• 1:26:16
  book here, I promise you this your eyes will be bleeding by
• 1:26:19
  the end of it, right? OK, being a nice fella don't
• 1:26:24
  mean you should. You know that you're you're a
• 1:26:26
  talent. With a with a quill pen.
• 1:26:28
  Exactly. And and just that was just
• 1:26:31
  because someone can write a good book does not necessarily mean
• 1:26:33
  that they are a nice person. Oh well, we've all discussed
• 1:26:36
  that. And we?
• 1:26:37
  May get back there. OK, well let's go back to the
• 1:26:41
  top ten then I sort of where we are. #4 top four number 40.
• 1:26:46
  My God, we're in the top five. OK, let's go.
• 1:26:49
  This is End Game, the graphic novel.
• 1:26:53
  Oh yes. The first of the 8th Doctor
• 1:26:57
  graphic novels. And to be fair, I could have
• 1:26:59
  picked any of the four volumes, printed volumes of these.
• 1:27:01
  So many people have said that, you know, and in fact, no one's
• 1:27:04
  picked this one. Everyone's picked other ones.
• 1:27:07
  I think that trilogy of Tooth and Claw, the Final Chapter and
• 1:27:12
  Wormwood, I mean, partly because I was reading it in Doctor
• 1:27:17
  Magazine month on month, but I've revisited that those
• 1:27:20
  stories more than a few times since.
• 1:27:23
  And again, it's story arc stuff that builds to a finale, but the
• 1:27:29
  finale is so rewarded. Wormwood is a great story
• 1:27:33
  because it draws all these plot threads from the these books
• 1:27:37
  going back into sort of the go back to some of the 7th Doctor
• 1:27:40
  what just hit my microphone there.
• 1:27:43
  And it brings it together, but it does it in a way that it's
• 1:27:46
  dealing with the villains, the threshold and explains their
• 1:27:49
  back story in their origins. And it's really interesting as
• 1:27:52
  well. And you've got a cotton that
• 1:27:54
  suddenly can't remember the name of the big beast creature that's
• 1:27:58
  in it as well, which is striking.
• 1:28:00
  It's all still black and white in this period.
• 1:28:03
  And the artwork, it's striking, it's bold.
• 1:28:08
  You've got Izzy, who is just a great companion.
• 1:28:13
  You've got barely. Imperceptible from Sam Jones,
• 1:28:16
  isn't she? She and you've got they bring
• 1:28:19
  Faye in as well and she was a great addition because she's
• 1:28:23
  slightly older and she's so blunt or quite direct.
• 1:28:28
  And I thought there was good double act with Izzy, but worked
• 1:28:32
  well with the Doctor and you had this nice TARDIS team there for.
• 1:28:35
  Izzy and Fly, you say? That's got a nice ring to it.
• 1:28:37
  Yes, it does. And we there was a possibly a
• 1:28:42
  first, it may well be the first, well, the first it.
• 1:28:46
  Was debatable with C and I when we did that in the book club.
• 1:28:50
  Well, we, we were debating that for a while, but it is
• 1:28:52
  definitely there that Izzy and fair share a kiss or it's fade
• 1:28:56
  at the end because they has merged with Shade and you've got
• 1:29:00
  all these these Gallifrean characters.
• 1:29:02
  You've got a trick into the matrix, which is wonderfully
• 1:29:06
  visual in the final chapter. You've got the Doctor's
• 1:29:08
  regeneration, fake out regeneration, something that
• 1:29:11
  people will say, oh, they should do that on TV going you could
• 1:29:13
  never do a do a proper. You could fake it out for a
• 1:29:17
  Cliff. I mean, you could fake it out
• 1:29:19
  for 5 minutes, but you couldn't do what they did in DDBM and
• 1:29:21
  fake it for six months. Size bold, isn't it?
• 1:29:26
  And they of. Course Brexit is involved, isn't
• 1:29:28
  it? Of course he is.
• 1:29:30
  And they? Held their nerve they they they
• 1:29:33
  took the Flack in the letters, they took the criticism and they
• 1:29:36
  were sitting going yeah, we're doing this in a couple of.
• 1:29:39
  Months wrapping their hands together, going.
• 1:29:42
  And that reveal it still works even in in the volume when they
• 1:29:46
  reveal that. It's still the 8th.
• 1:29:48
  Doctor, it's just such a great moment.
• 1:29:50
  When he comes back, he lifts the story.
• 1:29:52
  It's it's such a great run. Like I said, any of those four
• 1:29:58
  volumes I would pick, I'd to vet.
• 1:30:00
  If I had more, I would probably put another one in there because
• 1:30:03
  I think the glorious dead is a superb graphic novel in it.
• 1:30:07
  So right, just even just that story, the glorious dead.
• 1:30:10
  But end game, because it was the again, it was the beginning of
• 1:30:15
  the 8th doctor comic strips for me as well.
• 1:30:17
  That's when I came in and that's why we had three running sagas
• 1:30:22
  of the 8th Doctor and they all had their their own unique
• 1:30:26
  favour. 1 was audio, one was visual, one was print, and they
• 1:30:29
  told big, bold, exciting stories in different ways and oh, it was
• 1:30:36
  just brilliant. Well, my heart would always be
• 1:30:38
  with Britain 8th Doctor because I was so invested in those
• 1:30:43
  books. But I absolutely acknowledge
• 1:30:47
  they were up and down, inconsistent in quality with
• 1:30:51
  huge highs and some massive lows.
• 1:30:54
  The comics for the 8th Doctor, which I came to a lot later, so
• 1:30:58
  they're less sort of nostalgic for me, are way more consistent.
• 1:31:03
  You know, they're the Scott Gray and Alan Barnes.
• 1:31:06
  They are such consistently great writers that that run, it's hard
• 1:31:11
  to pull out a doubt. I don't, I don't think they
• 1:31:13
  dropped a ball at all. There's a there's some that are
• 1:31:15
  not as good as yeah, but the, the, the hit rate was so high,
• 1:31:19
  there's, there's bound to be the odd one that isn't quite as
• 1:31:21
  good, but there's not many of them.
• 1:31:24
  There really isn't many of. Them with a good book, you're so
• 1:31:27
  immersed into it, aren't you? And there's much more time to
• 1:31:30
  really explore the ideas. Whereas in a comic it's what, 7
• 1:31:34
  pages per per chapter? And it has to do things very,
• 1:31:38
  very quickly. But that may they were good.
• 1:31:42
  It was superb choice and apparently really hard to come
• 1:31:45
  by, but the the the best way is to go and seek out the original
• 1:31:48
  Doctor magazines because I think you can pick up a lot of them
• 1:31:50
  quite cheaply and just spread it out and enjoy.
• 1:31:53
  Snoopers Paradise in Brighton, where they have basically a load
• 1:31:57
  of copies of Doctor Magazine going for about 50 pence each.
• 1:32:01
  That's the. Cheapest place.
• 1:32:02
  It's the best. It's the best way to do it.
• 1:32:05
  Well, I mean far too positive. Now get out the shovel and get
• 1:32:10
  going. This might.
• 1:32:12
  This is a book I think some fans really like and really rate.
• 1:32:17
  It's Venusian Lullaby. Oh.
• 1:32:20
  I remember that. Is that Paul Leonard?
• 1:32:21
  It's another Paul Leonard, OH. Dear, he's not doing so well on
• 1:32:24
  your list. No, and it's again, it's another
• 1:32:28
  exact this is proper. The pit was an attempt to doing
• 1:32:31
  hard sci-fi. This is absolutely going for
• 1:32:35
  proper. We're doing the Alien Culture
• 1:32:38
  book, which quite a few of the Virgin books did attempt to do.
• 1:32:41
  The also people did it because it's got the pronunciation guide
• 1:32:45
  in it as well, and there's a few of those.
• 1:32:47
  Let's really go into alien thought processes and all that.
• 1:32:51
  They're sort of easy to admire these attempts, but really hard
• 1:32:55
  to laugh. It's really not a fun book.
• 1:33:00
  I keep saying fun. I mean, you know, you have
• 1:33:02
  serious books and there are books that you can enjoy that
• 1:33:04
  have got some good and interesting serious themes.
• 1:33:06
  You must. Actually read for pleasure,
• 1:33:07
  right? It's any fun?
• 1:33:09
  And you want to read a Doctor Who book and you want to read
• 1:33:11
  something in particular, this is 1st Dr. Ian and Barbara.
• 1:33:13
  You want to read something that's certainly reflective of
• 1:33:16
  the era. And they said there's some
• 1:33:17
  elements of that, but the idea of these alien thought processes
• 1:33:23
  and eating your children so you can remember them and, and, and
• 1:33:30
  just, and it's, it's something that might work as a chapter.
• 1:33:35
  It might work, you know, doing a point of view some of the other
• 1:33:39
  books. Short story maybe?
• 1:33:41
  It's a short story. It's something that you might
• 1:33:43
  do, but for, you know, a huge chunk of the book it's, it's
• 1:33:48
  just, it doesn't grip you, doesn't grab you.
• 1:33:51
  It's because you know, the heart of Doctor Who is it's
• 1:33:54
  characters. Now you can do alien characters
• 1:33:56
  and everything, but when they are just so unknowable, it's so
• 1:34:00
  impenetrable. It's not fun.
• 1:34:03
  It's not enjoyable. It's not something I got.
• 1:34:05
  I can't wait to see what happens to it.
• 1:34:09
  Is that one of the characters? I have no ideas made OK.
• 1:34:12
  No, I've been chances. But you don't really need to
• 1:34:14
  know. You know that the Venusians, you
• 1:34:16
  know, have a shit and then use it as Wattland orb to create
• 1:34:19
  their houses, do you? I mean, I don't need to know
• 1:34:22
  that I think. I'll just make that up then.
• 1:34:25
  But that's the sort of thing. To be fair, it's it's the sort
• 1:34:27
  of thing that actually, you can believe that they say we're
• 1:34:30
  going to take a whole chapter to explain the the bowel movement
• 1:34:33
  processes of the Venusians. And this is where the Doctor
• 1:34:36
  Lynn's Aikido. And it's just, yeah, I'd say
• 1:34:39
  it's laudable to the idea of picking up and doing something.
• 1:34:41
  Let's let's tell a story of a real, genuine alien society.
• 1:34:46
  A real planet, Zorg. It is the ultimate planet.
• 1:34:50
  I might have said that about death and diplomacy being a bit
• 1:34:52
  of a planet Zog story, but this really is and it's like this is
• 1:34:57
  the antithesis of what Russell C Davies brought to modern who,
• 1:35:01
  which is you've got to have an in and I think even in prose
• 1:35:04
  form, you've got to have an in and you know, just, you know,
• 1:35:10
  the the supporting cast, not not all, all these aliens that
• 1:35:14
  they're talking to and everything.
• 1:35:15
  It's just I don't care. And maybe that is the quality of
• 1:35:20
  the writing itself. Maybe if it was in the hands of
• 1:35:23
  a different author, it might bring out more of it.
• 1:35:25
  But it's just, I don't mind hardcore sci-fi sometimes.
• 1:35:32
  But it it, it has a time and a place and sometimes it's in a
• 1:35:37
  I'm going to sit and relax and read doctor novel.
• 1:35:39
  It just doesn't work for me. You know, sometimes you can be
• 1:35:42
  too broad and too deep for the small screen.
• 1:35:46
  Can't you? And the whole point of the
• 1:35:48
  missing adventures was to be reflections of, you know, a bit
• 1:35:51
  more reflective of what you got on TV because the the new
• 1:35:53
  adventures have moved away and. They didn't do that too often,
• 1:35:57
  did they? They were often doing quite
• 1:35:58
  ambitious things. They were doing they were doing
• 1:36:00
  ambitious things. They were doing the sorts of
• 1:36:02
  stories that you didn't tell. And I think this might well be
• 1:36:05
  one of the questions in in for a book club is, you know, when
• 1:36:08
  you're reading a past Doctor of adventure, are you after
• 1:36:10
  something that is a real reflection of a First Doctor
• 1:36:13
  story or do you want the 1st Doctor and and companions in in
• 1:36:18
  you setting? And I think it's getting the
• 1:36:20
  balance right. Yeah, both really.
• 1:36:23
  It's basically something that those characters feel natural
• 1:36:27
  in. And you know, one the one books
• 1:36:30
  I am looking forward to purely of curiosity is The Man in the
• 1:36:32
  Velvet Mask, which I've not read, but obviously it's just
• 1:36:36
  not a First Doctor story. Just very careful with who
• 1:36:39
  you're sleeping with in the past, you know, you don't know
• 1:36:41
  what they've got catching. Well, you never you'll be
• 1:36:44
  careful you sleep with in doctor novels anyway, because it just
• 1:36:46
  never ends well. Does in the Venusian Lullaby
• 1:36:51
  does William Hardell sort of grab his lapels and go?
• 1:36:54
  Yeah, look, clean up half club min in Clench.
• 1:36:59
  If he didn't, he should have done because I probably blanked
• 1:37:01
  it from a memory. OK, well let's not give it
• 1:37:05
  another thought then, this terrible book and let's go back
• 1:37:09
  to Oh my God, we're in top three now.
• 1:37:11
  Top three. I'll be expecting some good
• 1:37:14
  stuff here. So I promised the EDAI promised
• 1:37:18
  another one of their big finales.
• 1:37:20
  I've got some time. Never.
• 1:37:22
  Wow, I mean I love Some Time Never, but I it's not a
• 1:37:27
  massively popular book. No, it's not.
• 1:37:30
  I'm a mass of contradictions because in some ways this could
• 1:37:33
  be seen as dense and complex and everything intricate, isn't it?
• 1:37:37
  It's intricate. But I think if you've been
• 1:37:39
  reading those books from cameras Henry, certainly Henry Edge St.
• 1:37:45
  onwards camera obscure onwards where they've been building the
• 1:37:47
  Sabbath arc and the whole storyline of the collapsing
• 1:37:52
  timelines into one true time. Like it's really complex.
• 1:37:55
  But if you've been reading those books monthly and they've been
• 1:37:58
  building to this big climax story.
• 1:38:05
  I just remember recently it came coming away going.
• 1:38:07
  That's really that works as a as a as an ending to that story.
• 1:38:12
  I agree. And and it just it may not be
• 1:38:15
  the best written book in the world.
• 1:38:16
  It may be quite impenetrable for someone who's never engaged with
• 1:38:21
  it before. Don't make.
• 1:38:22
  It your first. Definitely don't make it your
• 1:38:25
  first, but the idea kind of, it's kind of almost bookended
• 1:38:30
  the ancestor cell because this is again, the Doctor facing
• 1:38:34
  these creatures that have been kind of there in the background
• 1:38:37
  all the way through. It's not the Daleks.
• 1:38:39
  It was never the Daleks. It was never going to be the
• 1:38:40
  Daleks. It's definitely never in the
• 1:38:41
  Daleks. They're attempting to police
• 1:38:44
  time, aren't they? In the wake of the destruction
• 1:38:47
  of Gallifrey, the Council of A wants to break down the
• 1:38:51
  multiverse to one universe that they can control.
• 1:38:55
  One true timeline that they can control and they have been
• 1:38:58
  taking out the Doctors support and companions gradually over a
• 1:39:03
  series of unrelated books are Doctor adventures though.
• 1:39:06
  Mel is dead, Ace is dead. Sarah Jane Smith gets a bullet
• 1:39:11
  to the head, you know, Harry's. And it turns out in this book
• 1:39:14
  that they were responsible or they were involved in all of
• 1:39:17
  this. And they've got all these dead
• 1:39:18
  companions in these stasis chambers and.
• 1:39:22
  It's they're all hourglasses, aren't they, in various states?
• 1:39:27
  And and they all get and they get released, which kind of
• 1:39:29
  undoes all those tragic endings. And then you've got the
• 1:39:34
  character Octane and Zazan who go off and they land in Tata's
• 1:39:41
  lane. Come along Suzanne, back to the
• 1:39:44
  ship. And so.
• 1:39:48
  There's so and there's just, again, there's big bold ideas.
• 1:39:51
  But yeah, you know, again, it resolves in the same way
• 1:39:55
  Ancestor Sail did, resolving this ongoing story arc in a way
• 1:40:00
  that you go that's that works. That feels very true to all the
• 1:40:03
  stories, because sometimes finales.
• 1:40:06
  Don't work. Sometimes phenomes will let you
• 1:40:08
  down because they just cannot live up to the hype or live up
• 1:40:11
  to the expectation because they've been seeding.
• 1:40:13
  They'd seeded the crystals and the diamonds that they were
• 1:40:16
  there in emotional chemistry and timeless.
• 1:40:19
  And so all these things, all these seeds have been threaded
• 1:40:23
  and it just works. And the idea of like you meet
• 1:40:27
  these creatures, these crystalline creatures, they're
• 1:40:30
  the ones that forced with the clock creatures out of the
• 1:40:33
  vortex in and that's all the ties back to all the thing and
• 1:40:38
  it just feels very. Huge story, isn't it?
• 1:40:41
  And I think it's actually one of the shorter books as well,
• 1:40:43
  because I did dig it out and I was going this is this is
• 1:40:45
  thinner than some of the gorgeous.
• 1:40:48
  Cover as well, isn't it? Back at the time when black
• 1:40:51
  sheep were doing some fun, those covers the late EDA because some
• 1:40:54
  of those early ones are terrible, but the the the cover
• 1:40:58
  image was sometime never with the the crystals and the crystal
• 1:41:02
  creature and everything reaching a.
• 1:41:04
  TARDIS in his hand, doesn't he? It's it's gorgeous, really.
• 1:41:08
  It's a great book and it's a really satisfying conclusion for
• 1:41:11
  Sabbath and his story because. Yes.
• 1:41:14
  You know, he he gets his well deserved comeuppance, but you
• 1:41:19
  know, did he come good in the end as well?
• 1:41:21
  And, and a fascinating character.
• 1:41:23
  I think they they used him just enough.
• 1:41:26
  Do a massive spoiler so please. Skip forward another minute if
• 1:41:30
  you don't want to wear this, but the fact that the whole plot in
• 1:41:34
  the end, the whole arc hinges on there being Sabbath being as
• 1:41:39
  predictable as possible to power this thing, to create this one
• 1:41:43
  timeline. And so he knows he's got to do
• 1:41:45
  an unpredictable move to shatter the whole thing.
• 1:41:48
  So he just picks up a gun and shoots himself in the head.
• 1:41:52
  It's so great. Oh, what a great choice.
• 1:41:56
  It's a great book, I love it. Sorry, Rod, I'm saying what a
• 1:42:00
  great choice to everyone at David's.
• 1:42:04
  Well, that's quite right too. Yeah, well.
• 1:42:06
  OK, I mean, we're having far too much fun here, you know?
• 1:42:09
  Now I'll need you to depress me a little bit.
• 1:42:13
  OK, bottom two in the bottom 2 with any.
• 1:42:16
  Frightening times here. It's a target and it's time
• 1:42:21
  flight. And I mean, it's not it's off to
• 1:42:26
  a tough start because it's an adaptation of a pretty poor
• 1:42:30
  script. But this is so where the Romans
• 1:42:33
  there was this. Let's reinvent it.
• 1:42:35
  Let's rework it. Let's play with the structure.
• 1:42:38
  This is probably the worst example of it's the script with
• 1:42:43
  some stage directions as a book. It's it adds nothing to it.
• 1:42:50
  It adds no layers, it doesn't explore any of the characters
• 1:42:54
  and it is just it's the story, there you go.
• 1:42:57
  At least when we did Underworld, we did the TV version, read the
• 1:43:01
  book. At least it added a bit of
• 1:43:02
  flavour to it. He gave the history of the
• 1:43:05
  minions and there was a little bit of characterisation.
• 1:43:08
  It's lovely descriptions of the special effects in that book as
• 1:43:11
  well. Yeah, there are no special
• 1:43:13
  effects in Time Blind to do descriptions of, unfortunately.
• 1:43:17
  Adric's death is reduced to a page, barely page.
• 1:43:22
  What did I do? Just go, Oh well, let's go.
• 1:43:24
  Just. Go and watch the episode and
• 1:43:26
  just stick, he said, she said around it.
• 1:43:27
  And you've got a very good idea of what it is.
• 1:43:31
  You know, there was no attempt to go.
• 1:43:32
  Maybe we should do something with, you know, Peter Grim.
• 1:43:35
  Peter Grim were adapting his own script, but there's no kind of
• 1:43:39
  maybe that's a bit of depth. And I know that there was a
• 1:43:42
  point with targets where they were just basically do what do
• 1:43:48
  what was on screen and keep it as.
• 1:43:51
  Straightforward as talking about very quickly.
• 1:43:53
  And and this this for me, of all the ones I've read, I've not
• 1:43:56
  read them all. But of all the ones I've read,
• 1:43:58
  this is the one that just felt the lacked any sort of effort to
• 1:44:03
  try and do something interesting.
• 1:44:04
  Try to maybe fix some of the things that didn't work on
• 1:44:06
  string. Try to explain what can lead us
• 1:44:08
  all about. Doesn't bother with that.
• 1:44:11
  It's just bland and it's probably one of the worst.
• 1:44:18
  Probably it No, it is because it's a top #1 is not a target
• 1:44:21
  book. It is for me, the worst target
• 1:44:23
  I've read by a mile. Because the the you could have
• 1:44:29
  done something. You could have tried to fix this
• 1:44:31
  story. You could have tried to pick it
• 1:44:32
  up and go, how do we make this work?
• 1:44:34
  How do we actually make the characters interesting?
• 1:44:36
  How do we give it a bit of life and a bit of something?
• 1:44:39
  A little. Bit into the you know, the
• 1:44:41
  sordid back story of Angela Clifford and what she gets up to
• 1:44:44
  in the back galley of the plane. You know what?
• 1:44:47
  What does she do during a New York layover, You know?
• 1:44:51
  What terrible thing happened at the night when they went to the
• 1:44:54
  Indonesian restaurant? And you know, the the there's
• 1:44:58
  sometimes you're going to go if they're going to bring out new
• 1:45:00
  targets and if they're going to adapt, you know, OK, let's
• 1:45:02
  readapt even other Daleks. It's been done.
• 1:45:04
  But why not pick up some of the they did androids tar and stones
• 1:45:07
  of blood? Why not pick up some of these
• 1:45:09
  stories that might benefit from an author coming in and taking
• 1:45:14
  the script and saying do something with it?
• 1:45:16
  Make this. A handful, you know, that would
• 1:45:18
  just he says. He says Seats of Doom would make
• 1:45:20
  a brilliant full length novel. I think that the risk of that is
• 1:45:26
  that the risk of putting in in jokes and lots of continuity and
• 1:45:32
  so that it's a, it's a double edged sword because I thought,
• 1:45:34
  oh, that's maybe they should do that could be a good idea for
• 1:45:36
  the Nah. They they will, they will feel
• 1:45:38
  they will put some in jokes about bad special effects.
• 1:45:41
  There'll be some comment about the Concorde looking CSO door
• 1:45:45
  floating like an unrealistic video effect.
• 1:45:47
  It's like. The.
• 1:45:48
  James Goss Pirate Planet was full of in jokes but he's a
• 1:45:52
  genius so they also landed. But yeah, imagine a bad writer
• 1:45:57
  doing that. It would be pretty bad.
• 1:46:00
  It would so it was just I took AI took a number of two books on
• 1:46:03
  holiday last year. This was one of those I was
• 1:46:05
  trying to read 1 target book for each doctor for the 60th.
• 1:46:08
  Some very old ones, didn't you? All of them quite dull, asking
• 1:46:11
  to recall I. Did take some stinkers.
• 1:46:14
  I did. And yeah, I don't know why.
• 1:46:17
  I mean. I may have suggest next year you
• 1:46:19
  take the ancestor cell and sometime never with you I.
• 1:46:22
  Think I might take something a little bit brighter, you know,
• 1:46:25
  if I can find a copy of Happy Ending, I'll take that.
• 1:46:27
  Although that will be protected within, you know, a glass cage
• 1:46:30
  going on holiday. Because he did.
• 1:46:32
  I'll be so sad if I managed to find a copy, take it on holiday
• 1:46:35
  and destroy it do. You remember inside.
• 1:46:37
  Sorry, we're back to happy endings.
• 1:46:39
  There's there's the the outline of the picture with all numbers
• 1:46:43
  telling you everybody is. I.
• 1:46:46
  Love it. That's great.
• 1:46:48
  Nothing fun like that happening in time Flight by.
• 1:46:50
  Peter Gateway and it's even got a photo land cover.
• 1:46:55
  Which one is it? Just Peter Davidson standing
• 1:46:58
  under Concorde, OH. Is that it?
• 1:47:00
  And this is from the story. I mean, it was a hottie, so I
• 1:47:03
  could see while they were trying to sort of get get, you know,
• 1:47:05
  the young ladies to buy the book.
• 1:47:07
  But it's still time flight, you know, in some ways.
• 1:47:11
  You know you can't Polish a turd, but you know they
• 1:47:14
  couldn't. They couldn't.
• 1:47:15
  They could have tried harder. Except on Venus where I hear
• 1:47:19
  that they Polish their turds before they create the houses
• 1:47:22
  out of it. Or OK.
• 1:47:23
  Move us back to your top ten. It's quick.
• 1:47:27
  OK, stick with Target. How to do it?
• 1:47:29
  How to do it right? OK.
• 1:47:33
  Is this the, is this the best target ever?
• 1:47:35
  Yeah. It's Doctor and The Cave
• 1:47:37
  monsters. Oh.
• 1:47:40
  I, I think this is, this is, that's how you do it.
• 1:47:44
  It's faithful to the TV version, but you know, but it, it expands
• 1:47:48
  on it and where it expands on it expands in the characters.
• 1:47:52
  And we get the, the one I always remember is it gives Major,
• 1:47:56
  Major Barker, not Major Baker, because for some reason he gets
• 1:47:58
  a new name and you get his back story and you get how I think he
• 1:48:02
  was in Northern Ireland and he was, he was a bit of failure and
• 1:48:05
  this, this and that. OK, so the reason why he's so
• 1:48:07
  shouty and so grumpy and and so officious, he's given this,
• 1:48:11
  given these layers. Like his life's been a series of
• 1:48:14
  disappointments. And now he's stuck with Peter
• 1:48:17
  Miles underground. And then you get alien point of
• 1:48:22
  view, which obviously this is the first, first time I think it
• 1:48:25
  was done where you get the entire chapter from the
• 1:48:27
  Silerian's point of view, and it describes everything.
• 1:48:29
  And I was criticizing Venusian Lullaby for doing it, but I was
• 1:48:32
  doing it for a whole book. This is 1 chapter and it's the
• 1:48:36
  Silurian. When it's on the Moors and it's
• 1:48:38
  in the barn, it describes the Brigadier of the Doctor by how
• 1:48:40
  it sees the shapes and it, it's just really well done.
• 1:48:45
  I'm just glad it was a chapter of it.
• 1:48:47
  But it's it's really and it's it captures the atmosphere of the
• 1:48:51
  story. It's got a lovely little graphic
• 1:48:54
  of the base. It doesn't you don't need it,
• 1:48:56
  but it tells you where the base is on wedding Moore.
• 1:48:58
  It's got a little map of it. It's got the version I've got.
• 1:49:01
  It's got all the illustrations in which are really quite
• 1:49:04
  wonderful Twee. But there's some great there's a
• 1:49:06
  great one of Doctor Quinn meeting Okdel, the solarium.
• 1:49:09
  But looks like they're having quite a nice chat, sitting down
• 1:49:12
  sort of in their little chairs having a conversation.
• 1:49:15
  But it's just Malcolm Hulk got how to adapt his stories to page
• 1:49:22
  and how to bring everything that made the TV story good and
• 1:49:27
  enhances it and say it's if you're going to adapt, there are
• 1:49:31
  ways. You can be bold like the Romans
• 1:49:32
  and go off and do something totally wild and different, or
• 1:49:36
  you can be really bland and just follow one on screen.
• 1:49:39
  This is kind of between those two.
• 1:49:42
  It's the midway and it brings in some of those things that I
• 1:49:45
  might condemn a book for or can praise a book for, but it does
• 1:49:48
  it in sparingly. It does it well.
• 1:49:52
  And it's just it. It's one of the first targets I
• 1:49:56
  read, and it was also one of the first audio books I read.
• 1:49:58
  And Caroline John does a really good reading of it.
• 1:50:00
  So it's, yeah, I think it just ticks all the boxes for me.
• 1:50:04
  It is. It's probably the target I've
• 1:50:06
  revisited the most and I think it's just a brilliant, brilliant
• 1:50:10
  book. What's great about Hulk was he
• 1:50:13
  wasn't afraid to look at ATV story.
• 1:50:16
  You know, the TV production of his story, his scripts, and to
• 1:50:21
  look at the scripts and say, right, I didn't quite get the
• 1:50:24
  script right there, I'm going to fix that in the book.
• 1:50:26
  And they didn't get the production quite right there.
• 1:50:29
  I'm going to fix that in the book.
• 1:50:31
  And so sometimes he makes absolute sweeping changes and
• 1:50:34
  other times, yeah, you're right, it's just little sort of, but
• 1:50:37
  the way you can Add all those little character layers, just
• 1:50:41
  little moments with all the characters per page.
• 1:50:44
  With with economy as well. And, you know, so it's not a
• 1:50:47
  long book. It's a.
• 1:50:49
  Really skilled and he was a really skilled adapter as well
• 1:50:52
  and I think I enjoy all of his books, but this is just.
• 1:50:55
  Our place is special. A hoax appeared on anyone's list
• 1:50:57
  yet? And that is an overray.
• 1:51:00
  Oh my God, are we doing your favourites now?
• 1:51:03
  We're. Doing all your least favourites
• 1:51:05
  all. Right, least favorite and top
• 1:51:07
  book and. Please let me just prepare
• 1:51:09
  myself and say a prayer. OK, let's hear your least
• 1:51:12
  favorite Doctor Who book of all the time.
• 1:51:14
  You alluded to this because yes, this was one of the books I took
• 1:51:17
  on holiday last year. This is the ghost of N Space in.
• 1:51:22
  This is a terrible, terrible book.
• 1:51:27
  I thought you were on your Easter holes.
• 1:51:30
  I mean, Carrie let's Barry let's did great work as a producer.
• 1:51:34
  I love that era so much as seen with Cave monsters.
• 1:51:39
  You know, it's it's one I've got a lot of affection for, but 90s
• 1:51:43
  Barry let's seems to have lost his ability to come up with good
• 1:51:47
  stories. Paradise to Death was fine.
• 1:51:50
  The the indeed the radio version at least it's got Pertwee,
• 1:51:53
  Courtney and Sladen acting and. They're having fun.
• 1:51:58
  They're having fun and it's a pretty dreadful script, but at
• 1:52:01
  least they're having fun with it.
• 1:52:02
  They're bringing stuff around to it.
• 1:52:03
  Paul Lee Clayton Now do you remember when she sees the
• 1:52:05
  Brigadier at the Star? Oh my God, it's the break.
• 1:52:08
  It's me. I was like, who is this?
• 1:52:12
  I'm Sarah. But take the actors away and
• 1:52:16
  you're left with his boob obsession.
• 1:52:21
  Very odd. It's really odd.
• 1:52:24
  And boobs. David bombs whores.
• 1:52:27
  It's all in there. You've got Jeremy Fitz Oliver,
• 1:52:30
  who's already a terrible character, but take again, take
• 1:52:34
  away any hint of charm of the performance, and that was a hint
• 1:52:37
  of charm. But you know, he's an annoying
• 1:52:40
  Yes, I know he's meant to be annoying, but it's not in a
• 1:52:44
  charming way. Why do people write characters
• 1:52:47
  that are meant to be annoying? That means they're just
• 1:52:49
  annoying. It's just annoying and basically
• 1:52:53
  the character's a complete twat. It's really unlikable at times
• 1:52:59
  and it's just, it is probably the, it is the worst doctor and
• 1:53:05
  I'd heard people say that for years.
• 1:53:06
  It's part of the reason why I read it, because it's like, is
• 1:53:08
  this the worst book? And it's yes, it is.
• 1:53:12
  It is absolutely horrible and I believe you've been reading it.
• 1:53:18
  I'm currently about 3 chapters from the end.
• 1:53:21
  Yes, I'm doing it for a book club and I'll tell you what,
• 1:53:24
  I've never known so many paragraph long sentences in my
• 1:53:28
  entire life. Like some of these sentences are
• 1:53:31
  about 9 or 10 lines long. I've by the time I get to the
• 1:53:34
  end of the sentence I forget where I started.
• 1:53:36
  I don't know what point he's trying to make.
• 1:53:38
  It's badly written. It is so badly written, no?
• 1:53:45
  That stuff with the siege. The siege in Italy on the
• 1:53:48
  Brigadier's uncle Mario's castle.
• 1:53:52
  Yes, his mysterious Italian uncle.
• 1:53:54
  I mean, when did the news thing like this ever happened in
• 1:53:58
  Doctor Who? It's it's a good example of
• 1:54:01
  it's. It's not what happened on
• 1:54:02
  screen. It's not a reflection, it just
• 1:54:04
  doesn't. None of it works.
• 1:54:07
  It. And what is in space?
• 1:54:11
  Can you remember? Null space.
• 1:54:13
  It's the. It's where the beans live.
• 1:54:17
  And oh, I don't. Know, I think it's when you die
• 1:54:21
  or something, you're somewhere trapped between Earth and the
• 1:54:25
  great hereafter and that's the middle bit and null people that
• 1:54:28
  I don't want to die and that's why they come back as a ghost or
• 1:54:31
  something. Something I think he hasn't
• 1:54:33
  thought it through, but you know, it's the radio version is
• 1:54:38
  bad, but at least it's entertaining.
• 1:54:40
  This is just bad. It is.
• 1:54:42
  I mean, even the Brigadier looks a bit bored on the cover.
• 1:54:45
  Because I'm currently reading this, I couldn't possibly
• 1:54:47
  disagree. It is probably the worst book
• 1:54:51
  I've ever read. It is and I think possibly
• 1:54:53
  because it's coming from Barry let's as well where you know, he
• 1:54:55
  was capable of actually writing and telling a good story,
• 1:54:58
  telling an interesting story using with Robert Soman or
• 1:55:01
  Terence Dix. Probably it's his side so.
• 1:55:06
  Just for you, you know when I'll do that, I shall.
• 1:55:09
  That book club episode, I should do the entire thing.
• 1:55:12
  That's Jeremy Fitz Oliver. Oh, you should.
• 1:55:14
  Oh, locks, you know. Sarah Terrible.
• 1:55:20
  Well, that was a yeah, that was a superb choice now.
• 1:55:24
  OK, another moment just to take a breath.
• 1:55:28
  The best Doctor Who book of. All time.
• 1:55:33
  It's the 1992 yearbook. Oh my God, is it the one with
• 1:55:37
  the sea devil on the front? Oh my God, that's the best.
• 1:55:41
  Go on, go on. So I, I, I, I.
• 1:55:45
  It's for one reason. It is for the episode guide.
• 1:55:47
  Yes, yes, yes, yes. Did you pour over it?
• 1:55:53
  I. It is seared onto my brain.
• 1:55:56
  It's the point that if I have to visualize the seasons, I
• 1:56:01
  visualize them as they are blue. Isn't it?
• 1:56:04
  You live for Black and white season.
• 1:56:06
  Season 7 is on the right hand page.
• 1:56:08
  That's right. That's right.
• 1:56:10
  An overall rating for each story.
• 1:56:13
  Season McCoy year has got its own little page at the back
• 1:56:16
  everything I I borrowed my friend's copy of it for years
• 1:56:21
  and I've poured over all the first time I've probably saw a
• 1:56:24
  complete 26 season episode guide and it was just eye opening.
• 1:56:32
  It was that first time you see everything in context.
• 1:56:33
  You kind of what's this key to time season?
• 1:56:36
  What's this trial of a time? And so it's informed it's it's
• 1:56:41
  3035 years later. It is still there and I bought
• 1:56:46
  my own copy a few years ago because I say I borrowed my
• 1:56:48
  friends. I bought it and I was just
• 1:56:49
  looking like I remember every single thing is in this book,
• 1:56:54
  all the production articles, the comic strips.
• 1:56:57
  There's a comic strip with the 7th Doctor telling a story of
• 1:57:00
  the 3rd Doctor and the 4th Doctor briefly meeting which
• 1:57:03
  explains teeth and curls and but it's the episode guide and it's
• 1:57:09
  just. For me it is just pure
• 1:57:11
  nostalgia. Do you know when you first see
• 1:57:14
  it like that? Like the whole body of Classic
• 1:57:17
  Who for the first time, yet It's like unrolling a magic carpet
• 1:57:21
  that goes on and on and you realise there's so much of it to
• 1:57:26
  explore. I don't think we ever come down
• 1:57:28
  from that high, you know? No, you don't, you really don't.
• 1:57:32
  And it's you know, there's not a huge amount of, you know, huge
• 1:57:35
  amount of detail. You can't do what prostyle
• 1:57:37
  character. And this is just it is just
• 1:57:41
  really it for me, it's just probably the most influential
• 1:57:46
  books that I had that that borrowed.
• 1:57:49
  But it's just like I say, I remember it and you say it was
• 1:57:51
  that point where I picked it up. I was looking for the well, my
• 1:57:53
  top book being I picked up on. I know this book.
• 1:57:56
  I could probably tell you everything in this book and what
• 1:58:01
  it now not to hand. Oh my God.
• 1:58:04
  They got a copy of it in Snoopers Paradise.
• 1:58:06
  I'll get Mark to get it for you this week.
• 1:58:07
  I'll send it you all. Right.
• 1:58:08
  Oh, no, I'm sorry not to. I have got it.
• 1:58:10
  It's just, oh. I see what you mean.
• 1:58:12
  It's. Not immediately.
• 1:58:13
  To hand. Oh, I was going.
• 1:58:14
  To say if you didn't have a copy, is that the one with the
• 1:58:16
  Sea Devil cartoon in it is, isn't it?
• 1:58:19
  I swear there's a brilliant Sea Devil cartoon in that as well.
• 1:58:22
  It's, it's just a great book. It's just.
• 1:58:25
  Now, I would not have predicted that in a minute he is to be the
• 1:58:28
  number one. But man, I think we had our
• 1:58:31
  similar epiphanies, you know, getting that annual.
• 1:58:33
  It's just something happens. It's great.
• 1:58:39
  It's absolutely great. Absolutely.