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Hamster Book Club - Blood Harvest by Terrance Dicks · A Hamster With a Blunt Penknife - a Doctor Who Commentary podcast

• 0:02
  It was a bright winter morning, the sun shining with a sharp jab
• 0:06
  of cold in the wind. Off the lake.
• 0:09
  Chicago looks swell like a beautiful woman with an ice pick
• 0:13
  in her stocking top. I was driving along Lakeshore
• 0:17
  Drive in my old Buick. I was wearing the new dark blue
• 0:20
  pinstripe with trench coat and snap brim fedora.
• 0:23
  It was everything the well dressed Private Eye ought to be.
• 0:28
  I was calling on $100 million. The invitation had arrived in my
• 0:39
  office a few hours earlier. It was my first day in business
• 0:43
  and I was sitting behind my new desk wondering what the hell to
• 0:46
  do next. The desk itself wasn't new.
• 0:49
  IT came with the office. The previous occupant was in the
• 0:53
  insurance business until someone cancelled his policy with three
• 0:57
  slugs from a Saturday night special in the South side
• 1:00
  Speakeasy. Suddenly shy a tenant in a
• 1:03
  month's rent, the landlord had rented me the office at a
• 1:06
  bargain rate and thrown in the fixtures and fittings for free.
• 1:11
  I was now the proud owner of a hat rack, a worn out carpet, a
• 1:14
  cigarette, scarred wooden desk, 1 swivel and two rickety kitchen
• 1:18
  type chairs and a beat up green filing cabinet filled largely
• 1:22
  with Chicago air. The desk was pretty empty too,
• 1:26
  except for the bottle of bourbon.
• 1:28
  Well, the label said bourbon. I was just deciding that it was
• 1:32
  too early for a drink, but I'd go ahead and have one anyway.
• 1:35
  When my first business opportunity arrived, it arrived
• 1:39
  in the shape of two hard eyed characters and black top coats
• 1:42
  and identical Pearl Gray felt hats with broad Black Hat bands.
• 1:47
  The top coats hung open to reveal dark suits, white shirts
• 1:50
  and striped ties in certain criminal circles.
• 1:54
  Gaudy vests, loud ties, and diamond tie pins were a thing of
• 1:57
  the past. The big fellow liked the hired
• 2:00
  help to look respectable. The get up had changed, but the
• 2:03
  manners were the same as ever. They shoved the door open
• 2:06
  without knocking and stepped forward shoulder to shoulder
• 2:10
  sneering down at me. Both were beefy and blue, jawed,
• 2:14
  one tall, the other short and stocky.
• 2:17
  Morning, gents, I said cheerfully.
• 2:20
  What can I do for you? Lost dogs?
• 2:22
  Missing mothers? You do have mothers, the tall
• 2:26
  hood said. They told us you was a wise guy,
• 2:29
  Decker. The thick set one said.
• 2:33
  We got to come all the way downtown to this dump to listen
• 2:36
  to cheap, wise cracks from a cheap peeper.
• 2:40
  He spat on the carpet, which needled me more than somewhat.
• 2:45
  Hang on till I stand for a spittoon, I said.
• 2:48
  Try to remember you're not at home on your feet, Seamus said.
• 2:53
  The tall one. We're going for a ride one way.
• 2:58
  Someone wants to see you. Welcome back to the Hamster Book
• 3:20
  Club. My name is Joe Ford and as ever,
• 3:23
  it is my delight to be here today with the glorious Andrew
• 3:28
  Batty. Hello, Andrew.
• 3:29
  Hello. And the even more I say, even
• 3:32
  more glorious. I'm sorry.
• 3:33
  I don't mean that. The equally glorious.
• 3:37
  Now let me get this straight. Luke Sims.
• 3:39
  Jenkins. That's correct.
• 3:42
  And yes, I will take the first spot of the Glorious on the
• 3:45
  glorious podium or not. Well done.
• 3:48
  You did choose the glorious dead last time, didn't you?
• 3:50
  Someone did. Yes, that was the guy had for
• 3:54
  the 8 doctors. Oh, thank you very much, Jason.
• 3:56
  I'm getting everyone mixed up now.
• 3:57
  In fact, let's get this over and done with before we even talk
• 4:01
  about anything else. I know you heard the end of that
• 4:03
  episode, Luke, so do you have anything to say to me?
• 4:10
  No, now. You put me on the spot.
• 4:11
  See, I remembered that part which saved you.
• 4:13
  Now you're remember referencing a part that probably annoyed me
• 4:16
  and I I can't remember it now. The.
• 4:19
  Trouble is, I can't say no to people.
• 4:21
  So essentially, everyone listening, Sorry, this is
• 4:23
  incredibly indulgent. Oh, yes.
• 4:25
  Everyone said let's get on the Big Finish bandwagon and do
• 4:28
  golf, opera and I'll go yeah, yeah, yeah, sure.
• 4:31
  And then, unfortunately, when another guest listened to my
• 4:35
  last episode with you, I heard that we didn't put up Instant
• 4:38
  Cop Opera and I got a a very harshly worded message saying
• 4:42
  excuse me. I I I feel like I've already
• 4:48
  felt that gentleman's pain. So I'm still like waiting for
• 4:52
  your I guess Monagra episode to to drop.
• 4:55
  So you know, someone else has a a similar taste in in books as
• 4:59
  being I guess all just great ideas.
• 5:02
  I think that fellas forgotten all about it, if I'm honest.
• 5:05
  So we may do it yet, you know, I believe.
• 5:08
  That you're you're going to do time and relative as well.
• 5:11
  I was like, ah, that was on my list.
• 5:12
  Yeah, that's never mind. Someone said the Dalek factor as
• 5:15
  well, which I think is also. I haven't got that one, so I
• 5:18
  don't care. Oh, fair enough.
• 5:21
  We have. We've established that Andrew
• 5:23
  has got a lot of books here and about half of them have been
• 5:26
  read. I think more than that.
• 5:29
  I've read the BBC ones, I've got more of a dent then.
• 5:33
  Have you done one read stuff? That isn't Doctor Who as well.
• 5:37
  Do you do. Have you done one of these where
• 5:40
  you haven't read the book before?
• 5:41
  I don't remember you saying that.
• 5:42
  You. Oh, Cole.
• 5:43
  Well, we're going to have to do it one day, aren't we?
• 5:45
  We will. Yeah.
• 5:46
  We. Should choose one of those new
• 5:48
  adventures that's getting dusty on your shelf.
• 5:50
  I should do. But how do you feel about Neil
• 5:53
  Pennswick? No, I'm not falling into that
• 5:57
  trap, falling into that pit. No.
• 6:01
  Jesus Christ, William Blake. Fuck off.
• 6:05
  All right. We are here today to talk about
• 6:09
  Blood Harvest by Terence Dicks, and we've been chatting a little
• 6:14
  bit on our thread, and I know we've got 3 diverse and
• 6:18
  interesting opinions coming up. But before we do, I'm getting a
• 6:23
  bit desperate with my icebreaker questions.
• 6:25
  So I asked the two of you, but I think, did I give you more than
• 6:29
  30 minutes this time? Yeah, I asked.
• 6:32
  You got asked last night if we had a question Mr. Joe, but I
• 6:35
  didn't see it until I woke up this.
• 6:37
  Morning. Yeah, you came about 3 hours
• 6:38
  ago. I think so.
• 6:39
  I'm getting better. But it was to select a scene
• 6:44
  from a Doctor Who book that you just happened to love.
• 6:49
  And I would like to throw this over to an Andrew first place.
• 6:55
  OK, so my one, I was trying to think of something that was like
• 6:58
  really like moving or powerful or dramatic.
• 7:03
  But then my mind just went a bit blank.
• 7:05
  So the moment I chose was actually one which I think just
• 7:08
  kind of, like illustrates how into these books I was as a
• 7:13
  teenager. So I chose a moment from the
• 7:18
  Domino effect venture, which I don't think anyone would would
• 7:23
  probably like. One of those dramatic, memorable
• 7:27
  moments, but this one just stuck out in my head because I
• 7:31
  remembered that during this era of the EDAS, when I was reading
• 7:35
  them all as they came out, I used to write little notes,
• 7:40
  interesting bits, and I used to put them inside the cover.
• 7:45
  Oh. Gorgeous.
• 7:45
  Amazing. And they were mainly sort of
• 7:49
  bits about the story arc and what I thought was going to
• 7:52
  happen next and that kind of stuff.
• 7:55
  So in The Domino Effect, there is a scene where Fitz bumps into
• 8:02
  a mysterious woman with red hair and it's like about half a page
• 8:06
  long. She's sort of, it's implied that
• 8:09
  she's just like maybe stolen something from a jewellers and
• 8:12
  he kind of looks at her and maybe recognizes her and then
• 8:14
  she disappears. So it's it was kind of like one
• 8:18
  of those little moments, which is like, this is clearly
• 8:20
  important to the Ark. What did that mean?
• 8:23
  They're going to come back to it eventually.
• 8:25
  So I wrote down on this little piece of paper, like all my
• 8:28
  theories about who it was. That's.
• 8:31
  Amazing. So red haired, what do you want
• 8:35
  me to read verbatim? Oh.
• 8:37
  Hell yeah. We want the lot, baby.
• 8:40
  Red haired woman steals diamond and emerald ring from auction
• 8:44
  house. Sees Fitz ignores him.
• 8:47
  Present in cafe before explosion tells Fitz to fuck off.
• 8:50
  I don't think she used those words.
• 8:52
  I was just being an edgy teenager.
• 8:55
  Leaves cafe bumps into Angie. Her eyes widen.
• 8:58
  Recognition. Question mark.
• 9:00
  Possibilities. Tricks.
• 9:02
  Compassion. Juliet Scarlett.
• 9:06
  So I was trying. I was clearly someone we'd met
• 9:08
  before. I think the red hair was
• 9:10
  throwing me off. So I was like, well, it's not
• 9:12
  tricks. She doesn't have red hair and I
• 9:14
  think I wanted it to be compassion who didn't really
• 9:17
  come back for much longer. But there's more detailed
• 9:20
  breakdown on back of, like all my reasons for and against it
• 9:23
  being each character. So yeah, it just demonstrates
• 9:28
  what a fucking that was when I was like 1415 years old when
• 9:33
  this came out. But yeah.
• 9:35
  Andrew, I loved you before you told me all of that.
• 9:38
  Now I'm just obsessed with you. Do you have notes in all of
• 9:41
  these books? The ones from this era, I think.
• 9:44
  I think because it was a continuing series, yeah, I used
• 9:48
  to like, write these little notes.
• 9:50
  I also used to have like spreadsheets and like a Word
• 9:53
  document where I'd write little reviews and like, tag which
• 9:56
  characters were in each book. Yeah, it was tragic, absolutely.
• 10:00
  Can we, can we not just do a new segment on our book club
• 10:04
  episodes, three of us, where we should call it Andrew's notes
• 10:09
  And every, every time you have to put bring out one of your
• 10:12
  notes and oh how? Glorious.
• 10:14
  I'll have to have a rummage to see if I can find any more.
• 10:18
  I also even nerdier than that, I used to keep the receipts in the
• 10:22
  books. Where was that one from?
• 10:25
  This one didn't have one, but there are definitely some in the
• 10:27
  other ones. But some of them have like faded
• 10:30
  even though they've been like stuck in a book.
• 10:32
  I I guess like the ink they use on receipts.
• 10:35
  Isn't that to last the test of time?
• 10:37
  So I just have Black Froy. Were you like a Waterstones boy?
• 10:45
  I either got them from, I either got my mum to pick them up from
• 10:48
  me from like an independent book shop near the school where she
• 10:52
  worked, because they used to get them in.
• 10:54
  If she put an order in, they'd get them like maybe two weeks
• 10:58
  before the publication date sometimes, which was very
• 11:01
  exciting. Or I'd go to, yeah.
• 11:05
  That's I'm jealous. It was either an Otter Cars or a
• 11:10
  Blackwells in it was in Arndale Centre in Eastbourne where you
• 11:16
  live Joe, that's. Where I work, yeah.
• 11:21
  So it was, yeah, it it then turned into an an HMV.
• 11:25
  After that, it was like one of the IT was that shop, and it was
• 11:29
  briefly A bookshop, but it wasn't.
• 11:31
  It wasn't Waterstones. I could tell you that there's no
• 11:33
  shop in Eastbourne's Arndale which is now called The Beacon.
• 11:39
  It's. Always the Arndale in my mind.
• 11:41
  Doctor Who books out two weeks before.
• 11:42
  Because if they did, man oh man, I'd be snapping them up.
• 11:46
  Well, Luke, what have you got for us?
• 11:49
  I had AI had a kind of a silly answer, and a serious one.
• 11:53
  My silly, my silly answer I came out with first.
• 11:55
  And let's just put my obligatory Steve Lyons episode.
• 12:01
  I won't read the whole thing, but I'm going.
• 12:03
  To put a chime in, you know, every time you say Steve Lyons.
• 12:07
  Have a drink so I won't read the whole thing.
• 12:10
  It's fucking hilarious. It is.
• 12:13
  Just go to be on your useless encyclopedia and read the entry
• 12:17
  for Batman. Go on, read it.
• 12:22
  All right then, Batman. One of the full world's first
• 12:26
  costume heroes, Batman was created by Bob Kane and
• 12:29
  premiered in Detective Comics Issue 27 in 1939, graduating to
• 12:34
  his own title in 1940. The nocturnal career of
• 12:38
  millionaire Bruce Wayne brought him into contact with such
• 12:40
  colourful and enduring villains as the Joker, Penguin, The
• 12:44
  Riddler and Catwoman. Many of these were given a new
• 12:47
  lease of life by the fondly remembered 60s TV series Sorry
• 12:51
  Adam West and Burt Waters sidekick Robin.
• 12:54
  The comic books introduced Gordon's daughter.
• 12:56
  I'm halfway Barbara, and as the second Batgirl.
• 13:01
  The first was tennis ace Betty Kane so that she could spin off
• 13:05
  into a her own show. Michael Keaton and Val Kilnow
• 13:08
  have more recently betrayed Batman on the big screen.
• 13:10
  Now I feel old now with George Clooney said to take over.
• 13:14
  An animated series in a similar style has also proved
• 13:17
  successful. Batman now stars in four monthly
• 13:19
  comic books. The Latter Day writers has
• 13:22
  emphasized The Dark Knight aspect of his persona, with
• 13:25
  storylines such as the Joker, Joker's murder of the second
• 13:28
  Robin, Jason Todd, and the breaking of Batman in the
• 13:31
  classic Nightfall series. He is mentioned in Inferno and
• 13:35
  the Time Monster that. Whole book is as irreverent as
• 13:40
  that, isn't it? Yeah, so I'm like, yes, I know
• 13:43
  all this about Batman. Get to the Doctor Who.
• 13:45
  He's mentioned in Inferno and Time Monster, yeah?
• 13:48
  Do you remember the line in Inferno?
• 13:50
  I don't. Andrew, I do, because someone
• 13:55
  literally just posted a video of it on Twitter.
• 13:58
  No, it's the IT was TARDIS. Monkey just just posted a little
• 14:04
  clip, that exact little clip where, yeah, Jon Pertwee says,
• 14:10
  Do you expect me to burst off into space like in a rocket,
• 14:15
  like Batman? Yeah, just the intonation of it
• 14:18
  is very funny. I haven't done it, Justin.
• 14:19
  Somehow, Luke, the stars are in conversions and TARDIS monkey
• 14:23
  and you are somehow talking about this exact same thing at
• 14:26
  the same time. Some kind of weird alignment
• 14:28
  happening right there, yeah. OK, so that's your funny one.
• 14:34
  Yes. So like, the first thing that
• 14:36
  popped into my mind was the burning.
• 14:38
  I'd been off the EDAS for a little bit at the time, so I
• 14:44
  think by the time I got back into the maybe Earth world had
• 14:48
  come out. Maybe Vanishing Point.
• 14:51
  So I went back and I was like, oh, a new jumping on point.
• 14:54
  All right, fine. I have eventually went back and
• 14:58
  read them because there's more fits in those stories.
• 15:00
  But yeah, that's just what I did BS So new jumping on point
• 15:05
  wasn't sure what to expect. I knew Gallifrey was gone and we
• 15:09
  should say gone, but I feel like reading that was, I don't know
• 15:14
  what's what's going on, what's going to happen here.
• 15:15
  And it's towards the end of the book.
• 15:17
  I can't remember the exact specifics, but there's like a
• 15:22
  like a something really cold and brutal the Doctor does towards
• 15:25
  the end of the book. I think it's like someone being
• 15:28
  trapped under something and just burning and look, granted, I'm
• 15:32
  pretty sure this person deserved it, but still like just to see
• 15:37
  the Doctor just kind of watch the sky burning and then just
• 15:40
  just leave. It's like, all right, what's
• 15:43
  going on here? Because he did feel like a
• 15:45
  little like Doctor Rich, but not too much that he'd feel the
• 15:48
  same, but just enough. So when he but it's the doctors.
• 15:52
  So when he comes out and does something shocking like this,
• 15:55
  I'm like, oh, where are they going with this?
• 15:57
  And I liked that moment because it's setting up like he's kind
• 16:01
  of just woken up. He doesn't.
• 16:03
  It's it's like Hartnell in the the first story he's he's he's a
• 16:06
  bit of a prick, isn't he? So he's not much of A hero, is
• 16:09
  he? And then he, you know, with his
• 16:12
  friends and stuff, he becomes like the good guy with love.
• 16:14
  So this is him trying to figure himself out, and stomping on
• 16:18
  people is one of the things he'll do if he has to.
• 16:21
  It's all pushing away from that. He's not just the puppy dog a of
• 16:25
  doctor anymore. He's going to surprise you.
• 16:27
  And they did that a couple of times throughout that run,
• 16:29
  didn't they? Yeah.
• 16:31
  That's a great choice. Well, interestingly enough, I
• 16:34
  went to the 8th Doctor books as well.
• 16:35
  What a surprise. It's from Time Zero by Justin
• 16:39
  Richards, which I think is a fantastic book.
• 16:42
  And I did want to choose the bit where Angie Kapoor realises that
• 16:46
  she's in a plane heading towards the Alps without a driver and
• 16:50
  she's literally about to smash into it and die, which is one of
• 16:53
  the most exciting end of chapters ever.
• 16:56
  I defy anyone to read that and not go on.
• 16:59
  But actually what I want to talk about is the bit earlier in the
• 17:02
  book where Angie's left and she discovers through the sort of
• 17:07
  timing wimy nature of the story that Fitz goes on this
• 17:09
  expedition to the Antarctic and dies and she's at home and she
• 17:14
  phones her mum, I think it is. And basically to tell her mum,
• 17:19
  Dave's dead, her boyfriend, because she's just got home.
• 17:21
  So this is the first chance she's had to have this
• 17:23
  conversation with her mum and she cries her way through the
• 17:26
  call and she's really upset. And the end of the chapter, the
• 17:29
  light kills me every time she's talking about Dave.
• 17:33
  But she she wasn't talking about Dave.
• 17:36
  It was fits or something like that.
• 17:37
  It's the end of the chapter and I just remember reading that and
• 17:41
  being like really, really sad. And I realised just how close I
• 17:45
  was to those characters in those books at that point and how
• 17:49
  really sad I was that she was going.
• 17:51
  So I'm pretty pleased actually. That whole multiverse shattered
• 17:53
  by the end of that book and she was forced to hang around for
• 17:56
  another six books. But it's a great bit of times
• 18:00
  era. I think Justine Richard's
• 18:02
  character work is sorely undervalued, and that's just a
• 18:06
  really good example. Of it.
• 18:08
  I'm always absolutely astonished by your memory for these books,
• 18:11
  Joe. Why?
• 18:12
  I've written a lot of reviews about them, so.
• 18:16
  And like in in Blood Harvest, the one we've just done, there
• 18:18
  was a scene that you described in the last last podcast and you
• 18:21
  got it like verbatim. Like did I.
• 18:23
  What did I? Say the one about the cop
• 18:25
  describing the TARDIS dematerialising.
• 18:28
  Oh, the weasel of. That's.
• 18:30
  Right. Yeah.
• 18:30
  And then I was like, oh, like, yeah.
• 18:33
  I have a waste in my life, I'll tell you.
• 18:37
  Well, I think it's odd, like my memory for like for the books.
• 18:40
  Like I love them, but I find it hard to keep them in my head.
• 18:44
  I think. I think because you can't see
• 18:46
  them. Maybe I'm just like more of a
• 18:47
  visual person. So yeah, I remember the broad
• 18:50
  strokes of the books, but not like like, I don't remember that
• 18:53
  bit with Angie, but it sounds brilliant.
• 18:54
  Makes me want to read Time 0 again.
• 18:57
  Well, I'll tell you what. Coming for a book club near you.
• 18:59
  Time Zero featuring Andrew Luke. I know the two of you won't
• 19:02
  complain about doing an H Doctor book.
• 19:06
  My God, I was going to say something.
• 19:07
  It's completely gone out of my head.
• 19:08
  No, you did remember a lot about the Scarlet Empress, though,
• 19:11
  mind you, you have read that about 15 times.
• 19:14
  That is true. The ultimate Holiday #1.
• 19:24
  That's a beautiful segue to start talking about the book
• 19:27
  we're here to talk about, and it's our first Terrace Dicks,
• 19:32
  isn't it? It's not my first Terrace Dicks
• 19:33
  because I did that last time on The 8 Doctors, although I'll be
• 19:36
  honest, there's a few similarities to The 8 Doctors
• 19:39
  towards the end of this book. But we'll get there.
• 19:43
  Let's start with initial thoughts.
• 19:46
  Then, before we sort of go beneath the surface or in
• 19:49
  between the covers or whatever metaphor you choose, Luke, what
• 19:54
  was your overall impression of Blood Harvest on this route?
• 19:57
  OK, I I I like, I like a lot of it.
• 20:01
  There's some things in it that I I don't like and.
• 20:05
  Maybe my having having just read Warrior's Gate before this book
• 20:10
  might might color some of that, so be ready for that.
• 20:14
  But I like it. Like he bounces around a little
• 20:19
  bit. Terry in this book he drops
• 20:21
  things, some couple things like a hot potato, notably Thirty
• 20:27
  1930s Earth and the Vampire Planet.
• 20:30
  But there's just a readability to it.
• 20:33
  Like even if you don't particularly care for this one
• 20:36
  section or this one scene or this one character, it doesn't
• 20:40
  matter. It's so readable and just so
• 20:42
  engaging. It's like, I feel like by the
• 20:44
  time I finish the thought, I don't like this character.
• 20:47
  I finish the chapter and I'm like, oh, it's Benny, you know,
• 20:49
  let's go. So he knows how to keep things
• 20:52
  moving, which is always always beneficial.
• 20:56
  This great character work for for most of the characters,
• 21:00
  which I really like, and it's it's funny.
• 21:02
  He's not afraid to make a bit of fun out of himself and a bit out
• 21:06
  of Doctor Who as well as a whole.
• 21:08
  So yeah, I thought it was a decent time.
• 21:11
  Hate that Vicky out of himself. Did you not read that bit where
• 21:14
  you know they're doing that ritual charm at the beginning of
• 21:16
  each chapter and then eventually someone just goes, can we just
• 21:19
  forgo the ritual charm? It's getting a bit tedious now,
• 21:23
  exactly at the point where I was thinking that.
• 21:26
  Why are you then, Andrew? Yes, similar to Luke, I think.
• 21:30
  Yeah, I I enjoyed it. It's a it's a good sort of
• 21:32
  action adventure. Very fan ish, Like Terence being
• 21:40
  a fan of his own work looks. Quite like the five doctors,
• 21:45
  yes. But you know, like it's his
• 21:48
  stuff. Like I I don't begrudge him
• 21:50
  mining his own material like that.
• 21:52
  Fan wanking yourself? Yeah.
• 21:55
  Oh, let's not go there, please. But yeah, I think it's quite
• 22:02
  illustrative of the wild tone of the new adventures.
• 22:07
  Like, it just veers into some strange territory.
• 22:10
  And there's some very dodgy stuff in this book, like, yeah,
• 22:16
  very problematic. And yeah, sometimes I think, oh,
• 22:20
  I wish that they'd like, reprint the best of the new adventures.
• 22:22
  Like you could not reprint this book without making some very
• 22:26
  significant changes. Yeah, it's yeah, it's.
• 22:31
  It's an odd one, but on the whole I enjoyed it the way it
• 22:35
  was. I I thought this was super fun
• 22:39
  and like the eight doctors that I did last time I raced for it.
• 22:43
  I just think his prose is just so easy to read.
• 22:46
  Although I kind of I've got a few points to make about his
• 22:48
  prose, which we'll get to later. I thought one plot worked better
• 22:53
  than the other plot. And then like Lou said, I was
• 22:56
  very baffled. When both those plots were
• 22:58
  dropped and we headed to wrestle On's tomb at the end of the
• 23:01
  story, I was like, OK, what? How do we go from 1930s
• 23:05
  gangsters to wrestle On's, you know, and all that continuity?
• 23:09
  But somehow I don't know how, because any other, right?
• 23:13
  I just wouldn't excuse that sort of leap.
• 23:17
  He makes it work and along the way like this funny lines.
• 23:22
  I was roaring with laughter a couple of times and I thought
• 23:26
  there was some really fun stuff with the New Adventures regulars
• 23:30
  as well. I don't get to have a lot of fun
• 23:32
  in these books, so it's quite refreshing really.
• 23:37
  OK, well, do you know what? You made a good point there.
• 23:39
  So let's let's start negative. What would have to be removed if
• 23:46
  this was published today, Andrew?
• 23:49
  Well, the the main thing is the attempted rape of Ace, which is
• 23:56
  just like, why is that there? Like, I feel like, I feel like
• 24:02
  with this book Terrance Dix is kind of like, OK, I'm writing a
• 24:06
  new adventure. The I'm going to do what I
• 24:08
  wouldn't do, but I'm also going to put in the stuff that they
• 24:10
  want for the new adventures. And apparently one of those
• 24:13
  things is sexual assault. And it's just.
• 24:16
  Not the last time as well. He does it in catastrophe and he
• 24:21
  he has a whole gang of rapists going around in Warmonger.
• 24:24
  Don't read warmonger. Just don't.
• 24:26
  Just don't do it that. Was one of my recommends in one
• 24:28
  episode, you know, Sorry. Yes.
• 24:32
  So it's just a really horrible moment and just feels like it's
• 24:36
  not. It's just, yeah, it's out of
• 24:39
  place tonally and just doesn't need to be there.
• 24:43
  But there's also there's there's moments of racist language as
• 24:49
  well and some of that is in the dialogue of the characters,
• 24:52
  which you know, you could say this is a book set in the 1920s,
• 24:56
  it's, you know, it's representing the awful attitudes
• 24:59
  at the time. But then there's also racist
• 25:02
  language in the the third person narration.
• 25:06
  So it's just a bit, it's icky and it's like, yeah, odd to find
• 25:13
  that in a Doctor Who book. I thought there was some weird
• 25:15
  classism as well. In the E space scenes, Romana
• 25:19
  and Bernice were treating these filthy peasants as the lowlife
• 25:24
  that they are. Yeah.
• 25:26
  And his take on Romana is odd as well.
• 25:29
  The the way she's kind of, she's a bit, he kind of decides that
• 25:35
  she's this sort of aristocrat and she's kind of siding with
• 25:40
  the Lord's. There's the bit where she sits
• 25:41
  on the Lord's table and Benny's watching her and talking about
• 25:45
  how that's like a natural fit for Romana, whereas the Doctor
• 25:48
  wouldn't do that. And it just feels like, I don't
• 25:51
  know if that's the the the character that I got from the TV
• 25:55
  show or like where she was intended to go.
• 25:58
  There's a lot of sexist language as well.
• 26:00
  Like, I'll, I'll get off this point soon and talk about things
• 26:03
  I did like. But yeah, there's a there's
• 26:07
  probably about six times that female characters get called
• 26:09
  bitches in this book. There's even a time a Time Lord
• 26:14
  calls Benny a bitch. It's like, what?
• 26:19
  And yeah, just the also the kind the way that Romana is kind of
• 26:23
  like she's just a bit shit in this book.
• 26:26
  Like, she really like messes up. And you kind of think, like,
• 26:30
  yeah, there's just this weird sexism going on with the female
• 26:33
  characters where they're kind of not allowed to be as as capable
• 26:36
  as the Doctor, which is odd when it's Romana when she's left and
• 26:39
  she's mentioned this more experienced version of the
• 26:41
  character. Do you do you think these
• 26:45
  elements then are OK? You know, we're not saying
• 26:47
  Terrace Dicks is a terrible old sexist and racist and classist,
• 26:52
  although I'm wondering if there are elements because he's of
• 26:55
  that generation. Do you think get rid of Liz Shaw
• 26:58
  so you know? All in lapse in judgement.
• 27:04
  Do you think this is him trying to be edgy for this range by
• 27:08
  sort of adding some more adult stuff into it?
• 27:10
  Getting it wrong but trying it out.
• 27:13
  I think so. And I think it's, you know, it's
• 27:15
  it's taking a lot of stuff that would have just been acceptable
• 27:19
  and kind of pulpy fiction and just putting them into a book
• 27:22
  uncritically and just being like, oh, Doctor Who is for like
• 27:27
  this audience now. This stuff is what this audience
• 27:30
  wants. I'll give it to them and some.
• 27:34
  It's just very jarring at times, particularly when you think, oh,
• 27:37
  it's lovely. Terence Dicks or the
• 27:40
  novelisations who've got children reading and also Yeah,
• 27:45
  then writes this. Brutally violent as well, this.
• 27:49
  Yeah, Ace shoots somebody in the head.
• 27:52
  So Doctor doesn't say a thing. Oh wait, that's our bar.
• 27:58
  Go clear. It up, Dorothy.
• 28:01
  What about you then, Luke? But what What were your sort of
• 28:03
  biggest concerns or issues for this?
• 28:05
  All right, so maybe I was about to start with, like maybe it
• 28:09
  says something about me, but Andrew just kind of mentioned
• 28:12
  it. I kind of grew up reading
• 28:16
  Terrance Dick's books as a young boy, so it's kind of weird to
• 28:23
  read a book that's still Doctor Who.
• 28:26
  So it's not an original fiction. Like I started with kids books.
• 28:29
  Here's something completely new and original and it but it's
• 28:31
  more adult now. Here's Doctor Who books, here's
• 28:35
  another Doctor Who book and oh, OK.
• 28:40
  The Doctors like, made made some sexist remark about his
• 28:43
  secretary and I like that. I actually like that little bit
• 28:46
  because it's kind of out of place and chic.
• 28:48
  And the Doctor's like, well, he's fitting in because he's
• 28:51
  having a meeting with the mayor. But he's like, oh, if I said I
• 28:56
  heard that he would have, she would have beat.
• 28:58
  You know, I think like, Benny would too.
• 29:00
  I think Romana would. I think half, most of your
• 29:02
  companions would have boxed you over the head for that.
• 29:05
  That was about kind of cheeky. But yes, there is a it's like
• 29:09
  sex is a little strange. I can handle the violence a
• 29:13
  little more Like, you kind of expect that I guess in a book
• 29:15
  for it to be a bit more violent in time.
• 29:17
  But yeah, I was just like, all right.
• 29:21
  He's, he's, he's put all these dirty kind of weird things in
• 29:25
  this book. And I'm just like, this is the
• 29:27
  guy I read when I was like 9. This is kind of strange.
• 29:30
  So I'm glad you also picked up on that, Andrew.
• 29:33
  Also, I like some of the moments with Romana.
• 29:39
  Andrew even mentioned one in our chat with her and Benny are
• 29:42
  going on horseback riding through the van.
• 29:44
  He doesn't even name the vampire planet.
• 29:46
  Can we get a name for that planet please?
• 29:50
  No, it'll just be a terrible space name, wouldn't it?
• 29:53
  For a planet, Zandor or something like that.
• 29:56
  Yeah, it. Was Terry Nation script probably
• 29:58
  be like Vampirion? Yeah, Spang or something like
• 30:03
  that, yeah. But so I'd probably take a few.
• 30:10
  That's probably why a lot of these haven't been reprinted or
• 30:13
  put up on as like just books you can buy on your phone or
• 30:18
  something like that, because it's a family show and they
• 30:21
  don't probably want to bring out all of these sexy books.
• 30:23
  But yeah, I think it is Terry trying to ate the ate the style
• 30:27
  of the new adventures because like, oh, let's do this little
• 30:30
  bit in the first person. Now let's put a bit more
• 30:33
  sexiness in this in this section of the book and things like
• 30:36
  that. So I I think that's Terry all
• 30:39
  over. If he's if he's doing a Doctor
• 30:42
  Who story in an era that he's not from, he he's he's still
• 30:46
  pretty capable of aping that style and I don't think the new
• 30:51
  adventures are any exception in that.
• 30:52
  So he he he he's got the tone of the books pretty, pretty well.
• 30:57
  I think my biggest objection, weirdly enough, was wasn't the
• 31:00
  sexism or the racism or the classism.
• 31:03
  It was. So here's my issue of how this
• 31:05
  is written is we get three checks on every thought.
• 31:11
  So like, there's a point where I can't remember the girl's name.
• 31:14
  Is it Magda? One of the girls they suspect
• 31:17
  has been turned into a vampire, right.
• 31:19
  So Bernie thinks, oh, I think she might be a vampire when she
• 31:23
  turns up. And then she says it in dialogue
• 31:25
  to everybody, oh, I think she might be a vampire.
• 31:28
  And then we go to great pains for the next scene to prove that
• 31:32
  she and I'm like, you know what I get that the new adventures
• 31:36
  are usually very obscure. We can't figure out what the
• 31:38
  fuck is going on in them because they're all being written by
• 31:40
  artsy writers that are trying to be a bit pretentious.
• 31:43
  The terrorists that you do not need to explain yourself three
• 31:45
  times in. And I can.
• 31:47
  When I noticed that I was like, he does it in every scene, they
• 31:50
  think it, they say it, and then they prove it.
• 31:53
  And I'm like, one's enough, just prove it, you know, in a
• 31:56
  dialogue. So it's a very odd approach.
• 31:59
  So I was the. Master of padding, so maybe
• 32:01
  that's part of it well. I'm wondering if he's talking to
• 32:03
  kids rather than adults, and then I'm wondering if this isn't
• 32:07
  the range for him and maybe the past doctor range is, I don't
• 32:12
  know, he. Never rode for it.
• 32:13
  He never rode for the missing adventures, which is was
• 32:15
  strange. He didn't.
• 32:16
  He didn't. The BBC Ranger didn't he.
• 32:18
  A couple over that world Game and catastrophe and.
• 32:22
  Players, I think as well, yeah. But I was like, you know what?
• 32:25
  Like maybe it maybe if I was like 4.
• 32:28
  They're not. I need that.
• 32:29
  I need the triple explanation for everything.
• 32:31
  Everything. But you know, 43.
• 32:34
  I'm going. Will you get on with it already?
• 32:36
  Please. That was my biggest objection.
• 32:40
  What do you think, Andrew? Do you think Terence is suited
• 32:47
  to the new adventures? Yeah, I think he's perfectly
• 32:51
  capable of it. I think, yeah, like Luke was
• 32:55
  saying, he he's, he adapts his style to to fit the era that he
• 32:59
  that he needs to. And yeah, I think, yeah, it's a
• 33:05
  pretty standard NA, like it's got like all the kind of tropes
• 33:08
  in there. And I think, yeah, he kind of,
• 33:10
  he makes a good, a good go. What do you think like?
• 33:15
  Well, you kind of just said, didn't you, that you think he he
• 33:17
  can adapt to it? I think so.
• 33:20
  I don't think this has quite the impact that, say, Exodus does.
• 33:25
  And maybe that's 'cause that's the second book.
• 33:27
  And Genesis could just kind of stank, you know, So the extra
• 33:32
  thing of like, hey, Terry is here and hey, don't worry, this
• 33:35
  this one's actually good. That was really good.
• 33:37
  Oh, excellent. Excellent.
• 33:39
  Excellent is fantastic little war game Secret Sequel 2, which
• 33:43
  I I didn't expect. So that blew my mind as.
• 33:46
  Plagiarism. Sorry, Self plagiarism though,
• 33:51
  it's all right. That's right.
• 33:53
  And I remember, I think I remember liking Shakedown a
• 33:56
  little more as as well. So I this was one I didn't have
• 34:01
  as many fond memories of. Not in a bad way.
• 34:03
  It's just some books I remember and some I don't.
• 34:06
  So I think he apes the styles maybe a little better in Exodus.
• 34:11
  Maybe that's even before the styles really set.
• 34:13
  I don't know. But yeah, he's got the tone.
• 34:16
  He's got the he feels new adventures.
• 34:17
  Hey Doctor, what's going on? Can't tell you yet, you know,
• 34:23
  because then, like the book would be like 10 pages.
• 34:26
  You tell him what's going on, I would dealt with it.
• 34:29
  Well, it should be fair to him. He does sort of keep her in the
• 34:31
  loop around about a third in. He's like, well, no, I want to
• 34:34
  find out who would stop this sort of alliance, you know, And
• 34:38
  that was the point. I was like, oh, I can't.
• 34:40
  I see what we're doing now. We're trying to see who would
• 34:42
  both these stories would actually be doing this.
• 34:46
  Bless him. He loves this.
• 34:49
  He loves these gangster movies, by the way, especially
• 34:52
  especially Brian De Palma's The Untouchables, 'cause, you know,
• 34:56
  there's that line that Connery has.
• 34:58
  You know, he brings a knife, you bring a gun, he sends one of you
• 35:02
  guys to the hospital, you put one of their guys in the morgue.
• 35:04
  One of the characters in this book says stuff like that.
• 35:08
  There's a few other, like, I love that movie, Sorry.
• 35:10
  So there's a few other little winks and nods to that movie in
• 35:13
  it. Oh, this was made for you then?
• 35:15
  Like all those sections. Yeah, it's pretty good.
• 35:17
  It's pretty cool. I like, I like a lot of old noir
• 35:19
  things as well. So I like the Decker
• 35:22
  perspective. The the I can not overlook, but
• 35:26
  I can understand like he's like kind of language, especially in
• 35:30
  in terms of like sexism and and race and things like that.
• 35:35
  He's a guy from the 20s and 30s and a white man as well.
• 35:38
  So he's going to have attitudes that are not great.
• 35:42
  And then and I think there is 1 N word in it, he doesn't say it,
• 35:48
  but some some gangster says it in response to some kind of shop
• 35:52
  cleaner who cleans up flowers and things.
• 35:55
  And I don't like seeing that in a Doctor Who book, but in the
• 35:58
  context of the 30s America, it's probably gonna be bouncing
• 36:02
  around it, But yeah. I said about the the I wrote a
• 36:06
  note just Terrance is having fun firing off cliches unencumbered
• 36:10
  by subtlety and straight from a comic book because you know, it
• 36:14
  is picture postcards, detective noir.
• 36:18
  But I, I, I love those scenes that the only thing that
• 36:21
  confused me was why we started in the first person and then
• 36:24
  dropped it, and then we went back to the first person once
• 36:27
  more. And I'm like, was it supposed to
• 36:29
  be written only like 3? Instances maybe four, and
• 36:32
  they're very short. The first one's the longest and
• 36:34
  you're like, oh. Yeah I feel like he definitely
• 36:37
  could have pushed that further had more of those first person
• 36:41
  deca scenes and then even in the in those I think he could have
• 36:45
  pushed the kind of pastiche a little bit more.
• 36:49
  You you have the you have the kind of turns of phrase at the
• 36:52
  very start of the book with the I shared this in our group chat
• 36:56
  but the Chicago looked swell like a beautiful woman with an
• 36:59
  ice pick in her stocking top. Which is just those kind of like
• 37:03
  those ridiculous like, yeah, hard boiled detective fiction
• 37:07
  things like it wasn't. Enough for that though.
• 37:09
  Was there it? Wasn't, yeah.
• 37:11
  He really could have gone with like more of that kind of
• 37:13
  Raymond Chandler tone, I think. I can see if it is typewriter
• 37:17
  thinking, oh, barking out on at 1:00.
• 37:20
  I can't be arsed to do this first person anymore.
• 37:22
  Let's just go. I'll do what I normally do.
• 37:25
  But he's still having fun. I think in those sections, you
• 37:28
  know, the shoot outs, He very much romanticizes Al Capone,
• 37:32
  doesn't he? Oh.
• 37:33
  Yeah, but I have to. Who heard Terrance for that love
• 37:37
  affair to? Start if if one of the more
• 37:41
  pretentious New Adventures writers had written this, I can
• 37:44
  imagine it being like, all right, we're on the vampire
• 37:47
  world and they're all written in from the perspective of Benise's
• 37:50
  diary and then you get to Earth and they're all written from the
• 37:53
  perspective of Deca as a Private Eye.
• 37:56
  I feel like that's an Ave. you you might have gone if it was a
• 37:59
  different writer holding on to this.
• 38:01
  Benny doesn't even write a diary entry in this, I don't think.
• 38:04
  But you've only got a look at all consuming fire, which is
• 38:07
  what's right, and that isn't it in the first person to show just
• 38:10
  how effective that approach can be if you do it sort of long
• 38:13
  term. Oh yeah.
• 38:15
  I love that book too, by the way.
• 38:17
  It's Andy Lane. Don't get me started.
• 38:19
  He's one of my favourites as well.
• 38:20
  But yeah, he does love it. Al Capone, it's funny to me,
• 38:25
  like you get up, get some people in fandom.
• 38:27
  Being like Winston Churchill wasn't quite like that.
• 38:29
  He has his bad sides and all that kind of stuff too, and he
• 38:34
  does, and that's fine, I understand that.
• 38:36
  You heard my picture of the Talic's episode.
• 38:38
  There. Yeah, it's it's a valid
• 38:41
  criticism. Oh my God.
• 38:43
  Imagine this being on the telly and Al Capone's been betrayed
• 38:47
  the way he is. I think a lot of fans might be a
• 38:49
  little apopractic about that. But yeah, he's.
• 38:53
  A pretty dodgy things, Ryan, But Terrace is like, oh, making
• 38:56
  jokes for like, oh, Al Capone, you're innocent for once.
• 38:59
  Oh, so I am. You know, I'm like.
• 39:03
  And then he smashes someone's head in where?
• 39:04
  The back. Actually, he's hit me and I'm
• 39:08
  like, I'm like, yeah. And the doctors are standing
• 39:10
  there. He gets to watch.
• 39:11
  Oh my God. Yeah, and I just say that, Oh
• 39:13
  no, go on, Angie I. Was going to say I I think I
• 39:16
  learnt quite a lot of history from this book.
• 39:18
  Yeah, he. He does the potted history of Al
• 39:20
  Capone. Doesn't he?
• 39:21
  Yeah, Yeah. I think, you know when, you know
• 39:24
  on like the extras for horror fan rock where he's always like,
• 39:29
  I got the The British Boys book of Lighthouses and you know that
• 39:33
  that was my research. I feel like he got the British
• 39:35
  Boys Book of Gangsters. I've read it, so I'm bloody well
• 39:39
  putting it in all right. Exactly.
• 39:42
  So yeah. And I was, I was reading like
• 39:44
  the Wikipedia entries for Al Capone and like the Saint
• 39:49
  Valentine's Day Massacre. And I was like, oh, OK, like
• 39:51
  this is this all all happened. It's not really a chunk of
• 39:53
  history that I know very much about South.
• 39:56
  They feel educated. They could have done more with
• 39:58
  that though, right? Like we could have actually done
• 40:00
  some of those things instead of this nonsense with vampires.
• 40:04
  I like the vampires. Well, we're good.
• 40:07
  Don't worry. We'll get there.
• 40:08
  I've got to say, the thing I loved about the the Chicago
• 40:11
  scenes, though, was the dock. Oh, that's the dock.
• 40:15
  Because that's what they call him in it.
• 40:16
  The Doctor's set up in the Jazz bar with Ace as his like, hired
• 40:22
  gun. I know it's sexist, but man, the
• 40:24
  idea of him in that fedora playing cards, you know,
• 40:28
  drinking liquor and Ace in a slinky black dress with a
• 40:32
  machine gun. I just would love to see McCoy
• 40:36
  and Aldridge. I mean, they probably couldn't
• 40:38
  do it, to be fair, but I'd love to see him try and pull that
• 40:41
  off. That would just look amazing.
• 40:43
  I just thought as a romantic idea, putting the doctor in that
• 40:47
  setting and sort of establish when the book starts, which is
• 40:50
  very new adventures. I thought that was wonderful.
• 40:53
  There's that visual of the Doctor several times in the
• 40:58
  book, sitting in his bar with either a drink that he just sips
• 41:03
  or doesn't touch, and there's a smoldering cigarette in the
• 41:05
  ashtray that no one's ever seen put.
• 41:07
  He's seen him put to his mouth but it's always kind of there as
• 41:11
  part of the show I've it's just like a neat little visual and.
• 41:15
  You love the chokes, but he makes the beer in the swimming
• 41:18
  pool and the whiskey in the bathtub, and they're like, no,
• 41:21
  really, no, no, seriously. That's right.
• 41:24
  That's like, where does he get his alcohol from?
• 41:26
  Yeah, he's distilled it all in the TARDIS.
• 41:31
  Did he distill it like, I I I see, I'm a nerd.
• 41:34
  I would have hooked up the TARDIS food machine to the
• 41:37
  swimming pool and being like I'll just press Scotch 20 years.
• 41:43
  I mean, it's a time machine that's bigger inside than that.
• 41:45
  I'm going to go anywhere in time and space.
• 41:47
  Just go with it, all right. Yeah, right it.
• 41:49
  Has a special special whiskey making bathtub somehow.
• 41:55
  The bathtub of Russell on also. I want to go, I want to go
• 41:59
  swimming in the doctor's pool before he changes it back to
• 42:01
  water. Thank you very much.
• 42:03
  I dread to think what you're like when you've had a few what
• 42:06
  you like. No, don't tell us.
• 42:09
  Don't tell us and Andrew? I interrupted a thought.
• 42:12
  Then what was she going to say? Oh, yes.
• 42:15
  I was going to say when I was doing my homework on this book,
• 42:19
  I read a little bit about the conception of it and you know,
• 42:24
  we were you. You were saying how you just
• 42:25
  wanted to get back to the gangsters.
• 42:27
  I think I preferred the Vampire planet bit, but at one point I
• 42:31
  think Tone Sticks. Originally pitched it as one
• 42:34
  novel, but at one point it was going to be two novels, one
• 42:38
  1930s and one vampire Planet one, and then that idea kind of
• 42:42
  morphed into this being part one and goth opera being Part 2.
• 42:46
  But that's maybe why they kind of feel a bit not married
• 42:50
  together. Well, how did you feel they I'm
• 42:53
  going to use that word juxtaposed together.
• 42:57
  Is it jarring? I think I was waiting for it to
• 43:02
  to be pulled together in a really clever way, and I don't
• 43:07
  think that quite happened. I feel like the the reveal of
• 43:13
  the villain with his very termination name of Agonal.
• 43:18
  Agonal who beats on agony like you.
• 43:24
  Remember Barking House on at One?
• 43:26
  All right. He was just a bullshit villain.
• 43:30
  It was just kind of like the worst.
• 43:33
  Yeah, I mean, he was he was kind of like the God of shit
• 43:37
  stirring, wasn't he? He just sort of like.
• 43:38
  I do it because I enjoy it. It was kind of like, I want, I
• 43:43
  want some bad shit happening here, I want some bad shit
• 43:45
  happening here. There's going to be someone
• 43:47
  stirring shit and they're in both places at once and it's
• 43:50
  kind of like, OK. That's tenuous.
• 43:54
  And then there's this. In my in my head, the villain of
• 43:58
  this was the Great Vampire. I kind of remembered that there
• 44:02
  was like this sort of glowy eyed figure in in Chicago and then I
• 44:07
  was like, OK, so clearly like the great vampire has
• 44:10
  resurrected. That's what's happening.
• 44:13
  And the great vampire has resurrected, but just sort of
• 44:16
  sits around in a VAT of goo and then gets exploded at the end.
• 44:19
  Imagine, though, Andrew if he came out in 1930s Chicago.
• 44:24
  Yeah, that's that's what I was expecting that there'd be some
• 44:27
  sort of dimensional portal and yeah, the the blood harvest
• 44:32
  would happen in Chicago, but it was weird.
• 44:35
  It's already. Happening, It's just got to go
• 44:36
  and lap it up. Yeah, yeah, exactly.
• 44:40
  But I I was expecting it to be more vampiry because given that,
• 44:44
  like the two books of the sort of vampire books, the vampires
• 44:48
  are a bit incidental to this one.
• 44:49
  It's just that he set half of it on the vampire planet, but the
• 44:53
  vampires don't really intersect with the Chicago bit at all,
• 44:56
  which was a surprise to me even though I've read it before, but
• 44:59
  as we've established, I have no memory.
• 45:02
  Before we skip over to the Vampire Planet, I'll just say
• 45:05
  one last thing about the Chicago scenes, which I I I cannot
• 45:08
  stress enough. I loved.
• 45:10
  I was hooting with laughter and skipping through those pages,
• 45:13
  and I feel like that's where in this book he was having the most
• 45:16
  fun, like he was enjoying himself a sort of luxury.
• 45:19
  I've he's obviously seen a hundred of those movies and he's
• 45:23
  just like he's just putting in every cliche again.
• 45:25
  I did really love and I have no love for New Ace at all.
• 45:30
  I think she's an appalling character that was very rarely
• 45:34
  tolerable. I love the the sort of almost
• 45:38
  romance with her and Decker where they're just throwing
• 45:41
  insults at each other all the time, but it's not sort of
• 45:44
  developing a respect for each other.
• 45:46
  I thought it was kind of nice. I think Terence can write well
• 45:49
  for women when he wants to, and so I quite like that.
• 45:53
  I thought. I thought it was quite charming.
• 45:55
  Yeah, I mean, Benny is quite well written in this book like
• 45:59
  she she's. Kind of concentrated together.
• 46:03
  No, you're right and what I mean.
• 46:04
  Two out of three? Well, two out of three women
• 46:07
  written well is pretty decent. She figures out the entire plot
• 46:10
  of State of Decay in a chapter. She's very clever.
• 46:15
  All right, well, let's head into E Space then again for the
• 46:18
  second episode on the trot. Actually, that's strange, isn't
• 46:22
  there, with the Warriors game now the sequel to State of
• 46:24
  Decay. I know you loved him, Andrew,
• 46:28
  and we'll come to you in a second.
• 46:29
  But Luke, how did you find all the beheadings and Spears coming
• 46:34
  out of people's chests and people being thrown into flames?
• 46:39
  I I do like the vampire sections quite a bit.
• 46:42
  I like State of Decay, so bit of a sequel Terry's known for.
• 46:46
  Just like, oh, what did I write? I'll write those.
• 46:48
  I'll do sequels to them all and then three calls, I guess.
• 46:53
  How many times does he use the war games anyway?
• 46:55
  Oh no. Three falls, 10 falls.
• 47:00
  We do it a lot. But I remember something you
• 47:04
  said in your eight doctor's episode, Joe, and he's just and
• 47:08
  you're like, what do you mean villages?
• 47:10
  There's only, there's only one village in this.
• 47:13
  And then you read Blood Harvest and it's like villages where OK,
• 47:19
  so I I like these scenes mostly because they're from Benny's
• 47:23
  point of view and I I love Denise so that's really well
• 47:28
  written and and we'll put together.
• 47:30
  Her first reaction towards Romana is really funny.
• 47:32
  She thinks she's a bit of a a a pretentious and stuck up, which
• 47:36
  is funny and I like them kind of getting along and then going on
• 47:41
  this adventure together. It's really, it's really cool.
• 47:44
  My I think, I think my favorite part of the vampire thing, why
• 47:49
  not even mention that they involve those two.
• 47:52
  It's the peasants and the guards fighting and then the vampires
• 47:56
  attack and then Ivo's just like picks up a a soldier that he
• 48:00
  saves like one of his enemies. Like hey, don't worry about us
• 48:02
  right now vampire time let's go. Thought that was really cool.
• 48:08
  The glaring thing I really don't like about the whole E Space
• 48:10
  stuff is Romana herself. All right, that's never run with
• 48:17
  dodgy Romana depictions here. And we.
• 48:19
  So, all right, at the end of Warriors Gate he's got this.
• 48:25
  Got canine schematics for the TARDIS, chilling with Daryl's
• 48:28
  freeing slaves. Strikes off from her own.
• 48:32
  Doesn't need the Doctor. She's going to go off and have
• 48:34
  great adventures. We read the Warriors Gate book
• 48:37
  sets that up too. Maybe not the TARDIS thing, but.
• 48:40
  Still. And then you have the two
• 48:42
  stories after it. I'm like, wow, I love this
• 48:44
  Romana. This Romana.
• 48:47
  Hey, did you build your TARDIS? No.
• 48:49
  Where's canine with the Darrell's?
• 48:53
  The fuck? Did you do anything?
• 48:55
  The bit where she says. Where she says, she says at the
• 49:00
  end. In in the Gallifrey bit.
• 49:03
  I'm a Gallifrey girl at heart, you know, Doctor.
• 49:06
  Like disgusting. No, he clearly did not.
• 49:10
  Read John Lydecker's Warrior's Gate.
• 49:13
  Did he? Yeah, clearly was like, well, I
• 49:19
  wrote State of Decay. Warriors gay.
• 49:23
  So, no, I I just she starts off well, feels like Ramana.
• 49:27
  It's nice. And then I'm like, and then
• 49:29
  they're having conversations. Should we get the Doctor now?
• 49:32
  No, we shouldn't get the doctor now.
• 49:33
  All right. What about now?
• 49:34
  Like Ramana? What are you doing?
• 49:36
  You know, you're the doctor. You don't do this.
• 49:39
  You sort this out. Let's.
• 49:40
  Go the best where they where they go to the the castle of the
• 49:46
  nearest Lord who has a vampire museum in his basement and
• 49:49
  inexplicably has never been attacked by the vampires.
• 49:52
  It's like he's clearly evil. Like Romana, you've learned
• 49:56
  nothing. What are you doing?
• 49:58
  Like, and the fact that that Benny is like looking around
• 50:00
  being like, I'm pretty sure he's a vampire like let's just dangle
• 50:05
  some garlic flowers in his face and Romana's like, Oh no, no,
• 50:08
  he's he's a nice guy. He's he's a Lord.
• 50:10
  Like, just just trust him. It's like, awful.
• 50:14
  So, yes, were you similarly displeased with Romanda's
• 50:16
  depiction in Andrew? Yeah, there are some really nice
• 50:20
  moments and it's really nice to see her with Benny.
• 50:23
  I think it just annoys me when she's kind of a bit incapable
• 50:27
  because it feels like her whole character trajectory in the TV
• 50:30
  series and her departure was about her learning to leave the
• 50:34
  Doctor and be her own person. And the fact that she kind of
• 50:38
  needs to call the Doctor up at the end is just a bit like.
• 50:43
  Trouble is, though, right? It's I I agree with everything
• 50:46
  you guys are saying, and I didn't really.
• 50:47
  I'm wondering if Lala Ward, you know, smoothed out some of the
• 50:52
  arrogance of Romana on the script page.
• 50:56
  Because I I think, I don't think she's written too differently,
• 50:59
  too differently that like the dialogue.
• 51:01
  But actually she she can smile and she can, you know, charm you
• 51:06
  in a scene. I don't object to taking her to
• 51:09
  Galleria because I love that dark haired evil Romana from
• 51:14
  Shadows of Avalon and The Ancestor Cell.
• 51:18
  So I love the fact that we go there and I just adore Lala Ward
• 51:21
  in the Galleria audios. So like, I do sort of like a
• 51:25
  setting up there and doing her own thing.
• 51:29
  But how is portrayed here? It's just appalling.
• 51:32
  She'd never do it in a million years.
• 51:34
  So it feels like a character, so it just feels wrong.
• 51:36
  See what I what I would do. I don't know.
• 51:38
  I don't. I'm not.
• 51:39
  I'm not a writer. I just some dude doing a
• 51:43
  podcast. But you know what I would have
• 51:44
  done what it nice. Maybe they did do it and I just
• 51:46
  don't know. But I would have had Romana
• 51:48
  build a TARDIS and then like something happens.
• 51:52
  Oh, the Daleks have locked all their Tardises.
• 51:54
  We don't know what to do. And Romana's just like, well, I
• 51:56
  don't have a galliframe TARDIS and I I can sort this out
• 51:59
  something like that. I think that would be would have
• 52:01
  been cool. But no one wants like even even
• 52:05
  light light Decker. Mr. Gallagher changed that.
• 52:07
  No, she can just time win with the dowels.
• 52:11
  But wouldn't it have been cool she and Canine had made that?
• 52:13
  I don't know, I'm harping on about this, but there's so many
• 52:16
  possibilities of her having a a TARDIS that wasn't made in the
• 52:19
  standard kind of way. It would have been cool.
• 52:21
  You know what Terence Dix would have done?
• 52:22
  He would have covered it with a light.
• 52:24
  Oh, no, wait, he wrote this. Sorry.
• 52:25
  Yeah, that's what he always said about the 70s scripts.
• 52:28
  All right. Well then let's let's be
• 52:30
  positive for a second. Why did you like these things,
• 52:32
  Andrew? Why did you like this whole sort
• 52:34
  of East based planet? So I think the thing that worked
• 52:38
  really well was having an archaeologist character go back
• 52:43
  to the site of a previous Doctor Who story and do some
• 52:46
  archaeology like. So we have Benny kind of
• 52:49
  visiting the Dark Tower and excavating the bones of the
• 52:52
  great vampire. And it kind of it made me think
• 52:55
  of like, you know, in like the Star Wars Force Awakens where
• 53:00
  you've got like the desert planet with all the crash
• 53:02
  spaceships and stuff. Or like Prometheus, where it's
• 53:05
  kind of like taking this old franchise and kind of like just
• 53:10
  revisit it, like it's fanservice.
• 53:12
  But you know, I'm a fan. That's why I like it.
• 53:16
  And yeah, I mean, I don't think it does much like radically
• 53:18
  different with like vampires or anything than than State of
• 53:22
  Decay. I mean, you know, there's more,
• 53:23
  more violence and more stakes through the heart.
• 53:25
  And like, sex, yeah, it kind of ramps up the Hammer horror.
• 53:30
  But yeah, I kind of liked revisiting this planet and
• 53:34
  seeing how things have developed in the past 20 years or so that
• 53:40
  it's meant to be set. And yeah, I mean, I suppose
• 53:44
  maybe I'm just a bit basic, but I feel like, you know, Doctor
• 53:47
  Who meets vampires feels more Doctor Who than Doctor Who meets
• 53:51
  gangsters to me. So this kind of like pushed more
• 53:55
  of my Doctor Who buttons I think than the than the gangster
• 53:59
  sections. I did feel the sections felt
• 54:01
  more like they did not feel like a new adventure to me at all.
• 54:04
  Just like a like a past Doctor adventure.
• 54:07
  Traditional past Doctor adventure look like you said,
• 54:10
  though with a lot more gore. Because he does.
• 54:12
  He does write the gothic horror atmospherically, I think.
• 54:17
  Yeah, I really love the bit where Kalmar gets killed.
• 54:21
  You bitch. I mean, he's just a.
• 54:26
  Cute old man. He's little weirdo.
• 54:29
  He's such a little weirdo with his weird little dreadlock sort
• 54:33
  of comb over and he's just like this tiny, like weird little old
• 54:38
  man. And then he has such a violent
• 54:40
  death in this. I'm really delighted.
• 54:44
  I think Terror's watched Terror, The Verve Boys, where the same
• 54:46
  actor who played Kalmar gets murdered horribly in the shower.
• 54:50
  We'll have a bit of that in this book.
• 54:52
  He dies well. Yeah, let's stab him so hard
• 54:55
  he's attached to the wall. Oh, it's going.
• 55:01
  Oh, no, that nice old man. I'll tell you what, there was
• 55:06
  that very strange bit about politics, wasn't there?
• 55:10
  Where? The House of Lords and the House
• 55:13
  of Commons. Well, don't worry, we'll just
• 55:15
  have the House of Lords of Commons.
• 55:17
  Well done I. Was like, that's a great idea.
• 55:21
  I feel like giving Terrance the benefit of the doubt.
• 55:24
  I think maybe that one was quite firmly tongue in cheek.
• 55:27
  Oh, I hope so. Yeah, where it was like, oh, you
• 55:30
  think I'm an old school Tory colonialist?
• 55:33
  Well, you know, I'm going to give you that.
• 55:35
  Like, here's the best style of government.
• 55:37
  Ha ha ha. See what?
• 55:39
  Terrance, we need you now in charge of politics right now.
• 55:42
  You know, with your simplistic solutions.
• 55:44
  It was a fun line, yeah. Yeah.
• 55:46
  A lot above taking a piss, especially in this book as well,
• 55:49
  so you might be right. Yeah, I think that was quite
• 55:53
  funny, that bit there's there's lots there's to give him his G
• 55:56
  like there's lots of little funny moments throughout this
• 55:58
  book. We've made like a lot of sort of
• 56:01
  points of things that didn't sit well with us.
• 56:05
  It reads well though, like you know, despite the issues, I
• 56:09
  don't think was this a chore at any point?
• 56:12
  No, not at all. And even though it was full of
• 56:15
  loads of problematic shit, like so is loads of loads of old
• 56:19
  books. Like, I'm reading a lot of
• 56:20
  Agatha Christie at the moment, and that's awful.
• 56:22
  Boy, yeah. They're still, they're still,
• 56:25
  you know, you can still appreciate it for what it is,
• 56:29
  even if you hate some of the politics in it.
• 56:30
  So yeah. I I think this is still the
• 56:33
  author that captured all those kids with Target books, you
• 56:37
  know, back in the day. And it's kind of delightful that
• 56:41
  they're still, you know, dusting him down, getting him out of the
• 56:43
  cupboard whilst we're doing these, you know, innovative edgy
• 56:47
  new adventures. So Terence hasn't written one
• 56:50
  for a while. Come on, let's please.
• 56:51
  Pleased attract fans. You know he'll he'll put a right
• 56:54
  reference in there or so I'm sure you're sorry.
• 56:56
  I'm sorry if you. Watched that episode of Keys and
• 57:01
  Mariners or something? Yeah.
• 57:03
  This is a rollicking adventure. This is fun.
• 57:05
  Sees the old guy in the shed. What the hell is he doing?
• 57:07
  In that story? There's there's some little
• 57:11
  things I'm not sure where I'd put them.
• 57:12
  So I'll do it here. Like, at one point the doc is
• 57:16
  didn't they reveal his name? And it's like Doc McCoy.
• 57:19
  I'm like, OK, that's a little on the nice, right after the
• 57:23
  wheezing and groaning gag the next chapter.
• 57:28
  Do you know what the next chapter's called?
• 57:30
  Go on. Escape to danger.
• 57:34
  Yes, He's like, here I am going like, yeah, I know, wheezing,
• 57:39
  groaning. I've probably written that a
• 57:40
  billion times. Also, here's a chapter called
• 57:43
  Escape to Danger So. Have you know?
• 57:46
  You know, I'm not going to tell you what it is because it's my
• 57:48
  pick and recommend for later, but this is a target book and
• 57:52
  I've just looked down the chapter listings.
• 57:54
  There is a escape to the unknown, so there was their
• 57:58
  relations on fame. Also a scene where Ace Beneath
• 58:04
  and Romana have to jump behind the sofa.
• 58:09
  Yes. And it's called Quick behind the
• 58:12
  sofa. And I'm like, oh, we're doing
• 58:14
  OK, we're doing that too. All right.
• 58:16
  When I was doing The Eight Doctors, it was basically 200
• 58:19
  pages of that of just meta jokes, some that landed and some
• 58:24
  that, you know, disasterly went over a Cliff.
• 58:28
  Yeah, so there's there's all sorts of little bit things like
• 58:32
  that. There's a nice little reference.
• 58:33
  I didn't expect a reference to Sartre's no exit in this but
• 58:39
  there is so that was that was kind of strange that's.
• 58:43
  But yeah, there's all sorts of weird kind of Nuggets and things
• 58:46
  in here, so you know, I. Mean.
• 58:47
  He's clearly well read and he's clearly well watched.
• 58:51
  He's watched a lot of TV and he's watched a lot of movies.
• 58:54
  Yeah. So I'm not, I'm never surprised
• 58:56
  when like, what's the quotation at the end of horror of Fangirl
• 58:59
  when things just turn up in his work?
• 59:01
  But you're like, wow, that's quite profound.
• 59:03
  Well done. Yeah, it's it's kind of a joy to
• 59:07
  read a book where the writer has clearly read more things than
• 59:11
  just stop. Tape books?
• 59:13
  Definitely. Not Garth Marenghi, that's for
• 59:14
  sure. There aren't many new inventions
• 59:16
  where that is the case. So you know, take it while you
• 59:19
  can. Well, OK.
• 59:20
  Before we head to Gallifro then, anything else about the Chicago
• 59:25
  sections or the E space sections that you guys would like to
• 59:30
  cover, Andrew? I've just noticed a bit in my
• 59:35
  notes, another bit that I thought was really funny.
• 59:38
  The bit where where Lord Yarvin is going in and he's he's like,
• 59:44
  haunting the other Lord that he's just about to murder when
• 59:47
  he's talking about the Lord's son who was also a vampire.
• 59:52
  And he's like, oh, you and your me and your son shared many of
• 59:56
  the same interests and it's just like, OK.
• 1:00:03
  Brilliant. Honestly, the big finisher?
• 1:00:05
  Vanita Camp vampire? You're.
• 1:00:07
  There, I'm going to put it on my on my business account, Campire.
• 1:00:13
  But yeah, like, just the kind of, yeah, just the the little
• 1:00:17
  cheeky, stupid jokes about gay vampires in East space.
• 1:00:22
  We love them. There was one bit that I that
• 1:00:25
  totally I was like oh there's the new adventures Doctor after
• 1:00:29
  I was having all this fun with him.
• 1:00:31
  You know, playing this sort of jazz bar owner who's trying to
• 1:00:35
  broke a piece amongst all the the gangs of Chicago.
• 1:00:39
  Once the piece breaks and then somebody breaks the peace and
• 1:00:44
  all the murders start happening, there's a line there.
• 1:00:47
  The murders seem to have given the doctor a boost.
• 1:00:50
  I was like really? Well, I'm so pleased he's happy
• 1:00:56
  that thousands of people have started dying over Chicago.
• 1:00:59
  But that is not exactly like off form for the New Adventures, is
• 1:01:04
  it? Yeah, I found it strange.
• 1:01:07
  Oh, I made another observation that just made me feel really
• 1:01:10
  old. So I was thinking about this
• 1:01:14
  being a sequel to State of Decay, which was 1980.
• 1:01:17
  This came out in 1994, so it would be like if they did a
• 1:01:21
  sequel to The Vampires of Venice now, which feels like it was 5
• 1:01:25
  minutes ago to me. I used that, yeah.
• 1:01:28
  Oh. You're right, Luke.
• 1:01:31
  We're all crumbling to dust now like that, I guess.
• 1:01:35
  Just like they do in State of Decay.
• 1:01:37
  Yeah. Oh, but every time someone does
• 1:01:40
  that, I did rose with someone recently.
• 1:01:42
  Right. Who?
• 1:01:43
  That was his into Doctor Who. And he was a nipper.
• 1:01:46
  And you know, I was like, oh, you still look like a nipper to
• 1:01:48
  me. He goes, no, I'm this age.
• 1:01:50
  I was like, oh, I'm so old. I'm ancient.
• 1:01:53
  We are the ancient ones. Although you both look very
• 1:01:57
  young, I've got to say, oh. Thanks.
• 1:02:00
  The three-year rule. We are the three-year rule.
• 1:02:02
  It's book club, at least. I do feel like my forehead gets
• 1:02:05
  bigger every time I. So.
• 1:02:08
  There is that you need a. Red lock.
• 1:02:10
  Comb over, I've noticed you're in sizes are getting a bit
• 1:02:14
  longer as well. What's going on there?
• 1:02:16
  That's. Right.
• 1:02:18
  Wait, and any other points? Luke About E Space or Chicago?
• 1:02:24
  They every other time they've done stories that involve E
• 1:02:28
  space, it's really hard to get in and out.
• 1:02:30
  It's really hard to get in and out. 7th Doctors like no
• 1:02:35
  problem. I got the canine equation like
• 1:02:38
  that's it. I'm like, well, they didn't
• 1:02:40
  think of that in in that E space part of Davison's run.
• 1:02:46
  I guess. I won't, I won't spoil that.
• 1:02:49
  But yeah, so that's that's become trivial, I guess.
• 1:02:54
  Like, come on, you couldn't have canine in it.
• 1:02:59
  Oh no. Right.
• 1:03:01
  They've actually been flying around, like just in that TV
• 1:03:04
  show shooting vampires. That'd be amazing.
• 1:03:07
  So I thought I was like you. You're bringing all these things
• 1:03:10
  and characters back, and that's even before we get to the last
• 1:03:12
  portion. That's like even more of that.
• 1:03:15
  You're bringing so much stuff back, making so many references.
• 1:03:19
  Like Bernice is even like chilled out at a bar on
• 1:03:22
  Metabolis 3. That place has a bar.
• 1:03:27
  He can't help, isn't it? He can't not help bringing
• 1:03:29
  Metabolis 3, can he? Yeah, it's his Tarrant.
• 1:03:34
  He's got to mention Metabolis 3 and and everything, but yeah,
• 1:03:38
  that's about it. Yeah, that's about it for me.
• 1:03:41
  I'm ready to. Well, that.
• 1:03:42
  That's ladies. Would the pair of you enlighten
• 1:03:46
  me? What the fuck happened in the
• 1:03:48
  last 30 pages? Over to you, Andrew.
• 1:03:52
  Yeah, so it it basically just turns into the Five Doctors fan
• 1:03:56
  fiction at the end of it. And then, I mean, I guess it's
• 1:04:06
  it's kind of a novelty having a bit set on Gallifrey in a New
• 1:04:09
  Adventures novel. They hadn't really done that
• 1:04:11
  before this point. But yeah, you kind of just.
• 1:04:15
  It's like, here's Chancellor Flavia and here's the Tomb of
• 1:04:18
  Rastilon. And then I can't think of an
• 1:04:20
  ending of this. So let's just see the Five
• 1:04:21
  Doctors again. Oh, and here's Barusa, and he's
• 1:04:23
  all right now. It's like, what?
• 1:04:25
  What? What the?
• 1:04:26
  Weird thing is, is right. I haven't done The 8th Doctors
• 1:04:29
  before this. I'm like, hang on a minute, all
• 1:04:32
  of this is like in the 280 pages of it.
• 1:04:35
  It's kind of harsh. You know what?
• 1:04:36
  Those are all great ideas. I'm going to write another book
• 1:04:38
  all about those things. Plagiarist.
• 1:04:42
  Yeah it's it's just a bit odd. I yeah, I just don't don't
• 1:04:48
  really know why I couldn't have thought of set it on Gallifrey
• 1:04:51
  still but done something a little bit different and like
• 1:04:54
  the the villains the the sort of triumvirates they're shit and.
• 1:04:59
  So shit and. He does that again with the
• 1:05:02
  players, doesn't he? Yeah, he never throws an idea
• 1:05:06
  away. I look maybe it's been a hot
• 1:05:11
  minute since I've. I've read it.
• 1:05:14
  It has. But I'm reading this book and
• 1:05:16
  I'm thinking where the fuck is Wrath Ruth Wrath Ruth are.
• 1:05:22
  How do you say that Are you? You'll find out she's in the end
• 1:05:27
  of she's at the end of this book.
• 1:05:29
  Mr. Jones. She's in.
• 1:05:31
  She's in Goth opera. Sorry.
• 1:05:32
  OK. I.
• 1:05:33
  Did wonder how these were going to tie together.
• 1:05:36
  And very loosely it turns. Out.
• 1:05:38
  Yeah, extraordinarily loosely. Like, I can imagine if Paul
• 1:05:42
  Cornell had written this with no offence to Terrence, but any
• 1:05:46
  other New Adventures author, they'd be on records.
• 1:05:49
  Doctor Who they'd be on emailing each other going, all right, I'm
• 1:05:52
  going to do this bit. Oh, that'll tighten what I'm
• 1:05:54
  going to do here. And then Uncle Terry's just
• 1:05:57
  like, fucking doing. I can't see him doing that.
• 1:06:01
  I could see him saying exactly that as well.
• 1:06:05
  Subtle parallels of characterization.
• 1:06:07
  Know Galafway? Barusa, the Rasta warrior robot?
• 1:06:10
  Lovely. That's what they.
• 1:06:12
  Want I'll put a little thing in and at the end and you can type
• 1:06:15
  like that and that's so I reckon in the next book that we do
• 1:06:20
  Paul's going to reference Blood Harvest more than Blood Harvest
• 1:06:24
  for reference Goth opera like. But it's very new adventures
• 1:06:28
  where the doctors are like yeah I've already done it it's all
• 1:06:30
  good. But Wrath Wrath is crap.
• 1:06:37
  The brother of Goth he is. The brother of Goth.
• 1:06:41
  Brother of Goth. I brass brother of Goth, yeah.
• 1:06:46
  Dead Assassins. His other favorite as well, you
• 1:06:48
  know. Yeah.
• 1:06:50
  Yeah, that's right. It's like The Simpsons episode
• 1:06:53
  where they have Saijo Bro Bob's brother.
• 1:06:56
  He's just like a shit though, yeah?
• 1:06:59
  That's right. So.
• 1:07:04
  So I keep expecting. All right, now we're on gallus
• 1:07:06
  way. I know RUATHI don't know why I
• 1:07:12
  have problems with that. Is it?
• 1:07:12
  Rath is Rath. I'm just going to call it Rath
• 1:07:16
  because maybe that's it, Rath and duty daddy.
• 1:07:18
  So yeah, all the time. No.
• 1:07:25
  So I was expecting, all right, here, here she is.
• 1:07:28
  Here she's coming. And then she'll probably escape.
• 1:07:31
  And the doctor will be like, because I remember the end of
• 1:07:33
  this one vividly for some reason of him just going like, no, I've
• 1:07:35
  already sorted that. That's that's one of the things
• 1:07:39
  I remember. So I was like, where is she?
• 1:07:41
  Where is she? Where is she?
• 1:07:43
  She's in like 1 paragraph at the end of the book talking to
• 1:07:46
  Ramada. And that's it.
• 1:07:47
  I'm like, oh, oh, so it's a kind of tenuous.
• 1:07:52
  Less of a prologue, then. More of sort of a hiccup.
• 1:07:55
  Yeah. So.
• 1:07:57
  I'll reference what you're doing, Paul, but you know that's
• 1:07:59
  a bad yeah and. The way that they because Lord
• 1:08:04
  Yavan is also one of the villains of Goth opera.
• 1:08:07
  But the way that he gets him, like the way that he gets him
• 1:08:11
  into that book, is just, oh, let's he's stowed away in a box
• 1:08:14
  and he jumps out of a window and he just, it's so stupid.
• 1:08:18
  It's like just zero effort on on Terence's.
• 1:08:21
  Part I was like thanks Terence, Thanks man.
• 1:08:24
  Yeah, I was, I was expecting like, oh, maybe your Lord, Lord
• 1:08:27
  Yarvin is like a a New York Chicago gangster who's been
• 1:08:31
  telling the vampire and he's gone to the vampire planet and
• 1:08:34
  then he's going to come back and be this villain.
• 1:08:36
  No, it's just some guy. Just some guy in the box.
• 1:08:40
  Oh, we're just waiting. Like, look, because we were to
• 1:08:42
  have these parallel storylines taking place for the bulk of
• 1:08:45
  this book. It's like you said, Andrew.
• 1:08:47
  I was just waiting for the point where the two of them merged
• 1:08:50
  into one. It's like, no, there's just
• 1:08:52
  someone stirring up shit in both of them.
• 1:08:54
  Let's go to Gallifrey. I was like, OK.
• 1:08:57
  And what I didn't really understand what even happened to
• 1:09:02
  Agonal. So they wake Russell on up and
• 1:09:05
  then his magic mind powers just sort of destroy him and that's
• 1:09:09
  the end. It's like, oh, OK, so Russell on
• 1:09:12
  can do that now? Because it's the rules of the
• 1:09:14
  game, I guess I can all thought he was winning, but he who wins
• 1:09:18
  shall lose. Thanks, Terry.
• 1:09:21
  It's not The only note I made about that last section is is
• 1:09:24
  Terrence so obsessed with The Five Doctors and the Time Scoop
• 1:09:27
  because he's lazy or because that's what he felt most popular
• 1:09:31
  with Doctor Who fans? Because the reaction to The Five
• 1:09:33
  Doctors was amazing, right? Like everyone loved it pretty
• 1:09:37
  much at the time. I feel like you.
• 1:09:38
  I think he's always trying to find that moment again of like
• 1:09:40
  when they love me. I feel like Joe, you might be
• 1:09:44
  the person to answer this, but there are some songs.
• 1:09:47
  No, no, I. Wasn't around, all right?
• 1:09:49
  I was born in 80, OK. 82 Here So it's OK No, no, it's not that.
• 1:09:54
  It's there are some songs that I think of like Let's Dance by
• 1:09:57
  Bowie, maybe a couple London Calling by The Clash.
• 1:10:02
  I I haven't met many people who don't like those songs.
• 1:10:05
  And the Five Doctors I feel like is like that for Doctor Who.
• 1:10:09
  I haven't really encountered anyone's like The Five Doctors
• 1:10:12
  now that shit. I think everyone knows that it's
• 1:10:14
  not perfect. It has this problems here and
• 1:10:16
  there, but it's like a really fun celebration is have you
• 1:10:20
  found that, Mister Joe? Has someone said to you The Five
• 1:10:22
  Doctors is just shit? I don't.
• 1:10:26
  Know when you start calling me Mr. Joe, but I love it.
• 1:10:30
  Someone did say to me once it was like Last of the Summer Wine
• 1:10:34
  filmed in Wales. It's just a lot of old people
• 1:10:38
  walking around the Welsh quarry. I think that was in a book.
• 1:10:41
  Actually. I don't think anyone said to me,
• 1:10:43
  no. Generally speaking, no.
• 1:10:45
  Everyone here loves it, right? Yeah, I was like, Andrew, don't
• 1:10:51
  don't prove me wrong now by saying if I've got this, but
• 1:10:54
  everyone kind of likes it, whether you watched it when it
• 1:10:56
  aired or like me on VHS over and over and over again.
• 1:11:03
  You know what I love? I bloody love the rest of
• 1:11:05
  Warrior Rover. That sequence where he takes out
• 1:11:07
  all that assignment is amazing, but I just don't need him when
• 1:11:09
  he didn't. But he pops up in the 8 Doctors,
• 1:11:11
  he pops up in World Game like he he just can't let it go, can he?
• 1:11:16
  Yeah. So yeah, maybe that's it.
• 1:11:17
  Like that fuzzy spot that The Five Doctors has for so many
• 1:11:21
  fans. It's like, you know what?
• 1:11:22
  I'm I'm going to put lots of references in people.
• 1:11:24
  Be like, Oh yeah, you're 5 doctors.
• 1:11:27
  Yeah, I remember they do, they do this in segreas as well,
• 1:11:31
  don't they? They have, they go back to the
• 1:11:33
  Dark Tower and there's stuff about mirrors leading to E Space
• 1:11:37
  or something or other. So yeah, other people have done
• 1:11:41
  it and sort of mind, mind the story.
• 1:11:44
  But yeah, I think maybe it maybe it felt more, I don't know,
• 1:11:48
  maybe it was bad in both times, both times that they did it.
• 1:11:51
  Maybe you just shouldn't go back.
• 1:11:52
  I think maybe because because Five Doctors feels quite special
• 1:11:54
  and like because and the excuse of doing all of that is it's an
• 1:11:57
  anniversary. And I feel like if you're going
• 1:11:59
  to use those tools to bring, it's just a bit lazy to use the
• 1:12:03
  tools from the five doctors to do their same things again.
• 1:12:05
  I guess I mean. I I used.
• 1:12:08
  The, the. Sorry, the Hub.
• 1:12:11
  Oh yeah. As well, they use that, so yeah.
• 1:12:15
  I feel like The Eight Doctors is a lot of wouldn't it be fun
• 1:12:17
  moments, you know. Oh, wouldn't that be fun, you
• 1:12:19
  know, using those things? Although I get why it stated
• 1:12:22
  Decay and The Five Doctors. It wouldn't be quite the same
• 1:12:25
  if, you know, the scenes were on the alien planet was set on, I
• 1:12:28
  don't know, car fell from time lash.
• 1:12:31
  And at the end we go to the Anthony Mathem Universe quarry
• 1:12:35
  from the Three Doctors. You know, I see why he's
• 1:12:37
  choosing the things that he's choosing because they make us
• 1:12:40
  warm inside, You know, they are our sweet spots.
• 1:12:43
  It feels like maybe they could have gone to like the secret
• 1:12:46
  vampire cult chamber on Gallifrey and not the Dark
• 1:12:50
  Tower. Like done something a bit
• 1:12:52
  different and not just had like 3 little losers as the as the
• 1:12:57
  baddies like. That's the third time on this
• 1:13:00
  episode that you've made plot suggestions for this book.
• 1:13:03
  I'm going to Commission you to do a rewrite of Blood Harvest
• 1:13:07
  because your version sounds amazing.
• 1:13:10
  Big Finish I'll, I'll do. Are they doing that alongside
• 1:13:14
  Goth Opera? I don't think they are.
• 1:13:17
  They haven't announced it. I mean, you could do it.
• 1:13:20
  You've got Lisa Bowman, Sophie Aldridge and Sylvester McCoy.
• 1:13:23
  Perfect. Well, let's let's draw our
• 1:13:26
  conversation on Blood Harvest to an end, where I think we've sort
• 1:13:30
  of been more negative than positive.
• 1:13:34
  But I want to reiterate what smooth read this is and how much
• 1:13:39
  fun I had with it, despite all these problems that we've talked
• 1:13:42
  about, despite the plotting problems and the sexism, you
• 1:13:46
  know and the occasionally sort of lines will make you wince.
• 1:13:50
  I I did read this fast, like the Eight Doctors which has a
• 1:13:54
  similar amount of problems and had a bowl with it.
• 1:13:57
  So I suppose if the if the the the goal was to entertain, I was
• 1:14:02
  very entertained. Yeah, I'd agree with that.
• 1:14:06
  It's it's it's an entertaining novel.
• 1:14:07
  It's a it's a good pulpy slice of Doctor Who, but just one that
• 1:14:13
  hasn't aged very well. No, probably say that with a a
• 1:14:18
  lot of NASI. Don't know.
• 1:14:20
  I I haven't reread. I want to reread so many of them
• 1:14:24
  just to see if they hold up. But don't you worry, we've got
• 1:14:26
  the rest of our lives. Hey, that's right.
• 1:14:28
  So I'll say if you're reading all of the new adventures, don't
• 1:14:33
  skip this one. There's a lot of fun in it.
• 1:14:35
  Great characterization of all three regulars.
• 1:14:37
  So I like the 7th Doctrine is Benice is great and old Ace is
• 1:14:44
  good in this. Like I I really like her.
• 1:14:46
  It fits her to be like a gun mole in in 30 Chicago and she
• 1:14:52
  gets to shoot people in the face and and out of all the it's
• 1:14:56
  weird. Like out of all the things we've
• 1:14:58
  said about Terry who hey we grew up reading your books and
• 1:15:03
  they're doing sexy dated weird stuff.
• 1:15:07
  I don't mind that Ace is just like, all right, Deca, let's go
• 1:15:10
  and then just disappear for a little bit and you know what's
• 1:15:14
  going on. But like, I didn't mind.
• 1:15:16
  Oh no, I think so. I don't like everything like but
• 1:15:20
  the three TARDIS regulars, If the three TARDIS regulars are
• 1:15:24
  good, it doesn't matter if it's a book ATV show or an audio.
• 1:15:27
  If all the regulars are good. Doesn't matter if the story's
• 1:15:32
  not 100% perfect because the regulars will just kind of carry
• 1:15:35
  it for you and bring it through. And it's kind of unwritten.
• 1:15:39
  The 30s are really well evoked and I like the vampire kind of
• 1:15:43
  creepy vibe and that that's that's gory fight in the forest.
• 1:15:47
  I don't know. There's some great visuals in it
• 1:15:48
  too. So it's good, good book.
• 1:15:50
  A lot of us should be together, but all the individual elements
• 1:15:54
  kind of work. So yeah, although, can I can I
• 1:15:59
  finish off? I'm going to read out the last
• 1:16:01
  line of my review on Dock IO DS because I think this sort of
• 1:16:04
  sums it up well. It's all about us as sorry.
• 1:16:08
  It is all as thought provoking and as deep as you can imagine,
• 1:16:12
  but any new adventure that ends with Ace off on a date, the
• 1:16:15
  Doctor playing piano and Bernie's singing the Blues gets
• 1:16:18
  my vote. Oh, that's kind of Fair, right?
• 1:16:21
  Yeah, I think so. Yeah.
• 1:16:24
  I'd be interesting to know Interested to know Joe though.
• 1:16:27
  You said that you haven't read Goth Opera before, so having
• 1:16:30
  read Blood Harvest, what are you expecting from from Goth Opera?
• 1:16:36
  Well, I'm expecting a ton of Chicago gangsters somehow to be
• 1:16:41
  involved with the 5th Doctor, Nyssa, and well, I'm expecting
• 1:16:43
  Nyssa to be turned into a vampire because all every cover
• 1:16:46
  I've seen, she's got fangs and sort of there's gonna be a
• 1:16:49
  controversy about that, about the blood on her.
• 1:16:52
  Face Yeah, I think WH Smith refused to stock it when they
• 1:16:59
  saw the proof of the cover, so it had to be very hastily
• 1:17:02
  repainted. But apart from that, Well, I
• 1:17:07
  know a character's going to appear in it because someone
• 1:17:09
  down here has just spoiled it here for me.
• 1:17:12
  She didn't register. Yeah, she didn't register at all
• 1:17:14
  in this book. So I'm hoping she does.
• 1:17:17
  In the other one, I've no idea. I, Paul Cornell is not, for me,
• 1:17:22
  the obvious choice to write a vampire story.
• 1:17:25
  You know, he writes. Very thoughtful, sort of.
• 1:17:28
  Or a missing adventure, to be honest.
• 1:17:29
  Mind fuck books doesn't he like? He's he's he's in your head so I
• 1:17:34
  have no idea. I think it's going to be good
• 1:17:36
  because it's reputation is great and I think kicking off the past
• 1:17:41
  doctor invention we were poor Cornell book it's such a savvy
• 1:17:44
  move So yeah let's find out don't get up tomorrow.
• 1:17:59
  But of course, before we head off and read Goth opera, each of
• 1:18:04
  us not together. Although I don't mind doing that
• 1:18:06
  if you want to. Let's do our recommends for this
• 1:18:10
  week, and this time we started with Andrew last time, I think.
• 1:18:13
  So let's start with Luke. OK, so I've heard Angie and Fits
• 1:18:23
  mentions all over the place. Yes I do.
• 1:18:27
  Fits everyone and everybody knows that I guess.
• 1:18:29
  But. I love Angie, even though no one
• 1:18:31
  else seems to but I. Know I like her too.
• 1:18:34
  How have we not covered her yet then?
• 1:18:36
  She brings her, she brings an element of like, what if a real
• 1:18:40
  person was in the TARDIS? And her reactions always felt
• 1:18:45
  like, it's like, what if a viewer who didn't like Doctor
• 1:18:48
  Who was in the TARDIS? That's Angie for me.
• 1:18:52
  And I like that I it's kind of, it's kind of cool.
• 1:18:54
  She's, I wouldn't say she's got these Tegan vibes, but she's got
• 1:19:00
  that kind of do. You think?
• 1:19:02
  Yeah, yeah, she can rub people that that way, I guess I.
• 1:19:05
  Just I'm on now, Bag at times, Luke, just by Tegan.
• 1:19:09
  Just like, I guess I kind of just get along with those kind
• 1:19:12
  of characters because I I like travelling, but sometimes I'm
• 1:19:16
  grumpy and sometimes I complain all day and I'll be like, look,
• 1:19:19
  did you have fun? Oh my God, it was the best day
• 1:19:21
  of my life. Do you?
• 1:19:23
  You are grumpy and completely. I never see you grumpy.
• 1:19:25
  Oh, mind you, we're always talking about Doctor Who, aren't
• 1:19:27
  we? I.
• 1:19:27
  Get to talk about Doctor Who Fair.
• 1:19:30
  Fair enough. To people who don't go again,
• 1:19:33
  you know so. Until we make you read a book
• 1:19:37
  you really hate. And then, you know, we might see
• 1:19:39
  that side of you. Oh God, it's sky pirates.
• 1:19:43
  All right, so. Coming soon from Huffster Book
• 1:19:45
  Club. That's right.
• 1:19:47
  That actually might be a good idea.
• 1:19:48
  Might actually get me through it, and I might actually find
• 1:19:50
  something like a bit it. I'm going for Timeless.
• 1:19:53
  It's in my garage, so it's hidden somewhere and I haven't
• 1:19:56
  got it out. But I remember really liking
• 1:19:59
  Timeless. I don't know why.
• 1:20:03
  Maybe it's because he's done a couple stories that are just OK,
• 1:20:07
  and maybe that he gets tarred with that OK brush.
• 1:20:09
  But I think Stephen Cole is a pretty decent writer.
• 1:20:13
  His stories always move along pretty well and I remember just
• 1:20:18
  really being engaged with with Timeless, so it it kind of ends
• 1:20:24
  a few few story threads and stuff with the 8th Doctor
• 1:20:27
  novels. So as I was reading The Month
• 1:20:29
  After Month, I'm really digging that and it's also a really kind
• 1:20:35
  of cool exit for Angie I guess. So this is Angie's final final
• 1:20:40
  story as well, so I think she gets a pretty good send off.
• 1:20:44
  I would say most book companions stay for too long looking at
• 1:20:49
  beneath. And yes, Fitz, did he need to be
• 1:20:52
  in like almost every single 8th Doctor novel?
• 1:20:54
  Probably not but it was nice to have a companion in the books
• 1:20:59
  created by the books get a pretty decent start, middle and
• 1:21:04
  kind of endpoint. And I guess I'm a weirdo joke
• 1:21:07
  because I I like Angie too. She was something different as
• 1:21:10
  well and she brings like a a different perspective to things,
• 1:21:14
  I guess, because there are most companions are just white
• 1:21:19
  people. So it was all really cool to get
• 1:21:21
  like a different vibe and experience and just see things
• 1:21:25
  through different eyes with Angie.
• 1:21:26
  So yeah, Timeless by Stephen Cole.
• 1:21:29
  She was so absurdly competent. That's what I loved about her.
• 1:21:33
  She she had no life experience of going on these insane
• 1:21:36
  adventures where they're in danger all the time.
• 1:21:38
  So she was always sort of tripping out and doing all those
• 1:21:41
  things. But when she was called upon to
• 1:21:42
  be smart, gosh, she was amazing. Anacrophobia, where she's
• 1:21:47
  figuring things out, trading futures.
• 1:21:49
  I thought at her best she was like the smartest book
• 1:21:52
  companion, you know? I mean, timeless.
• 1:21:54
  Rather be. I always remember.
• 1:21:55
  I think I talked about another one where that that terrible man
• 1:21:59
  Daniel, he's going around hurting all the women and the
• 1:22:02
  doctor realises what he's up to, goes and has an interview with
• 1:22:06
  him and he he calls, he calls him up, somebody up and goes oh
• 1:22:10
  by the way, and then literally snaps his arm and goes we're
• 1:22:15
  going to need an ambulance and just walks away.
• 1:22:17
  Mana, mana, it's great. Anyway, sorry Andrew, what's
• 1:22:21
  your recommend for this week? Just want to say that I also
• 1:22:24
  love Angie and she's probably my favorite books companion I
• 1:22:27
  think. Nice.
• 1:22:28
  Good choice. And I think a little bit like
• 1:22:31
  Sam Jones. I don't know why I'm going off
• 1:22:32
  at this tangent, but just the Angie Lovin, like you could tell
• 1:22:36
  that some of the writers didn't really like her and didn't
• 1:22:39
  really get her and didn't make the best use of her and made her
• 1:22:42
  do silly things which made people dislike her.
• 1:22:44
  So yeah, I think Angie, when she's well written, is the best,
• 1:22:50
  the best books companion. And you are going to choose our
• 1:22:52
  first Angie book, So have a think about that, all right?
• 1:22:56
  And we'll add it to the list, but choose a goodie.
• 1:22:59
  He's already done mad Dogs and Englishmen, so you can't choose
• 1:23:02
  that. One.
• 1:23:03
  She's so great at that one. We need we need a list of all
• 1:23:06
  the ones which have been. Done.
• 1:23:09
  I shall get it compiled, don't worry.
• 1:23:12
  Anyway, so the book, the book I've chosen, I've gone non
• 1:23:14
  fiction again, but it is linked to Blood Harvest.
• 1:23:19
  I have chosen The Who Adventures by David Howe, which came out
• 1:23:26
  maybe two years ago. Two or three years ago, I've.
• 1:23:29
  Never heard of this so. You've never had Joe who had
• 1:23:32
  loved this. So this is like the Target book
• 1:23:36
  that was also by him, which yeah, told you the whole
• 1:23:40
  publishing history of the Target books.
• 1:23:42
  This is that but for the New Adventures and The Missing
• 1:23:44
  Adventures. So it it started life as a
• 1:23:48
  series in Doctor Who magazines, like probably more than 20 years
• 1:23:52
  ago there was a series about the new adventures and the missing
• 1:23:54
  adventures. So this takes those articles and
• 1:23:57
  expands them so it covers every book.
• 1:24:00
  It's got every cover. And then it's also got so this
• 1:24:04
  is the stuff that I love. People who followed my Twitter
• 1:24:06
  account will know that I love all the insights into the cover
• 1:24:10
  art and draft stuff. And when I when I was covering
• 1:24:15
  the New Adventures, I was like rooting through old Doctor Who
• 1:24:18
  magazines and fanzines to try and find as much visual stuff as
• 1:24:21
  I could. And often there were like a few
• 1:24:24
  sketches of covers and things like that, or alternate covers
• 1:24:28
  and things like that were that were available.
• 1:24:30
  This book has all of it, So I think for pretty much every
• 1:24:34
  cover there's a draft sketch. There's all the illustrations
• 1:24:37
  from the Preludes, and it also tells you the story of the
• 1:24:42
  creation of the new adventures, the writing of them, all of the
• 1:24:45
  authors, all of the missing adventures.
• 1:24:47
  If you're into the Doctor Who books, this is an essential.
• 1:24:50
  Sounds like my Bible. It's, it's.
• 1:24:53
  Brilliant. Yeah, and I wish someone would
• 1:24:55
  do this for the BBC books as well, because I feel like that's
• 1:24:57
  an equally interesting story. That's kind of, yeah.
• 1:25:00
  Overlooked and there's. Two books for.
• 1:25:03
  The BBC. Book David J Howe, we're waiting
• 1:25:05
  for you. All right?
• 1:25:06
  I I I know people who know him, so I'll get him to prod him.
• 1:25:10
  The. BBC One We.
• 1:25:12
  May be the only three people buying it.
• 1:25:13
  But you know, there's more obscure stuff out there on
• 1:25:16
  Doctor Who. How much is that book?
• 1:25:19
  I think it's quite pricey. I think it's about £30 or
• 1:25:22
  something. Oh, that's not too bad, no.
• 1:25:24
  But yeah, it's a absolute essential purchase.
• 1:25:28
  It's sounds like the equivalent of my Bible for Finnish big,
• 1:25:30
  which is Benjamin Cook, The Untold.
• 1:25:32
  The The big story, you know, which has got fabulous trivia in
• 1:25:35
  it and all the bitch fights that happened.
• 1:25:37
  It's. So indiscreet that book I love.
• 1:25:39
  It It's wonderful, isn't it? The fights between Lance Parkin
• 1:25:43
  and Jonathan Blum and Gary Russell are amazing.
• 1:25:48
  Oh, so in fact this book is where I got the little nugget
• 1:25:50
  about it potentially being two books and then it turning into
• 1:25:53
  goth opera. So there's it doesn't, it
• 1:25:56
  doesn't cover each book in massive detail unless it's kind
• 1:25:59
  of a really significant arc. So there's a lot of stuff about
• 1:26:02
  like, so Viola, sin and what happened with the with the
• 1:26:05
  manuscript and all of that, why it wasn't published in order.
• 1:26:09
  But then some of the other books will be like a small paragraph,
• 1:26:11
  but there's like loads of artwork and quotes from the
• 1:26:14
  authors and Peter Darvill Evans and Rebecca Levine.
• 1:26:18
  So yeah, I'm. I'm fangirling about it.
• 1:26:21
  I love it. I'm going to charge it to the
• 1:26:23
  hamster extra account that I've got as research purposes he
• 1:26:27
  created. That's fine.
• 1:26:29
  Well for my recommend I'd like to just read a paragraph from a
• 1:26:32
  book because he is by Terrence Dicks and I just want to show
• 1:26:36
  just how he could capture kids so perfectly.
• 1:26:40
  Back in the day, he was a dead man running.
• 1:26:44
  He ran blindly, desperately, through the swirling green fog,
• 1:26:47
  deep sobbing breaths rasping into his tortured lungs.
• 1:26:51
  He knew there was little hope. Somehow.
• 1:26:54
  He had been separated from the others in the ambush, and now
• 1:26:56
  his enemies were hunting him. Without checking his run, he
• 1:27:00
  glanced back over his shoulder. Shadowy figures were flitting
• 1:27:03
  through the dunes behind him. What book is that?
• 1:27:09
  Death to the Daleks? Oh yeah, baby.
• 1:27:12
  I think I only got that from the dunes.
• 1:27:14
  A perfectly formed 125 page target novel which takes, I Love
• 1:27:22
  Death to the Daleks, but it's a ropey script, pretty much
• 1:27:26
  salvage by some good direction. And he takes that book and makes
• 1:27:30
  it just the most brilliant adventure.
• 1:27:33
  He does a little bit of pruning of logic, you know, he he
• 1:27:36
  actually starts tying things together that Terry, you know,
• 1:27:38
  Terry actually got to episode 3 and went, well, we'll just do
• 1:27:41
  the Crystal Maze now for a little bit at the end.
• 1:27:43
  Whereas Terrence actually gives it a, you know, some reasoning,
• 1:27:46
  but he just captured like, you know, 125 pages.
• 1:27:49
  He does 3 chapters per episode. It just runs by it, full of like
• 1:27:57
  danger and excitement and that economic prose that Terrance can
• 1:28:02
  do like nobody else. I I mean, I look at the cover as
• 1:28:07
  well. I mean one of the most iconic
• 1:28:09
  Doctor Who images ever. I just love this book and how he
• 1:28:13
  managed to take stories that didn't always translate well on
• 1:28:17
  the screen, like holes of Nyman and things like that, and turned
• 1:28:20
  them into really exciting Doctor Who adventures.
• 1:28:24
  We've ripped him a little bit in this episode, you know, we've
• 1:28:26
  we've taken the piss quite a bit, but we can never forget
• 1:28:30
  what he brought to Doctor Who and to Doctor Who fiction as
• 1:28:33
  well. And this is a great example of
• 1:28:35
  why he's just a glorious. It's a pot boiler but it's full
• 1:28:39
  of excitement and I love it to pieces.
• 1:28:41
  So everyone get. I don't know if that's not the
• 1:28:44
  audio of that one. Been done yet.
• 1:28:46
  They must have done it. They they started with a lot of
• 1:28:48
  Terrans, didn't they? Probably read by Jeffrey Beavers
• 1:28:52
  or somebody fabulous like that. Well, I mean, we've alluded to
• 1:28:56
  it quite a few times throughout the episode, but why don't you
• 1:29:00
  tell people again where we're going next?
• 1:29:04
  Oh, where? Where?
• 1:29:06
  Goth Opera, everyone. Just what?
• 1:29:08
  You've forgotten then for a second.
• 1:29:09
  No, sorry, Everybody else who wanted to do it, kind of not.
• 1:29:17
  It's on brand for me because I'm a Davison nut.
• 1:29:20
  Anyway, so this is like, what is this, our second Davidson book?
• 1:29:25
  Yeah, pretty happy about that. So yeah, I don't know, it it
• 1:29:32
  just like, just like, maybe. Did I come up to you with the
• 1:29:35
  idea first? Maybe that's why.
• 1:29:37
  I don't know. Why I think you did, Yeah.
• 1:29:39
  No, you you definitely asked me first.
• 1:29:41
  I'd like because I, I look everyone.
• 1:29:45
  I lost my shit when they announced goth opera was going
• 1:29:47
  to be adapted. So yeah, And I was first thing I
• 1:29:50
  did was charity. They're doing goth opera.
• 1:29:53
  And she's like, hey, what's goth?
• 1:29:56
  Opera. What are you talking about?
• 1:29:57
  And two, I just OK, fine, Doctor Who audience, go away.
• 1:30:02
  The second thing I did was get onto our chat and be like
• 1:30:06
  they're doing goth. Opera.
• 1:30:07
  Oh my God. Thank you for thinking of
• 1:30:11
  Andrew. Have you ever had that moment,
• 1:30:12
  you know, where something's been announced and you've told your
• 1:30:14
  other half and they've been like, yeah, all right, thanks.
• 1:30:16
  Yeah, I didn't. Need to know that I I think when
• 1:30:19
  like when the new trailers drop for the for the box sets I'm
• 1:30:23
  always like Oh my God they brought that Lila.
• 1:30:24
  It's so exciting and he's just like, sure great.
• 1:30:28
  Mine was when Katie Manning was announced to be in Sarah Jane
• 1:30:32
  Adventures. I rang my ex-husband at work in
• 1:30:35
  tears, going, hey, Manning and Elizabeth Slayton together and
• 1:30:39
  he's like, go away. Like you just didn't get it.
• 1:30:44
  There we go. What?
• 1:30:45
  I would like to ask two of you a question though, before we go
• 1:30:47
  in, because you've both read this before and you're about to
• 1:30:50
  read it again. Like, do you remember loving
• 1:30:52
  this? It's one of the view that I've
• 1:30:56
  read twice. So yeah, I think I really love
• 1:31:00
  this one. And I was also very into Buffy
• 1:31:02
  as a teenager. So I feel like this is quite
• 1:31:04
  this is like Doctor Who does Buffy, but like few years before
• 1:31:07
  Buffy was a thing. Oh, interesting, because I
• 1:31:10
  always thought vampire science was Doctor Who.
• 1:31:12
  Does Buffy? Yeah, I guess.
• 1:31:15
  Yeah, yeah, that too. Guess Doctor Who did Buffy
• 1:31:18
  twice. Cornell definitely watched the
• 1:31:20
  Buffy, though. I'm telling you and you, Luke.
• 1:31:24
  Yeah, I remember really liking it.
• 1:31:27
  The first first new one, first missing adventure.
• 1:31:30
  It's got my doctor on it, it's got Tegan Nestle with us, a
• 1:31:33
  vampire on the cover. I remember there's there's a few
• 1:31:37
  things I have very vivid memories of.
• 1:31:42
  If these are spoilers, no, no, no, I'm.
• 1:31:44
  Not even going to mention them. I'm not even going to mention
• 1:31:46
  them. Bad enough that I had mentioned
• 1:31:48
  Rath and now you're just like, how dare you, right?
• 1:31:50
  Mentioned Rath. Who?
• 1:31:52
  Oh, that person that was in one Power off.
• 1:31:55
  Yeah, ru ruas Rath. I'll get the pronunciation
• 1:31:59
  prepared before before we talk about it, but I I got some vivid
• 1:32:03
  memories of it. But I think it's still going to
• 1:32:07
  be largely on the fresh side. I'll be interested to know
• 1:32:12
  actually, because I've recently read Vampire Science whether
• 1:32:14
  Kate Orman, who would have known this stuff as you put any
• 1:32:17
  references to this stuff in that I might check that out as well.
• 1:32:21
  Oh, good breath research. It's all good fun though, isn't
• 1:32:25
  it? Guys, Thank you as ever for your
• 1:32:28
  time for reading the books, for coming on and sharing your
• 1:32:31
  thoughts about this. I'll just say until next time.
• 1:32:36
  Bye.