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Hamster Book Club - Luke Sims-Jenkins Top & Bottom Ten · A Hamster With a Blunt Penknife - a Doctor Who Commentary podcast

• 0:00
  Welcome back to the Hamster Book Club.
• 0:03
  My name is Joe Ford and what a delight is for me to extract one
• 0:11
  of a book club group and have them all to myself this morning.
• 0:15
  For me, this evening for him, it's Mr. Luke Sims Jenkins.
• 0:20
  Hello, Luke. Hello, Joe.
• 0:22
  How's it going? Yeah, it's very strange.
• 0:25
  Normally I'll talk to you in the evening and you're it's about
• 0:28
  4:00 in the morning for you this time around.
• 0:31
  It's kind of like a social hour for both of us, you know?
• 0:35
  Yeah, it's not too bad. It's it's, it's worked out quite
• 0:37
  nice. Thanks to whoever gave you the
• 0:40
  day off. It's it's awesome before.
• 0:43
  We evict. So we're here today to discover
• 0:46
  in this new very popular mass, a strand of the Hamster Book Club,
• 0:51
  the top and bottom ten books that these fabulous book club
• 0:59
  members would rank. And but before we get into that
• 1:04
  loop, may I just say thank you very much before we start for
• 1:09
  your continued association with this book club.
• 1:12
  You not only give up your time to read these bloody books, but
• 1:17
  also to do the recording as well.
• 1:18
  You're doing about, you know, five times as much time as
• 1:21
  people usually do on Hamster. So thank you very much.
• 1:24
  And do you know what? We've managed to pull together
• 1:27
  345 people now from all the different parts of the bloody
• 1:32
  Wells. It's rather wonderful thing,
• 1:34
  isn't it? It's great.
• 1:38
  Thanks for taking the chance on me.
• 1:40
  You hadn't heard my voice before.
• 1:41
  You didn't know me. I I responded to something you
• 1:44
  said about the Evas, I think, and you must have had you must
• 1:48
  have been collecting groups to put together already because
• 1:51
  you've been like, do you want to do a book podcast?
• 1:54
  I was like, yes, yes, I do, and I've been reading your sorry,
• 2:00
  I'm going to bless make up your ass.
• 2:01
  You're not going to like but I've been reading your reviews
• 2:03
  since like 2001 ish. Have you?
• 2:05
  Oh bless. Your heart.
• 2:07
  I thought you had a. Slightly psychotic gleam in your
• 2:09
  eye that's too hot. So, yeah, so you know, and I got
• 2:15
  to think Michael Mills, because as soon as I finished his yours
• 2:19
  and his top 10s, I jumped onto our group chat and I was like,
• 2:22
  can Andrew and I do these, please?
• 2:25
  Well, the fun thing about me is, is I got absolutely no bloody
• 2:28
  clue what's coming next. I thought Michael Mills, his
• 2:31
  list was quite controversial. And then I heard Andrew's list
• 2:35
  and you know Michael Mills was left in the dust.
• 2:38
  When Long Barrow and you know the rescue and things like that
• 2:41
  were being pulled out of the grass.
• 2:44
  Well, I'm absolutely terrified as to what you're going to
• 2:47
  suggest today. Let's.
• 2:50
  Start with something. Let's start positively something
• 2:55
  from your top ten list, and I'm assuming these are in sort of no
• 2:58
  particular order. Well, I put one at the top and
• 3:04
  then the rest kind of mixed. It's not going to be the top
• 3:07
  then or do. You.
• 3:09
  Look, usually we save #1 for last, everyone.
• 3:11
  But I feel like Joe knows who the writer is.
• 3:14
  Andrew knows who it is. If you've been listening to a
• 3:16
  book club, you know who wrote the bloody book?
• 3:19
  You possibly. Know who you're talking?
• 3:21
  About. Right now, please explain some
• 3:22
  listeners. OK, so my favorite Doctor Who
• 3:26
  author is Steve Lyons. Hey, I get to talk about him and
• 3:31
  not have to stop because he's talking about a different book
• 3:34
  by a different writer. I had a lot of options to choose
• 3:40
  from, but I chose the one I reread recently and I don't
• 3:44
  think we're all we're going to do.
• 3:46
  So I'll be rereading it again, and it's Killing Ground by Yeah
• 3:51
  by Steve Lyons. Of all the ones you could have
• 3:53
  chosen, that is not the one I would have predicted.
• 3:56
  I'll need a good solid reason why.
• 4:00
  OK, all right. So it's even more impressive to
• 4:04
  me because I enjoy the baked column Baker era, but it is one
• 4:08
  of my least rewatched, if that makes sense.
• 4:11
  I like it, but it's not necessarily comfort hoops.
• 4:14
  I don't I haven't seen it as many times and that kind of
• 4:16
  stuff. So in order for a book, it's not
• 4:19
  even necessarily about my favorite era, to just grab me
• 4:23
  and not let me go until it was finished is just amazing to me.
• 4:28
  And it's my favorite Cybermen story as well.
• 4:32
  It's quite graphic now, I've not read it for decades, but I seem
• 4:37
  to recall. And doesn't something very
• 4:39
  brutal happen to the Doctor's companion in this?
• 4:44
  No, you're thinking of time, of your life.
• 4:47
  Oh, was that the sequel to this? No, it's the one before.
• 4:49
  This is the sequel. OK, just just to let you know,
• 4:54
  you don't need to read Time of your life when we do Killing
• 4:57
  Ground, but. Both by seed lines, right?
• 5:00
  Correct. Then they they do follow on from
• 5:03
  each other, but you can just pick this one up and read it.
• 5:06
  It's fine. It's got the revenge style side
• 5:08
  of men in it as well. It it incorporates the
• 5:14
  archivists from David Banks's Cybermen book.
• 5:19
  So you've got Yeah, so there is that.
• 5:23
  And the premise of the book is Grant Markham, the companion
• 5:29
  who's this? The the brief for him apparently
• 5:31
  was like, I wanted to make a companion, but a bit shit is
• 5:36
  kind of Grant Markham. So sort of like the Adam from
• 5:39
  Dalek approach. That's right.
• 5:41
  So the doctors, like, what are you scared to go back home for?
• 5:44
  Now We got to check this out because the way you're talking
• 5:48
  about it and your robophobia, we got to check this out.
• 5:51
  So Agora is cut off from the rest of Earth and it's become a
• 5:57
  colony where the Cybermen come every five to 10 years or
• 6:01
  something like that, and they take 500 people, convert them
• 6:06
  and leave. And then they'll then it's like
• 6:08
  a breeding farm for them, for them to just keep breeding more
• 6:11
  humans for those they can come in and convert them.
• 6:14
  It goes into they. Choose those 500 people.
• 6:18
  Well, there there's an evil overseer of this planet, Agora,
• 6:22
  and he's power mad and he's like power mad in like that column
• 6:26
  Baker villain kind of way. He's he's he's an asshole.
• 6:30
  He's violent. He's he's you want to see him
• 6:33
  get his comeuppance. It's hard.
• 6:36
  It's not a spoiler to say that he does.
• 6:39
  And it's just you go it's, it goes into the like cyber
• 6:44
  conversion, what it might mean to be a Cyberman and Hegelia
• 6:50
  Hegelia like as she's being converted, she's an archivist.
• 6:54
  She's trying to record what what it feels like.
• 6:58
  And then the Cyberman, when she's converted, she knows what
• 7:01
  it feels like and then she's like, but this is totally
• 7:05
  irrelevant and she just crushes the tape that, you know, might
• 7:08
  have given lots of insight into the Cybermen.
• 7:10
  The doctor's really good as well.
• 7:12
  In fact, the Cybermen had already planned for him.
• 7:14
  You know how the Cybermen, if you're watching the invasion or
• 7:17
  something like the Cybermen aren't the main character.
• 7:19
  It's worn. There's heaps of Cybermen
• 7:21
  stories like that in this one, even though you've got this
• 7:24
  terrible overseer, the Cybermen still feel like they are the the
• 7:28
  big bad. They're they're the they're
• 7:30
  spooky. This is terrifying.
• 7:32
  This is the sideman you don't really want to see on TV because
• 7:36
  it's a family show. And this this book makes them
• 7:38
  absolutely horrifying. And it's it's really good.
• 7:41
  It's got it's pretty, I think by the end there's this really good
• 7:44
  sense of hope as well. And the last chapter with it's
• 7:49
  called endurance. I don't know why I remember that
• 7:51
  so well. I remember that from 20 years
• 7:54
  ago when I was reading this, I was like, oh, I remember this.
• 7:57
  The 6th Doctor feels like giving up.
• 7:59
  He's like, no, I, I've got to hold on of the people.
• 8:02
  I mean, I've got to defeat the Simon, all that kind of stuff.
• 8:04
  And I just thought it was, it was awesome.
• 8:08
  It was, it was just a really cool Simon's story that, yeah, I
• 8:12
  revisited it to see. Does it hold up?
• 8:14
  I think I liked it even more. There's a little spoiler into
• 8:19
  that episode later. But you had the choice of, you
• 8:22
  know, Crooked World, the the final sanction, the murder game.
• 8:28
  Like, great. This is the one that you put
• 8:31
  right at the very top. Yeah.
• 8:33
  Yeah. Yeah, wow, I can't wait to read
• 8:36
  that. For the book club then.
• 8:38
  All right, well then let's secretly Luke my favorite list,
• 8:43
  bottom 10 list. So I just want to see what
• 8:45
  people are willing to drag through the dirt.
• 8:48
  So come on, pull one out of your bottom 10.
• 8:52
  All right, I, I heard Andrew's bottom 10 and one of them, I was
• 8:57
  like, he's on mine too. What the author or the book?
• 9:03
  The author Oh. I mean there I think.
• 9:05
  There is a pretty reliable staple of authors that.
• 9:08
  People I know, but. Don't click with.
• 9:10
  I didn't expect him to be on a worst list.
• 9:13
  I thought I was going to be the guy, but it turns out Andrew
• 9:16
  beat me to it. This is a book called Saint
• 9:18
  Anthony's Fire. It's by Mark Gatiss.
• 9:24
  I just, I think the only Mark Gator story I think I've ever
• 9:28
  truly loved is Nightshade. I'm not a huge fan of his TV
• 9:33
  stuff is that? The one with the book cover with
• 9:36
  the big lizard on the front. And it's got the Doctor.
• 9:38
  On the pole. On a spin.
• 9:39
  The lizard's got the doctor's. Hat on his finger.
• 9:42
  That's right. Yeah, It's a good cover.
• 9:44
  I like it. Cover, yeah.
• 9:46
  So I don't have as much detail as I do with like my favorite
• 9:49
  book of all time. So I do apologise for that, but
• 9:53
  if you're going to have I'm I'm an atheist and I don't mind
• 9:56
  religious themes and elements. It's fine.
• 9:59
  Respect other people's beliefs and stuff, but do it good.
• 10:03
  I like it to be done in a in a way that I'm like, all right,
• 10:06
  it's not my thing, but I see where you're going with this.
• 10:08
  Like the witch hunters or something like that, you know,
• 10:11
  like incorporated like that. Instead I just.
• 10:13
  Found it as well, didn't it when we talked about that.
• 10:16
  That yeah, absolutely. Yeah.
• 10:20
  So I I don't mind reading things like that.
• 10:24
  It's just not my favorite wheel wheelhouse.
• 10:27
  And there's a mystery of like some lady who keeps being
• 10:30
  tortured and I'm like, dude, it's ace, man.
• 10:33
  It's ace. It's ace and it's ace.
• 10:38
  Yeah, they love. Torturing Ace in the new
• 10:41
  adventures though. Come on.
• 10:42
  No wonder she's a mean to everyone, they torture her all
• 10:45
  the time. Super space bitch ace, isn't it?
• 10:48
  Who's gone to Space Bitch Academy?
• 10:50
  That's right. And you think she's like on a
• 10:52
  planet for a holiday or something like that.
• 10:53
  Instead she's kidnapped and tortured the entire time.
• 10:57
  And I knew ice wasn't the most popular, but still.
• 11:00
  I have certain blank spots with the new adventures.
• 11:02
  Like I do remember most of them. There's a handful of about maybe
• 11:06
  10 of the rum. Well, I just can't remember a
• 11:09
  thing about them and that's not a good sign.
• 11:11
  And Saint Anthony's Fire is definitely one of those.
• 11:15
  Especially when like I, even without the audio adaptation, I
• 11:18
  can still remember things from Nightshade.
• 11:20
  And it's been a while since I've read it.
• 11:23
  It's like it's, it's got some meta textual stuff because of
• 11:28
  that's not on my list. I'm not praising that book.
• 11:29
  I'm here to, you know what I'm saying?
• 11:31
  Anthony's bloody Fire. And it's it's not good.
• 11:36
  It's a book that you read Nightshade and you think, oh
• 11:41
  man, that's amazing. And he's got another book out
• 11:43
  finally. And you read it and it's it's
• 11:47
  the last book he wrote for Virgin.
• 11:49
  I think when he comes back for the BBC, so he did.
• 11:52
  I know the Roundheads was on Andrew's list, but I really
• 11:55
  rather found that quite fun. And I really like Laughs at the
• 11:59
  Gathering as well. I thought that was quite a fun
• 12:02
  book. So I think maybe his wheelhouse
• 12:05
  was far more sort of nostalgia. You know, it's what he did on
• 12:09
  the TV series, right? He loved bringing in the Ice
• 12:11
  Warriors and the Daleks and all of this rather than rather than
• 12:16
  going off some alien planet and, well, you know, the TV version
• 12:20
  of this is sleeping them all. Right, well, props to him for
• 12:24
  trying something out of his wheelhouse, I guess.
• 12:28
  All right, wheelhouse covered in shit.
• 12:32
  Has just ended up on the power. Absolutely.
• 12:36
  Oh, that rides. Then come on, sing the praises
• 12:40
  of somebody again. OK, so this was the reason I've
• 12:46
  got this book on here. It's it's a Gary Russell book.
• 12:49
  It is called the Scales of Injustice.
• 12:52
  Silence. Yes, you may have noticed on
• 12:57
  some of my Twitter comments that been a bit harsh on Jon Pertwee
• 13:01
  lately. I'm not a huge fan of his middle
• 13:04
  era, but season 7 remains. I did notice that on your
• 13:08
  comments on the Season 10 Strictly come hamster, yes.
• 13:13
  And I love season seven, though. I think like that's one of my
• 13:17
  favorite seasons of doctor whoever.
• 13:20
  But the reason I got this on here is it does something I
• 13:25
  always wanted. And I think I think Big Finish
• 13:28
  did it in a different way. And they did a good too.
• 13:29
  But I I had terror of the autumns as a kid, so I knew
• 13:34
  that's that's the first Joe story.
• 13:36
  I knew it wasn't until I met someone at a small little Doctor
• 13:42
  Who con where I met Frasier Hines.
• 13:44
  He was like five or six years older than me.
• 13:46
  I was 1516. And we were the two youngest
• 13:49
  people there. And we were.
• 13:51
  And they all want to talk about TV.
• 13:53
  And we're over here in the corner going.
• 13:54
  Frasier Hines is cool in here. Yeah, Let's talk about the all
• 13:56
  these books. And he became my VHS dealer, so.
• 14:02
  We've all got one. You know, yeah.
• 14:04
  Well, not anymore, but. No, we don't really need them
• 14:08
  anymore, do we? So it was through him I got to
• 14:11
  see Pertwee in context and I was so excited to watch Inferno for
• 14:14
  the first time. It still remains one of my
• 14:16
  favourites. It's a cliche choice, but for a
• 14:18
  reason. I.
• 14:19
  Love it. Did he get?
• 14:20
  Yeah, he did. Oh, yeah.
• 14:22
  So I watched, I'd already seen Spearhead, but I watched
• 14:25
  Spearhead Silurians, Ambassadors, Inferno, and I was
• 14:28
  looking forward to it. I was like, I, I know what's
• 14:30
  your last story? I know what's your last story?
• 14:32
  And it just ends. So I was like, what?
• 14:35
  That was Carolyn. That's that's, that's Liz
• 14:38
  Shaw's. She just lasts with the
• 14:41
  Brigadier at the end. Like, that's it, that's all.
• 14:45
  You get. So.
• 14:49
  Does this write her out then like?
• 14:51
  Properly. Yeah.
• 14:52
  Yeah, it does. Yeah.
• 14:54
  You can always count on Gary to plug that continuity that's
• 14:57
  missing, can't you? The book is done in 7 chapters,
• 15:00
  7 episodes. It's a sort of sequel to Scales
• 15:04
  of Injustice, the Silurians, but it's also got a bit of the
• 15:08
  Ambassadors of Death Conspiracy mixed in as well.
• 15:11
  It's got Mike Yates and it explains why he got promoted
• 15:15
  over Benton, which I think it was because Benton saw himself
• 15:20
  more as the that role rather than an officer type.
• 15:25
  And that's why I went to TT Eights and stuff like that.
• 15:28
  So it filled in holes I wanted and it bridged the gap, but I
• 15:31
  wanted bridged. How did she just.
• 15:34
  Leave Luke. I don't actually know.
• 15:36
  Did she just get so fed up at the end of him being an arrogant
• 15:39
  prick that she? Was like I'm back.
• 15:41
  I'll go back to Cambridge. I've had enough for you.
• 15:44
  And this is where I say I can't quite remember how she leaves,
• 15:47
  because replaced, in my mind is James Goss.
• 15:52
  Goss's excellent, like the Last Post, and as much as I like The
• 15:56
  Scales of Injustice. It's reprinted anyone?
• 15:58
  Everyone from the 50th. It's got a saloon on the cover.
• 16:01
  You can get it easily. The do you remember that DWM
• 16:05
  comic strip as well, that Adly Shaw in it and the Silurians?
• 16:08
  Do you remember which Liz Shaw went in someone a building and
• 16:10
  it blew up? Do you remember that?
• 16:13
  I don't. These are popular elements to
• 16:16
  put together, you know, but I think it's just sort of trading
• 16:18
  on the success of can I ask you a question about Gary Russell or
• 16:23
  not as a person, as a writer. And that is, well, like, how do
• 16:26
  you find his prose? Because I used to struggle quite
• 16:28
  a bit with his prose. Now I like that sort of
• 16:30
  unpretentious nature of it. I like it too.
• 16:34
  And I, I haven't read I've so I've you've interviewed him and
• 16:42
  he's done a hamster, so I kind of get a feel for what he's
• 16:45
  like. I don't want to read a book now
• 16:47
  knowing knowing a bit about him now, because he does have that
• 16:51
  very unpretentious streak and well.
• 16:54
  Our list is very long. But I'm sure we can add.
• 16:56
  Another one. But but yeah, I always find his
• 17:02
  style quite easy to read. If it's a if it's one of his
• 17:05
  good ones, it's going to be really good.
• 17:07
  If it's not one of his really good ones, it's not quite going
• 17:10
  to hit. Invasion of the cat people now
• 17:12
  are. You.
• 17:12
  Yeah. I'm not a huge invasion of the
• 17:14
  cat people. Fan.
• 17:14
  Is that on your bottom 10 list? It isn't I, I We're going to
• 17:18
  talk about 20 writers today. Oh, you've chosen completely
• 17:22
  different writers each time. Yeah, otherwise it would be
• 17:25
  killing ground the crooked world.
• 17:28
  That means you've chosen 10 writers to Lord and 10 writers
• 17:32
  to denigrate. Yeah.
• 17:35
  Well, let's denigrate then. I've spread, I've spread the
• 17:38
  love and I've spread the hate. The next one I'm going to go
• 17:42
  with is called Deep Blue Oh. OK.
• 17:48
  So it's no secret, but I really love the Davison era.
• 17:53
  It's the first era I saw from start to finish.
• 17:55
  Didn't even need a dealer. ABC repeated all of it at 5:30
• 17:58
  in the morning in the early 90s. Now the missing adventures.
• 18:03
  They got a good handle on the 5th Doctor.
• 18:05
  There's not a stinker in the range of the 5th Doctor now.
• 18:08
  I've read 10 of the 13. No, I've read seven of the 10
• 18:14
  Fifth Doctor PDAs. The only one I really liked was
• 18:18
  Trevor Baxendale's Fear of the Dark.
• 18:21
  The only one you liked out of all of them.
• 18:24
  Yeah, out of the PDAs I've read with the 5th Doctor, the only
• 18:27
  one I've kind of really, really enjoyed this fear of the dark.
• 18:30
  So what? You didn't get on with Empire of
• 18:32
  Death? You.
• 18:33
  Didn't I haven't read Empire of Death, That's one of the ones I
• 18:35
  haven't read. So three I haven't read with the
• 18:37
  rest I have. ZA Major.
• 18:41
  See, now you've done it. I like loves theater major
• 18:47
  let's. Let's zero in on deep blue.
• 18:49
  Deep Blue So we got a writer here who he seems to be the
• 18:53
  horror guy. He likes his Doctor Who.
• 18:55
  Yep, me too. And he likes horror.
• 18:57
  Same. He just seems to unable to match
• 19:00
  the two together in a way that doesn't seem so bloody generic.
• 19:07
  And I, I thought this book was kind of as generic as like the
• 19:11
  body snatches. The body snatches feels like,
• 19:14
  well, you've seen Tara, the Zygons.
• 19:16
  I've also seen talents when shihag have you?
• 19:20
  I heard that's good too, but we're not allowed to talk about
• 19:22
  that. So I just, I just didn't connect
• 19:27
  with this this book, it's got the 5th Doctor and something
• 19:30
  happens and he's back in time with the UNIT people.
• 19:33
  So that's the second time they did that with the PDAs, with the
• 19:36
  5th Doctor. They do what again with the
• 19:37
  Keith Topping book that I also don't like, but that's not in
• 19:41
  this. And I just, he just doesn't
• 19:45
  marry the two genres in a way. Like if he had an original kind
• 19:48
  of horror idea, I'd be like, yeah, yeah, that's it.
• 19:51
  Yes. But they just said they always
• 19:53
  just felt very generic and kind of forgettable.
• 19:56
  So I've and then the 60th anniversary happens and which
• 20:01
  one's my favorite story? Wild Blue Yonder and I I didn't
• 20:05
  get the novelization so. Yeah, Morris's, he's a a
• 20:10
  genuinely accomplished horror writer in his own right, like
• 20:14
  away from Doctor Who. He's had probably as many books
• 20:17
  published as, say, like Paul Mars, and I think he can write
• 20:21
  really well. I think Forever Autumn in the
• 20:23
  NSA range absolutely zeros in on that sort of Goosebumps
• 20:28
  popularity just beautifully so he can do it, but he's such a
• 20:32
  frustratingly inconsistent Doctor Who writer and his Big
• 20:36
  finishes as well. I think he can write a good Big
• 20:38
  Finish script and then he'll write something like Plague of
• 20:41
  the Daleks and you're. Like I was thinking Plague of
• 20:43
  the Daleks, especially since the first few are amazing.
• 20:48
  So yeah, it's I don't, I don't like it's my least favorite of
• 20:55
  the ones that I don't like. So that's why it's on my list
• 21:00
  and rather than the other 5th Doctor novels and.
• 21:03
  I'm just going to open the door here and let in the the next
• 21:06
  author that you're going to praise for the high heavens.
• 21:09
  Who is it? It is Mr. Andy Lane.
• 21:13
  Oh, wonderful. OK, now this is a much more
• 21:17
  consistent writer. Yeah, and he's done some wildly
• 21:21
  different styles as well. This is original sin.
• 21:24
  This is one of the rare new adventures I bought around the
• 21:27
  time it came out. I got into some of them later or
• 21:30
  just bought them as I could find them later on.
• 21:33
  And it was one of the few virgin novels at the time.
• 21:37
  This is before I met my my wonderful dealer where I because
• 21:42
  a lot of the new adventures and missing adventures like I didn't
• 21:44
  get a lot of the time of your life without having seen trial
• 21:46
  of a Time Lord. You try that, you're not going
• 21:48
  to understand anything. I didn't.
• 21:51
  Try and read the crystal Eusephalus without.
• 21:55
  No, we're not Crystal. What's the sequel to the Thai
• 21:58
  monster called? Is that?
• 22:00
  The Quantum Archive. Try read it now without.
• 22:02
  Watching the Thai monster, you're doomed.
• 22:05
  Absolutely. But what I did have on VHS was a
• 22:09
  very, very, very, very, very worn copy of The Invasion with
• 22:14
  the linking narrations with Nicholas Courtney.
• 22:16
  That way you can put it in spoilers, because that's right
• 22:19
  now. So this is the first it's been
• 22:22
  adapted as well by Big Finish, but so original Sin is the first
• 22:25
  experience I had with a Doctor Who book where I was like, I
• 22:29
  like Captain America. I get that reference.
• 22:31
  I get these reference. Then the the the Tobias Vaughn
• 22:35
  is the villain. I was like.
• 22:37
  Oh. Yeah, I love the invasion.
• 22:39
  It's so cool. And then you've got the the
• 22:42
  future Earth Empire. It's just so much.
• 22:44
  Well, well. Building, isn't it?
• 22:45
  Yeah, really detailed. And, and Seven's not a master
• 22:51
  manipulator for once. He's reacting to events because
• 22:54
  this is some kind of big trap sprung on him by Tobias Vaughan
• 22:59
  to to kind of like capture him and take him out and stuff.
• 23:03
  And I really liked that for a change.
• 23:05
  I mean, we just the previous book was human nature and you
• 23:09
  just how do you follow that they?
• 23:10
  Want a hell of a they're? Far in the future, exactly and.
• 23:14
  I did this for a book club, right?
• 23:15
  Like and I just I'll never forget this line where they're
• 23:18
  on these conveyor belts like it's a very futuristic city.
• 23:22
  And the doctor Benny on his conveyor bars, he says to her,
• 23:25
  We seem to be drifting apart, Benny.
• 23:27
  And then she. Goes.
• 23:29
  Oh, Doctor, please don't say that.
• 23:30
  And then she turns around and they're absolutely going in
• 23:33
  different directions on the. Conveyor.
• 23:35
  He's really fun in this book, and you needed it right after
• 23:39
  Human Nature. You needed that.
• 23:41
  And sanctuary, yeah. Yeah, yeah, they needed, they
• 23:44
  needed some. Well, and of course he
• 23:45
  introduces Chris and Ross. Chris Quedge, as I pronounced it
• 23:50
  for a very long time until Big Finish was nice enough to
• 23:54
  pronounce the name out loud. Chris Quedge.
• 23:56
  Oh, OK. Thank you.
• 23:57
  So Chris and Ros and they're great futuristic cops, even
• 24:02
  further from the future than than Bernice.
• 24:05
  You've there's like, there's seeds planted about Ros already,
• 24:09
  that she's from Rich, a Rich family and all that kind of
• 24:12
  stuff. You've got the lovable Chris
• 24:14
  Quedge. You just want to give him a hug.
• 24:16
  At least I do because he gets put through the ring later on
• 24:19
  before I want to. Give him more than a hug, but
• 24:21
  it's. All right.
• 24:23
  I'm there with beneath. So that's like we're covered.
• 24:26
  That's all right. I mean, in the very gun New
• 24:29
  Adventures range, I can't think of anything more gun than having
• 24:32
  two members of bloody military as the companions, but actually
• 24:35
  they're much more than that. Aren't they?
• 24:36
  They are. Absolutely.
• 24:38
  Very likable characters, very detailed characters.
• 24:41
  Yeah, and it was supposed to be like 1 old cranky guy or
• 24:46
  something, apparently the original concept and it wasn't
• 24:48
  working. So then he really kind of worked
• 24:50
  it to be Chris and Warrick Roz and kind of had to tell other
• 24:53
  writers that, hey, it's not that anymore.
• 24:55
  It's Chris Ross and Chris. So it's a it's a really cool
• 24:59
  start. Yeah.
• 25:00
  I for two new companions. I like their journeys as well
• 25:03
  going forward. So yeah, Original Sin was my OK.
• 25:08
  And so far, it's all books that haven't been mentioned on any
• 25:10
  other lists, which I really love.
• 25:13
  OK, well, now I'm going to close the door on somebody.
• 25:17
  They're no longer welcome to the party.
• 25:19
  Who's next? All right, so I feel like
• 25:24
  everybody chooses the wrong John Peel book.
• 25:29
  And the reason I feel like the Daleks and the reason why I feel
• 25:32
  like everyone chooses the wrong John Peel book is because
• 25:35
  everyone read that. And then when Legacy of the
• 25:37
  Daleks came out, they're like pass.
• 25:40
  And it's a good thing they did, because that book is even worse.
• 25:43
  It's. Terrible.
• 25:44
  It's an Eighth Doctor adventure. I think Sam's missing at this
• 25:49
  point or something. So there's no Sam.
• 25:51
  It's the. 8th Doctor and Donna isn't it.
• 25:53
  But it's not our Donna in the new series.
• 25:56
  It's just some Brando called Donna.
• 25:59
  It's a sequel of sorts to Dalek Invasion of Earth, so.
• 26:07
  And for some reason the Roger Delgado Master is also in this
• 26:11
  for no particular reason. I don't mind a bit of fan link.
• 26:14
  I I put Gary Russell in my top ten.
• 26:17
  I put Andy Lane with a fan wanky concert in my top ten.
• 26:23
  I don't like John Peel's fan the idea of fan wank.
• 26:26
  It just feels. Maybe it's because I didn't like
• 26:29
  this book either, and it ends with Susan stealing the Master's
• 26:33
  Roger Delgado Master's TARDIS and travelling off in time and
• 26:38
  space with it, and I'm absolutely thankful.
• 26:42
  Big Finish just pretend that that didn't exist.
• 26:44
  So they were always going to do that anyway, but you know, and
• 26:46
  decreasing. Fan wag, right?
• 26:49
  I feel like like Craig Hinton's the fan wanky has fan wack who
• 26:52
  coined fan wack and he's ambitious with it.
• 26:56
  Or I'd say overly ambitious with it.
• 26:58
  And then you've got Gary Russell, who I think he does
• 27:01
  like to plug the gaps and it can be very satisfying or annoying
• 27:04
  depending on where you you fall. And Andy Lane, he always does
• 27:08
  something original. He takes continuity blocks and
• 27:11
  then build something original. I always feel like John Peel.
• 27:14
  He just relies on the past. It's just the beats from the
• 27:17
  past. There's nothing new done with it
• 27:19
  at all. Yeah, and so that's my theory as
• 27:25
  to why War of the Daleks gets mentioned more than Legacy of
• 27:28
  the Daleks. And I think that's because more
• 27:29
  people read that and decided not to go through second book, which
• 27:32
  I think is a lot worse and and it's.
• 27:37
  Just Speaking of somebody who's just.
• 27:39
  Endured War of the Daleks and done a book club episode on it.
• 27:42
  I'm in no great hurry to read Legacy and Daleks, so your
• 27:45
  theory is sound. That's what I thought, yeah.
• 27:49
  And yeah, so yeah, that been it, as you would say on Strictly
• 27:55
  been it and set it on fire. So, you know, there's there are
• 27:59
  no missing books the way there are missing TV stories.
• 28:02
  But maybe, maybe there should be.
• 28:05
  Well, you bitch. Well, what book is this I see
• 28:09
  ascending from the heavens? I don't know how I'm doing these
• 28:12
  segues now, but let's keep going with them.
• 28:14
  Let's go with it. Please save us.
• 28:16
  Save us from the legacy of the Daleks.
• 28:19
  Mr. Stephen Marley Now this was a book that I thought was so
• 28:24
  under the radar no one would possibly choose this for book
• 28:28
  club, but Mr. John Arnold did. He got good taste.
• 28:32
  Straight away that was his first choice.
• 28:35
  Yep. Oh, my goodness.
• 28:37
  So I I, I I had a backup for that.
• 28:39
  And it turned out well, because it turned out my wife actually
• 28:42
  read The Sands of Time and liked it.
• 28:43
  So yeah. Thanks, John Arnold.
• 28:45
  Thank you. Very.
• 28:46
  I'm serious. Thank you.
• 28:48
  So yes, Managra, I love season 13.
• 28:52
  I love it. I love even the ones that people
• 28:55
  say shit, Planet of evil Android warts and all.
• 28:59
  I love it. I can.
• 29:01
  Everyone has Doctor Who like that, right?
• 29:03
  Arsenal, you love it. Is this an authentic season 13
• 29:06
  book then? Yeah, absolutely.
• 29:08
  It's set in the far future and it does what all good new
• 29:11
  adventure. Well, Virgin books in the far
• 29:14
  future do world building. In fact, he just relaxes into
• 29:17
  the world building so much, but he never forgets the story.
• 29:22
  He never forgets the plot or the characters.
• 29:24
  So and it's also some world building you kind of want to
• 29:29
  experience. He you're like, all right, it's
• 29:32
  going on for a couple of pages, but I'm gonna allow this.
• 29:34
  This is really good. And then, then, then he
• 29:36
  incorporates the the characters and stuff.
• 29:38
  When I first read this, I haven't read anywhere near as
• 29:42
  many things as I have now that I'm a 41 year old man.
• 29:46
  And reading it again, I was like, all right, I still don't
• 29:50
  get all the references. I still haven't read everything.
• 29:51
  But I get so much more because I, I, I know, I know who I've
• 29:56
  read Frankenstein, you know, I've, I know who Byron is.
• 29:59
  I've read a little bit of Byron. And I know who these historical
• 30:04
  figures are, whether they, they're writers or, you know,
• 30:09
  Talkamata from the Inquisition and things like that.
• 30:11
  I know who these, these people are.
• 30:13
  Try not to spoil much FOIA because you got to you got to
• 30:17
  experience this and we'll do it in a book club, but it's one of
• 30:20
  the longer ones. It's like 300 ish pages.
• 30:23
  He captures the 4th doctor in that time very well.
• 30:27
  Like the he's he's got that funny side, but then you can
• 30:29
  just go turn it off and he's really cold and distant and
• 30:32
  alien and it's just and then you and then when something scares
• 30:36
  the shit out of him, you know that's it's got to be bad,
• 30:40
  right? It is and it's it.
• 30:43
  It does have the violence and all that kind of stuff that 13
• 30:47
  has and the Virgin books have. But it's funny.
• 30:51
  There's a lot of funniness in it.
• 30:52
  There's a lot of great silly ideas too.
• 30:55
  I'm. Sorry, Brandon Morbius, Right?
• 30:56
  Brandon Morbius is kind of sick and scary, but hilarious at the
• 31:00
  same time. He did absolutely is and I feel
• 31:04
  like it captures that that tone really well.
• 31:07
  So what I did was I, I realized I had a bit of time before we
• 31:11
  had to read Sands of Time. And I was like.
• 31:13
  I'm reading Monogra first in protest to the fact.
• 31:18
  That we wrote and I read it. I was.
• 31:22
  Like, oh, read it anyway, you bastard.
• 31:25
  And then when you came back, it's like, hey, is do you want
• 31:28
  to join Force Up with John Arnold to do a Monogra episode?
• 31:31
  I was like yes, yes I do because I definitely check this out
• 31:33
  again. I can't wait after hearing.
• 31:35
  Everybody, Lord, in this book's praises and it appeared to be
• 31:38
  bloody good. That's all I'm going to say.
• 31:40
  To the pair of you, no pressure. OK, well then what book are we
• 31:49
  sending to hell? All right, I want to send to
• 31:53
  hell my first ever original Doctor Who book I ever read.
• 31:58
  Your first what? UK back still.
• 32:00
  Yeah, OK, yeah, gotten for punishment.
• 32:04
  I I am what? Could that have possibly been?
• 32:06
  It's 9192. I mean, what am I?
• 32:12
  I'm nine or ten years old. I'm loving Doctor Who.
• 32:15
  I've read a handful of targets. My first experience of Doctor
• 32:18
  Whoever is the novelization of the Web of Fear.
• 32:22
  So books have always been like the big, the biggest, biggest.
• 32:26
  Oh, sorry, that's not your choice, right?
• 32:27
  No, no, no, no, no. I'm not putting a Terry
• 32:30
  novelization in there. Come on, man.
• 32:32
  Like me as you probably. Can put one or two Terry
• 32:35
  novelizations. In the the pamphlets, but.
• 32:39
  That web of fear novelization when I was like 7 or 8I loved
• 32:45
  that. And I soon had a small little
• 32:48
  stack because I were pretty easy.
• 32:49
  There were millions were sold, so easy to get anywhere.
• 32:53
  So when I was in primary school, you used to get this little book
• 32:57
  pamphlet catalogue for the kids, and you could flick through it
• 33:01
  and choose what books you want. And I saw a Doctor Who book in
• 33:04
  there. I was like, Oh my God, dad, mom,
• 33:06
  can I get this? It was Cat's Cradle Times
• 33:08
  Crucible by Mark. Oh boy.
• 33:12
  Oh, the most boring book of all time.
• 33:15
  All right. And I want to just say that as a
• 33:19
  nine year old, it's incomprehensible shit.
• 33:21
  It was when I was nine, when I was 15, when I was 25 and when I
• 33:25
  was 40. I just can't.
• 33:28
  I just can't do. You know what it is about Cats
• 33:30
  Cradle, right? Yeah, this is my issue with the
• 33:32
  New Adventures at their most pretentious is that you have
• 33:36
  these Doctor Who fans, they'll ask like utterly obsessed with
• 33:40
  the New Adventures, right? And they don't.
• 33:41
  See a floor in the range and they go you know, they lured
• 33:45
  books like cats cradle and they basically say Oh well, you know,
• 33:48
  you can't possibly understand the complexities of this novel
• 33:52
  is working on all these levels and I'm.
• 33:54
  Sure it is, but fuck me. With the true fans, we do not
• 33:58
  want to invest as much of our life in reading a book.
• 34:01
  We just want to fun read like. It is impenetrable, isn't it?
• 34:06
  At some point, it's got to be fun and.
• 34:10
  It's got some ideas in it, I'll give you that.
• 34:13
  So that's the first time I've ever heard of Mark Platt.
• 34:15
  So I hadn't even, I think the only Mccoys I've ever seen at
• 34:18
  that point would have been Silver Nemesis, Remembrance of
• 34:22
  the Daleks, and The Curse of Fenrick.
• 34:25
  They were the only ones I'd had my hands on at the time and.
• 34:28
  This top question your the the morality of your library, you
• 34:31
  know, putting out a pamphlet with new adventures in them for
• 34:34
  children, bearing in mind, you know trans is just around the
• 34:37
  corner without prostitute the scene in their mouth.
• 34:41
  Yeah, obviously they don't vet the books before they go into
• 34:44
  this pamphlet. No.
• 34:45
  We'll see people see Doctor Who. There's still people like they
• 34:49
  say, say Doctor Who is just that kid show and that's fair enough.
• 34:52
  Like, it's fine. And who were they, and how were
• 34:56
  they to know that these books were too broad and too deep for.
• 34:59
  Well this is on my. Small mind to understand.
• 35:02
  Yeah. But you know, I doubt that all
• 35:05
  they saw was Doctor Who. Yeah, kids like Doctor Who put
• 35:07
  it in the thing. That's that's that's all the
• 35:09
  thought they probably get gave it.
• 35:11
  It's probably all the thought BBC gave Doctor Who at the time
• 35:13
  as well. Have you ever got through Cat's
• 35:15
  Cradle times? Which which age range did I say
• 35:19
  yeah when I was about 35? And I'm going to have to cover.
• 35:26
  It when you. Know I must cover this one just
• 35:29
  to try and. Pull it apart and as you see
• 35:32
  what's in there. At least like like which mark is
• 35:37
  not that great either, but I found that kind of readable so I
• 35:40
  could finish that but. I can, I can point people in the
• 35:44
  direction of a book. There's something very similar
• 35:47
  because it's basically, that book is basically them walking
• 35:50
  around this strange sort of city, isn't it?
• 35:53
  And you realize, you know, later on in the book, that's actually
• 35:55
  the TARDIS pulled inside out and all of this.
• 35:57
  Yeah. So.
• 35:58
  But it is a lot of sort of wandering and weird stuff going
• 36:01
  on. And actually, Last Parkins the
• 36:03
  Eyeless does something quite similar.
• 36:05
  It ain't the TARDIS, but it is a lot of walking around a sort of
• 36:09
  deserted science fiction setting like that, and it's just so much
• 36:13
  more skilfully put together, so much more fun to read.
• 36:17
  It's a great adventure romp as well as being a a really
• 36:21
  brilliant science fiction book. There are ways of doing it I
• 36:24
  think. Well, that's going on my list
• 36:27
  because I haven't met a Lance Parkin novel a it didn't devour.
• 36:31
  Some near you. Yeah, and I haven't just been
• 36:35
  rebuying the ones I used to love because of the book club and
• 36:38
  stuff. It's definitely broaden my, or
• 36:40
  at least my Doctor Who book reading horizons anyway, so.
• 36:43
  I'm pleased. So I've done that for you.
• 36:45
  At least broaden your Doctor Who book.
• 36:47
  Reading palette. Well, OK, well, come on, let's
• 36:49
  go back to your. Let's let's go back to being
• 36:52
  positive. All right, so let's go to a book
• 36:54
  I'm actually halfway through and and as I'm reading it, I've
• 36:59
  already read it by the way, so I haven't just read half of it and
• 37:01
  decided it's going on the list. I've read it before a couple
• 37:04
  times, and this is the book where you're by dinner of the
• 37:09
  new adventure reader, this pretentious one who loves the
• 37:11
  novels, and you couldn't possibly penetrate and
• 37:13
  understand these because it's so literary.
• 37:16
  Well, I got me here a copy of The City of the Dead by Lloyd
• 37:19
  Rose and. Oh, what a wonderful book.
• 37:24
  I have all, I've rebought all the Edas from Earthworld and
• 37:29
  I've I've to the one before hope.
• 37:31
  I've got hope coming in the mail.
• 37:32
  So I've got all of them. And in between, sometimes I've
• 37:35
  got time in between book clubs. I've I've been trying to reread
• 37:39
  these things and I've gotten up to the city of the dead and
• 37:42
  anything I remembered from I remember heaps of it turned out
• 37:46
  as I start reading the book, I'm like, Oh yeah, Oh yeah, I know
• 37:48
  who the murderer, oh, the evil magician guy is.
• 37:51
  I know who it is. And what I like about this book
• 37:53
  is not only does it feel like a new adventure, but they would
• 37:56
  never have published this book. No, because it's.
• 37:59
  Because they would have turned around and said, hey, Lloyd
• 38:01
  Rose, that's a great story, great synopsis.
• 38:04
  It's awesome. And I put a scientific
• 38:06
  explanation at the end like it's a John Nathan Turner story or
• 38:09
  something. And.
• 38:10
  Can we have play some sequences? In the Doctor's mind, thank you
• 38:13
  very much, there's some strange metaphor creatures or something,
• 38:16
  you know? Which is funny, you do.
• 38:19
  He does see himself in a dream a couple of times, but this but
• 38:24
  but even though it's just a it's a, it's a this is dark fantasy.
• 38:27
  This is like a Dresden Files ish kind of thing.
• 38:29
  This is like a dark fantasy set in New Orleans.
• 38:32
  I've never been to New Orleans. I feel like I've been there.
• 38:34
  Doesn't it make you want to go? I read that book and.
• 38:36
  I was. Desperate to go to New Orleans?
• 38:38
  I know it would never live up for the book though.
• 38:41
  And it's called the City of the dead because they're, they're
• 38:43
  under, they're below sea level and because of flooding and
• 38:46
  stuff, they have to elevate all the cemeteries and stuff.
• 38:49
  Oh, that's so cool. And the details are amazing.
• 38:52
  The TARDIS in the cemetery as well is gorgeous.
• 38:55
  I have one tiny nitpick and if you look closely at these little
• 38:58
  crosses where the electricity is, they look like the same
• 39:01
  crosses from that terrible Peter Dove Evans book Asylum.
• 39:04
  Apart from that, cover is amazing and I love it.
• 39:08
  I just remember the sequence where they're going through the
• 39:10
  House of horrors and it's. Really.
• 39:13
  Disturbing. Like you can tell me how mad is
• 39:17
  this? When the sandbag comes, if the
• 39:19
  sandbag comes down onto his chest.
• 39:20
  No, you're thinking a camera obscurer.
• 39:22
  Now you know. Oh, that's right.
• 39:24
  That's that's. Right.
• 39:24
  They they go, they literally go through like a haunted house,
• 39:27
  but it's so vividly depicted. I think City of the Dead might
• 39:33
  actually be the in terms of potential from the author of
• 39:38
  what they deliver in their first book, the most striking debut
• 39:42
  since Cornell's Love and War. I genuinely think that.
• 39:47
  I find that hard to argue with. I'm actually finally you say
• 39:52
  that I'm actually up to him just fine.
• 39:54
  Fine. I'll go to the House of Horrors.
• 39:56
  Yeah. So I'm up to that sequence.
• 39:58
  But there's a sequence as well, right, Luke, where they drop off
• 40:02
  this girl that's been helping them out.
• 40:04
  And he goes to, oh, don't worry, it's all going to be fine.
• 40:07
  Your life's going to be fine. Like really.
• 40:09
  And then the door opens and she's he sees like the the dad's
• 40:13
  drunk on the sofa and being a museum.
• 40:15
  And the last line of the chapter is, I don't think it's going to
• 40:18
  be very fine at all. God, it's so.
• 40:21
  It's dark and mature, but brilliant.
• 40:24
  And I, I love the ace doctor and I love him in this era, but he's
• 40:29
  great in this. He's non judgmental.
• 40:31
  He goes to a goth party and he thinks like, he just says matter
• 40:34
  of factly, that dude's doing heroin.
• 40:36
  This is how heroin effects people.
• 40:38
  And he's just like that does that person's choice.
• 40:40
  It's not for me to stop that person.
• 40:41
  That's their, that's their decision.
• 40:44
  And and things like that. I feel like he he's not equipped
• 40:48
  to deal with that domestic issue with the with the abusive dad
• 40:52
  and things like like that. I don't know.
• 40:55
  It's just like, it's so complex, he says.
• 40:58
  He's a little reminded at one point because he's asking all
• 41:00
  these questions and taking things as people say them and
• 41:03
  stuff. It's magic with no explanation.
• 41:05
  I'm not a huge fantasy reader, but you start Doctor Who on the
• 41:09
  cover. I like magic.
• 41:10
  All of a sudden. I don't know why Doctor Who and
• 41:13
  Magic works for me even though I'm not a fantasy magic man,
• 41:16
  I'm. Not going to reveal anything,
• 41:18
  but there's a wonderful character twist in that book as
• 41:20
  well. It's just phenomenally good.
• 41:23
  Anybody listening to this, fine, sit together dead and read it.
• 41:26
  It's a wonderful, but what a great choice.
• 41:30
  Yeah, man, now I need. To now, yeah.
• 41:34
  Camera obscure because I we've done the chest.
• 41:37
  Open up one of those tombs in New Orleans.
• 41:40
  We're about to bury another book.
• 41:42
  Oh yes, we are. And let's let's do a man that
• 41:48
  should be mentioned in everyone's bottom 10 and I have
• 41:51
  heard an interview of him and he sounds like an absolutely
• 41:53
  wonderful, genuine man. And I'm sure he can take this
• 41:56
  because he wrote over a dozen novels and he got bloody paid
• 41:58
  for it. It's Christopher Beulus and the
• 42:01
  book is called the Twilight of the gods.
• 42:03
  It's a book so forgettable virgin already forgot they had a
• 42:06
  book called Twilight of the Gods and they named it Benny book
• 42:09
  Twilight of the gods. Here's what happened is this is
• 42:12
  I had this is what this is what happened, right?
• 42:16
  All right. This is what happens when an
• 42:18
  unambitious, boring writer writes a sequel to a highly
• 42:21
  ambitious, boring story. I respect the web planet.
• 42:26
  I don't think it works. I it's, it's a little too slow
• 42:31
  and for me and I like I can watch the sensor writes.
• 42:35
  It's. Very slow.
• 42:37
  I know I have a high threshold for a lot of Doctor Who I, I, I
• 42:42
  think all of the dominators too. You've made it through that five
• 42:46
  hour episode of Strictly Come Hamster as well.
• 42:48
  So yeah, you right, you've got patients.
• 42:50
  I also like For the Doomsday, so, you know, take my take, take
• 42:54
  my taste with a grain of salt, everybody.
• 42:56
  So this is a sequel to the Web Planet.
• 42:59
  It is written by Christopher Buellis.
• 43:00
  It is a second Doctor Jamie in Victoria book.
• 43:04
  The signs are not good. And it's so boring.
• 43:10
  He's trying to explore the. Culture a bit.
• 43:12
  More I've never read this one. Look, this is.
• 43:16
  Going to sound terrible but for me because I'm putting it in my
• 43:20
  bottom 10 but it is so. Bad look, that's.
• 43:23
  That's what my joke isn't just a joke, it's a book.
• 43:26
  So forgettable Virgins has got they already had a Twilight of
• 43:29
  the Gods, you know, and they they last I think it's the last
• 43:33
  Benny new adventure is twilight of the gods.
• 43:35
  That's where the, I think they had the conversation, you know,
• 43:37
  in the. Office.
• 43:38
  So someone said that then. Yeah, that book by Christopher
• 43:41
  Beulis and they went who? Even though we had another four
• 43:44
  books, you know, in the can, Yeah.
• 43:49
  Yes. So Christopher Boudis, can we
• 43:51
  please just. For a second because I feel.
• 43:53
  Like he gets such a bad rap. He wrote.
• 43:56
  I think he's probably the ultimate reliable pair of hands,
• 43:59
  right? I feel like he's, he's the
• 44:00
  person, you know, he's the director.
• 44:02
  You pull in to get it filmed on budget, You know, like we've got
• 44:06
  a gap in the schedule. We need 280 pages.
• 44:10
  We need a reasonably well depicted regular crew.
• 44:14
  We need a simple book, you know, a good adventure story, and we
• 44:19
  need it to be competently told who's available.
• 44:22
  Chris Boudis is waving his hands over there.
• 44:24
  So that's exactly what I do. You know he can't do it.
• 44:28
  I think I would say his two heart.
• 44:30
  Novels are his best sources of Princess and the City at the Oh,
• 44:37
  I loved City at World's End. Yeah, Do you know which one I
• 44:41
  really like? You think I'm mad?
• 44:43
  I really like Palace of the Red Sun, that one where they just
• 44:46
  walk around the garden to that robot from 280 pages.
• 44:50
  I don't know why I just because it's a nice light 6th Doctor
• 44:53
  story. I I feel like Chris Buellis will
• 44:57
  hit that spot if you've read a lot of really dark Doctor Who
• 45:00
  recently and he's he's a palate cleansing book guy, but maybe
• 45:04
  that's it if you have. The lemon sorbet of the Doctor
• 45:07
  Who. Yeah, but if you.
• 45:10
  Don't. If you haven't done that and you
• 45:11
  just decide independently, ah, sequel to the weird planet.
• 45:15
  Yeah, don't do it. Yeah.
• 45:18
  And yeah, so it's it's not good now when you were listing.
• 45:23
  There sequel to The Web Planet. Christopher Beulis star in
• 45:26
  Victoria. I knew we was in for a bad time.
• 45:30
  You didn't. Have to go any further than
• 45:32
  that. Although that really is another
• 45:33
  one I would. Like to explore more.
• 45:35
  So maybe, maybe sometimes we've got to do all this right.
• 45:37
  I can't. Do all the good ones, all the.
• 45:39
  Time, you know. We just want a run of five
• 45:41
  terrible ones. OK, right.
• 45:43
  Well, swingers backgrounds to the sunshine, all right, I feel.
• 45:49
  I feel bad for grim reality. I'm not choosing it.
• 45:51
  It's a good book. It just happens to be sandwiched
• 45:53
  between two of my favorite Doctor Who books of all time.
• 45:56
  So it's like an 8 of the 10 sandwich.
• 45:58
  You mean grim reality, Luke? You don't mean.
• 46:01
  The The Adventures of Doctor know all.
• 46:03
  Yes, that's all. But that's, that's not my
• 46:05
  choice. It is a great book,
• 46:07
  unfortunately, it's a good book, a very good book.
• 46:10
  It's an 8 sandwich between two 10s.
• 46:13
  What do people like to put in alien bodies?
• 46:16
  And they're not wrong. Maybe some interference, they're
• 46:18
  not wrong either. Well, I think.
• 46:21
  The adventurous of Henrietta. Street is one of the most
• 46:25
  amazing, fantastic, awesome books of all time, or Doctor Who
• 46:31
  books of all time. It's a it's a this is one of
• 46:33
  those novels. It's too deep.
• 46:34
  You'll never get it. No, no, no.
• 46:37
  This is. Literally too broad and too
• 46:39
  deep. You could never tell.
• 46:41
  This on the TV, certainly not stylistically and certainly not
• 46:45
  in its content. No.
• 46:48
  I didn't really. Choose it before it's content
• 46:49
  either it's just so happens to have that content in it and it
• 46:54
  works. What?
• 46:56
  This also opened up a new genre of books to me, and that is
• 47:01
  history books. I've never it's the shit you
• 47:04
  read for school. Who cares about that?
• 47:07
  I credit that him and Lauren smiles and that book for some of
• 47:13
  my love of history and stuff like that.
• 47:16
  I love Roman history. I'm like one of those annoying
• 47:19
  people who thinks about Rome every day.
• 47:21
  And I like, and I've read terms like like for Merry Beard and
• 47:27
  all these other amazing writers on ancient Rome and other
• 47:32
  history books and things like that.
• 47:33
  And I credit that Doctor Who book for opening that for me.
• 47:38
  And it's. Written in historical.
• 47:42
  Count. Yes, there's that joke.
• 47:43
  I may. I think I've made that joke many
• 47:45
  a time. We all do.
• 47:46
  If it's got small font, Adventurous and Harry and
• 47:49
  Henrietta Straight jokes will be there.
• 47:52
  If that got one of those fifty anniversary reprints, that would
• 47:56
  have been 5 to 800 pages long and should have just made it
• 48:00
  longer though, right? Yeah, it's absurdly.
• 48:03
  Small for the the font. Size.
• 48:06
  Absolutely. And the other reason it's here,
• 48:10
  it's because it's in my favorite era of the books and it's smack
• 48:16
  bang in it and it sets up the next whole bunch.
• 48:22
  And this is right in the middle of 11 story, 11 books.
• 48:26
  The the one book that there's two books that break the the
• 48:30
  chain of amazingness, and that's an Infinity race and a book that
• 48:35
  I'll talk about in a minute. I mean, I'm going to pitch
• 48:39
  something to you. Right now.
• 48:40
  OK, right. And tell me how this sounds like
• 48:42
  as a Doctor Who book. OK the 8th Doctor, Fitz and
• 48:45
  Angie set up in a Victorian whorehouse OK where they conjure
• 48:52
  the elementals and the Doctor marries the the the Lady of the
• 48:58
  house. New villain Sabbath enters the
• 49:03
  scene with his disgusting 8 primitives crew on his oily old
• 49:07
  ship The Great the Jonah and he wants to do all the time.
• 49:11
  And by the end of the book, he rips.
• 49:13
  Out the doctor's heart. How does that sound?
• 49:17
  Sign me up. That's.
• 49:18
  That's pretty much said the whole plot and it's and yet it's
• 49:21
  this big. If you'd have told me that
• 49:24
  premise, I'll. Probably would have said no,
• 49:25
  that ain't for me. That just doesn't sound like
• 49:27
  Doctor Who. The experience of reading the
• 49:29
  book is just unforgettable. Yeah.
• 49:33
  And once you get. Into the rhythm of what?
• 49:35
  Of the way it's telling the story.
• 49:37
  And you're like, this is going to take me forever.
• 49:39
  Oh, I've finished. Does take a little while to get
• 49:42
  into? It's a distant because it's told
• 49:44
  as an academic text rather than as a story.
• 49:49
  But then that means you think the the the writer who Lawrence
• 49:53
  Miles did say was supposed to be Bernie Summerfield, you know,
• 49:57
  pulling together all these historical texts.
• 50:00
  Next time I read that I'm going to have Benny's.
• 50:01
  Voice in my head it means you can go into all of.
• 50:04
  That detail that you wouldn't normally with prose because it
• 50:06
  just said in prose. It sounds like if you're telling
• 50:09
  a story and you, you know, I've just read a book by Andy
• 50:11
  Frankenmellen and when he has a character fire a gun, he looks
• 50:15
  at the gun, tells you what the gun is, tells you everything
• 50:17
  that the gun does before he, you know, and all of that research
• 50:20
  doesn't need to go into the book, but this is a historical
• 50:23
  document that's been put together so all the research can
• 50:26
  go in there. So you learn so much.
• 50:28
  You know what's funny for me? Like, do these writers mostly
• 50:32
  get paid the same amount? Because I think it's a lot of
• 50:35
  fucking. The teacher paid triple for this
• 50:38
  one. I had that mask.
• 50:39
  I feel like it's longer than interference.
• 50:41
  And that's two books. He wanted to he he was.
• 50:44
  On record of saying he wanted to write his personal best and I'm
• 50:47
  glad he left there because I think that was his personal best
• 50:50
  person. I can see why some people don't
• 50:52
  like it, but yeah, it's great. What a great choice.
• 50:56
  Honorable mentions to Down. And dead romance as well.
• 51:01
  Dead romance is great but down is a little overlooked.
• 51:03
  And if you like the also people, you might like the Benny book
• 51:06
  down. You've mentioned every Lawrence
• 51:08
  Miles. Book honorable mention to all of
• 51:10
  them. Christmas on Rational Planet.
• 51:14
  Look at that run though, like you.
• 51:15
  Said sit here, the dead grim reality adventurous on Henry St.
• 51:20
  Mad Dogs and Englishmen. Yeah, I mean, come on, we were
• 51:24
  lucky, right? Yes, Yeah, yeah, Well, there's
• 51:30
  rain clouds on the. Horizon and that is that the
• 51:34
  print of a book you're about to slam is about to get very soggy
• 51:39
  yes in. Fact.
• 51:41
  It's going to be a domino effect.
• 51:44
  Oh oh. Wasn't it on Andrew's list of
• 51:48
  top tens? Oh, I don't see.
• 51:51
  No, I don't think so. No, I think he did love that
• 51:55
  book. Though he said well.
• 51:58
  I I did not. Why don't you tell us why?
• 52:01
  All right. So.
• 52:05
  I don't like the characterizations.
• 52:07
  All that much. Angie's a big dumb idiot and
• 52:11
  that's not Angie to me. She might not be the smartest
• 52:14
  person in the room, but she's wicked smart.
• 52:17
  She's sharp as a tack. She's I think she's frequently
• 52:20
  the. Smartest.
• 52:21
  Person in the room. Except for maybe the doctor,
• 52:23
  yeah. And even and even and even then
• 52:27
  she's the one more than fits. That's just like, you don't even
• 52:30
  get emotions, do you? She's the empathetic, the most
• 52:32
  empathetic one of the three. So I feel like she plays that
• 52:36
  that that role and she shows her emotions a lot as well.
• 52:39
  I. Really like that about her, that
• 52:41
  if she's angry or if she's happy, you really see it and.
• 52:47
  I. Feel like I don't all.
• 52:49
  Right, I'm going to this is going to sound dumb because a
• 52:51
  lot of twists come out of nowhere.
• 52:53
  Some of the twists that come out of nowhere here and they're
• 52:55
  like, they're not good ones. They feel like, what if you're
• 52:58
  watching an M Night Shyamalan movie and you know there's going
• 53:01
  to be a twist and and it's oh, the plants did it.
• 53:06
  Oh awesome. It was the trees all along.
• 53:09
  Like something like there's a, there's a thing with Ace.
• 53:14
  I don't know, it's an ultimate reality version of Ace, but I
• 53:16
  don't know. I just found it really jarring
• 53:18
  the characterizations and things like that, Like this multiverse
• 53:21
  thing. I know it's a lot of people know
• 53:23
  all about multiverses now, but Edas did it about 20 years
• 53:27
  before it became popular, I guess.
• 53:29
  And this just I read this and this, it was one of the rare
• 53:35
  books in that era when I finished it and I was just like,
• 53:38
  ah, no, no, I don't. I don't like this book.
• 53:43
  And that's probably why I never got around to buying the Empire
• 53:47
  of death. I probably probably should
• 53:48
  because you mentioned off air. That's a that's a good book, and
• 53:52
  it's a lot better than the other.
• 53:53
  Empire of Death as well. I also have Amorality Tale
• 53:58
  sitting on my shelf waiting for me to have a look at it, but I
• 54:00
  haven't read it. We'll add that to the list.
• 54:02
  That's a. Good one to read, Yeah, yeah.
• 54:04
  It when when it comes to Pertwee, I like my seven and I
• 54:07
  like my 11 like that's my sweet and I8's really good too. 9:00
• 54:11
  and 10:00 but yeah, yeah. So do you want Katie Manning I?
• 54:17
  Like my I've met her. She's.
• 54:20
  Amazing I my I felt like my forever the day I met Katie
• 54:27
  manning absolutely amazing. I love her So yes no yeah.
• 54:33
  So I might cast a bit of shade onto Joe, but that's like that's
• 54:35
  nothing on on Katie man. I've just remembered, you know,
• 54:38
  Luke, the. Domino effect was on my bottom
• 54:40
  10 list as well. That's what it was.
• 54:43
  There we go. Yeah.
• 54:45
  Yeah, it and it deserves to be there.
• 54:48
  It's double, I guess, since great minds think alike, Joe,
• 54:52
  you know, you know this, I hope, you know, stupid minds also
• 54:55
  think alike. Like no one says that there's a
• 54:59
  there's a coronation. In progress and a book is about
• 55:02
  to be crowned. Why don't you tell us what it
• 55:04
  is? All right, let's go.
• 55:07
  For a nice layup. Easy peasy lemon squeezy.
• 55:12
  It is Fear Itself by Nick Wallace.
• 55:18
  So that's I guess 2 authors in my top ten that only did one.
• 55:21
  Well, if you're only going to write one book, make it like as
• 55:24
  good as Menagra and Fear Itself. I won't spend too much time
• 55:29
  talking about Fear Itself. We did an episode on that
• 55:32
  everyone can go back and listen to.
• 55:34
  It's awesome. Was very helpful to me.
• 55:36
  May I say pointing out all the plot intricacies as you did.
• 55:42
  You know what I never realized I.
• 55:43
  Was that guy, you know how when you listen to a big Finish
• 55:46
  Extras and you've got Sarah Sutton going yeah, I can act,
• 55:49
  there's no problem. I don't know any of this means.
• 55:52
  Whereas I'm like, what do you mean you don't know what this
• 55:54
  means? This this, this, this, this
• 55:55
  isn't it. I didn't know I always liked
• 55:57
  that until we did Sands of Time and you guys like what happened
• 56:00
  in this. I was like, we'll see this.
• 56:01
  You're the Sophie Aldrid of Behind the.
• 56:03
  Sofa, because she's always the one on behind the sofa.
• 56:05
  Where all the What the hell is this all about?
• 56:08
  And so this is what's happened so far.
• 56:11
  Morgaine. It's from an alternative
• 56:12
  universe. No, she knows every single
• 56:14
  detail of every single story. Yes, there itself.
• 56:18
  Wonderful. So, yeah, so.
• 56:22
  That's that's one I don't have to go too much on a tangent on.
• 56:25
  There's twists in it. I forget every time.
• 56:27
  It's like a web of fear for me. I always forget who the traitor
• 56:29
  is. I know it's the mustache guy,
• 56:30
  but when I'm watching it, I forget.
• 56:31
  So I always forget some twists in here and there's other twists
• 56:34
  as well. And then there's a I mean, the
• 56:36
  traitor is. Some bone very close to us.
• 56:39
  Isn't it actually in that book? I'm not going to reveal it in
• 56:42
  this episode, but that twist is fucking brilliant.
• 56:45
  Even when you know it, the. Second time, yeah, it still hits
• 56:49
  because now you know, and then you see what that character does
• 56:52
  and you're just like, Oh my God, how he masterfully.
• 56:55
  Juggles those three time zones and has pay offs in all three is
• 57:01
  just incredible. It's so brilliantly plotted,
• 57:03
  that book. He's spinning plates and
• 57:05
  juggling. At the same time, it's it's
• 57:07
  really cool. Good old Nick Wallace.
• 57:10
  OK, well then we've got a corrupt politician that's about
• 57:13
  to be deposed in book form. All right, I'm going to say
• 57:16
  title. All right.
• 57:18
  I've. I like this author's Benny
• 57:21
  novels. And I don't like the Doctor Who.
• 57:25
  Novels and this writer is Dave Stone and the book is Sky
• 57:30
  Pirates. For whatever reason I don't mesh
• 57:32
  with him and Doctor Who. But if you want to just tell a
• 57:34
  story with Benny and put Roz in it for an alternate thing and
• 57:38
  have Chris in it too. I don't know why.
• 57:42
  And he's beneath. I've heard maybe a couple of his
• 57:45
  audio stuff too. I know Jason Kane in one of.
• 57:49
  Them dies in one of them. I've heard that, so I like some
• 57:54
  David Stone. I'm not complete burying him,
• 57:56
  but I'm sorry Sky Pirates is incomprehensible shit and the
• 58:01
  way I best describe I'm not derived Sky Pirates is.
• 58:05
  Imagine going from Kaiser Vandrazani to the Twin dilemma.
• 58:09
  That's how I felt when I went from original Sin to Sky
• 58:12
  Pirates. And I don't remember Christian
• 58:16
  Ross. Having much?
• 58:17
  To do in that story, actually. And it's a giant book too.
• 58:20
  I understand. He's he's he's done to some kind
• 58:22
  of they must have been under the pump because that book needed an
• 58:26
  edit. Yes, I've read I've read the
• 58:29
  slow empire. I don't hate it.
• 58:30
  It's it's like the tomorrow windows, but not as good.
• 58:34
  Interestingly, the. Slow Empire was on.
• 58:35
  My bottom 10 list and Sky Pirates was on Michael Mills's
• 58:40
  top 10 lists. Yeah, I heard that.
• 58:42
  Can you believe? That it makes Mr. Mills feel
• 58:44
  any. Better I I was like, wow, you
• 58:47
  really like storm warning. I'm going to you know, it's
• 58:51
  cheap on the thing. I'll I'll forget that.
• 58:52
  So I've got a copy on the way. I'm like, now you're talking
• 58:54
  about stall harvest. There, aren't you, Storm
• 58:58
  Harvest? Audio.
• 59:00
  Too many scars. Has also got the most.
• 59:03
  Sarcotic cover of all time. Sylvester McCoy running out of a
• 59:07
  page maniacally and. Ready to go?
• 59:11
  On guard with his umbrella. It's terrifying.
• 59:14
  I just got. I have that face down when I
• 59:16
  read that book. But I feel like Skype.
• 59:19
  Parrots is Vegemite. You really, really like it or
• 59:23
  you don't, I guess Marmite, you know that kind of thing.
• 59:25
  So it does say it again. I'll send it in my.
• 59:28
  Review on doc her reviews. It's just two two.
• 59:31
  It's trying to be too funny, it's trying to be too silly.
• 59:34
  It's trying to be too clever. It's trying to be too long.
• 59:37
  It's just trying so hard to embrace.
• 59:40
  And I think I I read an interview with Dave Stone, or
• 59:42
  maybe he did it for me for my old book blog where he said no,
• 59:46
  he was trying too hard in those early books.
• 59:49
  And actually he refined it as he went along and he was a lot more
• 59:53
  happier with his Bernice books and then in his later audios as
• 59:57
  well. And you can just see, you can
• 59:58
  see ERISA learning to sort of curb.
• 1:00:02
  Their excesses when you get to stuff like.
• 1:00:06
  Oblivion and Return of the Fraction Planet and the Mary Sue
• 1:00:09
  extrusion. I really like those.
• 1:00:13
  TARDIS is a great book. It's on my shelf I have.
• 1:00:17
  Yet to read it so all right. Fun.
• 1:00:19
  OK. So back to your top ten list.
• 1:00:24
  All right, so there's. I think there's two authors
• 1:00:27
  maybe that's pretty predictable for me in my top ten.
• 1:00:29
  The other one is is Kate Orman and I love the room with no
• 1:00:33
  doors. I love set piece, left-handed,
• 1:00:37
  Hummingbird, vampire science. They're all great, but I'm going
• 1:00:41
  to choose the one that's set in my favorite era, the year of
• 1:00:44
  Intelligent Tigers, because imagine the Silurians but with
• 1:00:50
  tigers. And instead of the army, it's
• 1:00:52
  artists and musicians. And that's the book They're
• 1:00:57
  there for a year. Fitz gets to do his music stuff
• 1:01:02
  and all this kind of stuff. Angie gets to do heaps of stuff
• 1:01:06
  as well. And then you've got the 8th
• 1:01:12
  Doctor. And I, I used to be that Doctor
• 1:01:14
  Who fan of like this. The Doctor can't fuck.
• 1:01:17
  I don't like it. And then like, he's going to
• 1:01:19
  handle, you know, yourself, like, come on, man.
• 1:01:22
  And rereading this book, I was just like, man, I really like
• 1:01:27
  the Doctor's relationship with the other violin guy.
• 1:01:31
  It it's like because every Doctor Who story makes him
• 1:01:36
  straight right up to up until shooting out.
• 1:01:40
  All right, everything like it's, it's, it's all it's all ladies
• 1:01:45
  and but the doctors like. I don't know man.
• 1:01:50
  It's like it was just. Different and refreshing and it
• 1:01:53
  was interesting and I was just wanted to see where it goes.
• 1:01:55
  They do. And the.
• 1:01:57
  Doctors and you know, like that person that lives in with a
• 1:02:00
  bloke petulant and ruse and childish and all of those things
• 1:02:05
  you are with the person that you live with.
• 1:02:07
  It's really well judged and and. And the music, like there's
• 1:02:13
  really, yeah, the violin and all that kind of stuff is really
• 1:02:16
  great. And I'd say Nick Wallace
• 1:02:18
  definitely read this and it was like, I'm putting a music scene
• 1:02:22
  in fucking fear itself, man. Like, sorry, I swear a lot.
• 1:02:24
  By the way, I'm Australian, everybody.
• 1:02:27
  I'm as long as it's not the C word, we're all good.
• 1:02:30
  I'm English. The country's in chaos.
• 1:02:32
  I'm swearing all the time at the moment.
• 1:02:34
  Yeah, I've. Oh.
• 1:02:35
  Sorry to hear that. I've seen some of that.
• 1:02:37
  But yeah, so it's just a, it's a really beautiful book.
• 1:02:41
  You don't just feel for the humans, you feel for the tigers.
• 1:02:44
  And that's like what I feel every side.
• 1:02:45
  Lurian's stories kind of missed. You don't always empathize with
• 1:02:50
  the Silurians because they're just Dicks, whereas you kind of
• 1:02:54
  empathize with the tigers. There's this one little kid
• 1:02:56
  tiger. And when the tiger dies, I, I
• 1:03:00
  cry every time. It's just so emotional.
• 1:03:02
  And the doctor just in the eye of the storm, playing that
• 1:03:05
  violin, sorting out, he's literally.
• 1:03:09
  Elemental on that? He's controlling the weather.
• 1:03:11
  Right, just to get the. Tigers and he fucking talk to
• 1:03:15
  each other. I will tear this planet apart if
• 1:03:18
  you do not. Talk to each other.
• 1:03:20
  That's right. It's so good.
• 1:03:23
  And yeah, it's, I love it. That was, that was a that was
• 1:03:30
  like. Steve Lyons, Which one?
• 1:03:31
  Which one do I'd pick? Unlike the Steve Lyons book, I I
• 1:03:36
  went the one in my favorite era. So yeah, you remember that scene
• 1:03:39
  in. The Unquiet Dead, where Rose and
• 1:03:43
  the Doctor have a different moral standpoint with the GILF.
• 1:03:47
  He wants he he thinks it's OK for them to inhabit the bodies
• 1:03:51
  of the dead. And Rose is appalled and they
• 1:03:53
  sort of have an argument, but it's it's a one and done.
• 1:03:55
  It's done in that scene and then over and done with.
• 1:03:58
  Well, you have Angie and the Doctor in this book come to
• 1:04:02
  blows over the situation between the humans and the tigers.
• 1:04:05
  And the Doctor, I remember it's right in the middle of the book.
• 1:04:08
  The Doctor chooses to go out into the wilderness and live
• 1:04:11
  with the tigers and try and understand them.
• 1:04:14
  And the tigers have murdered one of the humours at this point.
• 1:04:16
  And Angie is like, you cannot do this.
• 1:04:19
  People are here, they they're being killed, they need your
• 1:04:23
  help. And he basically walks away from
• 1:04:25
  her. And it's a huge right.
• 1:04:27
  It's so it's brilliantly written.
• 1:04:30
  It's such a brilliant character piece.
• 1:04:33
  It's a super choice, Luke. I understand people who don't.
• 1:04:36
  Like Angie, she was something different as well and just
• 1:04:40
  amazing character. I love, I love her, and her exit
• 1:04:43
  in Timeless is great too. So, well, it's time to roast.
• 1:04:47
  Another book, then let's poop on something all.
• 1:04:50
  Right, let's go with here it is. I'll say I'm going to save that
• 1:04:57
  one. Let's go with sink the Espians.
• 1:05:00
  The reason I choose this, I like the crucial.
• 1:05:05
  Be. Sophilis, he's done stuff I've
• 1:05:08
  liked and I don't. I wish the people need too much.
• 1:05:11
  He has passed away. I am currently really sad engine
• 1:05:15
  and I will. Say it is a chore.
• 1:05:19
  Yeah, it's it's. Not exactly what you wanted to
• 1:05:23
  read after Happy Endings, but you know, it's it's there, it
• 1:05:27
  is. So this book feels.
• 1:05:32
  Like time of your. Life it was good it also when
• 1:05:36
  you read the afterward. He said something that I was.
• 1:05:42
  Feeling the whole time I was reading it and I'm like this
• 1:05:44
  feels like an eighth doctor book.
• 1:05:46
  This would be work better with you.
• 1:05:47
  And then he said this was originally pitched for the 8th
• 1:05:50
  doctor and I'm like no kidding. There's things in it that only
• 1:05:56
  the and it would only work right with the amnesiac 8th doctor and
• 1:06:00
  that is takes the 6th doctor doctor page 150 to work out.
• 1:06:05
  It's the it's the bloody nest stains.
• 1:06:09
  I'm like, you should have gotten that way earlier, way earlier
• 1:06:14
  than that. But if it was the. 8th Doctor
• 1:06:17
  with the. Amnesia, he doesn't know who the
• 1:06:19
  nestings are. So that would have been work.
• 1:06:22
  Now, Perry is still very Perry like.
• 1:06:26
  They're both in character, but Perry's doing some things.
• 1:06:30
  I was like, that seems a bit Angie Ish and sometimes that
• 1:06:34
  seems a bit fits ish. Not in terms of what her
• 1:06:36
  characterization, but like the tasks she's got to go and do and
• 1:06:41
  stuff. There's even like this scruffy,
• 1:06:44
  handsome guy with stubble who's a bit of a drunk in the book who
• 1:06:49
  tags along with the doctor or sometimes and other times with
• 1:06:52
  Perry and stuff. I was like, I think this would
• 1:06:55
  have. Worked better as.
• 1:06:56
  An EDA, and I thought he isn't, he's something they didn't
• 1:07:00
  really do any EDA. It would have been cool for the
• 1:07:02
  amnesiac, a doctor, to come across some of his old villains,
• 1:07:06
  who they are now. I've got to figure out how to
• 1:07:08
  beat them for the first time again.
• 1:07:10
  But they already know all my tricks, I think.
• 1:07:13
  I think it was a deliberate push away.
• 1:07:15
  From old villain. So because I agree to just tell.
• 1:07:19
  Some original stories. Which is great, but then you do.
• 1:07:22
  Lose a whole portion of your audience that wants the next
• 1:07:25
  Dalek side man or whatever master story.
• 1:07:29
  So and I do. Understand that, but it would
• 1:07:31
  have been nice from the burning to Godfrey Chronicles.
• 1:07:36
  It's the nestings. It's not exactly the Daleks or
• 1:07:39
  something. They tried to do the dialects
• 1:07:41
  but they failed. But yes, so.
• 1:07:43
  Oh and I was you were asking if I had a lions book in my bottom
• 1:07:47
  10 and I said I didn't but I can give you a hint on what was
• 1:07:53
  going to be. That was my dumb pun.
• 1:07:54
  Wouldn't work better if I typed it.
• 1:07:56
  Never mind. Well done.
• 1:07:57
  Thank you. Yeah, I'll never be asked back
• 1:07:59
  again. In fact, I think I'm.
• 1:08:03
  Silly. So it it it doesn't quite work.
• 1:08:10
  It doesn't work for me. At all.
• 1:08:11
  It feels like ground that's been covered in not only time of your
• 1:08:15
  life, but vengeance and Varos as as well.
• 1:08:18
  So I've seen it and read it done done better elsewhere, and I'll
• 1:08:23
  say one thing in his favour in that.
• 1:08:25
  Book and that is, Hinton writes a brilliant sick doctor.
• 1:08:28
  Like maybe, maybe not not figuring out.
• 1:08:30
  It's the nestings, but. His, his dialogue in his books
• 1:08:35
  tends to be very melodramatic and the 6th Doctor tends to be
• 1:08:39
  very melodramatic. So Hinton and and Colin, that's
• 1:08:43
  a marriage made in heaven. It works a lot better in Quantum
• 1:08:47
  Archangel where everything is just so operatic.
• 1:08:51
  You can, absolutely. See it, you know, Pip and Jane
• 1:08:53
  Baker style in the 6th Doctor's era.
• 1:08:56
  But yeah, that freaky. Cover with that steal from
• 1:09:00
  Dallas with the all time faces on it, it's really cool.
• 1:09:03
  Cover. It's terrible.
• 1:09:06
  That's why I like it. Yeah, even if.
• 1:09:07
  Loss is one of my favorite covers too.
• 1:09:09
  It's like just because it's just so gross.
• 1:09:11
  It's awesome. So yeah.
• 1:09:14
  Oh, I like millennial rights too, so in times champion, it's
• 1:09:16
  not too bad. Oh, he can absolutely deliver
• 1:09:19
  the. Goods.
• 1:09:20
  But he does have a style, and his style is usually somewhere
• 1:09:23
  in the stratosphere. Absolutely.
• 1:09:26
  All right, so let's let's say stop hooping on something and
• 1:09:31
  oh, oh, yeah, I've nearly done done them all.
• 1:09:33
  I've got one left on the the praising list. 02 left.
• 1:09:36
  Yeah, yeah. There we go.
• 1:09:38
  So you'll say the ultimate. Book to praise.
• 1:09:41
  Let's have it it. So there are some writers who
• 1:09:49
  only wrote one virgin book and they never really gave him
• 1:09:54
  another chance. And they probably should have
• 1:09:56
  because then they might have published Bunker Soldiers
• 1:10:00
  instead of the BBC. So it's Bunker Soldiers by
• 1:10:03
  Martin Day. It's a first Doctor Stephen and
• 1:10:07
  Dodo book. It's sitting like Kiev, oh, in
• 1:10:12
  the 1200s or something like that.
• 1:10:15
  It's going to be a Mongol invasion coming, but there's
• 1:10:17
  like an alien presence there as well.
• 1:10:19
  So the Doctors and Stephen and Dodo, they've got to sort that
• 1:10:21
  out. But the Mongol hold is coming,
• 1:10:24
  and he's coming and he's coming. They're getting closer and
• 1:10:26
  closer and closer. You feel that impending doom
• 1:10:29
  with every page that's coming on.
• 1:10:31
  It's like that kind of historical way.
• 1:10:32
  You've got to solve this and then.
• 1:10:36
  Get. The hell out the portions that
• 1:10:38
  are just with Steven from Aaron, the first person, and I still
• 1:10:42
  remember vividly this portion where he's in these underground
• 1:10:45
  kind of catacombs and his and his light goes out.
• 1:10:49
  He's got nothing else and he's just trapped in the darkness.
• 1:10:52
  And I just found it absolutely scary as hell.
• 1:10:56
  And Stephen's one of my favorite companions in in classic Doctor
• 1:11:02
  Who. So who to get a book that not
• 1:11:05
  only delved into him a bit more, but also aspects from the first
• 1:11:09
  person. I was like, all right, I want to
• 1:11:10
  get into his head that now that could go one of two ways.
• 1:11:13
  When they do that kind of stick, right?
• 1:11:14
  It could be either it works or it's terrible.
• 1:11:18
  I thought it really worked here so Bunker sold.
• 1:11:20
  I don't hear many people talk about that book either.
• 1:11:23
  Awesome. I remember writing my my review.
• 1:11:25
  I gave it 9 out of 10. I I love the fact that it, it
• 1:11:28
  felt so like a genuine Hartnell historical, like you said, the
• 1:11:33
  oppressive army approaching and they're sort of battening down
• 1:11:37
  the hatches and waiting for the and when it comes, it's brutal.
• 1:11:42
  It's yeah. Oh yeah, I think and.
• 1:11:45
  I think. It's underrated, you know, Luke,
• 1:11:47
  I think. People don't talk about him
• 1:11:49
  enough. I I also really love the sleep
• 1:11:52
  of reason. I know that's true.
• 1:11:55
  We're going to get him to. Reread it so.
• 1:11:57
  And try and change his mind, but that is truly.
• 1:12:00
  Doing something experimental, telling that from the that book
• 1:12:04
  from the point of view of somebody who's mentally very
• 1:12:07
  ill. And I think his work with Keith
• 1:12:10
  Topping as well, like the Holloman.
• 1:12:12
  That's a great read too. I got a soft spot for Devil
• 1:12:15
  Goblins. Of Neptune as well, that's
• 1:12:17
  really fun too. And his.
• 1:12:18
  Non fiction stuff with Paul Cornell and Keith Topping.
• 1:12:22
  It's 'cause you really get fabulous too.
• 1:12:23
  Yeah, I. And I really like Wooden Heart
• 1:12:26
  as well, which was his NSA, which Michael Hart put on his
• 1:12:30
  bottom 10 list. But I remember finding that an
• 1:12:33
  intriguing mystery, sort of a bit like the 6th Doctor Lost
• 1:12:37
  story. Lethal Effort.
• 1:12:38
  It's a wood inside a spaceship with people that are going
• 1:12:43
  missing. It's a It's a really intriguing
• 1:12:45
  mystery. Yeah.
• 1:12:47
  Great choice and a much underrepresented writer.
• 1:12:50
  I think it's from the. Latter half.
• 1:12:53
  Of the PDAs and you know, if you just go to the Doctor Who
• 1:12:57
  ratings guide, the you'll go, you'll see lots of reviews, lots
• 1:13:01
  of reviews and it tapers down like there's only three or four
• 1:13:03
  reviews of Fear Itself and things like that.
• 1:13:05
  So like everyone's gearing up for the new show.
• 1:13:08
  So he gives a share of all this thing.
• 1:13:10
  That's what we're here for, though.
• 1:13:12
  That's right. OK, so that means I have two
• 1:13:17
  books left to drop trail and take a poop on a very I'll run
• 1:13:23
  out very mature. That's all right there.
• 1:13:26
  I'll take you straight to the I don't need to give you any
• 1:13:30
  toilet paper. We'll just use the book, all
• 1:13:33
  right? So.
• 1:13:36
  Let's. I think I've shot my bolt in
• 1:13:39
  terms of maybe different choices because my next one is.
• 1:13:44
  And I'm going to say like I. Like this guy's Blake 7 work and
• 1:13:47
  I'll especially Warship, and I also like Frontier Worlds, it's
• 1:13:51
  pretty good too. But Chris All by Peter Angelides
• 1:13:55
  is boring and it's good. It's good.
• 1:13:58
  This is on your list. Because obviously it's very EDA
• 1:14:00
  heavy, so it's nice to have some balance to the force.
• 1:14:05
  Yeah, there's a few Edas on both sides.
• 1:14:08
  Have you read? All right, so have you read
• 1:14:10
  Vampire Science? Because I think Peter Angelides
• 1:14:12
  did too, and he just swapped out the fucking vampires for
• 1:14:15
  werewolves, didn't he? Also Also, this is one mistake,
• 1:14:22
  no offense, that the Edas never have it ever again.
• 1:14:27
  They never make this mistake again because Gasol follows
• 1:14:31
  alien bodies, alien bodies. Everyone's like, Oh my God, look
• 1:14:33
  where we're going. What are we going to do next?
• 1:14:35
  What are we going to do next? Casol Only one.
• 1:14:41
  Man. Followed Lauren smiles.
• 1:14:46
  He followed who? Who?
• 1:14:49
  Who wrote the book after interference?
• 1:14:51
  Paul Miles. Who wrote the book?
• 1:14:56
  After adventurous on Henrietta St.
• 1:14:58
  Paul Mars there you. Go he's.
• 1:15:01
  The only person that could follow.
• 1:15:02
  And I think because he's totally so different, but as
• 1:15:06
  accomplished that, yeah, poor. Peter Angelina is what?
• 1:15:11
  Nobody should have to follow alien bodies, so.
• 1:15:16
  You need someone. Who's got Who's a different kind
• 1:15:18
  of crazy to follow? Lauren smiles and that's Paul
• 1:15:22
  Mars. Sadly, he's not in my top ten.
• 1:15:25
  If he let me have 12, like he'd be in it.
• 1:15:27
  Like let's say he was Lane Tarkin.
• 1:15:28
  There you go. He's not in my top ten either.
• 1:15:30
  Sorry, that's that's weird, isn't it?
• 1:15:33
  So yes, like I felt like I'd read it.
• 1:15:35
  It's called vampire science. It's awesome by Jonathan Blum
• 1:15:39
  and Kate Orman as follows. Arguably like it's one of the
• 1:15:45
  lodestones. It's like it's a it's a load
• 1:15:47
  bearing book. He was keeping the range like
• 1:15:50
  upright for ages, you know, so the the it's not a good follow
• 1:15:59
  up to one of your most exciting reads of the year, which might
• 1:16:03
  make a good chunk of your reading audience go all right,
• 1:16:07
  let's go see what's next. And that's what was it.
• 1:16:11
  I even think like if option lock had come out would have been
• 1:16:14
  much better. And now it's.
• 1:16:16
  Safe still. It's still safe, but it's very,
• 1:16:19
  very well plotted and very well written.
• 1:16:21
  It's a good book. I would have put option like
• 1:16:24
  there for sure. Maybe if Casall was a couple
• 1:16:26
  books along, but even still, I've read Vampire science.
• 1:16:30
  I'm not. It's like right there.
• 1:16:31
  I've done it before and it's very recent to like it's like
• 1:16:36
  within less than a year it's book 7 Casall.
• 1:16:39
  So yes, I don't I don't like it. That was also in my bottom 10.
• 1:16:44
  List. So we are sort of in pattico a
• 1:16:46
  little bit, a little bit. I've mentioned, sorry, this is
• 1:16:50
  my last book in my top ten. Usually you finish this with
• 1:16:54
  your first book, but you know mine was pretty Stephen once you
• 1:16:57
  know everyone knew. So why bother delaying the get
• 1:17:01
  it out of the way that we talk about all the other writers.
• 1:17:03
  You could have surprised us and said.
• 1:17:05
  I don't know, Hinton was your number one or Gary Russell or.
• 1:17:10
  Christopher. Beulis.
• 1:17:12
  But what? All right, what's very.
• 1:17:13
  Last book to. Praise.
• 1:17:17
  It's. Hope by Mark Clapham it's I've
• 1:17:21
  not, I've seen that coming. In a million years, I and.
• 1:17:27
  I. Have it coming in the mail so.
• 1:17:29
  But you hope it holds up. But I can still remember stuff
• 1:17:31
  from that. Silver is awesome.
• 1:17:34
  I remember that villain. He was so cool.
• 1:17:37
  He's he's smart, he's cunning, He's got like part cyber
• 1:17:41
  technology on part parts of his body and stuff.
• 1:17:44
  And this like Angie's Angie so good to see Tegan.
• 1:17:51
  He will argue with the doctor, but eventually like we're space,
• 1:17:54
  we're space Bros, let's go. Angie portrays him, the doctor
• 1:17:59
  in this Angie's like, no, this is this is what I.
• 1:18:03
  Want to happen and stuff and. Like the doctor, kind of.
• 1:18:08
  That's not the feeling. But the doctor does kind of owe
• 1:18:10
  it to Angie to take her own because she actually wants to go
• 1:18:13
  home. She didn't want to travel in the
• 1:18:16
  Titus, but at all. But she goes along with it and
• 1:18:19
  she's fun for a lot of books. Trust me everyone, she does have
• 1:18:22
  a lot of fun in these books just like these dramatic.
• 1:18:25
  Highways, I think are our best points.
• 1:18:27
  Yeah, absolutely. There's absolutely some amazing
• 1:18:32
  things you can do with with Angie.
• 1:18:36
  If you tell me Fitz is great in this book, but how many real
• 1:18:39
  authors got Fitz fits wrong? That's probably.
• 1:18:42
  One of the reasons I love. Him so much.
• 1:18:44
  I get a book with Fitz in it. I'm like at least a third of the
• 1:18:48
  part. A good quarter of the book I'm
• 1:18:49
  going to enjoy right there. I wasn't much Fitz to write.
• 1:18:54
  A very smart sort of, you know, stocks and bonds trader.
• 1:18:59
  That it is. To write, you know, an endearing
• 1:19:02
  slouch. Yeah, that's.
• 1:19:04
  Exactly right. You need to write Angie with
• 1:19:06
  Smalls. You know a lot.
• 1:19:10
  It's going to make, it's going to sound like I'm shooting on
• 1:19:13
  fits, but we all know I love him.
• 1:19:14
  You've got to put a bit more work into writing for Angie
• 1:19:16
  because he's a more complex character, put himself in this
• 1:19:20
  difficult position. In this book, because he needs
• 1:19:22
  to justify Angie betraying the doctor and for the reason that
• 1:19:29
  he does, which is that Silver is offering her effectively a clone
• 1:19:34
  of her dead boyfriend and she lost her first story.
• 1:19:37
  But I think he gets there. And even better, the doctor's
• 1:19:40
  reaction to the portrayal isn't anger, it's just to her.
• 1:19:44
  I understand why you did it, I guess.
• 1:19:47
  It's very, it's very capeldy. Isn't it remember, like he took?
• 1:19:54
  Me a while to warm too. And it was that moment with
• 1:19:57
  Clara, I was like, yeah, that's Doctor Who.
• 1:20:00
  That's that's when Capeldy 100%. Clicked in my his Doctor Who.
• 1:20:06
  I like some of the stories beforehand, but that was the
• 1:20:08
  moment I was like, I think I'm going to be all right from here
• 1:20:12
  on out. Sort of wide.
• 1:20:14
  I rejected. The 2nd Doctor a bit in the new
• 1:20:16
  Adventures because he was just sort of avenging Angel that
• 1:20:19
  punished people, whereas the 8th Doctor was much more forgiving,
• 1:20:24
  you know, and some held out his hand and said you dumped bad
• 1:20:27
  things, let's try and make it right, you know, And that's a
• 1:20:30
  much better approach for me. I love that, yeah.
• 1:20:33
  He Yeah, he got it. He understood why she'd do it.
• 1:20:37
  And you can't be mad at her. You can be.
• 1:20:40
  We can be mad at. I think it deepened the kind of
• 1:20:43
  respect they had for each other. We might have to add this to the
• 1:20:46
  list, Luke. You know, Hope is one I need to
• 1:20:49
  revisit as well. I do remember really enjoying
• 1:20:51
  it, yeah. Well, we're going to finish on
• 1:20:57
  an EDA as well. So it is my favorite range of
• 1:21:00
  Doctor Who books, but there's bad ones.
• 1:21:02
  There's even bad ones in my favorite era.
• 1:21:05
  And Oh yeah, like it's not just the domino effect.
• 1:21:10
  It's not even Infinity race. That's it's not that great
• 1:21:12
  either. But this is worse.
• 1:21:14
  This is worse. Why?
• 1:21:19
  Because it took me a while to I I burning loved it Casual.
• 1:21:26
  Oh my God, I thought that was your Chuck.
• 1:21:27
  No, I love it. Captainalities.
• 1:21:29
  Of war. Great end game.
• 1:21:32
  It's Terry. It's readable.
• 1:21:34
  You bang it out. Oh, I know where you're.
• 1:21:36
  Going is fucking fantastic. Oh my God, the ending.
• 1:21:40
  And and because I I, I love. Cheering and like all that.
• 1:21:47
  Kind of stuff. I was like, God, they're on A
• 1:21:49
  roll, Father type. Oh my God, they can't do any
• 1:21:54
  wrong. Escape velocity happens and
• 1:21:58
  poor, poor calling. Break.
• 1:22:01
  Yeah. Well, remember how like some who
• 1:22:06
  writers bombed and we never saw them again?
• 1:22:10
  Column break should have been. One one of those sorry, I this
• 1:22:14
  is terrible. This is not only that, it's the
• 1:22:16
  introduction to like a companion I absolutely love and her intro
• 1:22:21
  story is terrible. You know, though, it's it's not
• 1:22:26
  good. This is what you want to like
• 1:22:27
  the doctors had this letter, the whole this note the whole time.
• 1:22:31
  Here's where we're going to make fit.
• 1:22:32
  Oh my God, wait, wait. And it's just a generic alien
• 1:22:37
  invasion story. That's what you dude, did you
• 1:22:41
  read father time? Are you are you reading these as
• 1:22:44
  a like, are you getting these in the on the computer?
• 1:22:47
  So you can you know what's coming?
• 1:22:49
  So, you know, like, oh shit, maybe I should punch up the the
• 1:22:54
  the writing or the dialogue or the story or something.
• 1:22:59
  It just. And then it's like it's another
• 1:23:03
  one of those. Books that's sandwiched between
• 1:23:06
  two books I adore, which is Father Time and Earth World.
• 1:23:11
  And all right, if we're going to do 11 Father Time, there we go.
• 1:23:16
  All right, So got Lance Parkin in there somehow. 12 mad dogs
• 1:23:21
  and Englishmen there we go. Right?
• 1:23:22
  Done. Because they deserve to.
• 1:23:24
  Be there somewhere I do deserve. To be.
• 1:23:27
  Absolutely. And I I feel like I just wanted.
• 1:23:28
  To put some, I don't know, Marley only wrote one.
• 1:23:33
  Some of these guys don't get talked about much.
• 1:23:36
  I just wanted to spread the love of some of my favorite books a
• 1:23:39
  little more, but and then like spread the shit really.
• 1:23:42
  Because I only put 11 author on the worst list as well and I've
• 1:23:47
  never read anything else by Colin Break.
• 1:23:49
  Do you know what I think? Colin Breaks issue is with
• 1:23:53
  writing Doctor Who books is it's something that Michael Mills
• 1:23:56
  told me there are some writers where their only frame of
• 1:24:00
  reference is other Doctor Who stories, right.
• 1:24:04
  So, so they basically build a, an original in inverted commas
• 1:24:09
  Doctor Who book out of other Doctor Who stories.
• 1:24:12
  So you get something like colour breaks colony of lies and it's,
• 1:24:15
  you know, a colony with a mysterious sequence secret, but
• 1:24:20
  it's also a space western. But it's, and it's all things
• 1:24:23
  Doctor Who's done before, but they're all sort of mushed into
• 1:24:25
  one. And that's what escape
• 1:24:27
  philosophy feels like to me. You know, the most generic alien
• 1:24:30
  invasion you've ever had. Something about a spaceship
• 1:24:33
  exploding. Yeah, just.
• 1:24:37
  It's. It's not trying to be.
• 1:24:39
  Anything other than standard Doctor Who story.
• 1:24:43
  And really, when you're coming after Father Time, that ain't
• 1:24:48
  good enough. Like when Lars Parkin is willing
• 1:24:50
  to squeeze something all ever again, he squeezes.
• 1:24:53
  A decade into. Father Time, you know,
• 1:24:55
  effortlessly and tells huge character journeys that go over
• 1:24:59
  10 years and then you have this generic Doctor Who alien
• 1:25:03
  invasion. Yeah, it's, it's crazy, isn't
• 1:25:07
  it? And it crazy that they're
• 1:25:09
  back-to-back, yeah. Like it's the let's just call it
• 1:25:15
  the Casal effect, I guess, or the because Casal is more fun to
• 1:25:19
  say than people to the effect, right.
• 1:25:21
  Yeah. Who's that going forward?
• 1:25:25
  This is this story is like ground breaking and amazing.
• 1:25:29
  And he's that's so Doctor Who, though, isn't it?
• 1:25:34
  Like even the TV shows like that.
• 1:25:35
  Here's this classic and he's he's Underworld.
• 1:25:39
  Take that something like I like Underworld though.
• 1:25:42
  I'm a Doctor Who's the only show that can have time.
• 1:25:44
  Lash and Revelation of the. Daleks back in the same season,
• 1:25:47
  yeah. Dragon fire and remembrance of
• 1:25:49
  the. Daleks back silver.
• 1:25:52
  This is a great. Show of the Galaxy back-to-back.
• 1:25:56
  The quality is. Inconsistent, should we say?
• 1:26:00
  But it's like you said, the quality of that arc and book
• 1:26:04
  arcs. In Doctor Who, ranges are not
• 1:26:07
  always. Spectacular, but the run, that
• 1:26:11
  five book run until that point have been so like either very
• 1:26:16
  good or fucking. Amazing.
• 1:26:19
  You know, Turing tests and. Fathers I'm.
• 1:26:21
  And I'd even say casualty of war is and the boning So so just
• 1:26:29
  look at the end and and just think, come on, we we just need
• 1:26:32
  to give it a punch at the end and to end on such a wet fart
• 1:26:38
  Uncle Terry didn't even care about.
• 1:26:40
  End game and it was still better than a velocity.
• 1:26:42
  It was so fun, wasn't it? Yeah, and.
• 1:26:47
  I'd read players so like, I knew it was up, so you know, that was
• 1:26:51
  fine. I like World Game too, so maybe
• 1:26:54
  that can be on the list. That's fine, That's perfect.
• 1:26:57
  Luke, what an amazing top and bottom list.
• 1:27:00
  However, your work here is not quite yet done.
• 1:27:03
  I'm going to ask you the same question I asked Andrew.
• 1:27:08
  I'm going to need some very sophisticated reasons as to why.
• 1:27:13
  Please rank the book. Ranges from your.
• 1:27:16
  Favorite to least favorite? So let's go through them.
• 1:27:20
  Virgin New Adventures, Virgin Missing Adventures, the 8th
• 1:27:24
  Doctor books, the past Doctor books, the New series
• 1:27:28
  Adventures, and the Targets. Those are your ranges.
• 1:27:32
  Rank them from best to worst. All right, so.
• 1:27:38
  All right, the edas #1, they're my favourites.
• 1:27:44
  That was just a little sub. Question do you think the top
• 1:27:47
  answer will always either be the Edas or the Virgin New
• 1:27:49
  Adventures depending on who I ask?
• 1:27:51
  Do you think it'll? Always be that you know the
• 1:27:54
  ones. That were like running
• 1:27:55
  storylines. It might be.
• 1:27:58
  But I reckon you could put in a really good argument for the
• 1:28:02
  PDAs, like there's a lot of great ones.
• 1:28:06
  Because I might, I, I, yeah, I'd go the Edas.
• 1:28:13
  But yeah, then yeah, that's, this is hard.
• 1:28:16
  It's on on the spot now. Yeah.
• 1:28:18
  Come on. So.
• 1:28:19
  Right, Doctor? 1st and why is that?
• 1:28:23
  I liked, I always liked the range, but I kind of dropped off
• 1:28:27
  here and there. But I'd loved the range from
• 1:28:30
  like the burning to the end. Did I say to the end?
• 1:28:34
  But I have 3. Books left and I.
• 1:28:38
  Haven't read the last three because then there's no more
• 1:28:41
  left and I've been saving them. Are you going to make make a
• 1:28:45
  promise to me? Now that should you ever wish to
• 1:28:48
  depart the book club or should you ever make that choice, yeah,
• 1:28:51
  Then as a farewell gift to me, we'll do those last three books.
• 1:28:56
  Yeah. I think you've done the.
• 1:28:58
  Gallifrey Chronicles though as well.
• 1:28:59
  Do it again, baby. Don't you worry.
• 1:29:03
  Yeah, so I I think I know things just from osmosis and stuff, but
• 1:29:09
  nothing that's going to stop me from reading the hell out of
• 1:29:12
  that when I get to it. I've gotten closer.
• 1:29:14
  Like a year ago, I had six Edas left to read.
• 1:29:18
  So I tomorrow Windows. Why did I sit on that?
• 1:29:20
  Oh, my God. And the dead stone.
• 1:29:22
  Not the dead stone. I'm worried.
• 1:29:23
  Sleep for reason. I haven't read dead stone yet.
• 1:29:25
  Sleep for reason. Oh, my God.
• 1:29:27
  All right, So Edas. Oh.
• 1:29:30
  Just because there's. Twice the amount and I feel like
• 1:29:33
  the hit rate's pretty damn solid.
• 1:29:35
  The PDAs, The new Adventures, And no disrespect, there's
• 1:29:40
  amazing books in the range, but they're not always as ambitious.
• 1:29:44
  To say the new Adventures, then I'd put the MAS there.
• 1:29:47
  No disrespect to the new series of Adventures or the Targets.
• 1:29:49
  They're my two bigger blind spots.
• 1:29:52
  But then I'd say targets than New series of Adventures
• 1:29:55
  targets. So your list.
• 1:29:57
  Almost Malry's Andrews, except he put the targets right at the
• 1:30:01
  bottom, of which I then had. Several bits of hate mail
• 1:30:06
  afterwards saying. How could anyone do this?
• 1:30:10
  I think he's like me when I. Was a little kid.
• 1:30:13
  The targets were important, but when I started watching the TV
• 1:30:16
  shows, watching stories was more important than reading the book
• 1:30:19
  versions of them. And then I had original novels.
• 1:30:22
  So like, yeah, that was for me. I think if if people have.
• 1:30:25
  Only mildly explored the original novels then those
• 1:30:28
  people the targets will ABS I mean I will find some of where
• 1:30:31
  the target. Novels are there.
• 1:30:33
  Number one, there's just so many fans that lured them OK, And I
• 1:30:37
  think it's probably why you, me and Andrew get them so well
• 1:30:41
  right, because we all the 8th doctor is our range what I.
• 1:30:46
  Would like to do though. Is because I'm sort of coming
• 1:30:49
  around far more to the new adventures than I have ever been
• 1:30:53
  willing to give them a chance in the past and we've got some
• 1:30:55
  tasty ones on our list so maybe my my education needs to
• 1:31:00
  continue there I'm just. Oh, we do have.
• 1:31:04
  Some Oh yeah, we want to make you read No future you do what?
• 1:31:10
  Yeah, that's not a great. Start everyone is, although I
• 1:31:13
  think Andrew has asked us to read The Ghost of N Space as
• 1:31:16
  well, which is not exactly Virgin at its finest, no?
• 1:31:21
  Or Barry. Let's at his finest either, but
• 1:31:24
  I've even heard the ghost of N space.
• 1:31:26
  So should I do that? Like maybe do them alongside?
• 1:31:30
  Each other it'd be less. Painful.
• 1:31:31
  You know what Elizabeth Slayton in there, You know, and I'll
• 1:31:34
  just tell you guys I read it, but I just.
• 1:31:37
  It's like. A video school project I guess.
• 1:31:39
  Books. Book project.
• 1:31:40
  Yeah, I read To Kill a Mockingbird for sure.
• 1:31:43
  No, I just wouldn't. Yeah, but we we certainly do.
• 1:31:47
  Have anyone who loves listening to the three of.
• 1:31:49
  Us. We do have a book.
• 1:31:52
  List the length of several library shelves to get through
• 1:31:58
  as well and we are going to be reading a lot more.
• 1:32:00
  But for now, can I just say from the bottom of my heart, thank
• 1:32:04
  you very much for giving so much of your time and.
• 1:32:07
  For waking up at absurd hours to talk about this ephemera from 20
• 1:32:13
  to 30 years. And Luke, thank you so much.
• 1:32:17
  Thank you. Thank you very much.
• 1:32:20
  This has been amazing fun, thank you.