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Hamster Book Club - The Sands of Time · A Hamster With a Blunt Penknife - a Doctor Who Commentary podcast

• 0:02
  Margaret's tent was silent. Behind the doctor, Tegan could
• 0:06
  see the figures sprawled across the bed.
• 0:09
  Margaret's head lolled back over the far side of the bed and
• 0:13
  Tegan was thankful that the eyes were hidden.
• 0:16
  She knew that they would be open and blank.
• 0:18
  The pupils dilated in the gloom. Atkins and Kenilworth arrived
• 0:23
  out of breath and hurriedly dressed.
• 0:26
  But before any of them could speak, there was a shout from
• 0:28
  across the camp, and the sound of a shotgun approaching them.
• 0:33
  Out of the darkness were three enormous shapes.
• 0:36
  They Lombard forward, rolling from one leg to the other, as if
• 0:40
  pulling the huge bulk forward By their own momentum.
• 0:44
  McCready shot caught the leading mummy in the right shoulder.
• 0:48
  It slowed a little, the right side of its body pushed back by
• 0:51
  the impact, but then it eased itself back into its rolling
• 0:55
  gate and continued without apparent discomfort towards
• 0:58
  them. Mccreedy broke open the gun and
• 1:01
  fumble in his pocket for fresh cartridges.
• 1:04
  I wouldn't bother if I were you, the doctor said.
• 1:07
  There are siren service robots. A few bullets and a bit of
• 1:10
  buckshot won't worry them. And what would you suggest?
• 1:14
  Kenilworth asked. I'd suggest we run.
• 1:19
  The mummies continued their slow progress.
• 1:21
  One of them smashed its way through the edge of a tent
• 1:24
  standing in its path, silhouetted against the canvas
• 1:27
  of the supply tent. A huge shape ripped the top from
• 1:31
  one of the packing places. Just then, the entrance to the
• 1:34
  tent nearest the leading mummy flapped open and Nebka pushed
• 1:38
  his sleepy way into its path. Lookout man shouted Mccreedy.
• 1:44
  Run kennel with the Doctor. Both called together, but too
• 1:48
  late. The mummy swiped almost casually
• 1:51
  at the Egyptian. It's arm caught him across the
• 1:54
  throat, sending him flying back at the tent he had just left.
• 1:58
  Nepke hit the doorway, his body colliding with the tents main
• 2:02
  support and bringing it crashing down.
• 2:05
  A hand and forearm emerged from the massive collapsed canvas.
• 2:09
  Then it's spasmed, stiffened, and the hand flopped back onto
• 2:13
  the desert floor. Welcome back to the Hamster Book
• 2:31
  Club. My name is Joe Ford and I am
• 2:34
  joined by two gentlemen. Today we are sounds Mark Cochrum
• 2:41
  who is off having a life, but none of the rest of us are doing
• 2:44
  that. We're all reading The Stands of
• 2:45
  Time by Justin Richards. So I am here with the wonderful
• 2:49
  Andrew Andrew. How are you?
• 2:51
  Hello, I'm good. Thank you.
• 2:53
  And the equally wonderful Luke. Hello, Luke.
• 2:56
  Yay. Hello.
• 3:01
  And I've got a habit of asking you questions before we actually
• 3:05
  go in to talk about the book. And I've got a really simple
• 3:09
  question for you today. It should be very simple for
• 3:11
  Andrew because I think I can see it behind him.
• 3:15
  And that is, how big are your Doctor Who book collections?
• 3:22
  I How many of these things do you have and have you kept them
• 3:26
  and sort of how did you did you buy them at the time, Like how
• 3:30
  did your collection come to be, Andrew?
• 3:34
  So yeah, I have quite a lot of Doctor Who books, some of which
• 3:40
  like I have one one like bookcase like this behind me.
• 3:44
  This being audio, you can't see it.
• 3:45
  A Billy bookcase from from IKEA is like my Doctor Who books,
• 3:49
  which is in another room. And then there are also some
• 3:51
  which are just like in the cupboard in a box because
• 3:54
  they're overflowing. Which ones are relegated to the
• 3:58
  box? There's a big box of the
• 4:00
  Targets, like the shelves are more the kind of new adventures
• 4:04
  and the missing adventures and the BBC stuff, but I just simply
• 4:09
  just don't have enough room. Like with with like other books
• 4:11
  that aren't about Doctor if I don't want it to like take over
• 4:14
  my entire house. But yeah, I sort of started
• 4:19
  collecting the new and missing adventures sort of early 2000s I
• 4:24
  guess, when they were already out of print.
• 4:26
  So it was quite difficult even then.
• 4:28
  But I was just sort of scouring like second hand book shops and
• 4:31
  stuff and occasionally having like an amazing find of like 10
• 4:35
  books in one one shop. Yeah, and then sort of the BBC
• 4:41
  ones, I just sort of cherry picked the ones that I that I
• 4:45
  like the look of and then later started reading them regularly.
• 4:48
  So yeah, I think I've got all of the new event, all of the new
• 4:53
  adventures apart from the three that are really difficult to
• 4:55
  find, all of the missing adventures.
• 4:58
  And then probably about half of the BBC books, actually.
• 5:01
  What are the ones that are difficult to find?
• 5:03
  Lung Barrow. Yeah, so barley scene.
• 5:06
  Lung Barrow So Violence Then and Dying, Dying Days.
• 5:10
  I'll tell you what though, there are a handful of Ed as that are
• 5:14
  becoming an absolute pain in my butt to get my hands on.
• 5:21
  Sorry, I need to Sorry to interrupt you.
• 5:23
  I'll have to tell you this immediately on the recording.
• 5:26
  My other half found a massive haul of 8th Doctor books in a
• 5:30
  shop the other day and sent me a picture and I think they're
• 5:32
  still there. Which ones do you need?
• 5:35
  I'll send them to you. So I used to have.
• 5:39
  Them all. Moved out, moved out into a
• 5:42
  small place and I needed a needed to to get rid of a whole
• 5:45
  bunch of stuff. Like there's heaps of stuff,
• 5:47
  DVDs, comics, books, and I slowly, I've been slowly
• 5:51
  starting to to get back into collecting them, mostly focusing
• 5:56
  on books that I didn't own the first time around.
• 5:59
  So some of the later PDAs and EDAS, I never finished the EDAS
• 6:04
  because my brain was like, well, they're over.
• 6:07
  If I never finished them, they didn't end.
• 6:09
  So I've now got like, I've got them all now.
• 6:11
  So I've got like the last five I've, I've, I've got to read the
• 6:14
  last three and then I've read all the EDAS and but.
• 6:20
  I think that's a lovely way to go about things, you know, if I
• 6:22
  don't finish them, they've never ended.
• 6:25
  That's right, Half Life has been a pain.
• 6:28
  And History 101? They're the two biggest pains to
• 6:31
  get at the moment. I think History 101 was saying,
• 6:33
  you know, I'll pick it up for you and get it to you.
• 6:35
  Thank you so much. I appreciate.
• 6:37
  That it's a good reward for giving me your time so much.
• 6:41
  So I would have read a good portion of them.
• 6:45
  I've read more of the BBC output than the Virgin output.
• 6:51
  I would say it's. I think it's just a
• 6:55
  preferencing. I think I just glommed onto them
• 6:57
  more because the EDAS were still being released as I as as I was
• 7:02
  collecting and stuff, whereas the virgin stuff was all over,
• 7:05
  so I felt like I was kind of in on the ground floor.
• 7:08
  Do you know? Because Andrew has in fact got
• 7:11
  that entire collection of virgins apart from those 3,
• 7:14
  They're still valuable. You know, because I had the
• 7:16
  whole set of virgins and I sold them in groups of five on eBay.
• 7:23
  And I'm not kidding you. One of that set of five books
• 7:26
  went for about 800 lbs. I got nearly 4 grand complete
• 7:33
  set of new adventures. So yeah, they are.
• 7:36
  They are still sought after. If someone finds in a second ad
• 7:39
  job a box of new adventures, just grab the lot because they.
• 7:43
  Even if you've got half of them, that's what ebay's for.
• 7:46
  I I'm like, you know I've got all the BB CS, I am recollecting
• 7:52
  the targets after I threw the entire collection away.
• 7:55
  I think I told you that before, that breaks my heart.
• 7:58
  And they're so expensive to get older now.
• 8:02
  And I sort of cherry pick, you know, the new ones that come out
• 8:06
  coming in the Terra files and the Robin Hood one that's that
• 8:10
  really was sort of oddball ones. I'll sort of cherry pick those
• 8:15
  ones as well. And then I've got a handful of
• 8:18
  Virgin and the Missing Adventures as well.
• 8:22
  Fortunately, one of them wasn't sad at the time, but yeah.
• 8:26
  Oh, I I have an interest that I I remembered this when you said
• 8:31
  when we started talking about collections, but yeah, so my
• 8:35
  copy of The Sands of Time, the one that I first read, was the
• 8:38
  reprint version from about 2016, I think.
• 8:41
  One with a really boring cover. With a very, very boring cover.
• 8:45
  I think they were trying to make them like sort of artistic
• 8:48
  looking and not scary the the normal people in a bookshop.
• 8:53
  But yeah, very dull. But I was moaning about the fact
• 8:57
  that I didn't have all the missing adventures during
• 8:59
  lockdown and your other half. Joe, in fact, sent me his double
• 9:04
  of The Sands of Times where my copy of The Sands of Time came
• 9:07
  from. Yeah.
• 9:09
  I could have had that cheeky son.
• 9:14
  No. Do you know what?
• 9:14
  Since we've moved in together, we've sort of cleared out 1/2 of
• 9:18
  the collection. So this relationship has got to
• 9:21
  last. I will be fighting over the one
• 9:24
  copy we've got of everything. Wow, I didn't know that.
• 9:27
  Wow, that's wonderful to learn. I know it's very, very generous
• 9:31
  and very kind. He is.
• 9:32
  He is. Do you know what?
• 9:34
  You watch out. You know that is a sign of
• 9:35
  romance. He sent me a load of Marks and
• 9:38
  things and now he's now he's paying my bills.
• 9:40
  So you know, he warns. Well, let's move on from this
• 9:53
  before things get too Georgie to the sands of time, which was a
• 9:59
  recommendation from Luke. Great recommendation as well.
• 10:04
  I've got a couple of reservations about this, but I
• 10:07
  pretty much speed through it at a pace.
• 10:11
  Of all the ones we I've read on the book club so far, this is
• 10:13
  the one I think I've read the fastest and I've got like a ton
• 10:18
  of questions about it. But can I just have your initial
• 10:22
  impressions of the book sort of going in and then coming out?
• 10:27
  Luke. I all right.
• 10:31
  There's two things I I am, I am a huge fan of the Pyramids of
• 10:34
  Mars. What?
• 10:35
  What's it all? There's not many warts on it.
• 10:37
  There's a few potholes. But this book kind of redress
• 10:40
  addresses some of those dear listeners.
• 10:42
  If you if you read the book, but that.
• 10:45
  And I love the Davison era. It's my favorite era, mostly.
• 10:50
  Good part of that is it's the first era I saw in its entirety
• 10:54
  and not just random VHSS and stuff.
• 10:57
  So the ABC in Australia, they repeated the Davison era at like
• 11:01
  435 thirty in the morning. Kind of like me getting up for
• 11:05
  this project now. You're never going to let us
• 11:09
  forget that, are you? So you know, it was kind of
• 11:13
  boring at first because it was Castro Velve and I've I've had
• 11:15
  that on VHS. I was like, hurry up and move,
• 11:17
  move. All right forward to doomsday.
• 11:21
  You're 1415. When you're 3, it's pretty hard.
• 11:28
  Might have, might have fallen asleep now I so I just set the
• 11:30
  tape and every time either before or after school, I'd
• 11:33
  watch the Davison era. So that's where I come to it.
• 11:36
  Also, there's only been one Aussie companion.
• 11:39
  Come on, you reckon? No other neighbour stars could
• 11:43
  have made the transition or something to the bloody or
• 11:46
  someone from home or away at least.
• 11:47
  Or something like that. We did have a one off.
• 11:50
  Didn't we avoid it at that? Yes.
• 11:52
  That's right. So I'm a I'm a bit of a Tegan
• 11:57
  fan as well. So that's all of those things.
• 12:01
  And when my SO I like Season 13 as well.
• 12:04
  So my, I think if you guys all listen to the previous episode,
• 12:08
  I suggested Monagra first and somebody had chosen that.
• 12:11
  So I had a backup, which is a sequel to the Pyramids of mine.
• 12:14
  So yes, I was very excited to to get into it.
• 12:17
  And did this live up to your expectations?
• 12:20
  Yeah, I think so. It's it's a cracking raid.
• 12:25
  It's a really good sequel, and it's a sequel that does
• 12:28
  something that the other sequels haven't done, and that's
• 12:33
  completely ignore Suitek and do something.
• 12:35
  Different. Yeah, I mean, I I guess if
• 12:38
  you're big Finnish and you do want a suite pyramids kind of
• 12:42
  story and you got Gabriel Wolf right there willing to do the
• 12:45
  voice Jack, he kind of got it right.
• 12:47
  And what's that? Oh, that was the Bernie
• 12:49
  Summerfield one, wasn't it? Yeah.
• 12:51
  The triumph for Suitek or something like that.
• 12:54
  He's in like all four stories or something like that.
• 12:56
  Well, the 1st. Sort of weird period where they
• 12:58
  weren't too sure what's to do with Bernie, so they just pulled
• 13:00
  in, it's the first time calling Sophie Aldred again and said
• 13:02
  right, that, you know, this will make people listen.
• 13:05
  And then they gave her David Walter, and that was marvellous.
• 13:08
  Gee, so you're saying, hang on, you're a massive fan of season
• 13:10
  13 And so the Hammer stuff, You're a massive fan of Tegan,
• 13:14
  You're a massive fan of Pyramids and Mars, and this book was just
• 13:18
  written for you, wasn't it? Really.
• 13:20
  Pretty much, yeah. So it's it's one of the longer
• 13:26
  ones too. But it gives then it does some
• 13:29
  of the things that a lot of Virgin books will do.
• 13:31
  And BBC books too, I will admit. And there's a couple of needless
• 13:36
  bitter fan wanky bits like I didn't need the City of Death
• 13:39
  reference and they're like, oh, the sirens had to do a deal with
• 13:42
  Scaroff because the pyramids will definitely help mankind or
• 13:47
  something. I.
• 13:48
  Thought that was cute because that bit and see the death here
• 13:50
  when they open up the scroll and it's the pyramids and the
• 13:53
  scaroff. There you go.
• 13:55
  So that makes a little bit more sense.
• 13:56
  I didn't re watch the City of Death for this, but I did.
• 13:59
  I did maybe cram in the pyramids and black orchid.
• 14:03
  Oh, amazing. Well, we'll definitely kind of
• 14:05
  cover those two as well. How about you then, Andrew?
• 14:08
  Yeah, I I loved it. It's the second time that I've
• 14:11
  read it. And yeah, I think some of the
• 14:15
  other books that we've done, they've been kind of like big
• 14:18
  ideas stories or like sort of literary takes on top two.
• 14:23
  Whereas this is just, it's a great action adventure and it's
• 14:26
  really Doctor Who ish. And it's just like all the bits
• 14:30
  of Doctor Who that you love just sort of distilled into a book.
• 14:33
  And it's, yeah, it's like really pasty, very short chapters and
• 14:40
  like just a very cleverly, tightly plotted, intricate
• 14:44
  storyline. So yeah, All in all it's like, I
• 14:49
  think if you're if you're just looking for like a really not
• 14:54
  just a solid Doctor Who's just a really good story that's
• 14:58
  exciting and has good characters.
• 15:02
  Yeah, this is this is the book for you, I think.
• 15:05
  Do you like season 13? I love season. 13.
• 15:08
  The. 5th. Doctor Who of Mars was one of
• 15:13
  the first stories I ever saw because it was, they repeated it
• 15:16
  on BBC in like 1994. And so yeah, I love that story.
• 15:22
  Like, I'm not even going to say warts and all because like, I
• 15:25
  just love it. Like even the shit bits, they're
• 15:28
  not shit because it's one of those ones that just like baked
• 15:31
  into my fandom. I guess I love it to pieces.
• 15:37
  Also Love, the 5th Doctor, Tegan, and Nessa, so yeah.
• 15:41
  Yeah. I mean, it's got all the good
• 15:43
  ingredients. How much Tegan was left at I'm
• 15:46
  sorry, How much Nissel was left out of this book?
• 15:48
  This felt so authentic to the 5th.
• 15:53
  I mean, there's there's a fair few, right?
• 15:54
  She's stuck in the TARDIS in Earth shock.
• 15:58
  She's. Kinder.
• 15:59
  She's in the dream state machine.
• 16:02
  Whatever that's called, I'm not sure she's too much Delta wave
• 16:05
  augmenter, was it? I can't.
• 16:07
  Remember. The Here we go.
• 16:09
  I can't believe I actually got that right.
• 16:10
  Well, dubbed, actually, she does too much in Modern Undead as
• 16:13
  well. But yeah, although, I mean, OK,
• 16:16
  well, let's go, let's go into the nuts and bolses.
• 16:18
  Because the first question I'd like to ask you both is, do you
• 16:21
  imagine Steven Moffett read this book at any?
• 16:24
  .100% I know, right? And why do you think that,
• 16:28
  Andrew? This is The Big Bang.
• 16:32
  Like like the whole tiny whiny plot.
• 16:38
  This book does it like 15 years before he did it on screen.
• 16:42
  Like, yeah, it's that cause and effect thing that he's so
• 16:46
  interested in. Although actually you know he
• 16:48
  did do that short story in one of the decalogues which is quite
• 16:51
  similar to this. Is that before this?
• 16:54
  I think it was mainly just after around the same time.
• 16:57
  But yeah, like, there's so much in this book which is kind of,
• 17:03
  you can see in the way that he plots his stories later on.
• 17:09
  Yeah. Like, yeah.
• 17:11
  The the end of chapter, was it the end of chapter one where
• 17:14
  this is revealed, where they, you know, start the
• 17:18
  unmummification process and then this is revealed to be there and
• 17:23
  the the fella goes to the Doctor.
• 17:24
  Oh, well, you told me that you had to be here to see this.
• 17:28
  And the Doctor's like, did I? When did I do that?
• 17:30
  I thought, oh God, we're doing a Steven Moffat story.
• 17:33
  We're going to go back in time. It's going to set all this up,
• 17:37
  but it was clever. I thought it was really, like
• 17:39
  you said, intricate. Really, really smartly done.
• 17:42
  What do you think then, Luke? I.
• 17:44
  Think it's intricate with that being confusing, like it's a
• 17:48
  it's a really fast-paced read and I don't think it would be a
• 17:51
  fast-paced read if we were less scratching our heads as to how
• 17:55
  it all kind of fits together. Now there's some things you see
• 17:59
  coming and that's fine. I think that he's kind of
• 18:02
  planned it that way, but there's other twists and turns that
• 18:04
  especially later on in the book, I was like, oh, OK, so that
• 18:08
  character from the previous TV story.
• 18:11
  Actually, yeah. I never saw that coming.
• 18:13
  Like, I didn't see that coming. I was like, OK, that's that's
• 18:16
  actually really clever. I can, I can imagine being
• 18:19
  annoyed reading this back in the 90s and being like, come on, you
• 18:24
  can't have Nyssa in this book, like, what are you doing?
• 18:27
  But has in 2024. Now that I've heard all the
• 18:31
  Nissa 5th Doctor stories, I'm like, I don't mind having Tegan
• 18:34
  and the Doctor chill out for. She's got a fair cricket, the
• 18:37
  WAP, The quicker the wap. No, I'll say that again.
• 18:40
  She's got a fair crack of the whip now, isn't she?
• 18:43
  I just love her in Egypt and she's pretty much gone.
• 18:47
  We bloody there yet? This is.
• 18:50
  Like that. That bit at the end though,
• 18:51
  where you know this puts been out a long time.
• 18:53
  We can discuss spoilers. Where Anne Cranley is really to
• 18:58
  be the one inside. I just went what the fuck out
• 19:02
  loud? But it he does, I think it's one
• 19:06
  of those engines where it could kind of feel like a cheat
• 19:09
  because it's kind of bringing something else into it from
• 19:11
  continuity. But he does sow the seed earlier
• 19:14
  in the book because there is a bit where the doctor, you can go
• 19:17
  to Cranley Hall quite early, which you kind of forget about,
• 19:23
  but then it's massively significant at the end and I
• 19:25
  think if you didn't have that bit it would feel like a massive
• 19:28
  cop out. Oh.
• 19:29
  Yeah, it would feel like it would come completely from
• 19:31
  nowhere, wouldn't it? Yeah, but I think it's it's, I
• 19:36
  kind of forgive it because it's kind of using the tools of the
• 19:39
  era that it's set in because you've got a character who is a
• 19:43
  double of Nyssa and that was never really utilized in the
• 19:48
  story that she was in to do it and never really explained why
• 19:51
  it was. So it kind of it's nice to kind
• 19:54
  of bring in something from the 5th Doctor's era.
• 19:57
  There's only a couple of stories before this and turn it into a
• 20:00
  payoff and. Do it well.
• 20:02
  Yeah, I was kind of thinking of like the, like the way they use
• 20:06
  Heather in series 10, Bill's Girlfriend, in that she's in the
• 20:10
  first episode, you kind of forget about her and then she
• 20:12
  comes back to be really significant in the in the
• 20:15
  solution to it. And it's that kind of like
• 20:17
  hiding the solution in plain sight, which, yeah, kind of
• 20:22
  works with this ending. I think so.
• 20:24
  I just, I thought it's head. Of the whole.
• 20:25
  It's head. Of the whole stare at it lately.
• 20:28
  Is that her? Yeah, she's the puddle.
• 20:30
  Yeah, that's right, Puddle girl. They all effectively goes off
• 20:34
  and has a relationship with a a lesbian puddle.
• 20:37
  Stephen Moffitt I mean you know always smokes.
• 20:41
  I do. I do think in terms of like.
• 20:44
  The. Plotting everything.
• 20:47
  All the twists were sort of well paced with lots of set pieces
• 20:52
  taking place and everything was well explained.
• 20:55
  My only issue was in the last three chapters where he has to
• 20:59
  cross every T and dot every I and suddenly you get like a a
• 21:05
  load of exposition, a load of sort of reveals.
• 21:09
  And I'll go whoa, whoa whoa, slow down.
• 21:10
  There's too much happening because.
• 21:13
  And you know what? I was sort of writing it all
• 21:14
  down. I'll go, no, if this all makes
• 21:16
  sense, this is plotted really, really well.
• 21:18
  But the sort of the the unfortunate side effect of
• 21:23
  having great moments like the Nissan reveal is you do have to
• 21:26
  explain it all in the end, and he goes to great lengths to do
• 21:30
  that thoroughly. Yeah, it it, the ending is a bit
• 21:33
  convoluted, isn't it? It's sort of you feel like the
• 21:36
  doctor needs to pull out like a flip chart and like and this
• 21:39
  connects to this and This is why it did that.
• 21:42
  But does that? Flip chart.
• 21:43
  I could have done with that, you know.
• 21:46
  Well, there was all the whole thing about, what's the woman's
• 21:48
  name Nepenthis. And her mind's in two people.
• 21:52
  And then her mind left one person at one point.
• 21:55
  And then yeah, and all right, what?
• 21:57
  What? So, so here, here, here's how
• 21:59
  I've got it right, right. Thank you.
• 22:00
  Can you? Explain it all to us, just very.
• 22:02
  Clearly. Please.
• 22:03
  All right. No, but I did try.
• 22:06
  So the Canopic. So Saturn.
• 22:09
  Russell. Russell, you know who I mean.
• 22:14
  See, I I was going to ask you guys how to say the Egyptian
• 22:17
  lady. Neptis.
• 22:19
  Oh. I said nepenthis, but.
• 22:21
  Nepenthis I was like thank God I heard somebody else say that out
• 22:24
  loud and attempt this because I didn't know how to how to say
• 22:27
  it. I I must have read it 100
• 22:29
  different ways reading this book anyway.
• 22:31
  That's a guess that could be wrong, Luke.
• 22:35
  Economic Jar gets cracked and her kind of intelligent side
• 22:41
  maybe gets escapes a little bit and it allows her to take over
• 22:46
  Saturn Russell so she can use him because he was he was pretty
• 22:52
  much guarding like against her escaping.
• 22:55
  So now he's using, she's using her and now that's she's using
• 23:00
  him. But there's also the other half,
• 23:03
  which is more the instinct kind of side of her that's.
• 23:06
  Right, Yeah. And and it's the instinct side
• 23:09
  of her that's more free and allowed to kind of influence
• 23:14
  stuff. The intelligence stuff is more
• 23:15
  kind of on the downloads. It's only able to do like a
• 23:18
  couple things maybe like the Saturn Russell thing and taking
• 23:22
  over some others. But it's the instinctual side
• 23:25
  that's kind of more free and and and and doing all of that, they
• 23:28
  got to kind of combine the two and put them into one body,
• 23:34
  which is Nisa. I hope that made.
• 23:36
  I don't know if that made sense to my brain, but I hope that
• 23:38
  worked. I mean, that was more concise
• 23:41
  than the book was in the last three chapters.
• 23:43
  So thank you for that. But was there, was there any
• 23:47
  parts of the plot itself? Because I want to sort of go
• 23:51
  into the sequel nature of the book and I want to go into the
• 23:55
  characters, but was there any sort of part of the plot that
• 23:57
  that didn't work for you, Andrew?
• 24:03
  I suppose, yeah, like we were just discussing the actual like
• 24:07
  the villains actual plot is a little, it's a little bit
• 24:10
  confusing and I suppose the the way when you reach the 90s
• 24:14
  section of the book because it sort of, well it kind of flits
• 24:17
  about all over the place. But in the 90s bit you have the
• 24:20
  Vanessa character who is sort of like a reincarnation of net,
• 24:26
  net, this, net, whatever that. Broad, yeah.
• 24:31
  So you kind of got that reincarnation, then you've got
• 24:34
  like the mummy, the original mummy in the tomb, and you've
• 24:37
  got Nyssa, and they're kind of all all sort of reincarnations
• 24:41
  of her, and they're trying to combine all of them somehow.
• 24:45
  I thought that was a little bit confusing and I wasn't entirely
• 24:49
  sure how, like, was Nyssa going to become the the God
• 24:53
  reincarnated or was it going to be Vanessa?
• 24:55
  Or was like, they're going to be a sort of suitec like bigger
• 24:57
  coming out of the thing. Yeah.
• 24:59
  And it's a couple of weeks since I read it and it's still not
• 25:02
  quite clear in my. Head I did definitely think
• 25:04
  Suzette was going to like have a big role in this.
• 25:07
  When I got to the end, I went, oh OK, we're not doing that.
• 25:11
  Although I did like did you like the the expanded sort of story
• 25:15
  of Horus and Suzettek and all of that?
• 25:17
  Because I didn't really know any of that back story.
• 25:19
  They sort of touch on it in a couple of lines in Pyramids and
• 25:22
  Mars, but it details as it is sort of bits at the end of
• 25:25
  chapters isn't there, which is telling that sort of Egyptology
• 25:29
  story. So right, I love it.
• 25:32
  So it turns out like the book's kind of not just a sequel to
• 25:35
  Pyramids of Mars, it's also a prequel.
• 25:37
  So this book is happening before, during and after
• 25:41
  Pyramids of Mars. Having your cake and eating it
• 25:45
  just pictures. So, and I like some of that
• 25:48
  because it addresses some of the, some of the maybe the flaws
• 25:50
  that Andrew and I don't really give a shit about in Pyramids of
• 25:53
  Mars. And one of them is, why would
• 25:56
  you leave the things for Suitek to escape like right next to
• 26:00
  him? Like, why would you do that?
• 26:02
  And this book explains that because Horace is just like,
• 26:05
  hey, I'm going to fuck with you for all eternity and leave this
• 26:08
  right out of your reach. It's like when you lock someone
• 26:11
  up in a cell or handcuff them and the key is just like 5 or 6
• 26:16
  inches, like like too far from your reach to grab it.
• 26:19
  That's the equivalent of what Horace has done to Suitek.
• 26:23
  One of my little nitpicks I would say would be I I thought
• 26:29
  we'd actually see NEP T's in the same way that maybe a Suitec
• 26:34
  like, you know, control in a in a in a room or just talking to
• 26:38
  people. She doesn't really talk or
• 26:42
  appear in the book, really at all who?
• 26:46
  She's all over it, like her presence.
• 26:48
  Is. Like she's there.
• 26:50
  She's like the motivation behind everything.
• 26:52
  Oh yeah, she's the catalyst for why everything happens, but
• 26:56
  except for like near the end when you where where Vanessa's
• 27:00
  taken over by the instinctual side of that Lady.
• 27:06
  Bloody names Joe when you interview Justin Richards.
• 27:10
  Question #1 nephews. Yeah, I'll ask him.
• 27:14
  I'll ask him. Jesus, how many books to you?
• 27:17
  I'll be a long interview, wouldn't it?
• 27:19
  The last parking was five hours. He's only done about 6:00.
• 27:23
  Yeah, I wasn't sure if she was a real Egyptian goddess as well,
• 27:28
  like a clip. My Egyptology is not up to
• 27:30
  scratch, but like Suitek and Horus and the other guys are.
• 27:34
  So I was wondering if she was, if she actually is part of the
• 27:37
  mythology or or not. Don't know.
• 27:39
  Maybe that's another question for Justin.
• 27:42
  Really. I'm making a note of these as we
• 27:43
  go. All right.
• 27:44
  I mean I could have just googled it.
• 27:46
  Yeah, well, as could I, Yeah, I. Think we all have access to
• 27:51
  Google right now and. We're just refusing.
• 27:54
  Wonderful, isn't it? There was one section of the
• 27:58
  plot that I really, really love though, and I think Justin
• 28:02
  Richards gets what you can do over the book, what they
• 28:07
  couldn't do with Pyramids of Mars, because Pyramids of Mars
• 28:10
  is a sort of contained story and it has to happen quite fast.
• 28:13
  But there's a chapter, and I think it was Chapter 4, where
• 28:17
  the doctor inveigles his way into an expedition.
• 28:20
  And then you see them preparing for the expedition, and then you
• 28:23
  see them looking for the tomb, finding the tomb, breaking into
• 28:27
  the tomb. And it's not like it's it's
• 28:29
  laborious, it's one chapter, but it really suggests the passage
• 28:34
  of time and and everything that's going on.
• 28:36
  And I really like that. Yeah, I think it's a really good
• 28:41
  sequel in the way that it kind of it looks at the original and
• 28:44
  then looks at what the original didn't do and then gives you
• 28:47
  that because The Pyramids of Mars, great as it is, there's
• 28:51
  loads of like stuff from a traditional mummy story that it
• 28:54
  doesn't do. It doesn't do really do Egypt.
• 28:57
  It does. Sort of like a the BBC Studios
• 29:00
  indoors purple room. No, Professor Scarborough.
• 29:05
  It doesn't do British Museum. It doesn't really do like sexy
• 29:10
  ladies. So yeah, it kind of like it
• 29:14
  takes all of those like Mummy movie like tropes and then gives
• 29:19
  hacks them into it, into this story in a way that Pyramids of
• 29:22
  Mars kind of doesn't. It's Pyramids of Mars is
• 29:27
  claustrophobic because you know the barrier you can't escape.
• 29:31
  It's all kind of enclosed. The Scenes of Time is the
• 29:33
  opposite. There are no barriers.
• 29:35
  It's all very open and timey wimey.
• 29:37
  It's got a bit more freedom to kind of stretch its legs a bit
• 29:39
  than Pyramids and Mars did. Well, Perez Mars is very linear,
• 29:43
  isn't it? It's a brilliant linear story.
• 29:45
  Whereas this, as someone said, you're just jumping all over the
• 29:48
  place, aren't you? From one chapter to the next
• 29:50
  time, like, well, what the hell time period am I in now?
• 29:53
  Like what's going on? But the thing I I always know
• 29:55
  with Justin Richards, and this is coming from reading so many
• 29:58
  of his books, especially as I've talked to books, is he's such a
• 30:01
  good plotter of Doctor Who books.
• 30:04
  And you know, no matter how many balls he's got juggling in the
• 30:08
  air, in the end it will land him all, you know, and it will all
• 30:11
  sort of dovetail beautifully at the end.
• 30:14
  And he does succeed here it it could be.
• 30:16
  There's a lot of exposition, but it does all make sense.
• 30:21
  Say It also fills it with some really scary moments and can
• 30:26
  really good character moments too.
• 30:28
  So one of the things I like is like they they they managed to
• 30:35
  excavate the tomb. They go into it and stuff and
• 30:37
  Tegan finds a second secret secret hidden one the doctor
• 30:42
  keeps a secret to everybody else.
• 30:44
  But then you got the secrets Where Simon who?
• 30:47
  One of the people on the, you know, archaeology by archaeology
• 30:53
  team. He's he, he he dies and he's
• 30:56
  brought back the same way as Marcus Garmin was in the
• 31:00
  Pyramids of Mars. So you already know the visuals
• 31:03
  there, sunken eyes, really pale and stuff.
• 31:05
  There's a lady there who really, really likes him as well so and
• 31:09
  he kind of goes and it attacks her and stuff and.
• 31:11
  There's, that's the scene between Lawrence and his
• 31:14
  brother. Is it?
• 31:15
  Yeah. I mean, I'm sure you must have
• 31:17
  noticed all of the steals he was doing.
• 31:19
  There was a scene, sweaty Jelly night in it.
• 31:22
  There was a scene where mummies attack a cottage, you know, and
• 31:25
  I was like, you know, and you can see this stuff.
• 31:27
  Absolutely, because it's part of my childhood, but.
• 31:30
  It's the things that make me like like laugh, like Tegan
• 31:32
  trying to learn how to drive a 90s car because she's in 96 and
• 31:37
  she has to go to that cottage where the mummies will attack.
• 31:39
  But the mummies attacking in the night was really cool.
• 31:42
  Yeah, have you seen the illustrations from the the BBCI
• 31:46
  version And that cover of The Mummy marrying the girl, man,
• 31:51
  man, They really evoke it brilliantly.
• 31:55
  It's they're all really good. And if everyone goes to the
• 31:59
  anyone goes to the TARDIS, wiki, everyone, the all those little
• 32:03
  pages are there for people to to click on if they wish to.
• 32:06
  And the artwork's really good, including a target cover that
• 32:10
  you sent us somehow. Mr. Joe.
• 32:14
  Just screen print. It was nothing too technical.
• 32:17
  There was one moment in the book, though, where literally I
• 32:19
  just put them the the notes. Morphets, exclamation mark,
• 32:24
  exclamation mark. I'm going to read it to you.
• 32:26
  It's just so stupid. Moffett, you go.
• 32:28
  I'm afraid I'll have to ask you to stay in the tiles for a day
• 32:31
  or two. He slapped Atkins on the
• 32:32
  shoulder. You see, there are two of you
• 32:34
  out there at the moment. Once your other self has left
• 32:36
  with us for ancient Egypt, then you can return to Kenilworth
• 32:39
  House and carry on as usual. But until then, the doctor grin
• 32:42
  as Atkins concentrated on his notes.
• 32:44
  It's all a bit complicated. I'm not sure I actually
• 32:47
  understand it too well myself not to come.
• 32:48
  Now I come to think about it. And I was like, that's basically
• 32:51
  what Morphet does in every it's a script, isn't it?
• 32:54
  So clever little narrative things like that.
• 32:57
  But but just how there's a couple of BBC books that do this
• 33:02
  I don't know if you guys ever read Festival of Death by John
• 33:05
  Morris. And you know that brilliantly
• 33:07
  starts at the end of the story and then ends at the beginning
• 33:12
  of the story with the Doctor constantly happened to introduce
• 33:15
  herself for out. And and this is this is doing
• 33:18
  something not pretty similar where he's setting up all of
• 33:22
  this stuff and then he's got to make sure that all of this stuff
• 33:25
  happens in order for that to. And then even within that
• 33:28
  there's conversations. Isn't there a bit like the
• 33:30
  conversation between the Doctor and Sarah and Pyramids about
• 33:34
  changing things. There was a sequence between the
• 33:36
  Doctor and Tegan in this. Do you think that played out
• 33:40
  pretty well, Andrew? Yeah, I I sometimes find those
• 33:45
  sort of time travel bits a bit frustrating because the carrot,
• 33:49
  the companions have to be quite thick.
• 33:51
  It's like, it's like Tegan, it's not that complicated.
• 33:54
  It's time travel, like just go and watch Back to the Future and
• 33:57
  when the Companion is like, I just don't understand it,
• 33:59
  Doctor, like why that? Was a great accent.
• 34:05
  So yeah, you get like it is quite a strong story for Tegan,
• 34:10
  apart from in those movements where she kind of has to have
• 34:13
  things explained to her and it's like we're all fans, we all all
• 34:15
  get how this time travel works. So I just wish for once a
• 34:18
  companion would be like, Oh yeah, I get it, yeah, cause and
• 34:20
  effect, like we can't do that. I can't do X or Y, won't happen
• 34:24
  like. You just you just described Bill
• 34:26
  Potts right there. Yeah, that's what she does the
• 34:29
  whole time. I was going to say Grace
• 34:31
  Holloway, do you ever In the TV movie where she just walks into
• 34:33
  TARDIS and went, what's the message Transit into that
• 34:37
  explains the spatial discontinuity from the inside to
• 34:39
  the out. I was like, oh, finally we've
• 34:41
  met someone smart and she chooses not to go with him
• 34:44
  anyway. Well, idiot you.
• 34:47
  You just said there, Andrew about Tegan Luke.
• 34:52
  I feel as if you were poking the bear when you asked me how I was
• 34:55
  finding this book. I was a little worried because I
• 34:58
  I I've read a few of your reviews.
• 35:00
  Mr. Jones don't like Tegan that much.
• 35:03
  I've done a bit of a 180, actually, with Tegan, because I
• 35:07
  really finish Big Finish. Just get they.
• 35:09
  They riot with so much humor. Yeah, and she she carries it up.
• 35:14
  I think there's a little bit of that is Janet Fielding, like you
• 35:19
  listen to her commentaries, watch her just interact with
• 35:23
  people and she likes to rip and take the piss.
• 35:25
  So put a bit of that into Tegan and it works.
• 35:28
  She can do that. You've got 40 years of sort of,
• 35:31
  was he 40 years? How old am I making Janet
• 35:33
  Fielding now? I'll say 3030 years of her
• 35:36
  relationships with Sarah Sutton and Peter Davidson sort of
• 35:40
  coming into play a bit as well with the big finishes.
• 35:42
  They've got just that very natural chemistry at this point.
• 35:45
  40 is right. I mean, they did.
• 35:46
  Oh, OK Box head called 40. Say well, she's holding up
• 35:50
  beautifully then, isn't she? But Tegan's great in this as
• 35:53
  well. She feels a little bit TV, Tegan
• 35:55
  for sure, but one. And I thought that's how she was
• 35:59
  going to be. The whole book, the 11 scene
• 36:01
  really changed it for me. And I really was like, oh, OK
• 36:05
  And she goes to see Nisa, who's all wrapped up, and it's just a
• 36:10
  really. Really beautiful.
• 36:12
  Character moment that she might not really get the opportunity
• 36:15
  to have in the TV show. Another thing I really like in
• 36:17
  this book, and they do this in the audios a lot too.
• 36:20
  Like this doctor doesn't always get like the the minute social
• 36:24
  cues that people have or they they give off.
• 36:27
  Like because Tegan knows that these two people are hooking up.
• 36:30
  These are the two people have this kind of relationship and
• 36:33
  like she she can kind of pick up on that just by body language
• 36:36
  and how they interact with each other.
• 36:38
  The doctor's just like, huh. What I.
• 36:39
  Mean. To be fair to Ruby, he's trying
• 36:41
  to figure out this. Oh yeah, he's trying to save the
• 36:43
  world. Of course.
• 36:46
  She's great. And I feel like I heard a little
• 36:50
  bit more big Finnish Janet in there, and that's probably my
• 36:53
  fault because I've heard a lot of the big Finnish stuff.
• 36:56
  But yeah, I feel like Tegan served well.
• 36:59
  She's I feel like if anyone's annoyed by Tegan in the TV show,
• 37:03
  it won't be so bad In this she's she's actually great.
• 37:07
  Well, I think I feel like she just had like a reason to be
• 37:10
  pissed for once. And normally she just steps out
• 37:14
  the TARDIS and goes, oh, this bloody place, when are we going,
• 37:17
  oh, Camellia's joining the TARDIS where he can have Marvel
• 37:20
  and I don't care. You know, like it's all like
• 37:22
  that and it's like, what do you think of Andrew Teagan in this
• 37:25
  one? Yeah, I I agree with what you
• 37:27
  say about her having a reason to be pissed off.
• 37:29
  Because I think the way they made some of the companions so
• 37:33
  antagonistic in the 80s, they kind of did it, but without like
• 37:37
  a real character behind it. And it kind of felt like, why
• 37:39
  you don't like it. Just go home.
• 37:41
  Like why are you here? No one wants to go to Heathrow
• 37:43
  that badly. Yes.
• 37:47
  Yeah. I think in in this book, yeah,
• 37:50
  As Luke was saying, like, giving her some motivation for why
• 37:53
  she's got that sort of grumpiness going on and her
• 37:58
  frustration with the doctor really kind of comes out.
• 38:00
  And there's a reason for it. And yeah, like the kind of
• 38:04
  jeopardy involved, like she might lose her best friend and
• 38:07
  that'll kind of all be the doctor's fault.
• 38:11
  So yeah. And there's AI really like the
• 38:14
  scene where she's where they go to the restaurant twice.
• 38:18
  So they end up going to the same restaurant and the same hotel,
• 38:22
  but the first time they go is actually like the second time
• 38:25
  from all of the hotel waiting staff's point of view.
• 38:29
  And then when they actually go the first time, but the second
• 38:32
  time, from their perspective, Tegan is like trying to break
• 38:36
  the kind of rules of causality by ordering a different dish to
• 38:40
  be supposed to and in the process being really rude to the
• 38:43
  waiter. And I feel like, you know, it
• 38:46
  was kind of like that Tegan being really rude to people, but
• 38:50
  she had a reason to do it because she was so upset with
• 38:53
  the with the restrictions that this time travel plot was
• 38:56
  putting on her and feeling like she didn't have any influence
• 38:58
  over it. So it was, yeah, it was a very
• 39:00
  clever character moment of kind of using all that teganiness for
• 39:05
  her. It's so Tegan, It's me that's
• 39:08
  stubborn. I'm going to make sure I get a
• 39:10
  different dish. Oh my God.
• 39:12
  And she keeps the doctor in check, too, because there's a
• 39:14
  couple of times in this book where the Doctor's like, Oh my
• 39:18
  God, this is exciting. And we're going to do this,
• 39:19
  this, this, this and this. And at the end of the paragraph,
• 39:22
  Tegan's pretty much just like one word, Nessa.
• 39:26
  Yeah, I I think. Did I read?
• 39:29
  Did she say, you know, during that sequence where she goes to
• 39:31
  see Nessa? Does she say her dad's dead?
• 39:35
  I. Think so, yeah.
• 39:37
  Yeah, because she goes. I've got nobody.
• 39:39
  Auntie Vanessa's dead. My dad's dead.
• 39:41
  I could have lost you. I've got nowhere.
• 39:43
  So I've got, I've got this real feeling.
• 39:45
  And she goes doesn't. She have an uncle.
• 39:47
  I can't understand the Doctor, so I felt like she was really
• 39:50
  isolated. Yeah.
• 39:52
  Yeah, her uncle's in The awakening.
• 39:54
  I think he's the only one who doesn't die.
• 39:56
  I thought that was her grandfather.
• 39:58
  Maybe it was her grandfather. I mean, he's very old.
• 40:01
  She doesn't have the gay cousin. And yeah, she.
• 40:06
  Does. I'm not too keen on the
• 40:08
  neighbours, that one, Jimmy. I mean, Gee, we've all seen a
• 40:13
  porn movie that stars like that in Amsterdam going down in a
• 40:15
  cribs jeez Louise. Oh, the one.
• 40:19
  I thought the one really Duff note was not with Tegan.
• 40:23
  I thought actually Tegan was brilliant in this.
• 40:25
  And apart from the few moments where, like you said, Andrew,
• 40:28
  she kept going, I don't get it. Like, you know, I thought
• 40:31
  actually she was shown to be quite competent at one point.
• 40:34
  The mummies are attacking, she grabs the gun and she's like
• 40:37
  firing away at these bloody mummies.
• 40:40
  Was the fact that this is revealed to be inside the mummy
• 40:45
  And then the Doctor's like, right, off we go to the Savoy.
• 40:48
  I was like, what? What's going on?
• 40:50
  But obviously he's trying to. I know he's trying to figure
• 40:53
  out. It just felt so weird that they
• 40:54
  went off for a meal immediately after that very shocking
• 40:58
  revelation here. It was another maybe it's
• 41:02
  another little nitpick. Is they Atkins is like, oh, do
• 41:08
  you guys need that lid for the thing to cover Nyssa on the tomb
• 41:12
  And he goes to the museum with Tegan and the Doctor and Saturn
• 41:16
  Result Russell and all the guys capture them and oh you're too
• 41:20
  late. This has already been sent back
• 41:21
  in time and we're going to put you in a cabinet too and it's
• 41:25
  the tard TARDIS. I'd.
• 41:28
  Forgotten about? That and I'm like, hang on a
• 41:30
  minute, you know this guy through interactions from
• 41:33
  various parts in time. You didn't see this blue box
• 41:36
  before and I'm like, you know what?
• 41:42
  What about the guest characters then?
• 41:44
  Because, you know, I went online to read some reviews after this
• 41:48
  on the ratings guide and other people were quite rude about the
• 41:54
  the sort of guest characters this Atkins and Vanessa and all
• 41:59
  that. So who sort of stood out for you
• 42:01
  then as because I thought Atkins was a great character?
• 42:04
  Yeah, I I liked Atkins. Have either of you read The
• 42:07
  Remains of the Day Kazuru Ishiguru novel?
• 42:12
  So Atkins is basically lifted from that book and Justin
• 42:16
  Richards talks about it in the introduction to the reprint.
• 42:21
  So Remains of the Day is about a Butler.
• 42:24
  And so I think it starts in like Edwardian times and then goes
• 42:27
  sort of post war. And there's a movie with Anthony
• 42:31
  Hopkins and Emma Thompson in it as well.
• 42:33
  And the whole sort of premise of it is that he's an amazing
• 42:38
  Butler. He's had this amazing career
• 42:40
  from his perspective. He thinks he's done the best,
• 42:42
  but he's done that all of the kind of cost, personal cost of
• 42:46
  like having basically no life. But he's an unreliable narrator.
• 42:50
  So he kind of, he thinks he's had this amazing, astonishing
• 42:54
  career. But you're reading it thinking
• 42:56
  like, Oh my God, like what a tragic life.
• 42:58
  And it's it's a heartbreaking book and film.
• 43:02
  Like it's so, so sad. But essentially that's where
• 43:06
  Atkins come from. He's he's taken that character
• 43:09
  but kind of done like a redemption arc.
• 43:11
  So through that relationship with the doctor, Atkins goes
• 43:15
  back at the end and instead of spoiler not getting with the
• 43:18
  housekeeper ever, which is what happens in Remains of the Day,
• 43:22
  even to the point of like he meets a later in life and they
• 43:24
  still don't get together. And it's just so this is kind of
• 43:29
  a redemption of that story. And so yeah he got, he gets back
• 43:32
  at the end and he does finally come forward with his feelings
• 43:36
  for the for the housekeeper and which is AI really like it when
• 43:40
  Doctor Waters like have references from beyond Doctor
• 43:44
  Who And like that was a massive novel and film like I'd suppose
• 43:48
  like a few years before this book came out.
• 43:51
  So you can kind of see where that came from.
• 43:54
  It's a bit like Pyramids of Mars again though, isn't it?
• 43:56
  Because Pyramids of Mars, you can see the sort of Hammer movie
• 43:59
  influences on that. Well, I just, I did a recording
• 44:02
  on the Abominable Snowmen recently and the fella there,
• 44:05
  between the two recordings we did one to three and four to six
• 44:09
  and two different. He goes go and watch Nigel
• 44:11
  Mills, the Abominable Snowman. So I watched it and I went, fuck
• 44:15
  up me, This is the Doctor Who. This is literally all the
• 44:17
  characters, the Tibetan monastery and everything, you
• 44:19
  know? I think I and I sort of came to
• 44:22
  the conclusion that Doctor Who is that format that can just
• 44:25
  grab characters and situations and tones and it just works.
• 44:31
  Well. Season 13, isn't it?
• 44:34
  Yeah. Again, sorry to go full nerd on
• 44:37
  it. Have either of you seen the The
• 44:40
  Hammer film Blood from the Mummies Tomb?
• 44:43
  Yeah, sounds amazing. So that is the third section of
• 44:46
  this book. So the whole Vanessa plot is
• 44:49
  essentially blood from the mummy's tomb and like the
• 44:52
  artefacts that they have, like this little snake that's on the
• 44:54
  cover, that is the exact thing that they have in the movie.
• 44:58
  So it's that thing of recovering those artefacts from the tomb
• 45:01
  and she's sort of a reincarnation of a it's a
• 45:04
  terrible movie, I. Was going to say, is it a
• 45:07
  recommend for the film? I mean it's quite camp.
• 45:13
  But yeah, like you can see that Justin Richards has done that
• 45:15
  very Doctor Whoy thing of kind of like taking these disparate
• 45:18
  things and sort of smashing them together, adding Pyramids of
• 45:21
  Mars to it. And I think that's kind of the
• 45:24
  reason that it's like so tightly plotted and that he's kind of
• 45:29
  it's all this non chronological bit, but it's all a little bit
• 45:31
  pieced together from other stories and sort of smashing
• 45:34
  them into this one thing. And I guess if you're doing such
• 45:39
  complicated non chronological plotting, like having the kind
• 45:43
  of chronological bits sort of a little bit spelled out for you
• 45:46
  and then sort of bit in the other stuff around that maybe
• 45:49
  made it an easier easier thing to achieve I guess I.
• 45:54
  Can't watch that movie. I am well talking about sort of
• 46:02
  how this reads. How did you find the prose?
• 46:05
  Because I find that Justin Richards doesn't really use
• 46:08
  complicated language, a bit like Terrance Dicks.
• 46:11
  They're very easy sentences to read, but he conjures up
• 46:14
  atmosphere really, really quickly and evocatively.
• 46:19
  Luke. Yeah, I I would actually say,
• 46:24
  and this is definitely not an insult, I think we we all
• 46:27
  appreciate the man's work like he's the Terrance Dicks of the
• 46:31
  original novel. That's the highest compliment
• 46:33
  you could give him, right? You need someone to bang one of
• 46:36
  these out quickly. Dustin Richards, right?
• 46:39
  You need someone who could write for any doctor.
• 46:42
  I have not seen him. I I've seen like dreams of
• 46:45
  Empire with the 2nd Doctor. He's he nails trouting and
• 46:48
  that's really hard to do so. It's all right, you.
• 46:52
  Remember the pair? It's really.
• 46:54
  I realised what I just said. Yeah.
• 46:56
  No, no, no. No, no, no, no.
• 46:58
  What? I mean, yes, but no, no.
• 47:00
  Do you remember the pit in Dreams of Empire where he sits
• 47:02
  on the sandwiches and then there's a scene 2 scenes later
• 47:07
  they doesn't mention the sandwiches again and he's
• 47:09
  running away from the guards and they say he's got two sandwiches
• 47:13
  stuck to his ass. It's so funny.
• 47:16
  It's so second Doctor. Sorry, continue.
• 47:20
  So yes, he's a he's a he's a steady hand.
• 47:23
  He he can he can pretty much do it all.
• 47:26
  So I've never read anything of his sort of dislike.
• 47:30
  Some of like more than others. I also think he's got a good eye
• 47:34
  for when he takes over the BBC range.
• 47:38
  So I can imagine he picks up this last pile.
• 47:40
  He sees festival to death and he's like, oh hell yeah.
• 47:44
  But he's also got a mix of sensibilities like I reckon a
• 47:49
  lot of his stories maybe bought him more on the the Tread more
• 47:53
  than the rad. I'm not saying frock and gun.
• 47:55
  I'm sorry, I'm too old. Do you mean his books or his?
• 47:58
  Yeah, Justin Richards. Yeah, his his books.
• 48:01
  But in terms of what he commissions and likes, it's very
• 48:05
  wide and varied. So he's got a this is this a
• 48:11
  writer who likes. He doesn't focus on one area of
• 48:14
  Doctor Who. This is a guy who likes all of
• 48:16
  it, and he can do it pretty well too.
• 48:18
  Did any of you read the Bernie Summerfield New Adventures?
• 48:23
  You know they came after when when the 7th Doctor chipped out.
• 48:27
  There was one that he wrote called the Medusa Effect.
• 48:30
  It was a brilliant book where it was set in two time periods and
• 48:35
  Bernice was in the future and we kept going back to the past to
• 48:38
  see how that was informing the future.
• 48:42
  And he just writes. He's just brilliantly plotted
• 48:46
  books I think. But you say they're, they're
• 48:48
  trads and I think that's all the tone.
• 48:53
  And and what he's doing is, yeah, essentially track.
• 48:57
  But I do think the way he plots a book is quite radical for
• 49:01
  Doctor Who. Nobody was really doing anything
• 49:03
  like that at the time. No, that's very true.
• 49:07
  So I guess so yeah, he he, he's gonna try new things that
• 49:10
  innovate as as well with what he does.
• 49:13
  But yeah, this is, and this is his third novel as well, so
• 49:19
  something to be like this much of A page Turner he did Theatre
• 49:21
  of War. That's a pretty good debut
• 49:25
  System Shock, which I have not read, and that's it in season
• 49:29
  13, What's my problem? And.
• 49:35
  I shudder when I think of System Shock, You know, because I, the
• 49:38
  one time I met Elizabeth Slayden was at a convention in my
• 49:42
  hometown and I took a System Shock for to sign.
• 49:46
  And she went, that doesn't look anything like me on the cover.
• 49:49
  You know, she's on the cover with it.
• 49:50
  I went, oh, it does. It does.
• 49:52
  And she went, no, it doesn't. I went, no, no, it does.
• 49:54
  And she went, no, it doesn't. And she's on it and gave it back
• 49:58
  to me. And that was the one interaction
• 50:01
  we had. I was like, OK, well, that's me
• 50:04
  told when Gary Russell said that she could be prickly, I was
• 50:08
  like, yeah, I've seen it. I've seen it.
• 50:11
  What do you think about Justin's writing style then?
• 50:15
  Andrew and sort of just his output in general.
• 50:19
  Yeah, I think, I think, like I was saying earlier, like it's
• 50:24
  he's, he's good at just like a really good Doctor Who story.
• 50:28
  And I think sometimes, you know you want that mix of of
• 50:33
  different approaches to A to a show like Doctor Who and
• 50:36
  sometimes you want something that's kind of mad and trying
• 50:40
  completely different bonkers things and sometimes it works,
• 50:42
  sometimes it doesn't. Whereas I think yeah he he just
• 50:47
  writes really solid good Doctor Who that give that like hit all
• 50:50
  the Doctor Who feelings. But that's also not to say that
• 50:53
  he can't do interesting radical because this like the the
• 50:57
  plotting of this is, is is quite radical like you were saying.
• 51:01
  And then things like the Burning which came along and just sort
• 51:04
  of completely revamped the 8th Doctor range and set it off in a
• 51:09
  new direction. And I think maybe later in in
• 51:12
  the 8th Doctor novels he was kind of saddled with more of the
• 51:15
  kind of like travelling to wrap up story arcs like Sometime
• 51:19
  never, which was just kind of a tick sheet of like.
• 51:22
  I did love that though, you know, like I, I again, it was,
• 51:26
  it was like plotted like a nat's arse that one.
• 51:29
  When, when, when I sort of tore it apart and to see the nuts and
• 51:32
  bolts of it, it was. But yeah, absolutely.
• 51:35
  There was one chapter where it's like, well, do you remember in
• 51:37
  this book? Well, that wasn't, you know.
• 51:41
  Yeah, one of those ones, which is just like a bit of a poison
• 51:45
  chalice, I suppose, in that it's like wrap up all this stuff, but
• 51:49
  you can't do what you wanted to do because we didn't get the
• 51:51
  Daleks. So think of another way to do
• 51:53
  it. No, Daleks, isn't it?
• 51:55
  What are you talking about? No Daleks, yeah.
• 51:58
  Although do you know the the cover of sometime Never that
• 52:00
  skeleton holding the TARDIS? That's great I think.
• 52:05
  Or how do how do you think he sort of wrote this one?
• 52:07
  Then how do you think he evoked the atmosphere in this book?
• 52:10
  Yeah, I think he's like, yeah, it is a very atmospheric book.
• 52:15
  It's very there's some great imagery in it and the pace of it
• 52:21
  and the prose just kind of like just pulls you along so quickly.
• 52:25
  Short chapters and they're also short chapters which kind of
• 52:28
  like then you move on to another location.
• 52:32
  So it's it's one that you can absolutely breeze through.
• 52:37
  And I suppose the prose in a it's one of those, he's one of
• 52:40
  those writers where you just don't notice the prose style in
• 52:43
  a way because it's just so professional and does the job
• 52:48
  that it needs to do, which is engage you in the story and keep
• 52:52
  you reading. And that's kind of all that he's
• 52:54
  trying to do with it. He's not trying to do anything
• 52:56
  kind of like Florida and particularly poetic with it
• 53:01
  compare. It to like Scarlet Empress that
• 53:03
  we we read last. Yeah.
• 53:05
  And I suppose in a book like that, it's like some bits of it
• 53:07
  maybe are a little bit overwritten, whereas in this
• 53:11
  it's it's it's very kind of lean, I suppose it it, it does
• 53:15
  the job that it needs to do and does it really well.
• 53:18
  Like, I feel like I don't want to like sort of damn it with
• 53:20
  fame praise because that's not what I'm trying to do.
• 53:23
  Like it's a Doctor Who is is often like an adventure series
• 53:27
  and that's what this book is and it does it really, really well.
• 53:30
  And that's what we all kind of love this show and it's output
• 53:33
  for. So yeah, it's a really strong
• 53:36
  example of that. The fact that we tore through
• 53:39
  all three of us said something, doesn't it?
• 53:41
  Catch up, Joe I. Was way behind the two of you,
• 53:45
  but you were still reading. Transit.
• 53:47
  That's where that's Yeah, that's one page a day.
• 53:51
  Jesus talk about prose, but I think I feel like Rich just
• 53:54
  going to end a chapter as well in like a oh God, I've got to
• 53:57
  keep going. Like I'll need to know what's
• 53:59
  going to happen with this, which is great.
• 54:02
  It was so weird because obviously we did Scarlet Empress
• 54:05
  last, and one of the things I loved about that was it almost
• 54:09
  like goes out of its way to not obey the rules of a narrative.
• 54:14
  Whereas we've gone from that to this which is going out of its
• 54:17
  way to absolutely, you know, absolutely sort of tick all the
• 54:23
  boxes by the end of it and obey its own set of rules.
• 54:30
  I'm surprised Tegan wasn't doubly pissed off at the Doctor
• 54:34
  because the Doctor's like, hey, I'm going to change it.
• 54:36
  We're there. I'm going to 1996 now.
• 54:39
  We're there. Imagine it's been like this the
• 54:43
  whole time. Just really, yeah, they do kind
• 54:47
  of explain that. And I feel like another part of
• 54:49
  that is maybe the instinctual side of net net.
• 54:53
  The that Lady, we're just trying to manipulate time to make sure
• 54:59
  everything goes the way she wants it.
• 55:00
  So that's the way I kind of read that as well.
• 55:03
  I feel like you can kind of get away with that more in a book as
• 55:05
  well, that kind of quick flitting between different
• 55:08
  locations. Because even though you're
• 55:10
  flitting, like you have more time to kind of build the
• 55:12
  atmosphere and the place. Whereas when they sort of tried
• 55:16
  that in Jodie Whittaker episodes, when you only have 45
• 55:19
  minutes and one minute you're in Syria, the next you're in space.
• 55:24
  And it's just like I can see what they were trying to do
• 55:27
  there and maybe like. They needed like 15 minutes
• 55:29
  longer or maybe another episode, you know to.
• 55:32
  Yeah. Hates it better.
• 55:34
  I like it in things like Praxis, but I I I get what you mean.
• 55:37
  Is that the one with the bottles?
• 55:39
  I think so, yeah. I can't.
• 55:40
  Remember well it's like Spyful Part 2 as well, which is just
• 55:44
  all over the place in terms of plotting.
• 55:46
  You know where you. Are it works in flux when you've
• 55:48
  got kind of like 6 episodes? Two at a time, didn't it?
• 55:52
  Yeah, Yeah. And we're not talking about
• 55:55
  this. Yeah.
• 55:58
  We've ended up there somehow. Obvious question then.
• 56:02
  What was your favorite part of the book, whether that's A twist
• 56:06
  or a scene or a moment of character?
• 56:09
  What was the bit you know that really stood out for you, Luke?
• 56:14
  I think I mentioned it like I really like Tegan's moment with
• 56:18
  Nyssa in the tomb. I really like the everything he
• 56:24
  does with the mummies is very effective in terms of ramping up
• 56:31
  tension or just kind of up in the States and things like that.
• 56:34
  He makes them scary in this book, which is something I like
• 56:38
  because, you know, you see them, you think they can look kind of
• 56:40
  goofy, but no, it really works. So I don't.
• 56:44
  I think I kind of clapped in my head when the bandages come off.
• 56:51
  And it's Ann Cranley, Black Walken in there, not Nyssa.
• 56:56
  I'm like that. All right, fair enough.
• 57:01
  Because yes, as Andrew said, they, they mentioned it earlier
• 57:03
  in the book. And not only that, I love the
• 57:07
  the, the, the kind of idea of the villain just going like, I
• 57:13
  can't, I can't reconcile this. I go back in time.
• 57:16
  This has got me in her. I go forward in time.
• 57:19
  She doesn't. And she keeps doing that until
• 57:21
  she ages to death. I thought that was really cool.
• 57:24
  Will you stop saying things that sound really rude?
• 57:26
  Please. It would have been great.
• 57:31
  You know when Ann Cranley was revealed, if she just sort of
• 57:33
  popped alive and went, nobody but nobody will be able to tell
• 57:36
  us apart again or whatever lies she has in black orchid.
• 57:40
  What about you then, Andrew? I think that I really liked the
• 57:46
  the sort of Egypt expedition section of it because yeah, it's
• 57:53
  it's it's that mummy movie thing that the the Pyramids of Mars
• 57:57
  doesn't really do. You don't get that kind of sense
• 58:00
  of like the hustling, bustling Egypt in the in Victorian times
• 58:04
  and this this expedition going off into the desert.
• 58:08
  So I thought that was really atmospheric.
• 58:10
  And you have the bits where the kind of mummies attack at night
• 58:13
  and they're being set on fire with dynamite.
• 58:17
  Yeah, it's like it's like Doctor Who with a movie level budget.
• 58:20
  It's that kind of like atmospheric creepy bits of tombs
• 58:24
  and and mummies and sand and tents.
• 58:27
  So it's like all that kind of rush of those exciting bits, but
• 58:31
  like with the biggest budget in the world and blowing up things
• 58:36
  and yeah. Wasn't it a bit where Mummy was
• 58:38
  literally on fire? Yeah, like rampaging through the
• 58:42
  desert. Oh, that's amazing.
• 58:43
  So cool. I did laugh as well in the
• 58:45
  expedition scenes, how a lot of that was told from Tegan's point
• 58:48
  of view. And she's just stifled, isn't
• 58:51
  she? In a hot and tired and she can't
• 58:53
  really communicate with anyone around her.
• 58:56
  Tegan is all of us. Exactly.
• 59:00
  I I quickly go back to the atmosphere again.
• 59:02
  I love loved how the sort of snowy Victorian London was
• 59:06
  depicted and there was a sequence with the British Museum
• 59:09
  all decked out in candles when they are just like, you know,
• 59:13
  you know when prose is so precise you can just see it, how
• 59:18
  it would be directed and lit and everything.
• 59:21
  And there was lots of moments in this where I was like, yeah, I
• 59:23
  know how this would look. I almost sure as if I'm
• 59:25
  experiencing a four part Doctor Who story on TV, which is that
• 59:29
  the point with the missing adventures?
• 59:30
  I guess so. Well, it doesn't say on the back
• 59:34
  here that we're supposed to be going broad or deep.
• 59:37
  So that's the new adventures, not the missing adventures.
• 59:41
  Well, OK, Can I ask you a quick question about the missing
• 59:43
  adventures? Because when these were first
• 59:48
  produced, I know there was a bit of pushback, wasn't it?
• 59:51
  Because what can you do with regulars where you know they're
• 59:55
  beginning and you know their end?
• 59:57
  So is that a problem for you? Do you prefer reading the New
• 1:00:00
  Adventures and the 8th Doctor books where you know it's it's
• 1:00:04
  all up in the air as to what can happen, Andrew.
• 1:00:11
  Yeah, I mean, I think I did prefer the the 8th Doctor
• 1:00:14
  adventures and like the 8th Doctor audios as a kind of
• 1:00:16
  ongoing series. But then even with that, like,
• 1:00:19
  unless it's a companion introduction or departure story,
• 1:00:22
  like, you know, like they're not going to like massively change
• 1:00:26
  that much. They still have to go up in the
• 1:00:28
  TARDIS at the end of it. So like, I don't think that
• 1:00:30
  they're that dissimilar the the, the missing and past Doctor
• 1:00:34
  adventures like you've still and then you kind of get that
• 1:00:37
  nostalgia rush of like this is a team that I wanted on the TV.
• 1:00:42
  Yeah, I think sometimes the new the Missing adventures didn't
• 1:00:44
  work for me when they were trying to kind of do both at
• 1:00:46
  once, like a little bit in this book, like when some of the
• 1:00:50
  sequences are set in the 90s. And I just know, like my teenage
• 1:00:54
  brain would have been like, but they couldn't If this was on TV,
• 1:00:57
  it would have been in the 80s. Why can't you just said it in
• 1:00:58
  the 80s, which I have like a little bit of a niggle in my in
• 1:01:03
  my adult brain. I can hear yeah when I get.
• 1:01:07
  Because sometimes I feel like they never, the writers Kind of
• 1:01:11
  never really did that. Like just trying to make a story
• 1:01:16
  that was exactly like it would have been on T maybe maybe the
• 1:01:19
  Gareth Robert once did that. But most of the missing
• 1:01:23
  adventures were kind of like, yeah, let let's do it, but like
• 1:01:27
  it was on the TV, but like, let's put some some more sex
• 1:01:30
  into it and. Like men in the velvet mask.
• 1:01:33
  Yeah, so, so that they ended up not quite feeling like like
• 1:01:38
  that. So they kind of fell between 2
• 1:01:39
  stones sometimes of like wanting to evoke the TV series but then
• 1:01:43
  sort of doing stuff that didn't feel at all like the TV series
• 1:01:46
  and and maybe should have just put one or the other.
• 1:01:49
  I was found with the Missing adventures and the past Doctor
• 1:01:52
  Adventures. If they didn't evoke the
• 1:01:55
  regulars effectively, like like how I remembered them, I was
• 1:02:01
  out, you know, I was like, what's the point?
• 1:02:03
  This doesn't feel like the 2nd Doctor, Jamie and Zoe, you know,
• 1:02:07
  like, yeah, exactly. Why am I reading it?
• 1:02:09
  What do you think then like about the the Missing Adventures
• 1:02:11
  in the Past Doctor once? I don't like it.
• 1:02:15
  I feel like now as a 41 year old man, it's, it's kind of struck
• 1:02:19
  me that listening to all these podcasts recently and
• 1:02:23
  interacting with some of the people who make them and meeting
• 1:02:27
  all these friends and listening to the stories.
• 1:02:29
  I know one thing for a fact, none of us have watched Doctor
• 1:02:32
  Who in order. Maybe we've gone back from the
• 1:02:35
  start, but when we got into Doctor Who, we got into it here
• 1:02:38
  and then, well, the video stores only got these VHSS and the VS
• 1:02:43
  You know, you've got what you got for a long time.
• 1:02:46
  So you never, no one ever really watched it in order.
• 1:02:49
  So I guess I'm kind of like, who cares if it's the next 8th
• 1:02:53
  Doctor novel or just some random 5th Doctor novel.
• 1:02:55
  It's probably going to have the same amount of if things happen
• 1:02:59
  to the companions and things anyway.
• 1:03:01
  There's some exceptions and things of course.
• 1:03:02
  Like I would say, fear itself was a PDA.
• 1:03:06
  It is a cheat of APDA though, because it's APDA that's also an
• 1:03:10
  EDA, so you can actually do more with the characters but.
• 1:03:15
  I was like, if they were, if they were bringing those out at
• 1:03:17
  the time as EDA, they never would have ended that range, you
• 1:03:20
  know, Oh. My God, that was really.
• 1:03:23
  Yeah. No, they definitely would have.
• 1:03:26
  So yeah, I find myself reading more of the Missing Adventures
• 1:03:32
  PD as now than I was when I was younger.
• 1:03:35
  So I guess in the in the younger days was more important for me
• 1:03:38
  to stay up to date, be with the latest continuity and all that.
• 1:03:42
  And now I'm just like, well, I don't.
• 1:03:43
  I don't get to listen, watch or read anything in the order or
• 1:03:50
  where it's set anymore. So what does it matter?
• 1:03:52
  You might as well just pick it up, put it in and just watch it,
• 1:03:56
  I guess. Yeah, we'll read it.
• 1:03:58
  I'm curious. I will circle us back to the
• 1:04:00
  Sand of Time in a second, because obviously that's one
• 1:04:02
  that did hit for all of us. But then looking at those two
• 1:04:05
  ranges as a whole Missing and pass Dr. Adventures, what's one
• 1:04:10
  that really hit for you? Like this is a brilliant
• 1:04:14
  evocation of the era and it's a great book.
• 1:04:17
  And what's 1? Where you're like, oh good God,
• 1:04:19
  why was this written? Oh, OK, Luke, you're going to
• 1:04:26
  jump in. Go on all.
• 1:04:27
  Right. Look, I no, we could do Andrew
• 1:04:33
  first like I need, I need a little time here, a little time.
• 1:04:39
  Yeah, I mean one that I really, really loved, which doesn't
• 1:04:42
  really get mentioned very much as like a really great doctor.
• 1:04:46
  He book was The Final Sanction, Just a Second Doctor, Jamie and
• 1:04:53
  Zoe book, where it's it's a sequel to The Murder Game which
• 1:05:00
  introduces this race called The Salations, who are sort of like
• 1:05:03
  armoured sharks. And they're they're a bit
• 1:05:06
  comedic in the first book. But then this one kind of looks
• 1:05:09
  into their origins and the war that they have going on with the
• 1:05:13
  human race, and I think all the regulars are spot on in it.
• 1:05:17
  It gives Zoe loads to do and she's kind of the lead character
• 1:05:20
  in it and I love Zoe, so that works really well for me.
• 1:05:24
  And it. Yeah, I mean, it's not a story
• 1:05:26
  you can imagine sort of being a six part trout and adventure
• 1:05:29
  because it's just like too expansive and massive.
• 1:05:32
  But it does great things with the characters and yeah,
• 1:05:38
  explores like the morality of war and Yeah, do you?
• 1:05:44
  Know what it does. It it it, it tells a story that
• 1:05:47
  is just isn't told in Season 6, but still makes those regulars
• 1:05:52
  feel authentic within that story, it's telling.
• 1:05:55
  Yeah, definitely. Because there's nothing that
• 1:05:56
  bleak, is there in Season 6. But no, it is gripping.
• 1:06:01
  What about the other direction then?
• 1:06:05
  That's difficult because I think there's.
• 1:06:08
  So many it's so difficult. And I tend not to be shit once.
• 1:06:13
  OK, OK. I mean, maybe, maybe for a book
• 1:06:17
  that doesn't capture its era, it's not.
• 1:06:21
  I mean it's it's sort of a missing adventure, but not the
• 1:06:25
  paradise of death. Oh.
• 1:06:28
  Yeah, the 3rd Doctor One, which kind of includes virtual reality
• 1:06:33
  and the theme parks and stuff and feels like it's set in the
• 1:06:36
  90s rather than 70s, even though apparently it's set in the 3rd
• 1:06:40
  Doctor's era. But I think it was kind of
• 1:06:43
  intentional with the radio play that I think they've made a
• 1:06:46
  choice, that that's what they wanted to do with it, that they
• 1:06:48
  would sort of doing this weird mishmash of 70s, nineties and
• 1:06:54
  not really caring about it. So yeah, that was a bit, it's a
• 1:07:01
  good. Choice, because that and the
• 1:07:03
  Ghost Event Space are very peculiar books indeed, and
• 1:07:07
  they're even more peculiar radio plays coming out.
• 1:07:11
  Locate What have you got for us. You could even keep that
• 1:07:13
  peculiar going by just going like an Island of Death and
• 1:07:16
  Deadly Reunion as well. So it's just like.
• 1:07:19
  Yeah, it's. Like PDA's?
• 1:07:23
  Paul. Paul.
• 1:07:24
  Barry. I mean, I I don't think Pro's
• 1:07:27
  was his special say he. Can make a good dog too.
• 1:07:32
  Yeah, brilliant. Yeah.
• 1:07:33
  Yeah, so I think I've said it. I've made a joke about it
• 1:07:38
  before, but man in the velvet mask.
• 1:07:40
  I like a Hartman story. I like it.
• 1:07:43
  I like it to evoke the kind of era, and there's some
• 1:07:45
  interesting things in there, but I don't need all this weird dodo
• 1:07:49
  sex stuff. Show dodo.
• 1:07:54
  Right. All the companions you could do
• 1:07:56
  something like that with. And Daniel Daniel's running
• 1:07:59
  through the checklist and he's like, you know what, Dodo?
• 1:08:01
  I'm like, OK, I mean, sure, not my first choice, but that's,
• 1:08:08
  that's me. It's a weird book.
• 1:08:11
  It doesn't feel very heartily when you read it.
• 1:08:16
  So yeah, man of Velvet Mask. I'm not saying it's crap.
• 1:08:19
  It's just it doesn't feel like the era in which it's written.
• 1:08:25
  And damn it, Andrew, you already said Steve Lyons.
• 1:08:28
  And I always want to talk about Steve Lyons.
• 1:08:30
  So it's like, he's just so good. But I would say Mike Tucker and
• 1:08:36
  Mr. Perry really do a good job evoking like the season 2526
• 1:08:42
  aesthetic of Doctor Who. Now they don't mind.
• 1:08:47
  They're not like the best things you've ever read, but I really
• 1:08:50
  don't mind Matrix and Illegal Alien.
• 1:08:53
  I think they're both pretty solid 7 Doctor Ace adventures
• 1:08:56
  and they're not very NA ish either.
• 1:09:01
  So I guess they kind of said before, it doesn't matter, but
• 1:09:04
  they feel like that era of the TV show.
• 1:09:06
  So if you want to if anyone wants 7th Doctor novels that
• 1:09:09
  feel like the era that in which they're set, the the PDAs are
• 1:09:13
  probably the best place for it, rather than the NX.
• 1:09:16
  And just just to throw mine in, I love Blue Box by Kate Orman
• 1:09:23
  which is 1/6 Doctor and Perry tale told in America at the
• 1:09:28
  start of sort of the Internet revolution that's just fabulous.
• 1:09:32
  And it it it manages to tell the story as to why Perry stays with
• 1:09:38
  the Doctor despite the fact they have such a toxic relationship
• 1:09:41
  and her almost go in and then come into the conclusion as to
• 1:09:45
  why she wants to stay with him. It's just a brilliant read.
• 1:09:48
  And it's Kate Almond, so it's got some very thoughtful pros in
• 1:09:51
  there as well. Oh Jesus.
• 1:09:53
  I'll give you a list of ones that don't work.
• 1:09:56
  So I'm thespians. I thought I'd read Cyan
• 1:09:59
  Thespians. I have.
• 1:10:01
  I just really, no, It's when he says at the end that it feels
• 1:10:06
  like it, that he pitched it as an EDA.
• 1:10:08
  I'm like, well, yeah, it feels like an EDA now.
• 1:10:11
  Because Mark the the guy who's like this hot actor trying to
• 1:10:15
  hook up with everything, and I'm like, that's fits with some
• 1:10:18
  retooling. Perry's going to infiltrate this
• 1:10:20
  bass. I'm like, that's tricks.
• 1:10:23
  So yeah, it was. It's Dynasty with Autons.
• 1:10:27
  I mean, I thought, what was going on?
• 1:10:28
  There. I mean, that sounds great to me.
• 1:10:33
  Pitch it to somebody there. I love it.
• 1:10:35
  OK, well, look, I'll, I'll, I'll, sorry.
• 1:10:36
  I was just really curious to see where you felt with those
• 1:10:39
  ranges. Well, let's, let's conclude the
• 1:10:42
  sounds of time there. Is there anything else that we
• 1:10:44
  haven't covered that you would like to cover?
• 1:10:47
  I'll see everyone reaching for notes now, Luke, I'll go to you
• 1:10:52
  first. I love the Doctor's speech in
• 1:10:56
  this. He he has a speech in this.
• 1:10:59
  Not long after they've uncovered all these Egyptian artifacts and
• 1:11:04
  Kenilworth and Mccreedy, they're all like, this goes to us.
• 1:11:08
  This goes to the museum. This is yours, This is mine.
• 1:11:11
  The Doctor's like. He's angry, isn't he?
• 1:11:15
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 1:11:16
  Like you guys are pilfering these things and taking them out
• 1:11:19
  of the country in which they were made and belong to and part
• 1:11:23
  of this cup the country's culture and heritage.
• 1:11:26
  What are you doing? And so the fact that that was in
• 1:11:31
  there was was really cool. Yeah.
• 1:11:35
  So that's that was probably like that one of the the few things
• 1:11:38
  that I wanted to bring up and I haven't yet.
• 1:11:40
  Yeah. So summarizes sounds the time
• 1:11:43
  for you then. It's all right if Pyramids of
• 1:11:49
  Mars is alien, The Sands of Time is Aliens.
• 1:11:54
  Nice, very nice. Andrew, what have we?
• 1:12:00
  Covered. I was just like, scanning
• 1:12:04
  through my notes there. I think the only thing that I
• 1:12:06
  haven't mentioned is just Vanessa's death at the end.
• 1:12:12
  It's really horrible. It's.
• 1:12:13
  Disgusting, isn't she torn? Apart.
• 1:12:16
  Yeah. It's like this girl who was just
• 1:12:19
  like completely innocent in all of this gets possessed and then
• 1:12:25
  just like horribly like bangled in this time tunnel at the end
• 1:12:31
  of it. And I guess it's kind of it's,
• 1:12:33
  you know, the Indiana Jones moment of like the The Age.
• 1:12:37
  They melt at the end. Melting thing.
• 1:12:41
  But I feel like Indian. Indian Insurance, they were
• 1:12:44
  Nazis who deserved it. Yes, you kind of she.
• 1:12:47
  I mean, she doesn't have a massive amount of depth as a
• 1:12:50
  character, but you're kind of like, oh God, don't think she
• 1:12:53
  deserves. No.
• 1:12:53
  One to go. I mean, listen.
• 1:12:55
  To say with nastiness coming out in the in the book there.
• 1:12:59
  I've got the line here. Look, the surviving mummies
• 1:13:02
  dragged at the shabti try to hold them back, but the twin
• 1:13:05
  figures reached out and took the arms of their flesh and blood
• 1:13:07
  sister. They drew the arms out away from
• 1:13:10
  her body. The mummies continue to pour the
• 1:13:12
  shabti, and they in turn continued their grotesque tug of
• 1:13:15
  war with Vanessa. She screamed.
• 1:13:18
  Russell had staggered back to his feet, and it almost reached
• 1:13:21
  him when Vanessa's body gave way to the strain.
• 1:13:26
  The blood and tissue splashed across the room and caught him
• 1:13:30
  in the face. He coughed and fell and cried.
• 1:13:34
  Poor Tegan. Everyone she meets with the name
• 1:13:36
  Vanessa has a tragic. Death, right, It's.
• 1:13:39
  Horrible. One got shrunk, the other one
• 1:13:41
  got torn apart and possessed like, Oh my God.
• 1:13:45
  How would you summarize Santa's time then, Andrew?
• 1:13:49
  Yeah, I just think it's a great read.
• 1:13:51
  It's a great Doctor Who ish again, brilliant holiday read.
• 1:13:57
  I think. Again, I read this.
• 1:13:59
  I think this was a beach read for me.
• 1:14:01
  When they did the reprint, I was like, oh, great, this one's out
• 1:14:03
  again. And it's like Egyptology, sunny,
• 1:14:07
  sunny climes. So yeah, it's a it's a novel you
• 1:14:09
  can tear through in a couple of days and it's just really
• 1:14:12
  exciting and really good. And a sequel that's not doing
• 1:14:17
  the same things as the original, but doing them again with
• 1:14:20
  slightly different doctors. Yeah.
• 1:14:24
  And that. Just evoking it though so well.
• 1:14:28
  Yeah, yeah, exactly. And yeah, when I see those
• 1:14:32
  covers of like Big Finish ones where it's just like, oh, see
• 1:14:34
  Tuck's head floating on the it's like, I'm just not interested.
• 1:14:38
  I just can't think what you're going to do there.
• 1:14:40
  That's particularly interesting. Whereas this kind of delves into
• 1:14:44
  the Egyptian mythology side and takes another character and does
• 1:14:48
  something different with her, with still some of the trappings
• 1:14:51
  that make it feel like I like Pyramids of Mars, but different.
• 1:14:56
  There's so many Big Finish stories now.
• 1:14:58
  We've had like 2000 Missing Adventures of a Way.
• 1:15:03
  He's. Starting to lose his luster a
• 1:15:05
  little bit? Yeah.
• 1:15:07
  I I I think this is a book that sort of wears his influences on
• 1:15:09
  his sleeve but it's just an like a riveting pot boiler and I mean
• 1:15:15
  that in the entirely complimentary.
• 1:15:19
  And I got one last thing to read out before I go.
• 1:15:20
  If you want to read a book with a passage like this, then pick
• 1:15:24
  up the sounds of time. It's something that Andrew
• 1:15:26
  alluded to earlier. The dynamite went off just as
• 1:15:29
  the mummy stepped over it. The blast ripped his left arm
• 1:15:33
  from his body and shredded the bandages which protected the
• 1:15:36
  robot's front. Right.
• 1:15:38
  Sorry. The cloth, still clinging to the
• 1:15:40
  robot's legs, ignited, and after a second the whole body was
• 1:15:44
  ablaze. That's just fabulous.
• 1:15:47
  Cool. Visual.
• 1:15:57
  Well guys, I didn't ask you to prepare or recommend, but I'm
• 1:16:03
  rather hoping that you have. Shit.
• 1:16:10
  We know the drill. No, he hasn't.
• 1:16:12
  No. He's looking around now.
• 1:16:15
  Oh, sorry, I know the drill. Because that's why I've
• 1:16:19
  referenced it a couple times this episode.
• 1:16:20
  Because I'm like I'm going to recommend fear itself at the
• 1:16:23
  end. Well, look whilst Luke's
• 1:16:25
  talking. Quick grab a book.
• 1:16:29
  So yes, sometimes you get a book that's so good you type into the
• 1:16:34
  old Internet the author's name, only to find out there's this
• 1:16:39
  and a Benny novel with Paul Leonard called Dry Pilgrimage.
• 1:16:43
  It's all Nick Wallace has done. I've already read that.
• 1:16:45
  I liked it. So Phil itself is pretty much
• 1:16:48
  the only BBC novel that Nick Paulus has written that know if
• 1:16:52
  he's done much Big Finish work enough or anything like that.
• 1:16:54
  It is APDA, not an EDA with the 8th Doctor, Fits and Angie.
• 1:16:58
  It's set between like Earth World and.
• 1:17:02
  Vanishing point. That's the one.
• 1:17:05
  And it does some amazing things with Angie and the Doctor as
• 1:17:11
  well. And it fits as fits.
• 1:17:14
  That's. And that's not a that's not me
• 1:17:17
  shitting on him. That's that's that's what he is.
• 1:17:20
  And I think some of the things that happened to Angie in this
• 1:17:22
  book come come resurface later on.
• 1:17:27
  But she's not supposed to remember stuff that happens but
• 1:17:30
  she kind of does it. There's a bit of a cheat in here
• 1:17:32
  with some with the ending but some of it get does get
• 1:17:36
  mentioned again I think as well. So yeah, fear itself, it's it's
• 1:17:40
  dark. It's it's set just after
• 1:17:43
  Earth's, the feet of the dialects, and they're all
• 1:17:46
  rebuilding, so they're all suspicious of aliens and stuff.
• 1:17:49
  It's good stuff. That's another one that's set in
• 1:17:52
  several time periods where one informed the other as well,
• 1:17:55
  isn't it? And it's great because Nick
• 1:17:57
  Wallace, you can see he's read all those EDAS and he's going
• 1:18:00
  well, What on Earth is going on here?
• 1:18:02
  The Doctor never mentions about his missing memories after this
• 1:18:05
  book and he puts it all in here, doesn't he?
• 1:18:08
  Fitz is constantly trying to have this conversation with him
• 1:18:11
  where he's like, look, can we please talk about the
• 1:18:13
  destruction of your own planet? And the Doctor's like later,
• 1:18:16
  later. You know, it's something you can
• 1:18:18
  do sort of later, isn't it? Once, once, once the range is is
• 1:18:23
  done and dusted. I thought it was a neat idea as
• 1:18:25
  well do Apda, but set it in the actual EDA era.
• 1:18:31
  A striking cover as well. I'm I'm not sure I entirely
• 1:18:35
  understand the cover, but it's a really striking image.
• 1:18:38
  Double Helix at the top and it's all like perverted in the
• 1:18:41
  shadows or something like. A Like an alien.
• 1:18:45
  The golden rule generally is if the BBC book is white, it's
• 1:18:49
  probably going to be really good.
• 1:18:51
  I don't know why that that rationale exists, but if it's
• 1:18:55
  white, grab it for BBC books. Yeah, that's a.
• 1:19:00
  Fantastic recommendation, Andrew.
• 1:19:03
  Have we given you enough time? Yes.
• 1:19:05
  Right off you go then. So I am going to recommend a
• 1:19:11
  book that kind of has a similar feel to The Sands of Time in
• 1:19:15
  that it's a sequel to ATV Story, but does it in a very
• 1:19:19
  innovative, interesting way. And it's also part of the same
• 1:19:23
  reprint series. You know that is the sounds of
• 1:19:25
  time you're holding up right now, this.
• 1:19:26
  Is the sounds. Of time, yes.
• 1:19:29
  But I didn't want to rush off to my Doctor Who tells so I I'm
• 1:19:34
  going to say Touched by an Angel, which was also reprinted
• 1:19:37
  in this Monster Collection series.
• 1:19:40
  So in the same way that this story kind of takes elements of
• 1:19:44
  of Pyramids of Mars and then does something different, that
• 1:19:47
  story takes Blink and then kind of without without Jonathan
• 1:19:53
  Morris. I guess knowing where the Angels
• 1:19:55
  were going to go in the TV series kind of does a sequel to
• 1:19:59
  that with the Doctor, Amy and Rory, which really makes the
• 1:20:04
  Angel work in print. Does a completely different
• 1:20:08
  story to blink. Does a completely different
• 1:20:10
  story to flesh and stone and and that that story arc and I think
• 1:20:15
  is is probably next to blink the best use of of the angels in a
• 1:20:21
  Doctor Who story. And and I remember when it was
• 1:20:24
  first published Doctor Who magazine, despite the fact that
• 1:20:27
  it seems to give a glowing review to everything with the
• 1:20:29
  Doctor Who logo on it these days I guess because of licensing
• 1:20:32
  agreements gave like quite a negative review to touch by an
• 1:20:36
  Angel and I just don't understand it because I probably
• 1:20:38
  would have bought it at the time if it had got a good write up.
• 1:20:41
  But I just remember that one they were just a bit sniffy and
• 1:20:44
  not interested in it. So I was like, OK, I won't try
• 1:20:47
  that one. It's one of.
• 1:20:47
  The best ones I did, don't you? Yeah, it's one of the best
• 1:20:50
  nights, new series adventures. One of the best Doctor Who books
• 1:20:54
  I think. Yeah, absolutely recommend it.
• 1:20:58
  100% do. You have what's so?
• 1:21:00
  Clever, I have to get that. Oh, you'll love it, I promise.
• 1:21:03
  And it's doing all those mafia tricks because it's it's all
• 1:21:08
  about this couple, isn't it? And we basically see their
• 1:21:12
  entire relationship from start to finish through various sort
• 1:21:15
  of time periods. And it becomes just this
• 1:21:18
  incredible character tale as well as sort of time you boy me
• 1:21:22
  as well as a Doctor Who story with angels in it.
• 1:21:25
  Yeah, just really moving, really funny and showing how the Doctor
• 1:21:30
  and Amy and Rory are impacting their lives.
• 1:21:34
  It just. Feels like it should have been
• 1:21:36
  ATV story. Yeah, Do you know what can I
• 1:21:38
  tell you? Because when I did the interview
• 1:21:40
  with Jonathan Morris, he did it. I don't know if he said it off
• 1:21:42
  Mike or on Mike. I think it might have been on
• 1:21:44
  Mike that he was on a list of of five names of people that had
• 1:21:52
  written books to write in the Steven Moffett era.
• 1:21:55
  They. And there was five names.
• 1:21:58
  He was third on the list. They tried out the first person
• 1:22:02
  and it was a spectacular disaster and they threw out the
• 1:22:06
  list. I don't know who that first name
• 1:22:08
  was, but basically he they basically said no, we need TV
• 1:22:11
  writers, we can't be doing it with.
• 1:22:12
  Christopher Dealers oh. You.
• 1:22:14
  Bloody home not. I'm.
• 1:22:18
  I'm kidding. I'm sorry, Christopher.
• 1:22:20
  I've liked a couple of your books.
• 1:22:21
  I'm sorry. Next up on Hamster Book Club,
• 1:22:23
  starring Luke and Andrew City at World's End.
• 1:22:26
  Shadow Mind. I would like to recommend Witch
• 1:22:32
  Hunters by Steve Lyons. I can see that Luke's getting
• 1:22:35
  hard on as I speak if you want to read about the Witch trials,
• 1:22:44
  sorry. If you want to learn about it,
• 1:22:45
  don't watch The Witch Finders from series 11 of Doctor Who,
• 1:22:48
  which I do love. I think it's a great episode and
• 1:22:51
  and really sort of atmospheric, but this is a pure historical
• 1:22:56
  it's like stiflingly claustrophobic to read in a way
• 1:23:01
  that only Steve Lyons can write it.
• 1:23:03
  It gets Susan the 1st Dr. Ian Barber perfect and it traps them
• 1:23:09
  in Salem in a situation where they're just surrounded by
• 1:23:12
  paranoid, angry people and it's really uncomfortable to read.
• 1:23:18
  Like, I wouldn't recommend it if you're you're looking for a good
• 1:23:20
  time, but if you're looking for a thoughtful read that really
• 1:23:23
  got sort of does a deep dive into what people must have gone
• 1:23:27
  through at the time. Because there's sequences where
• 1:23:28
  Susan is literally has been pulled out by a crowd and she's
• 1:23:32
  been shoved on a pyre. Like, it's really quite
• 1:23:35
  uncomfortable to read, but it tells that story in such an
• 1:23:39
  evocative way. Yeah, The witch, the witch
• 1:23:41
  hunters. I don't know if you guys have
• 1:23:42
  read that, but it's sorry. Hello.
• 1:23:45
  I have. Not only have I read it, there's
• 1:23:47
  a cool thing in the 90s. I don't remember what the VHS
• 1:23:49
  release was. It might have been the Crusade
• 1:23:52
  slash Space Museum. Oh, did I get that right?
• 1:23:59
  And in it there's an intro by William Russell where he talks
• 1:24:03
  about like, as Ian and he talks about some of the adventures he
• 1:24:06
  goes on. One of the adventures he
• 1:24:08
  mentions is, Oh yeah, there's that trip to Salem I went to.
• 1:24:11
  I'm like, I've read that book. Of course, because that would
• 1:24:14
  have been the time when Steve Cole was bringing these books
• 1:24:17
  out. Yeah.
• 1:24:19
  Very clever, they. Well, then it's Canon as well.
• 1:24:21
  That's another. Reason that's.
• 1:24:23
  Right, William William Russell says it is that it is.
• 1:24:28
  Boys, thank you very much for that.
• 1:24:31
  Now, I know you and we have talked about doing Goth opera.
• 1:24:36
  Given that that is soon to be coming out from a big finish, I
• 1:24:41
  don't know if we should return to the 5th doctor and is it TK
• 1:24:46
  and miss or in that? Yeah, it's the same.
• 1:24:48
  Thing I was wondering if we could do a book in between and
• 1:24:50
  I've got a suggestion and it's like so different from The Sands
• 1:24:54
  of Time and it's very easy to get hold of because it's
• 1:24:56
  recently been published. But I'd like to suggest that we
• 1:25:01
  do Warriors Gate and Beyond by Stephen Gallagher and quite
• 1:25:07
  selfishly it's because I've never read it.
• 1:25:11
  I want to read it, but I I hear it's a book without chapters
• 1:25:16
  that utterly deviates from the TV story and obviously has got
• 1:25:20
  these these two or three little short stories at the end that
• 1:25:25
  could have have either one of you read that already.
• 1:25:28
  I did the audio book of it when it came out, like a year or so
• 1:25:33
  ago, and then I think one of the short stories is one of the
• 1:25:37
  Beyond the Doctor audios with Romana in it.
• 1:25:42
  But they've turned into a short story in this one.
• 1:25:44
  So I think I've read the bulk of it, but I can't really remember
• 1:25:47
  it so I don't mind reading it again.
• 1:25:48
  Luke. I love Warrior's Gate and I've
• 1:25:51
  never read this, so I am in. Is it one you can get hold of
• 1:25:55
  it? That's an important thing.
• 1:25:57
  Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, easily.
• 1:25:59
  This look on my foot, it's got 1 LB off.
• 1:26:01
  Yeah, the cover price is 1099. Much cheaper.
• 1:26:06
  Well, until we reconvene then. For Warriors Gate.
• 1:26:11
  Can I ask you both just to quickly?
• 1:26:13
  I know we do this every single time.
• 1:26:14
  I'm so sorry. But you know, a couple of
• 1:26:16
  followers might come your way where you are on social media
• 1:26:20
  and what you do elsewhere. Luke.
• 1:26:23
  All right, I I'm on the tweety at Grumpy Two EB you'll hear
• 1:26:30
  you'll get tweeties. Probably about two subjects and
• 1:26:34
  probably 2 subjects only. Doctor Who or maybe some Blake 7
• 1:26:37
  and New Japan Pro Wrestling. I also do a podcast for that.
• 1:26:40
  So that's mostly on my other thing at Never Open Pod.
• 1:26:44
  So if your universes are colliding right now, there you
• 1:26:47
  go. That's where you can find.
• 1:26:49
  Me, he's so easy to find. Just type LSJ after your app and
• 1:26:53
  he's there. However, do not type Andrew
• 1:26:56
  after your app because. So I wrote a Twitter account
• 1:27:01
  called Doctor Who Cover Story, which, when I can be bothered to
• 1:27:06
  maintain it, shares cover art and art inspired by Doctor Who
• 1:27:11
  from across the decades. And if you follow me now, you
• 1:27:15
  can see my borderline incompetent attempts to make a
• 1:27:22
  Dalek model kit from the 90s, which I I found online and have
• 1:27:28
  been piercing together. How's it going?
• 1:27:31
  I've finished it. It's some of it is a bit bit
• 1:27:36
  haphazard. I'm not.
• 1:27:37
  I'm not a professional model maker.
• 1:27:40
  There was lots of swearing at fiddly parts of Dalek gun sticks
• 1:27:46
  and cutting out bands from plastic and getting stuff stuck
• 1:27:51
  to my fingers. And yeah, corrosive glue.
• 1:27:55
  But I'm through. I'm through the worst of it and
• 1:27:58
  I think it looks all right. I've never heard someone say
• 1:28:01
  I've finished it with such a sense of achievement.
• 1:28:03
  You know I've done it. I don't know how I'll miss that.
• 1:28:07
  You know, because you're posting all the time.
• 1:28:09
  I'm going to go have a look after the cool guys.
• 1:28:12
  Thank you very much for your time.
• 1:28:14
  Luke. Thank you very much for that
• 1:28:15
  recommendation. That was a great book.
• 1:28:17
  Should you risky, be extremely dull.
• 1:28:20
  I apologize. I doubt it.