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Hamster Book Club - Vampire Science (featuring Michael Mills) · A Hamster With a Blunt Penknife - a Doctor Who Commentary podcast

• 0:02
  This was how she liked it, loud and hard and unrestrained, the
• 0:07
  music pounding through her brain till she couldn't tell if she
• 0:10
  was moving to the beat or the beat itself was vibrating her.
• 0:14
  All she felt was the thump, thump, thump echoing through her
• 0:18
  rib gauge, bass and pulse merging into one sound.
• 0:23
  The guy's friend was still there, dancing vaguely at her
• 0:27
  with an angular lack of grace that suggested he'd been dead
• 0:30
  since the days of funky chicken. If he was a vampire, they'd have
• 0:34
  no problem. All Kramer would need to do was
• 0:38
  lean on this guy's shoulder and he'd crumpled into a pile of
• 0:41
  bones. He had the wasted Skinhead look
• 0:44
  and the sunken eyes of a junior Knots Ferrato, but Sam had seen
• 0:48
  this look too many times in daylight to figure it was blood.
• 0:51
  This guy was on. The doctor will be back in a
• 0:54
  moment. Look, I got to go talk to some
• 0:57
  people. She shouted at the other guy
• 0:59
  over the thump, thump. He stared blankly at her.
• 1:03
  Clearly the words hadn't made it across the few feet of noise
• 1:06
  between her and him. He stepped in closer to her.
• 1:10
  I said. I got to go talk.
• 1:13
  He leaned in close to grab a kiss and she stepped away.
• 1:17
  His hand grabbed the back of her neck and pulled.
• 1:20
  All she could see was his ear, because his mouth was and the
• 1:24
  thump, thump of her heart in full fight or flight, kick the
• 1:28
  back of his knee the way the self defence course taught.
• 1:33
  He's falling on her but he's not letting go.
• 1:35
  Fingers round the sides of her rib cage like claws.
• 1:38
  She's falling with his teeth still locked in her throat, the
• 1:42
  back of her head on the dance floor and him falling across
• 1:45
  her, fingernails stabbing into her back as she fell on them.
• 1:48
  And the waves of realisation beginning to wait a minute.
• 1:53
  Something is wrong. That's real blood and the two
• 1:57
  guys pulling the vampire the vampire off the throat as the
• 2:01
  crowd surged around her and her throat is still flowing her.
• 2:07
  The music stopped. Welcome back to Hamster with a
• 2:23
  blunt penknife. Mr. Ford, come in.
• 2:30
  How many absurd opinions have I seen on Doctor Who books today?
• 2:35
  123, How dare you? I was doing Bailey Lugosi.
• 2:42
  Oh, sorry. I thought you was doing Sesame
• 2:46
  Street. Hello there.
• 2:49
  Hello, Joe. I've got two sinister puncture
• 2:53
  marks in my neck. You know, I went clubbing last
• 2:56
  night and I thought man was giving me a Hickey if I wanted,
• 3:00
  but I I haven't slept since. I feel as if I might be an
• 3:03
  immortal being from the dawn of time now.
• 3:06
  I sometimes get that feeling. You probably just need a bit of
• 3:08
  shatter. That's rude.
• 3:14
  Vampire science is what we are here to talk about today and
• 3:18
  now. No pressure or anything, but I'm
• 3:20
  getting messages from authors now saying I loved your book
• 3:24
  club episode. Thank you so much for saying
• 3:26
  nice things. Just have that in mind.
• 3:31
  No, I don't think Kate Ormond or John Blum are going to be
• 3:34
  listening to this somehow. But before we get on to vampire
• 3:38
  science, I put out a tweet to you know the those
• 3:43
  interestingly, again, we just talked about dot and bubble to
• 3:45
  the bubble of the hamster book club and asking what is your
• 3:50
  favorite Doctor Who book? Now I understand you've collated
• 3:55
  some data and have now managed to within each of the ranges
• 4:00
  highlight from the 90 odd. There was loads of comments
• 4:04
  coming back what the most popular books are of each range
• 4:09
  within that small amount of people.
• 4:12
  Yes, I mean, this is this is not the most scientifically rigorous
• 4:16
  polls of heralds of creation. We are not coming for your
• 4:19
  crown. Fear.
• 4:20
  Fear not. But you know every time, right,
• 4:24
  Harold, this is the stars of something.
• 4:27
  You've been warned. But, but, but non
• 4:31
  scientifically, just based on what people have have have told
• 4:34
  us that they said we've been able to just pick out some, we
• 4:36
  say some favourites from each of the ranges.
• 4:39
  What? I'm going to assault you, first
• 4:40
  of all with some of these absurd opinions, and then you let us
• 4:43
  know what the data is at the end.
• 4:45
  Yeah. I will be the Richard Osmond's,
• 4:47
  your Alexander Armstrong. Well done.
• 4:52
  I can't really do the Alexandra. I'll just do Mr. Smith from the
• 4:55
  Sarah Jane Adventures, you know. OK, we're going to start with
• 4:58
  Rods, OK, So prepare yourself. Rod suggests that Damaged Goods
• 5:04
  is his favorite Doctor Who book. He says for being as bold and as
• 5:07
  daring as it was whilst retaining big heart and just
• 5:11
  sticking within the confines of the Doctor Who universe as it
• 5:14
  had become within the Virgin New Adventures.
• 5:18
  A big heart that it will rip out of the chest of a loved
• 5:20
  character and show Q it's true. Yeah, and many others.
• 5:25
  James H, who's not afraid of a bit of contention, suggests the
• 5:29
  also people. Have you read that one?
• 5:32
  I haven't. Big blind spot.
• 5:33
  Add it to the list. Add that to the list.
• 5:36
  My I have been very slowly working my way through E&M,
• 5:41
  Banks's Culture novels, and if I was to be really annoying and
• 5:44
  nerdy, what I should do is read the also people at the point in
• 5:48
  publication of the Culture novels where it came out OK to
• 5:52
  see all the influences. Yeah, I love the amount of
• 5:55
  research you're willing to do for this very niche podcast.
• 5:57
  I've I've read A-100 page Michael Moorcock anthology for
• 6:03
  an episode that we haven't even done.
• 6:06
  Did you read the Come Again to Terrafiles as well already?
• 6:09
  No, Oh God bless you. Well, you've got some joy to
• 6:13
  come. Well, James suggests it's one of
• 6:15
  the most relaxing and enjoyable reads from the whole of Who.
• 6:18
  Honorary mention he gives to Bad Therapy for being exactly the
• 6:22
  book when I needed it. And that's, I think the most gay
• 6:25
  themed Doctor Who book that there is.
• 6:28
  Yeah. There's a young character in
• 6:30
  there that's struggling with his sexuality And it's very, it's
• 6:33
  towards the end of the range, very gentle, very mature book by
• 6:38
  Matt Jones, who wrote Impossible Planet and the Satan Pit.
• 6:41
  That's that's one we should maybe look at at some point
• 6:43
  because it it never one that comes up in the, you know,
• 6:46
  pantheon of great virgin new adventures.
• 6:48
  But it's one I've heard people mention in, you know, in, in in
• 6:52
  in kind tones. What's would you imagine is the
• 6:55
  longest list in history of anything?
• 6:59
  Yeah, a list containing all previous lists.
• 7:06
  Oh, well done. Well, now our list of books to
• 7:08
  cover on this podcast is even longer than that.
• 7:12
  Darren Lit Roundall says his favorite new adventure is
• 7:14
  probably Bird Fry, He said. I kind of skipped through the A
• 7:18
  section of the book, but found Bernice section in Victoria,
• 7:21
  London so captivating. It was very easy to picture in
• 7:24
  my mind. And then this is the damning
• 7:26
  part. I don't recall ever finishing
• 7:28
  any of the others I read, so it's the best one because it's
• 7:34
  the only one I could be bothered to finish.
• 7:37
  Coming soon to the Hamster Book Club, Darren lit roundels
• 7:40
  discovering Doctor Who book for the first time.
• 7:43
  Lovely Sigh. Heart says when push comes to
• 7:45
  shove, I'm going to have to go for Romance of the Crime because
• 7:49
  it so perfectly captures season 17.
• 7:51
  Maybe Scarlet Empress. That set my imagination reeling
• 7:55
  into the Paul Mars universe. Or, and this is what I really
• 7:59
  want to cover, borrowed time. That was unexpectedly moving and
• 8:03
  beautiful. Yeah, that is a good one and
• 8:07
  written by Naomi Oldman, who since gone on to be an
• 8:10
  international best seller with her book The Power as well.
• 8:14
  So, you know some. Is that her only Doctor Who
• 8:17
  book? I think so.
• 8:18
  I think maybe it's one. Oh no, she did one of the
• 8:22
  Legends of a Shielder novellas as well I think.
• 8:25
  Oh God, sorry, let's not hold that against her.
• 8:29
  David GP says for me it has to be happy endings.
• 8:33
  Apart from costing the earth to secure a copy, it was a fun book
• 8:36
  with less of the usual New Adventures angst, proper
• 8:39
  celebration of the series so far, and more fan work than you
• 8:43
  can shake your fist at. Read it in one day the first
• 8:47
  time around so must be good. I remember loving happy endings
• 8:51
  when I was once. That sort of collates all the
• 8:54
  characters that the new adventures have given us and
• 8:57
  bringing them all together. I've.
• 8:59
  I've not read it, but I'm all right in thinking there's a
• 9:02
  chapter where all of the previous New Adventure authors
• 9:05
  were invited to contribute a short section with their
• 9:08
  characters from their previous novels as guests at the wedding.
• 9:11
  That's cute. I think more than any other that
• 9:14
  really shows how that was like a a collective of authors all
• 9:18
  working together, as opposed to BBC which is authors just
• 9:22
  writing on their own. Yeah, yeah.
• 9:25
  Glenn Fitzgerald suggests Casualties of War, which is the
• 9:30
  second in the Earth arc. Have you read that one?
• 9:32
  No, these are all these are all my everyone's hitting my blind
• 9:35
  spots here. OK, PDT says being something of
• 9:38
  a basic bitch. I've only read a handful, but I
• 9:40
  remember loving, wait for it, War of the Daleks.
• 9:46
  I'm reliably informed since that it's shit, so I didn't look
• 9:49
  back. That's one of my that's one of
• 9:50
  my other half's favourites. And Ken Moses, that is that is.
• 9:55
  That is absolutely the correct opinion.
• 9:57
  War of the Daleks. I have exactly the same one.
• 9:59
  It was one of the first Doctor Who books I've read.
• 10:01
  I thought it was incredible. I dent go back coming soon from
• 10:08
  the Ryan Denya cliched answer, but it's got to be Touched by an
• 10:11
  Angel by Jonathan Morris. So real and heart wrenching.
• 10:14
  You've come with that before. Oscar Groucho says Since my
• 10:21
  father passed, I've a renewed affinity for the room with no
• 10:24
  doors. Gareth Bowley says the one that
• 10:27
  got me back into reading Doctor Who books.
• 10:30
  Eaters of Wasps feels like a mash up of Terror of the Zygons
• 10:34
  and Delta and the Banner Men. I like stories that evoke the
• 10:37
  classic series. And it's a cracking story That's
• 10:40
  one of the ones that everyone remembers, isn't it?
• 10:42
  But it's not, it's not a big it's it's not a big arc novel at
• 10:46
  all, but it is it's it's a very, very good Trags Doctor Who done
• 10:51
  in 2001. And of course one of the all
• 10:54
  time greats, but which of course mean horrifying.
• 10:56
  Doctor Who covers. Do you remember the one?
• 10:58
  I picked it up. Yeah.
• 10:59
  Horrible gums with all the Wasps in them.
• 11:03
  It was the I think that and Mad Dogs.
• 11:05
  Mad Dogs and Englishmen were the two And my mum said what are you
• 11:08
  reading? Absolutely horrific but
• 11:12
  wonderful. Ken Moss that does our book
• 11:14
  readings. It says it's a toughy.
• 11:18
  So many greats. The 8 Doctors spawned an intense
• 11:22
  8 year love affair with the Edas.
• 11:24
  The Gallifrey Chronicles I love, but my stand out was The Banquo
• 11:28
  Legacy. The time place element kicks in
• 11:31
  here as I read it in an old house in the snow.
• 11:35
  Oh, I suppose that that would count for something.
• 11:37
  Do you remember the Banquo Legacy?
• 11:39
  It's a great book, so one right before the Ancestor cell isn't
• 11:43
  it starts off as a traditional Doctor Who book and then you
• 11:46
  realise there's a a huge arc significant about a 2/3 in and
• 11:51
  then the last third is all leading into the Ancestor Cell
• 11:54
  doing that sort of Rusty Davis penultimate episode thing.
• 11:57
  Yeah, OK, I'll quickly knock through a few others now.
• 12:01
  Crash Dummy says Forever Autumn for being an amazing blend of
• 12:05
  Who Goosebumps and Halloween season that is one since we did
• 12:08
  our episode on sick building that a lot of people have
• 12:10
  flagged up as being a very strong new serious adventure.
• 12:13
  We didn't mention it. The list is getting longer.
• 12:16
  Ian Banks are going to put in a vote for who killed Kennedy.
• 12:20
  Another one that a few people mentioned.
• 12:21
  You know, that's that's a real idiosyncratic Doctor Who book,
• 12:25
  isn't it real real one-of-a-kind.
• 12:27
  And I I remember really enjoying it and in the best possible way,
• 12:31
  very 90s that it's all playing into the sort of conspiracy true
• 12:35
  crime novel and doing Doctor Who in that way.
• 12:37
  Yeah, that's great. That's a great sound pitching
• 12:39
  together all that continuity to 1 narrative and another very 90s
• 12:44
  preoccupation. JA Prentice says the Infinity
• 12:47
  doctors wildly imaginative, a big screen Doctor Who movie on
• 12:50
  the small page. And Kelly Ellis says cold
• 12:55
  fusion. I love the NA version of the 7th
• 12:58
  Doctor. And when he crossed paths with
• 12:59
  my doctor from my childhood, the contrast were perfect.
• 13:04
  If and when we ever do cold fusion, we will need to block
• 13:07
  out a a day as as will the listeners and all this
• 13:10
  listeners, because there is oh, that book is miles deep.
• 13:14
  We'll do that one in person, or rather, thanks together, and
• 13:16
  we'll just spend the whole day recording that one, Chrisetti
• 13:20
  boldly says. I've never read many of them,
• 13:22
  but I always remember Legacy of the Daleks for John Peel's
• 13:25
  getting a few showings here. A grim story showing the
• 13:29
  aftermath of the Dalek invasion of Earth.
• 13:31
  Jacob Lick, Licklider. I think that's how you say it.
• 13:35
  Lung Barrow is such a compelling murder mystery at its core that
• 13:39
  all the Gallagher stuff is just the icing on the cake.
• 13:42
  Yeah, I'm a big, I'm a big long Barrow fan, I think.
• 13:45
  I think freed of any expectation that it's actually giving the
• 13:51
  the true and nice history of Doctor Who.
• 13:55
  I think, you know, you can just enjoy it now in its own terms.
• 13:59
  And it is it's a really it's a really good and evocative book.
• 14:02
  I mean, much as the also people owes a huge debt to the culture
• 14:05
  novels that owes a huge debt to Gorman Gast, but that is such a
• 14:09
  smart place to go for for the doctor's origin.
• 14:12
  I think probably as as good a shout as you're likely to see
• 14:15
  for a long time of someone wanting to explore the Doctor's
• 14:19
  early life and actually doing something interesting with it.
• 14:21
  I just wish I didn't do all that pithier stuff, you know?
• 14:25
  And getting into a tizz about people having sex on Gallifrey.
• 14:30
  Doctor Who fans in the 90s went a very long way to establish the
• 14:35
  Doctor Who had as little sex as they did.
• 14:38
  You bitch. Jacob also suggests.
• 14:42
  And this is one you and I have talked about before, the year of
• 14:45
  Intelligent Tigers. I wasn't expecting to be so
• 14:48
  moved, but I should have. That's a great reader.
• 14:50
  I really want you to read that one.
• 14:52
  That's and another beautiful cover.
• 14:54
  Yeah. Gorgeous.
• 14:55
  Who says black sheep can't do it?
• 14:56
  Well, maybe eight times out of 10 they can't.
• 15:00
  Brian suggests blood Heat, a really solid body and
• 15:04
  psychological horror. Ben Leonard I I wanted to put a
• 15:08
  Lawrence Miles one in there. The Adventurous on Henrietta St.
• 15:12
  does everything great Doctor Who should do.
• 15:13
  Epic scale, makes the time period interesting and has a
• 15:16
  wonderful laugh out loud moments.
• 15:19
  Lawrence Miles his last Doctor Who book as well I think, and he
• 15:22
  might have done some faction paradox stuff afterwards, but it
• 15:24
  was his last Doctor Who thing. Now, 20, three years ago, 23
• 15:30
  years since we had a Lawrence Miles, Doctor Who.
• 15:31
  But that's sad, isn't it? Blew my mind when I read that.
• 15:34
  And then when I read the interview where he said it
• 15:37
  absolutely was written from the point of view of Benny, I was
• 15:40
  like, I need to read this again because it's just someone
• 15:43
  putting together all these documents, isn't it?
• 15:46
  OK, I've got two more past Doctor adventure or PDA.
• 15:49
  Sorry the person's called PDA says the degree chaotic.
• 15:53
  Fun to have postmodern character like Iris disrupt a UNIT story.
• 15:57
  There's a couple of Paul Miles in there which I'm very pleased
• 15:59
  about. And finally, cat boy settlopod,
• 16:03
  wonderful name suggests vampire science.
• 16:07
  It's such a fun book. Great side characters and
• 16:09
  themes. Interesting to see what they do
• 16:12
  with a knowing they've only got the TV movie to draw inspiration
• 16:15
  from. Well, I'm sure we'll have a bit
• 16:18
  more to say. OK, so come on then.
• 16:21
  Fuck me. Here we go.
• 16:24
  You're ready. Sorry, that sounded really rude.
• 16:27
  I'm so sorry. Please indulge me with some
• 16:30
  facts. So, dear listeners, this is your
• 16:33
  doing. But according to you, the, the,
• 16:36
  well, certainly the, the, the new adventure that got the most
• 16:38
  nominations from our listeners was one that's not been
• 16:41
  mentioned so far, but I think a widely regarded classic of the
• 16:44
  range Nightshade by Mark Gatiss. Oh, I, I wonder if that's a too
• 16:50
  like an obvious choice because it's so quite so tried, isn't
• 16:55
  it? It's I, I, I need to go back and
• 16:57
  reread it because I've not read it in many years and I want, I
• 17:01
  remember it being really good. But I want to know, get a sense
• 17:04
  of, is this actually good or is this just very much the sort of
• 17:08
  thing Doctor Who fans are going to like?
• 17:10
  And it's absolutely the perfect example of it works on the page.
• 17:15
  But I don't know if you ever listened to the Big Finish audio
• 17:18
  where they took massive segments out and they lengthened some
• 17:23
  segments. So it's really long, the audio,
• 17:26
  and it's got none of the atmosphere you would imagine.
• 17:28
  It was a real, yeah, a bit of a dog of an audio, if I'm honest,
• 17:33
  but but a great book. I just remember it being full of
• 17:36
  atmosphere and it had like an angry doctor in it.
• 17:39
  As far as I remember, he's furious in that book.
• 17:42
  Yeah. And began the The Virgin New
• 17:45
  Adventures obsession with flashbacks to the First Doctor
• 17:49
  and Susan, which happens a lot in the 90s.
• 17:52
  Yes, yes. The Virgin Missing Adventures,
• 17:55
  the book that has been mentioned got the most mentions was Cold
• 17:59
  Fusion by Lance Parkin. Is that a missing adventure or
• 18:03
  is that a new adventure? No, it's a missing adventure.
• 18:05
  It's branded as part of the missing adventures.
• 18:06
  And actually if you've listened to the in the audio, they
• 18:09
  balance out the roles of the 5th and 7th Doctors a bit more.
• 18:13
  But in the book it's it's very much a 5th Doctor book guest
• 18:17
  starring Chris and Ros with the 7th Doctor very much in the
• 18:23
  background. The 7th Doctors basically sort
• 18:24
  of having a different adventure in the background before all of
• 18:28
  this and only makes a a relatively small number of
• 18:30
  appearances within the narrative.
• 18:32
  They do love doing this, don't they?
• 18:33
  Contrasting 7 with other Doctors.
• 18:38
  And do you know there's a fabulous 2/3 of an interview out
• 18:42
  there with Lance Parkin where he talks about cold fusion and some
• 18:46
  depth. Check that out.
• 18:48
  What about their Ed as well? We're going to skip over the Ed
• 18:51
  As for a second. We're going to talk instead
• 18:53
  about the past Doctor adventures where we had a tie.
• 18:56
  Oh, was it Yeah, so it will the equal numbers of nominations
• 19:01
  were the Infinity doctors in Netherlands Park in book
• 19:04
  brilliant as well? Oh, it's it's it's it's
• 19:07
  fantastic. You know, agree with everything
• 19:09
  the listener said. It is it is huge in scope and
• 19:12
  ambition. It is.
• 19:14
  I think we've said this before in the podcast, that rarest of
• 19:16
  all things, a really interesting Gallifrey book that and Long
• 19:20
  Barrow might be the two interesting Gallrey books
• 19:23
  Nicely. They've both got a shout.
• 19:24
  Equally, equally lauded in the past Doctor Adventure range was
• 19:29
  the Witch Hunters. You read that?
• 19:32
  I have. Oh boy.
• 19:34
  In terms of discomforting rays, I think that's that's up there.
• 19:40
  The scenes of Susan being attacked by people in these
• 19:42
  crowds, he really captured something in a way that I think
• 19:46
  weird enough the Witch Finders didn't.
• 19:50
  And it was rejected by Virgin. Rejected by Virgin, but
• 19:53
  published by BBC Books, shows that, you know, Virgin didn't
• 19:56
  always get it right. Do we know why?
• 19:59
  I, I don't, I don't know. I don't know if it's out there.
• 20:02
  I've done an interview with Steve Lyons.
• 20:03
  I should have asked him. You really should have done.
• 20:06
  But it's too late now. I mean those are both early past
• 20:10
  Doctor adventures as well. Infinity Doctors was 98, so
• 20:14
  yeah, only a year into the range and Witch Hunters was very early
• 20:18
  on. Very early because it's got the
• 20:19
  really, really rubbish early past doctor adventure covers,
• 20:23
  you know, the swirl with the doctor and then something.
• 20:26
  But I was I was when I was talking about Fear Itself with
• 20:30
  some other book covers. We did sort of come to the
• 20:33
  conclusion that late New Adventures and early 8th Doctor
• 20:38
  Adventures and the respective paths and missing ranges as
• 20:41
  well, because we're sort of right in the middle of all of
• 20:44
  that. Then the the classics of that
• 20:47
  time are really loaded. And yet the stuff that sort of
• 20:50
  came towards the end, as good as that could be like Fear Itself,
• 20:54
  which is an incredible book because it was just sort of sort
• 20:58
  of fizzling out. It didn't get the recognition.
• 21:01
  Some of those books didn't get the recognition that that.
• 21:04
  So I'm almost willing to bet that your 8th Doctor book is
• 21:06
  somewhere near the start of the range.
• 21:08
  Well, we'll cover that in a second because we also should
• 21:11
  mention the new series adventures, because we we, we
• 21:13
  like the new series adventures here.
• 21:15
  We're not, we're not going to ignore them.
• 21:17
  One of them has already been mentioned Forever Autumn by Mark
• 21:22
  Morris, I think. Yeah, it was, it was unusually,
• 21:26
  I mean, I don't think he couldn't read it, but it was
• 21:28
  very goosebumps, you know, very. I I wouldn't be surprised if it
• 21:32
  got if, if they were still in the market of republishing
• 21:36
  existing books in in new matching jackets.
• 21:38
  I could see them doing republishing Forever Autumn
• 21:40
  because I think these days you'd say it had quite a Stranger
• 21:43
  Things vibe. Definitely.
• 21:45
  And I'll just remember it just been a rollicking read.
• 21:47
  I think I'll talk through that one.
• 21:49
  Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And tied with that was our third
• 21:53
  Lance parking book, The Eyeless. The Eyeless, which we've talked
• 21:58
  about before, but it, and it's a bit of a weird one, isn't it?
• 22:01
  It's a bit different from anything else they've done.
• 22:04
  So I can see why that one would stand out.
• 22:06
  Yeah, absolutely. Forever awesome is is a really
• 22:09
  good example of the really good example of the new series
• 22:11
  adventures what being sort of of of a piece with with what they
• 22:14
  often were. The eyeless does is does stand
• 22:17
  apart and it's sort of a similar way to touch by an Angel does I
• 22:19
  think as well. I think it's one of the few new
• 22:21
  series of adventures that could have been an Ave. doctor book
• 22:24
  comfortably. Yeah, with just a few tweaks.
• 22:27
  Well, it has some little being a Lance parking book does have
• 22:30
  some little hidden references to the EDA's in there.
• 22:33
  Why don't I go back and read it just for like you told me that
• 22:35
  before. Yeah.
• 22:37
  Which brings us getting ever longer.
• 22:41
  Which brings us to the 8th Doctor adventure age, in which
• 22:45
  our listeners favorite 8th Doctor adventure is Vampire
• 22:50
  Science by Jonathan. Oh my God, Dramatic Iris at an
• 22:55
  all time high. Well, funnily enough, that's
• 23:02
  what we're here to talk about today.
• 23:04
  You didn't skew the facts, you know, just so you could have
• 23:06
  that moment at the end there. How dare you?
• 23:08
  My data analysis was flawless Vampire Science by Kate Orman
• 23:22
  and Jonathan Blum. Or is it by Jonathan Blum and
• 23:24
  Kate Orman? I think it's I think this is a
• 23:26
  Jonathan Blum and Kate Orman. It's John Blum's first, isn't
• 23:31
  it, of his first book and has already written a swathe of new
• 23:36
  adventures. So she's all handed this now.
• 23:38
  Yes. Something that often gets missed
• 23:40
  is that she was the most prolific contributor to the
• 23:42
  virgin new adventures. She wrote five, which I think
• 23:45
  was more than anyone else and a thank God, a female voice in
• 23:51
  that very gun, right. The only, the only female author
• 23:55
  for the New adventures. It's something that the BBC
• 23:58
  books got better at, wasn't it? You had Lloyd Rose, Jacqueline
• 24:01
  Rayner, Kelly Hale. Yeah.
• 24:05
  Yes. It was still very, you know, the
• 24:07
  balance was still very off, but it was it was a bit better.
• 24:11
  It would be a little bit better. Yeah.
• 24:12
  And the very often that when Magdale Holiday.
• 24:15
  Yeah. When when women did write for
• 24:17
  the range, I thought they were great books as well.
• 24:20
  Yeah. History 101, City of the Dead,
• 24:22
  camera obscurity, gear of intelligent tigers.
• 24:25
  Wolf Spain, Earth World. Oh, what?
• 24:28
  People don't talk about Wolf Spain enough.
• 24:29
  That's all. That's a fantastic.
• 24:31
  Why? Why didn't you mention that?
• 24:32
  People listeners? Well, let's be honest.
• 24:36
  We can only choose one for each range.
• 24:37
  There was a lot that weren't mentioned there.
• 24:40
  Yes. And again is a past doctor
• 24:42
  adventure that is also sort of an eighth Doctor adventure.
• 24:44
  So I've got a big question for you, Michael, and I know you're
• 24:48
  going to give me a smart answer. Oh is vampire science even
• 24:53
  though it's the second book in the 8th Doctor range?
• 24:58
  BBC 8th doctor range? Is this passing the baton from 1
• 25:03
  range to another when we, as faithful listeners will recall a
• 25:11
  few months ago we talked about the 8 Doctors on this podcast,
• 25:15
  the first of the 8th Doctor Adventure range.
• 25:19
  Do you know what? Oddly, next we're doing The
• 25:21
  Dying Days, which is technically the first spoilers.
• 25:26
  Sorry, sorry, sorry. Please continue.
• 25:28
  Pretend you didn't hear that listeners.
• 25:30
  And I think the conclusion that we came to with the 8 doctors
• 25:33
  was that it it felt like it was a book from a a sort of another
• 25:36
  world, another timeline in which the TVM gambit had played paid
• 25:41
  off and Doctor Who had come back in 1996.
• 25:43
  Ninety 7 and was a was a was a big family rollicking success in
• 25:47
  in in the UK, and it felt very much like it was a tie in book
• 25:50
  for that. I I think the I think vampire
• 25:55
  science, the very next book, the second one totally very, very
• 25:59
  different, which we'll get into, but I think equally feels like a
• 26:04
  glimpse into another world that wasn't.
• 26:07
  And this is a world in which the TV movie happened, and the TV
• 26:11
  movie had the level of success that it had in the world and
• 26:16
  didn't really lead to anything else but a world in which Virgin
• 26:20
  Publishing's licence to publish Doctor Who books maybe fell a
• 26:24
  year or two later. And so BBC didn't snatch it back
• 26:28
  off them. And we carried on with more
• 26:32
  Virgin New adventures featuring the 8th Doctor.
• 26:34
  Because for all that it is the second BBC 8th Doctor adventure,
• 26:40
  in many ways it feels like the last Virgin New adventure.
• 26:47
  Yeah, I, I said to you in the chat that I think the 8th Doctor
• 26:54
  books could comfortably have been like this for some time.
• 27:00
  Good character stories written by strong authors, which is
• 27:04
  basically what you got in the last run of New Adventures.
• 27:07
  You know, some really great, really focused character stories
• 27:11
  by writers that have honed their craft.
• 27:14
  And we could have done that for some time.
• 27:17
  I don't think the BBC range would be half as interesting if
• 27:21
  they had done that. I'm really pleased they sort of
• 27:24
  push away from this, despite the fact that I'll say off the bat,
• 27:27
  I think this is a very good book and I really enjoyed reading it.
• 27:30
  I think it's got some problems, but I think it's a very strong
• 27:33
  novel and it's a good new adventure, weirdly.
• 27:37
  But the BBC books then went on to vacillate dramatically
• 27:42
  between trad and rad in a unthinkably weird way that is
• 27:48
  not going to be pleasing anybody because social audiences
• 27:53
  depending from month to month, they're going to be satisfied
• 27:56
  with what they're getting. But it's so much more
• 27:59
  interesting for that, I think. And I think it's it delivers
• 28:02
  more unexpected things because of that.
• 28:06
  Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.
• 28:07
  And when we spoke about the 8 doctors, you, you sort of said
• 28:11
  that they, the, the tone changed a lot and who the books seemed
• 28:14
  to be aimed at. See, especially in the early
• 28:17
  days seemed to fill it about from change from book to book,
• 28:21
  like who the perceived orders. And I, I think it's, you know,
• 28:23
  it's been discussed that there wasn't a very strong editorial
• 28:27
  at all at this, this early days. So it really was, you know,
• 28:30
  commissioned and publisher that much attempt to join them up
• 28:32
  apart from what the authors themselves were willing to, were
• 28:34
  willing to do. And we said that the 8 doctors,
• 28:38
  that was one of the big questions that we've had and
• 28:40
  other people have had, you know, who was this aimed at?
• 28:41
  Who was it aimed at? And ultimately, you know, I
• 28:43
  think we concluded it was an, an audience that wasn't there.
• 28:46
  I think vampire science really is aimed at people who had been
• 28:50
  reading so Violas in, who had been reading the Dying Days and
• 28:54
  Long Barrow and, and all the rest of them mere months before.
• 28:58
  I know those people probably sighs with relief when they read
• 29:01
  Vampire, the first sort of chapter of Vampire, sort of
• 29:04
  like, oh, thank God, OK. It's not all being aimed at
• 29:06
  preschoolers. It's not.
• 29:08
  They're not all going to be like that.
• 29:10
  No, absolutely. Because one of the things so
• 29:15
  that the 8th the 8th Doctor is not terribly well realized in
• 29:21
  the 8th Doctor. He is very generic Doctor Who
• 29:23
  here. There's a real effort to explore
• 29:27
  who this new Doctor is. And when we spoke, when we spoke
• 29:29
  to Lance Barkin, he said that he and Kate Orm would be and Job
• 29:34
  Bloom. I really were in, you know,
• 29:39
  contact trying to trying to establish who is the 8th Doctor.
• 29:41
  There isn't there isn't much to go on.
• 29:43
  Yeah, I love Paul Mcgahn's performance in in the TV movie,
• 29:47
  but you don't get a huge amount of the doctor in that because he
• 29:50
  can't remember. He's the doctor for most of it
• 29:51
  anyway. So they were very constantly
• 29:54
  trying to work out. OK, but who who is who is the
• 29:56
  8th Doctor? How is he different?
• 29:58
  Who is this? Who is this new character that
• 29:59
  we've got? And a lot of that was done in
• 30:02
  opposition to who the 7th Doctor had been, the character that,
• 30:05
  you know, we've been carving out exploring this character for the
• 30:08
  past, what was it 6 years? Whatever we do now needs to
• 30:12
  respond to that and change it. So this idea that the, and here
• 30:17
  in vampire science, this is a book very much it's one of the
• 30:22
  things it's really concerned with is how is the 8th Doctor
• 30:25
  different to the 7th Doctor? Which is interesting because it
• 30:26
  tells you who it's talking to. It tells you to people for whom
• 30:29
  that is going to be meaningful. We get so the the 8th doctor and
• 30:33
  Sam in San Francisco in 1997 investigating a coven of
• 30:41
  vampires who've been operating in the city for about a century.
• 30:44
  But now into I've seen arguments within within the coven mean
• 30:49
  that they're they might be about to strike out and that they
• 30:52
  might be coming out of the shadows to actually begin
• 30:55
  murdering and feeding on the people of the city.
• 30:58
  And they it and it's a book. It's a it's, it's, it's sort of
• 31:02
  in some ways it's almost a bit for morality play.
• 31:06
  In some ways it's, it's main concern is what do we do about
• 31:08
  this problem? Not not Even so much how do you
• 31:10
  combat the problem, but what should we do about about this?
• 31:14
  What should we do with these samples?
• 31:15
  What is the correct way to response?
• 31:19
  And a lot of that comes down to the doctor.
• 31:20
  Himself and how he engages with it because he gets a couple of
• 31:24
  other companions or supporting characters along the way.
• 31:27
  Here we get Caroline, who is a San Francisco Doctor Who will,
• 31:31
  I'm sure we'll come back to where she's from, and also
• 31:36
  Brigadier Adrian Kramer. Kramer, that's right, Kramer who
• 31:42
  knows the Doctor. Well, we're going to talk about
• 31:45
  that later as well, but she doesn't know this Doctor.
• 31:47
  She knows the 7th Doctor. And we get some references to
• 31:50
  the 7th Doctor in age, but it's quite clear for anyone who is
• 31:53
  reading this and it's a Doctor Who fan, and if you're sort of
• 31:54
  Doctor Who fan is reading Doctor Who books, you're probably going
• 31:56
  to get some of this. She's not.
• 31:59
  You're this whole discourse of. Is the 8th Doctor the same
• 32:03
  person the 7th Doctor is not premised on?
• 32:06
  Oh, you might remember that you watched the Battlefield 8 years
• 32:09
  ago. It's premised on the idea that
• 32:11
  you've been following the New Adventures because it's very
• 32:12
  much the New Adventures 7th Doctor that they're comparing
• 32:15
  contrasting with and. I really like the 8th.
• 32:20
  Doctor in this book I love the decisions that they have made
• 32:24
  about him and I think we we only really saw him in this way with
• 32:29
  this world realised here and I think in some of Lance Parkins
• 32:31
  books as well who is. Very explicit, I think.
• 32:38
  The phrase that you you hear people use a lot about the 38th
• 32:40
  Doctor is he would go quote, UN quote, toe to toe with the
• 32:44
  enemy. So the 2nd doctor was the arch
• 32:46
  manipulator. He'd have all the traps set.
• 32:47
  And actually that's not always the case in the virgin new
• 32:50
  adventures. Sometimes he does actually sort
• 32:52
  of, you know, confront the villain.
• 32:53
  But but there's definitely a this is a Doctor Who who flies
• 32:57
  by the seat of his pants, who is making things up as he goes
• 33:00
  along. There's Doctor Who has a
• 33:03
  character. His superpower is that he's
• 33:05
  clever. And so everything has to be,
• 33:08
  everything comes back to the resolves things because he's
• 33:10
  clever and that could be the centre of his vanity as well.
• 33:13
  But with the 7th Doctor, that's the manipulating, seeing all the
• 33:15
  chess boards or MP and things that I can only, I can only do,
• 33:18
  I'm Welsh, I can only do Welsh. So my Sylvester, my 7th Doctor,
• 33:22
  will be Welsh ace. Oh, perfect.
• 33:30
  If we fight like animals, we'll die like animals.
• 33:33
  You just need to ask me to do those bits.
• 33:35
  All right, I'll do a great Sylvester McCoy.
• 33:38
  If you do say, say yourself, but his, his, his the way the
• 33:44
  cleppers was realised with the with the 7th Doctor was the, you
• 33:46
  know, the the the arch manipulator, to use the phrase
• 33:48
  with. I mean, there was a bit of that,
• 33:50
  Michael. Don't undersell that.
• 33:52
  There was a lot of he was 15 steps ahead.
• 33:55
  Yeah, like, you know, all those Andrew Carmel novels.
• 33:57
  He barely appeared, but he's got the climax sorted out on page
• 34:01
  one. Oh, no, 100% that.
• 34:03
  You could never see it as clearly as he could with the 8th
• 34:05
  Doctors presented here. It's much more.
• 34:10
  In fact, one of the, one of the. Questions that keeps coming back
• 34:12
  like you come back to this book is does he have a plan is this a
• 34:16
  doctor whoever has a plan he's improvising his way through this
• 34:20
  entire story, which is which is wonderful it's you know because
• 34:27
  the the I I really like that because.
• 34:34
  Lance Park and Go takes that. To the extreme and the dying
• 34:36
  days where you literally have the doctor jump out of a
• 34:38
  spaceship with no plan and works out a way not to die between
• 34:42
  before he between the spaceship and hitting the ground, you
• 34:45
  know, but there's a lot of that on smaller levels here as well
• 34:47
  that he he is much more he's he's much more in the moment.
• 34:52
  He is much more seemingly emotionally open and, and, and
• 34:57
  attempting to be honest with people.
• 34:59
  But then there's also questions about is that the case?
• 35:02
  Can we trust him? Is that is that ACT?
• 35:04
  Has he changed fundamentally or is this just a change in his
• 35:07
  presentation? Because ultimately he still, he
• 35:10
  still saves the day and he still always does have a plan.
• 35:14
  Isn't there a bit of the in this book where Sam goes to sleep one
• 35:19
  night in the TARDIS and then the Doctor says, oh, oh, yeah.
• 35:22
  Oh, no, no, he comes back. He's had a year away at some
• 35:25
  point in this book. That seems very seven doctor to
• 35:28
  me. He's been off having all these
• 35:29
  adventures. And then he popped back a year
• 35:31
  later. Yeah, exactly.
• 35:33
  Yeah. I think it's that he.
• 35:35
  He left her at a rally and she hadn't even really noticed that
• 35:38
  he'd. Yeah, And he hadn't even really
• 35:40
  noticed that. She hadn't really noticed that
• 35:42
  he'd gone. But he sort of came back all
• 35:44
  flushed and unapologetic and admitted that he'd been gone for
• 35:46
  years. That one thing led to another
• 35:48
  fact, fans. Placebo effect later establishes
• 35:52
  that that's where the Radio Times comic strips happened.
• 35:55
  Oh really? OK.
• 35:57
  And in fact, the fact I do remember back in sort of circa
• 36:00
  2000 and one 2002, back in the days of the Doctor Who reference
• 36:04
  guide online, if anyone remembers that there was a, a, a
• 36:07
  general fan effort to fit back in the days when we still tried
• 36:11
  to make sense of the 8th Doctor's timeline to try and fit
• 36:14
  all of the non BBC books 8th Doctor adventures into that
• 36:18
  year. It had a whole section.
• 36:21
  So so that was where I've never had a good night's sleep, have
• 36:24
  I? That's where the DWM comic
• 36:27
  strips happens. That's where the Telus novellas
• 36:29
  happened. I think, I think they eventually
• 36:30
  gave up when big even to Lance Parkin.
• 36:33
  He's writing a a history of the entire universe of Doctor Who.
• 36:36
  OK, he'll do it for you. I I think it was around the time
• 36:40
  of of Kerry's that people finally went.
• 36:42
  There's too there's too many adventures to fit into a year.
• 36:45
  No, that's just when they gave up.
• 36:48
  I can't do not mighty. He's just brought up so many
• 36:51
  talking points there. I don't even know where to
• 36:53
  start. If, if I may, I think one of the
• 36:57
  things that I think is really interesting about what they say
• 37:00
  about the Doctor here in in contrasting him to that also
• 37:03
  very distant and closed 7th Doctor is that he is he's more
• 37:08
  emotionally open, but he's still thinking on a different level to
• 37:13
  his companions. And they sort of problematize
• 37:15
  it. And throughout the book, Sam
• 37:19
  starts off working really well with the Doctor.
• 37:21
  They're all right. So she arrived like in the, in
• 37:23
  the dying moments of the 8 of the 8 doctors.
• 37:26
  But time has passed and she's now, you know, she's firmly
• 37:31
  established on, on the TARDIS with the Doctor very comfortable
• 37:33
  working away very deliberately. That's a that's a very new
• 37:36
  virgin new adventures thing as well.
• 37:37
  They arrive and they're being very deliberate about how they
• 37:40
  approach the problem. But it's a bit where she's she's
• 37:42
  just sat down the TARDIS ringing around all of the clinics in in
• 37:46
  San Francisco, trying to trying to find somebody knows something
• 37:48
  about vampires. But when we first see her, which
• 37:51
  is in Caroline, Caroline's past, isn't it?
• 37:54
  If she's already there in the story, she's in the bar being
• 37:57
  sassy and sarky and Miss know it all.
• 38:01
  When we find that that is all a facade.
• 38:03
  But that's very new adventures as well, that they're they're
• 38:06
  already immersed in the story. Yeah, but, but that's where I'll
• 38:10
  start. And and I think there's a a line
• 38:11
  about her being on her third pair of sneakers since she
• 38:14
  joined the Doctor because of all the running and all these bloody
• 38:18
  books. But having having established
• 38:26
  this very happy pairing, which in fairness is sort of where we
• 38:29
  leave them at the end of the eight doctors, you know, she
• 38:31
  comes on board and they're very like straight away, you know,
• 38:34
  they're going to be great together.
• 38:35
  They're going to get going. And a lot of the book is
• 38:38
  concerned with with actually examining that depiction of Sam
• 38:42
  Jones as just being the very generic, very, very tightly, you
• 38:45
  know, very broadly sketched out character with all these, you
• 38:50
  know, particular interests and values.
• 38:54
  But across the book, they begin to pick that apart and actually
• 38:57
  they begin to interrogate that that that depiction of Sam, that
• 39:01
  idea of Sam and also her, her views on the doctor.
• 39:05
  Because just because the 8th Doctor is kind and he is
• 39:10
  emotionally open and he is, you know, incapable and thoughtful
• 39:15
  and, and, and act accordingly, that that doesn't mean that he
• 39:19
  can't still be self-centered or inconsiderate.
• 39:22
  You know, those are not necessarily things that need to
• 39:24
  be negatively and deliberately expressed towards people.
• 39:30
  It can just be in your terms of your, your interpersonal
• 39:33
  interactions. Because there's only so much
• 39:35
  room in his head for so many thoughts and Sam's realising
• 39:38
  that she isn't always one of them.
• 39:40
  So that whole point about him having left her at rally for a
• 39:44
  year, it's not just a get out of jail free card for continuity
• 39:46
  nerds. It's also meant to be that like
• 39:48
  he was, they make a point that he was really sorry when he came
• 39:51
  back, genuinely sorry. But the point was he did it
• 39:54
  right. And she's not always his sole
• 39:56
  focus. Yeah, you know the.
• 39:59
  Bit. Where Which you will hear.
• 40:01
  Brilliantly read by Ken Ross at the beginning of this episode.
• 40:03
  The bit where she's assaulted. Yeah, horrifyingly.
• 40:08
  That is such a vital moment, isn't it, Because she's so cocky
• 40:12
  at that point. She thinks she's so untouchable
• 40:15
  because she's under the doctor's wing and, you know, she almost
• 40:19
  dies. And in a brilliant sequence of
• 40:21
  events, we see from her point of view, her going into the
• 40:25
  ambulance, her going to the hospital, and then a series of
• 40:28
  character scenes in the hospital where Kramer, Brigadier Kramer's
• 40:31
  begging her not to do this and that she's throwing herself in
• 40:35
  danger for the doctor. And why are you doing it?
• 40:38
  All of that examination. It's so vital, I think.
• 40:42
  I do think by the end of this book, Sam Jones is a fully
• 40:45
  rounded character. Yeah.
• 40:48
  And all of this. Is is playing off how quickly
• 40:53
  she was introduced in The 8 Doctors, which you always can't
• 40:55
  believe when you're reading it. They're like, oh, she's the last
• 40:58
  couple of pages. He goes back and picks her up
• 41:00
  and then she's like, yeah, off we go.
• 41:01
  What is it, Spiff and Jones? It was meant to be and that's
• 41:05
  it. That's all we get.
• 41:06
  Exactly. But but what?
• 41:10
  Jonathan Bloom. And Kate Orman.
• 41:11
  Do here really cleverly is to treat that as sort of
• 41:14
  symptomatic of how lightly the doctor treats Sam that he kind
• 41:20
  of I'll say he doesn't care for her.
• 41:21
  But if there's a sense of, you know, he he needs someone to be
• 41:27
  with him. And she fitted the bill.
• 41:29
  She looked she you know, that's sort of turning on its head.
• 41:31
  The fact that she's written as the sort of fairly generic
• 41:34
  Doctor Who companion. You know, she's she's almost,
• 41:37
  you know, almost could be described as plucky.
• 41:40
  You know, you have read alien bodies, right.
• 41:42
  You do know that that wasn't who she was supposed to be and
• 41:45
  etcetera, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.
• 41:48
  And we would go even further down this down flowers.
• 41:50
  We begin to unpick that idea. But there is a whole idea here
• 41:55
  about what is the Doctor's duty of care towards Sam, because he
• 41:58
  has just picked her up. He has just wisdom.
• 42:00
  Yeah, we've got lots of great adventures and I'm really
• 42:01
  capable. But he can't.
• 42:03
  He can't always be there. And if the Doctor is, the 8th
• 42:07
  Doctor is more immediately likeable than the 7th Doctor
• 42:10
  was, because he's so romantic, because he is so friendly,
• 42:13
  because he's funny. Equally, the thing that has
• 42:17
  maybe been lost, that is no longer there, that the 7th
• 42:20
  Doctor was able to offer was protection because he doesn't
• 42:24
  think that far ahead, because he's not well.
• 42:28
  Also, he's not that. That that deliberately
• 42:30
  manipulating of her. But that doesn't mean, as I say,
• 42:34
  that he isn't that he always has her, her best interests at
• 42:38
  heart. There's when you say that
• 42:41
  there's a moment in the hospital which really made me take a
• 42:44
  breath, where she asked the doctor, did you let them bite me
• 42:48
  to teach me a lesson? I don't know.
• 42:52
  I was. Like, how's he going to play
• 42:54
  that? And he's, he's like a a puppy
• 42:56
  that's been kicked, isn't he? He's so upset that she asked
• 42:58
  that question. Yeah, because.
• 43:02
  Because he didn't. You know, I don't think you
• 43:04
  think he did, but we did see the 7th Doctor do punish, teach his
• 43:12
  companions in some pretty tough ways.
• 43:16
  So it's an interesting question that you could probably ask the
• 43:18
  7th Doctor and he would say yes, yeah, exactly that.
• 43:23
  Because. And and there's a moment in
• 43:26
  which. You know, for all that.
• 43:30
  The you know Ace would and Ace gets name check a couple of
• 43:33
  times here and Kramer tells tells Sam about about Ace's.
• 43:39
  Conflicts with the. Doctor that he was manipulating
• 43:41
  her, that he was trying to teach her lessons the whole time.
• 43:44
  And there's a real moment here later on in the book where Sam
• 43:48
  has a has a realisation through speaking to the doctor that
• 43:52
  actually he doesn't have a plan and that that really shakes him.
• 43:56
  So this whole these adventures that we've all been gallivanting
• 44:01
  through and having great fun and that I felt secure in your
• 44:03
  presence. He's.
• 44:04
  Got such a confident. Swagger, she's convinced he
• 44:08
  knows what he's doing. Yeah.
• 44:10
  And that's, you know, the things that are that.
• 44:14
  Are kindly. Meant can still be.
• 44:20
  Can still be problematic you. Know you still just you can
• 44:23
  still interact with people badly.
• 44:24
  You can still there's a there's a great line where she says
• 44:29
  something on the lines of. He's just trying to protect.
• 44:33
  Me, he did everything for the best with the best of
• 44:36
  intentions, but they were his intentions.
• 44:40
  And it's a really interesting and counter intuitive take on on
• 44:47
  on that. You know, how do we we're not
• 44:49
  just presenting this new Doctor as being better than the 7th
• 44:55
  Doctor. He has his own.
• 44:57
  Because in many ways, the 7th Doctor would have had this
• 44:59
  wrapped up about a third in probably.
• 45:02
  Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. It's because he's trying to find
• 45:05
  a solution that he thinks is is right and moral, and he's trying
• 45:09
  to give the vampires a chance. Whereas I don't think McCoy,
• 45:13
  sorry, I'll stop saying McCoy, the 7th Doctor would have been
• 45:16
  as kind as that. No, no he wouldn't.
• 45:19
  And the Doctor, the 8th Doctor is preoccupied throughout with
• 45:25
  with. Trying to find.
• 45:26
  Resolutions for people with engaging with people and caring
• 45:31
  about them in the way the 7th Doctor, you know, we had in the
• 45:35
  book of human in the book of human nature.
• 45:38
  The reason the Doctor becomes human is not because he's
• 45:42
  fleeing aliens, but because he wants to try and understand what
• 45:46
  it is like to be human. Whereas that's not really
• 45:49
  something that the 8th doctor has a problem with here.
• 45:52
  You know, he he he is, he is half human and that is taken as
• 45:55
  a character trait as much as anything else.
• 45:58
  There's there's also a a wonderful bit where Caroline,
• 46:02
  who is the sort of one one off companion for this book, has to
• 46:07
  sit the doctor down and basically talk to him about
• 46:10
  what's going on with Sam and and just makes him just pulls the
• 46:15
  scales off his eyes a bit in terms of in terms of how he is
• 46:19
  affecting her and what he's doing, because he's because he
• 46:22
  is. I think he is emotionally honest
• 46:25
  in the end, although everyone's worried that he's that he is,
• 46:28
  that he is misdirect or what have you.
• 46:29
  I think he is very open and he's almost, there's a line about him
• 46:32
  that being experienced innocence about him, that he is UN
• 46:36
  prepossessing that he he he doesn't set out to deceive and
• 46:40
  he does mean things with the best of intentions, but he just
• 46:43
  doesn't because he's almost like a child in some ways.
• 46:47
  In fact, Caroline asks him how old he is.
• 46:49
  Oh, he says 3 doesn't he says, and he says 3 because that was
• 46:53
  the last, it's been three years since he died, since he last
• 46:56
  died and was born again. Well, then she goes and then he
• 46:59
  goes, well, actually, technically it's, you know, a
• 47:01
  couple of 1000 or whatever he says and then she's so appalled
• 47:04
  he goes. That's why I like to say three.
• 47:06
  Yeah, but there is that. But there is a division that is
• 47:09
  a bit like a three-year old. But he is quite innocent to the
• 47:11
  world because the 7th Doctor never interacted or felt these
• 47:15
  things or wasn't interested in having these.
• 47:17
  But one one of the big differences between the 7th
• 47:21
  Doctor and the 8th Doctor is the 8th Doctor is played by Paul
• 47:24
  McGann, who is a very conventionally handsome man.
• 47:28
  And it's worth noting that Kate Orman and Jonathan Blum were
• 47:32
  fresh into their relationship when writing this book
• 47:36
  collaboratively. And you can absolutely tell
• 47:39
  because there's a couple in this that are so loved up.
• 47:41
  I wanted to vom every time they I was reading them in the pages.
• 47:44
  But also that, and I know this on good authority because Nathan
• 47:48
  bottomly knows Kate Orman very well.
• 47:50
  She was utterly seduced by Paul McGann, and there is absolutely
• 47:55
  a romantic angle to the doctor in this book.
• 47:58
  So you'll see him in some scenes, you know, he's rescued
• 48:02
  all the kittens and he's pulling kittens out of every pocket that
• 48:06
  he's got. Or he's making breakfast like
• 48:09
  he's playing an orchestra. You know, it's a bit like that,
• 48:11
  that Morecambe and Wise sketch. And there's a wonderful.
• 48:16
  Wonderful moment where Kramer literally has to sit him down
• 48:19
  and says, do you know the effects that you have on the
• 48:23
  women around you or just the people around you?
• 48:26
  Like, you are a very pretty man and they are utterly seduced by
• 48:31
  the adventures that you are offering and you are putting
• 48:34
  them in danger. That whole angle.
• 48:36
  We just couldn't do that with a 7th doctor.
• 48:39
  That's so interesting. I think.
• 48:41
  Yeah, it's interesting. I think I said this to you on
• 48:43
  chat as well, but a story that I feel is if we now if if the
• 48:50
  circumstances of Doctor Who were now as they were around the time
• 48:54
  of the virgin adventures and the visionary adventures and missing
• 48:57
  adventures. And, you know, Peep and Doctor
• 49:00
  Who was over and people wanting to draw lines between points to
• 49:04
  give it a greater overall coherence.
• 49:06
  That was, you know, possible in the sort of ad hoc way that
• 49:08
  inevitably is produced. And you got all that stuff
• 49:10
  about, you know, the the 7th Doctor manipulating the 6th
• 49:14
  Doctor into into his own death so that the 7th Doctor come
• 49:19
  about and prevent the Valley Yard and stuff like that.
• 49:21
  That's because Cornell hated the safe Doctor.
• 49:25
  Go on. But I feel like but there is
• 49:28
  maybe not a split example, but when it doesn't descend into
• 49:30
  outright fan wank, there is something interesting about
• 49:32
  trying to draw. I guess we'd call it HEAD.
• 49:36
  Cannon, but it's a bit hopefully it's a bit more developed than
• 49:38
  that of of trying to draw lines and spotting patterns in the
• 49:42
  noise of of of Doctor Who. I do think there's something
• 49:47
  interesting with that, contrasting the 7th Doctor and
• 49:49
  the 8th Doctor, that you have this idea that the 7th Doctor.
• 49:54
  Got to a very, very. Dark Places was, you know, the
• 49:57
  Dark Doctor was how some people used to refer to him.
• 49:59
  Just what I think some of the things that older problem that
• 50:02
  older fans have sometimes had with the War Doctor is like,
• 50:04
  what could he possibly have done that was so bad that they don't
• 50:08
  talk about him, but they do still talk about, you know, the
• 50:10
  new adventures Doctor. We talked about it in Damage
• 50:12
  because then we there was that wonderful moment where the
• 50:14
  Doctor was talking about how dark things have come and, and,
• 50:19
  and the things he'd had to do. Yeah, they were definitely
• 50:22
  leaning into that. And there's some.
• 50:24
  But there's something then with this idea of drawing it through
• 50:26
  to the 8th Doctor, which I think it is in here a bit, that he's
• 50:29
  almost the 8th Doctor is almost the 7th Doctor's redemption in a
• 50:33
  way that that led him to a point where he did become better and
• 50:36
  he did become a kind of man. And he did he And he, you know,
• 50:40
  there's always fan theories about the idea that, and
• 50:43
  actually it's been touched on in, you know, the Capaldi year,
• 50:45
  the idea that the Doctor's unconscious and, and in 60s
• 50:48
  anniversaries, the Doctor's unconscious desires inform his
• 50:51
  next regeneration, which I think is really is a really
• 50:53
  interesting idea that I think has been rightly softly treated.
• 50:57
  But it's an interesting one to draw on.
• 50:59
  And I think you could, you could make an argument, certainly I
• 51:02
  would call it my head Canon if that's what if those are the
• 51:05
  labels we're using, that that the 8th Doctor was a response to
• 51:09
  the 7th Doctor's internal desire and recognition that maybe he'd
• 51:13
  gone too far. And it's interesting then to
• 51:15
  carry that on further, that the Doctor became a kinder and a
• 51:20
  better man, less willing to manipulate, less willing to act
• 51:24
  on a cosmic scale right on the eve of the universe needing a
• 51:29
  Doctor Who could do that. You know, as, as you go into the
• 51:32
  Time War, I think there's, you know, I mean, completely
• 51:37
  unintentionally, I think there's a wonderful irony there.
• 51:41
  And you know, one of the things that was great about so clever
• 51:45
  about Night of the Doctor is that it made the 8th Doctor a
• 51:50
  tragic figure. You know, someone who has been a
• 51:53
  a good man who was sort of let down by the universe.
• 51:58
  All I'm saying is that he's introduced in ATV movie looking.
• 52:03
  Like Jesus? And ultimately sacrifices
• 52:05
  himself for our sins. And do you know what I I
• 52:09
  actually think that reading makes perfect sense.
• 52:11
  The trouble is is I feel it's done here.
• 52:16
  And then after this, they're not, they're not happy with with
• 52:20
  that sort of lovely, ugly version of the 8th Doctor.
• 52:24
  And they want him shooting somebody at the end of
• 52:26
  Revolution, man. They want him blowing up
• 52:28
  Gallifrey and the ancestor cell. They want him murdering people
• 52:31
  in the Earth arc. Because that's more interesting
• 52:33
  than than the reading that you just gave.
• 52:35
  And actually, I think it would have been really nice to about a
• 52:38
  run of stories where that was the case.
• 52:40
  I think the only other author that's doing what you're saying
• 52:43
  there is Paul Mars in The Scarlet Empress.
• 52:46
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 52:48
  I I and I like I, I, I do. I do find it a bit tiresome the
• 52:55
  endless need to make the doctors darker.
• 52:59
  You know, I got a lot of respect when Christopher Epson came back
• 53:01
  to do Big Finish and said, I don't want to do that.
• 53:03
  I want to play the lightness. I want to play the levity.
• 53:06
  Shame, though, would a bit nasty a bit more of that because
• 53:08
  that's what he does well. But yeah, I, I know what he's
• 53:10
  saying because the 8 when they tried to make the 8th Doctor
• 53:13
  darker, he just becomes generic and boring.
• 53:16
  You know, that's now I would argue that point because I think
• 53:19
  there are sometimes in the second-half of the run where
• 53:21
  that isn't the case. But it's something they lean on
• 53:24
  too much. They don't let him be that well,
• 53:27
  until Paul Mars comes along again in Mad Dog's An Englishman
• 53:29
  and goes, no, I'm not doing that.
• 53:31
  I'm going to have him be absolutely delighted with the
• 53:34
  universe. Every now and again Doctor Who
• 53:37
  asks what if the Doctor was a bastard and they always have to
• 53:41
  end up rolling back from it. It happened with Bake, it
• 53:43
  happened with Colin Baker, it happened with Peter Capaldi, and
• 53:46
  to a certain extent it happened with the 8th Doctor in the 8th
• 53:49
  Doctor adventure range as well. It's just.
• 53:52
  I think I find. It quite dull it.
• 53:54
  It can be. It can be and it goes too far.
• 53:57
  In all of these books. It did with the 7th Doctor.
• 53:59
  It did with the 8th Doctor. But frankly, then when we were
• 54:02
  doing all nicely, nicely Dr. in the new series of engines, that
• 54:05
  was a bit boring as well. So I'm not sure where the happy
• 54:07
  ground is. The most explicit example of the
• 54:11
  contrast between the 7th and 8th Doctors is when the 8th doctor
• 54:15
  bounds up to Kramer and gives her a massive hug and says,
• 54:19
  how's the kids and all of this, all of these things, you know,
• 54:22
  she apparently had a very cold professional relationship with
• 54:26
  the 7th Doctor and she is just taken aback.
• 54:29
  Isn't she's like who the hell is this and how can we rely on this
• 54:32
  person to help us out? And Joe, where does Kramer know
• 54:40
  the 7th Doctor from? Well, I have just this week
• 54:44
  watched a stunning YouTube production of Time Rift.
• 54:50
  I'm not sure who wrote it if I'm honest.
• 54:52
  I think it was written by Jonathan.
• 54:53
  Written by and starring I believe Jonathan Plum.
• 54:56
  He does a a virtuoso turn as the 7th Doctor.
• 55:00
  But actually I do think his 7th Doctor was really fun.
• 55:03
  I don't know who that broad is who play in Ace.
• 55:06
  At least it ain't Sophie Aldred. So win.
• 55:09
  Leave Sophie Aldred and we're going to get this.
• 55:12
  I feel like listeners should be able to buy this from like the
• 55:14
  Red Bubble store or something. A sign AT shirt that says leave
• 55:18
  Sophie Aldred alone. Never.
• 55:22
  I don't know what I was quite surprised given that it had a
• 55:26
  budget of 5 1/2 pence of just how well filmed this thing was.
• 55:30
  Obviously with no permits at all.
• 55:33
  So. So listeners who are who are not
• 55:35
  initiated. Time Rift is a Doctor Who fan
• 55:39
  film produced in in in America yes definitely released in yes
• 55:45
  sorry yes they're they're not doing British accents.
• 55:48
  They may think they are, but they're not ice Ice is trying to
• 55:52
  whoever's playing is trying to do a British accent.
• 55:54
  I'm failing shot at a record by a group of young Doctor Who
• 55:58
  fans. I think College together,
• 56:00
  possibly, I'm not sure. Including Jonathan Blum, who
• 56:03
  wrote it and appears as the 7th Doctor in it was released in
• 56:07
  1996 and featured the first appearance of Brigadier General
• 56:14
  Kramer, who appeared quite how I envisaged her in the book.
• 56:21
  And so. All all you all you need to know
• 56:23
  reading this is that Kramer met the 7th Doctor is fair enough,
• 56:26
  but all of the references are entirely consistent with their
• 56:29
  previous meeting having been in this fan field.
• 56:31
  It's still on YouTube. It's it's a lot of fun.
• 56:34
  It's a surprisingly nice Easter egg to go with the book, isn't
• 56:37
  it? It is, it is.
• 56:38
  And you know, as as with any fan films, there are some
• 56:41
  limitations to the production, but actually the script is a lot
• 56:44
  better than you're getting a lot of fan films.
• 56:46
  There's some genuinely really nice, there's some really nice
• 56:49
  lines about there's a, there's a, there's actually very nice
• 56:51
  scene where the doctor marches into the, the office of the, the
• 56:55
  head of this, this naval base and starts reeling off all the
• 56:59
  things that he needs. And the, and the Jack listens to
• 57:02
  him and then just says, and shall I hand over the So I hands
• 57:06
  over the armed forces as well because no, no, that would be
• 57:09
  necessary. I don't know who that man is
• 57:11
  who's acting in that scene, but it's like he was just there on
• 57:13
  the location. They're like, do you want to be
• 57:15
  in it? Come on, because he's got no
• 57:17
  acting ability. And so there's a wonderful scene
• 57:19
  where Jonathan Blum as the doctors introducing everybody to
• 57:23
  everybody, Ace the Dalek killer Kramer and Sean Blum is just
• 57:27
  reading the dialogue in a really, really fun way.
• 57:30
  May I say the cliffhanger to episode one took me aback.
• 57:34
  Do you remember what it is? Do you know what?
• 57:37
  I'm going to be completely honest.
• 57:39
  You didn't watch it all the way through, did you?
• 57:40
  Michael Mills, as someone said on a recent episode of Doctor
• 57:44
  Who, too hot for TVI have so little time to myself to watch
• 57:49
  the things that I want to watch. OK, fair.
• 57:52
  Plus, I've got you reading all these books as well.
• 57:53
  I don't know. Well, I'll just say this.
• 57:56
  It's very similar to the cliffhanger of the King's Demons
• 58:01
  episode one and Spy Fall episode one.
• 58:05
  Everyone knows, everyone knows. I'm dreadful for spoilers, but
• 58:10
  no, no, it was, it was a fun piece.
• 58:12
  And Kramer is generously proportioned with a extreme
• 58:17
  haircut and not much acting ability, but it's kind of fun to
• 58:22
  see them interact before this. It's a lot.
• 58:25
  It's a lot of fun, and it's probably better than a lot of
• 58:28
  fan films of the era, to be honest.
• 58:31
  And I, I, it's not a surprise that it was written by someone
• 58:34
  who then went on to actually write, you know, officially
• 58:36
  licensed, because the, the problems with it are not the
• 58:38
  writing. I wish we'd seen more of Cramer
• 58:41
  in in this run of books. So I think this is a character
• 58:44
  that could return. Yes.
• 58:45
  I think she comes back in A Natural History, which is a sort
• 58:50
  of sequel to this book. And she's also been in a lot of
• 58:54
  apparent, apparently she's been in a lot of the Lethbridge
• 58:57
  Stewart novels as well. Oh, coming to our book club near
• 59:01
  you. Yeah.
• 59:03
  Sorry, I'm dropping all the spoilers today, aren't I?
• 59:07
  Yeah, so we have we. Have the doctor, we have Sam, we
• 59:10
  have Kramer and we also have Caroline, Caroline, Caroline,
• 59:14
  Caroline and and James Caroline and James Caroline is so the the
• 59:21
  book opens with a short sequence at chapter 2 set in 1976, where
• 59:26
  Caroline is a is a young Med student in San Francisco.
• 59:30
  As you mentioned, bumps into the doctor and Sam in a nightclub
• 59:33
  where they are in San Francisco because they are hunting down a
• 59:37
  vampire and in this sort of little mini almost pre titles
• 59:40
  for a bit too long a mini adventure in 1976.
• 59:44
  The doctor Calvin falls a little bit in love with with the I
• 59:49
  thought I thought that retitles is was beautifully written from
• 59:54
  her point of view and I can see why people were just sucked into
• 59:57
  this book from that point. There's a beautiful scene where
• 1:00:00
  they're sort of they're staking out the apartment where they
• 1:00:04
  they're expecting the vampire to come back to and he's just
• 1:00:07
  pointing out the night sky and telling her things about.
• 1:00:11
  All of the all of the stars and the things that he that he's
• 1:00:14
  visited them and facts about them in a incredibly romantic
• 1:00:17
  way. It's a it's a sort of lovely
• 1:00:19
  little follow up piece to the scene with the Doctor and Grace
• 1:00:23
  in the park in in the TV movie. And it's just it's really lovely
• 1:00:27
  done because it is romantic and romantic is a is a hard thing to
• 1:00:32
  write in Doctor Who books. They don't often do it well.
• 1:00:35
  Lots of little details as well, Michael.
• 1:00:37
  There's a bit where the Doctor's talking about aliens serving
• 1:00:39
  milkshakes in space. And she goes, she follows the
• 1:00:42
  idea of aliens. Absurd.
• 1:00:44
  Somehow. Aliens serving milkshakes.
• 1:00:46
  Yeah, I can get behind that. And it's so.
• 1:00:49
  It's so. It's written so.
• 1:00:52
  So delicately and with such insights, you say, into that
• 1:00:57
  sense of romance. Because if she because she
• 1:01:00
  doesn't know whether she believes him or not, but if she
• 1:01:03
  if she believes him, this is a wonderfully exciting man who is
• 1:01:06
  telling all these exciting stories about the universe.
• 1:01:09
  Even she says she. Goes This is what the sky?
• 1:01:11
  Looked like when I was a kid, which is lovely, isn't it?
• 1:01:15
  And but even if she doesn't quite believe him, these are
• 1:01:18
  wonderful stories and he's making her laugh and smile.
• 1:01:21
  And so it's still and it's just attraction is is often a
• 1:01:26
  complex. Set of intermingled.
• 1:01:29
  Emotions, you know, right, in terms of why someone's
• 1:01:31
  personality is so attractive. And it's, it's a really
• 1:01:34
  beautiful little scene. And it's and it, and it needs to
• 1:01:36
  be for the book to work, because that ends with the Doctor.
• 1:01:40
  The Doctor and Sam leave and he leaves her with what I believe
• 1:01:44
  TARDIS Wiki tells me is called the hypercube, the little, the
• 1:01:47
  little, the little white box from the war Games.
• 1:01:51
  So you lean on TARDIS Wiki, do you?
• 1:01:54
  Only when I reliable saucer. Well, you know, you can't spend
• 1:01:59
  the whole day working, can you? And then we jump forwards.
• 1:02:04
  He leaves all this in case the vamp basically asked her to keep
• 1:02:07
  an eye out for vampires in San Francisco.
• 1:02:09
  Then re emerging jumps forwards to 199721 years later and she's
• 1:02:15
  now you know established Dr. With clinical researcher and has
• 1:02:20
  been keeping a track of anything like this anything that might be
• 1:02:24
  for the past 21 years and uses it to call the the X option Sam
• 1:02:29
  back in and. And she's Grace.
• 1:02:34
  She is Grace, Yes, absolutely. She was supposed to be Grace.
• 1:02:38
  I think we all know that. She was supposed to be Grace.
• 1:02:42
  And there would be a few tweaks, obviously, if it was Grace to
• 1:02:45
  make this work. But effectively, let's all just
• 1:02:48
  cast Daphne Ashbrook in the role of Carolyn.
• 1:02:50
  Yeah. But until it was written without
• 1:02:53
  intention and, you know, it is following up on it is a sequel
• 1:02:57
  to the TV movie. And in a lot of respects, you
• 1:02:59
  know, being set in San Francisco, being not, you know,
• 1:03:03
  not the least of it. And it was written as I
• 1:03:06
  understand it, as I understand it, they got quite far into the
• 1:03:09
  writing with it, with grace until they were, they were
• 1:03:12
  informed or someone realised that the rights set up with the
• 1:03:15
  TV movement that actually they couldn't use grace.
• 1:03:17
  And in fact, that still persists to this day.
• 1:03:19
  I think it's just she's, they've recently said that it's just
• 1:03:22
  about to run out. So I think it's within a year
• 1:03:25
  they can start writing grace stories.
• 1:03:27
  I wonder is that that I wonder if I wonder if that's like a 30
• 1:03:29
  year thing or something because it'll be it's the only thing
• 1:03:32
  that's going to bring Kate Orman out of retirement.
• 1:03:35
  He wrote a Big Finish audio. Yes, she did.
• 1:03:37
  Yeah, obviously. But yes.
• 1:03:40
  So they got quite far in and then we're told they couldn't
• 1:03:41
  use so they had to. I don't know this, but knowing
• 1:03:45
  that I suspect that the 1976 sequence, this is my guess was
• 1:03:51
  added was added in order to order to make the story work.
• 1:03:55
  That she was someone who knew the doctor would have a reason
• 1:03:57
  for calling him back in and all the rest of it.
• 1:03:59
  But she she's very much written as Grace.
• 1:04:01
  And I think you could read Carolyn as Grace without,
• 1:04:04
  without too much difficult. And to be honest, yeah, I did.
• 1:04:06
  I was seeing Daphne Ashbrook when I read it.
• 1:04:08
  But I am pleased that sequence is there at the beginning for
• 1:04:11
  lots of different reasons. I love the fact that it's
• 1:04:13
  obviously Sam Jones is back in her life again and hasn't aged a
• 1:04:16
  day, you know, making her feel incredibly old.
• 1:04:20
  Also, the time, the time jump as well means that because she's
• 1:04:23
  doing the research, but she's kind of, you know, when you have
• 1:04:27
  been doing something for a long time and you're not really
• 1:04:30
  getting anywhere, she's doing it because it's right, but she's
• 1:04:32
  sort of bored with it. In the back of her head, she can
• 1:04:34
  still remember those exciting and the most exciting events
• 1:04:37
  that happened in her life back in the 70s, and that's why she's
• 1:04:41
  keeping an eye out for every suspicious thing that's going
• 1:04:44
  on. But then she's obviously dived
• 1:04:46
  head first into this for real. And she realizes very quickly
• 1:04:51
  that this is not for me. Yeah.
• 1:04:54
  And she gets, she has a, a, a very nice arc throughout the
• 1:04:57
  book about having, as you say, spent 21 years believing that
• 1:05:03
  the big adventure was out there and that although she is happy
• 1:05:07
  in her life, she is quite bored of it.
• 1:05:09
  And May. And that nagging sense that
• 1:05:11
  maybe she's just settled and she has a boyfriend called James who
• 1:05:14
  is loving and she loves, but it's James Hogan she's just
• 1:05:17
  settled with. And across the course of the
• 1:05:18
  book, she say she learns. She learns like, no, actually,
• 1:05:20
  this is this is the life I once, this is where everything is me.
• 1:05:24
  This is my security. This is my.
• 1:05:28
  This this this is my. Home and this is my life and I
• 1:05:30
  like that. And again, you can imagine that
• 1:05:32
  working with grace if you're trying to rationalize, why
• 1:05:35
  doesn't grace? Go with the.
• 1:05:38
  Doctor at the end of the TV movie, which I know a lot of a
• 1:05:41
  lot of people at the time, including Daphne Attenbrook, who
• 1:05:46
  can't understand why Yuji so's got a role in the new series and
• 1:05:50
  she hasn't Daddy Larry. They they if it was going to
• 1:05:54
  series, he was he was absolutely down to be in the series and she
• 1:05:58
  wasn't. I didn't know that they dropped
• 1:06:01
  that in a recent convention I went to.
• 1:06:03
  Definitely said that that she had no no contract beyond the
• 1:06:06
  movie. Well, we've all learnt.
• 1:06:09
  Something this evening. It's not often I'll bring
• 1:06:12
  something to the table. Happy that that, though it does
• 1:06:15
  mean we get one of the loveliest exchanges of all of Doctor Who.
• 1:06:18
  When he says come with me and she says you come with me, I
• 1:06:22
  love it. I love that movie.
• 1:06:24
  That's the moment when he looks. He looks at the fireworks and
• 1:06:27
  says it's tempting. Is that's can I just say though,
• 1:06:31
  going back to James and Carolyn, this is my biggest trouble with
• 1:06:34
  this book. I think they're so fucking
• 1:06:36
  cutesy Bootsy and and you can tell John Blum and Kate Allman
• 1:06:40
  are new in a relationship because this is literally them
• 1:06:43
  in the book. All those cute little things
• 1:06:45
  that you do when you're in a relationship and you're
• 1:06:47
  absolutely obsessed with each other and you feed each other
• 1:06:50
  and you make dinner to get and all this bullshit.
• 1:06:53
  And I'm like, oh God almighty, when he got kidnapped, I'm like,
• 1:06:56
  can you murder him already? Please?
• 1:06:58
  But no, yeah, it's it's I did very much enjoy vampire science,
• 1:07:03
  but I do have for me, James is just a little bit too annoying.
• 1:07:08
  Although I do like having a character that's a bit like Dan
• 1:07:11
  Lewis who goes do you know what? No, I'm off halfway through the
• 1:07:14
  story. Like, yeah, I'm sorry, I've been
• 1:07:16
  in a bathtub for three days. I'm not doing this.
• 1:07:19
  James get James gets kidnapped by the vampires and as you say,
• 1:07:22
  held in a bathtub for a number of days and then he's freed and
• 1:07:27
  rescued and they go back and he just packs a bag and bug us off
• 1:07:30
  and she goes I'm staying and he goes well I'm still going.
• 1:07:33
  Oh, not that cute. He won't see then, but he is a
• 1:07:37
  bit of a Dick. He's.
• 1:07:39
  He's just quite. I think he's a little bit too
• 1:07:42
  annoying. I think I don't entirely get
• 1:07:43
  what Carolyn I don't. When Carolyn decides to stay
• 1:07:46
  with him, I don't entirely feel it at the end.
• 1:07:49
  But you know what? The one thing he does bring to
• 1:07:51
  the book is, and I can't believe because we'll get onto the
• 1:07:54
  vampires in a bit, you know, this is pre Buffy the vampire.
• 1:07:58
  You told me. I couldn't believe it because
• 1:07:59
  the ending where the doctor does the big sunlight reveal because
• 1:08:04
  James is a lighting director. We keep coming back to this
• 1:08:07
  throughout the entire movie that he does lighting for theatre
• 1:08:10
  shows. And that's the ending of the
• 1:08:12
  first Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode where they smash through
• 1:08:16
  the window and there's a street light coming in and he's like,
• 1:08:19
  oh, and she goes, no, no, Dawn's in the morning and stakes him.
• 1:08:22
  It's a similar sort of thing, playing tricks with fake
• 1:08:25
  lighting. I, I'm not sure I've ever seen
• 1:08:29
  Nepson of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
• 1:08:31
  And shame on you, Sir. Neither apparently had Kate
• 1:08:36
  Orman or Jonathan Blum the time they wrote this, which actually
• 1:08:38
  would make sense because this came out in summer 1997.
• 1:08:42
  And there's I did check the dates and I think Buffy the
• 1:08:45
  Vampire Slayer had only started earlier that same year.
• 1:08:48
  So OK, there are so many similarities in places.
• 1:08:52
  It's just it's I guess it's just an there is one reference to
• 1:08:55
  Buffy the Vampire Slayer very late on, but it's like a
• 1:08:57
  throwaway jokey reference. There's a character called Spike
• 1:09:01
  and there's a big character called Spike.
• 1:09:02
  It's set in nightclubs that's the mainstay of and famous
• 1:09:06
  famously the the name Spike and nightclubs have only otherwise
• 1:09:09
  appeared in. But it is a vampire story.
• 1:09:16
  Yeah, but I think. I think the.
• 1:09:19
  Truth is that when something breaks through and and does.
• 1:09:26
  Depicts things in a particular. Way it can be easy to assume
• 1:09:28
  it's the only thing that did that when back of vampire state
• 1:09:31
  is as I understand it certainly in it's early series.
• 1:09:34
  What a lot of people one of the complaints about it was they
• 1:09:37
  felt that it was too obviously influenced by other things and
• 1:09:40
  drawing on them. And I think what's probably just
• 1:09:42
  going on here is an example of convergent evolution because
• 1:09:46
  yeah, I think they're just drawing on the same influences
• 1:09:49
  of vampire fiction at that time, which may be Buffy the vampire
• 1:09:51
  Sly help bring bring through to the cultural pop cultural
• 1:09:54
  mainstream in a bigger way. But you know, I think there's
• 1:09:56
  bits of there's bits of an Bryce, there's bits of the lost
• 1:09:59
  boys in there. Oh, it's about to say the lost
• 1:10:01
  boys. Yeah, but also both of them of.
• 1:10:04
  I tell you what, it's not very Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
• 1:10:07
  It may not be Buffy Vampire Slayer, but this book is very
• 1:10:09
  The X-Files. Oh, for sure.
• 1:10:11
  But then so was the TV movie. Yeah.
• 1:10:14
  Again, they're just extending from that because this whole
• 1:10:18
  idea of, you know, it's it's the the front cover is a fan.
• 1:10:23
  The shadow of a vampire bat over the presidential seal.
• 1:10:27
  Yeah. What the hell is that?
• 1:10:29
  I think it's just meant to be a gesture towards conspiracies and
• 1:10:33
  governments, which there are no bats and there are no politics
• 1:10:36
  at all. But apart from that, I mean, I
• 1:10:40
  love the cover. I think it's a very evocative
• 1:10:41
  cover. Yeah.
• 1:10:43
  Yeah. Very misleading.
• 1:10:44
  You, you don't think you're going to get a very different
• 1:10:46
  book or don't you know what you say?
• 1:10:49
  Very. The X-Files, like the TV movie,
• 1:10:51
  like The X-Files. I was utterly imagining this set
• 1:10:54
  in San Francisco, shot in Vancouver.
• 1:10:57
  It's interesting. But it's interesting though,
• 1:10:58
  because having done that, they do make a, they do make much
• 1:11:02
  more of a point of the actual locations and locals of San
• 1:11:05
  Francisco. So things are explicitly set in
• 1:11:08
  the Heights. They are explicitly set in the
• 1:11:11
  Tenderloin, you know, all these areas.
• 1:11:12
  And it makes them do wonderful things with green screen
• 1:11:14
  Michael. And it makes a point of the
• 1:11:19
  homelessness and inequality, which has been a long, you know,
• 1:11:23
  sadly, an issue in San Francisco for, for, for many decades.
• 1:11:26
  You know, it, it is making a, it is making a point of its
• 1:11:30
  location in a way that the TV movie wasn't really able to do
• 1:11:33
  because it wasn't actually shot there.
• 1:11:36
  Now, now we sort of come away from the characters.
• 1:11:39
  Do we go into the vampires now and then back to the characters
• 1:11:42
  or do we keep going with the characters and come back to the
• 1:11:44
  vampires? You choose which characters do
• 1:11:47
  you want to talk about next? Well.
• 1:11:52
  That's a good point where we've covered.
• 1:11:53
  Them all, haven't we or did we draw any conclusions with them?
• 1:11:59
  It is a book that. Is well, I think one other thing
• 1:12:01
  I will say that's interesting about this fiction as well is
• 1:12:03
  the maybe it's all segues is the depiction of units in this is
• 1:12:08
  interesting. It's very The X-Files.
• 1:12:09
  It's very 1990s. It's a very 1990s book.
• 1:12:12
  So it's it's all very conspiracy minded.
• 1:12:15
  There's lots of references that being soldiers, but we don't
• 1:12:17
  really ever see the soldiers. It's it's largely just Kramer is
• 1:12:21
  an operative of the US military industrial complex.
• 1:12:24
  Is that because we're seeing a lot of this through Caroline,
• 1:12:27
  Caroline and James's eyes? So I think so, but it's clearly
• 1:12:30
  a constitution on the part of the authors that that's how they
• 1:12:34
  would present units in this time.
• 1:12:35
  Because, you know, that's not a coincidence because in, you
• 1:12:37
  know, the 1990s, post Cold War peace dividends, armed forces
• 1:12:42
  production across the world. You know that someone explicitly
• 1:12:47
  uses the phrase peace process about the about what's going on
• 1:12:51
  with the the, you know, these discussions with the vampires,
• 1:12:54
  which is obviously very obvious times as a phrase.
• 1:12:57
  So I think it's just how the military was seen in the 90s
• 1:13:01
  because there was a sense of the the big opposition that, you
• 1:13:06
  know, that end of history phase, that idea that the West had won
• 1:13:10
  and that the future of defense was going to be very different.
• 1:13:15
  That huge standing armies and nuclear arsenals were a thing of
• 1:13:19
  the past. That our enemies would be
• 1:13:21
  internal or more insidious, which is, you know, which is
• 1:13:24
  what The X-Files is all predicated on, which is the
• 1:13:26
  whole massive conspiracy theory revival of the 80s and 90s was
• 1:13:32
  this idea of now there's no enemy anymore.
• 1:13:34
  Maybe the enemy is at home. Maybe it's about now that we
• 1:13:38
  live in a unipolar world, can the government and especially
• 1:13:43
  the US government be trusted? What is, you know, they are they
• 1:13:46
  turning on their own people? So militaries when they appeared
• 1:13:50
  were more shadowy what what what Shadi organizations depict often
• 1:13:57
  as as as being that that they were the sort of, you know,
• 1:14:02
  enforcing arm of the state. And that's very much how unit is
• 1:14:07
  depicted here because the idea of just loads of loads of
• 1:14:11
  soldiers gunning people down or what have you or, or, or, you
• 1:14:15
  know, lining up to fight people back would have been seen as
• 1:14:18
  vaguely old fashioned. And it's interesting that we
• 1:14:20
  don't see that depiction of unit again in the new series until
• 1:14:24
  like properly until the Santara and stretched in the poison sky,
• 1:14:28
  which was post Iraq during Afghanistan, you know, when
• 1:14:32
  military operations were were were back in the part of the
• 1:14:36
  real geopolitics. So it's it's very of its time in
• 1:14:40
  that regard. And I quite enjoyed it.
• 1:14:42
  So and even the nature of the threat.
• 1:14:43
  So to take us on to the vampires is they are.
• 1:14:47
  It's very X-Files in that they are an alien or supernatural
• 1:14:51
  threats, but one that can pass as human.
• 1:14:53
  You know that they are among us. Sam learns to her.
• 1:14:58
  Peril in the nightclub yeah brilliantly written scene.
• 1:15:02
  I yeah yeah I don't I've not I've not seen enough of The
• 1:15:05
  X-Files to know if they ever did vampires but I could have very
• 1:15:08
  easily one time they did a brilliant comedy vampire episode
• 1:15:12
  where the pre title sequence. This is your star of the tenor,
• 1:15:14
  right? Molders being chased through the
• 1:15:16
  woods, but a vampire teeth, green eyes, the works.
• 1:15:21
  And he stakes him right in the heart.
• 1:15:25
  And then Scully finally catches up with him and goes, oh,
• 1:15:28
  Mulder, and takes the fake fangs out of his mouth.
• 1:15:31
  And this poor kid is dead on the.
• 1:15:33
  And that's that's where the music kicks in.
• 1:15:35
  It's a wonderful episode. Yeah, well, but they're not
• 1:15:39
  playing it for last year so much.
• 1:15:41
  But I can imagine if they did a more serious approach to
• 1:15:44
  vampires in decors, it might have looked not unlike this.
• 1:15:49
  What what I very quickly with the the unit thing is, I really
• 1:15:53
  love that. But, you know, the doctor's
• 1:15:55
  trying to find all these solutions, scientific solutions,
• 1:15:57
  you know, ways to help the vampires.
• 1:16:00
  And then eventually he realizes, no, they're going to kill a lot
• 1:16:04
  of people. We just have to stop them.
• 1:16:06
  He eventually comes to the conclusion the seven doctors
• 1:16:08
  would have done 100 pages back. And he just brings up Kramer and
• 1:16:12
  goes, we're at war. And then she just deploys the
• 1:16:16
  troops and and we're that's it. That's that's the solution with
• 1:16:20
  the vampires. I've read 3.
• 1:16:23
  Vampire themed Doctor Who books lately.
• 1:16:26
  Blood Harvest, Goth Opera and Vampire Science.
• 1:16:29
  And this by a mile is my favorite depiction of vampires
• 1:16:33
  of the three. Because Blood Harvest, they're
• 1:16:36
  just the three who rule from State of Decay and you know,
• 1:16:41
  Hammer Horror villains in goth opera, which I thought because
• 1:16:45
  it was a Paul Cornell book, they were going to be this, but we
• 1:16:49
  got here basically. But what we get instead is very
• 1:16:52
  classic who style melodramatic villains that declaim things
• 1:16:57
  theatrically. And it was it was a bit
• 1:17:00
  disappointing. You're on my list here.
• 1:17:02
  I just like the fact they're fucking bored.
• 1:17:05
  They're. So.
• 1:17:07
  Bored of immortality? They're killing people out of
• 1:17:10
  sheer boredom. Yeah, yeah.
• 1:17:14
  They make a point of it's basically a generational divide
• 1:17:16
  within, within the vampire Covent that there's references
• 1:17:20
  to having been a failed coup attempt against the elders, I
• 1:17:23
  think about 50 years before. And they they don't have to
• 1:17:26
  slaughter half of half of the covenant who'd risen up against
• 1:17:29
  them and replace them with with younger members.
• 1:17:33
  Those younger members are now sort of reaching the point at
• 1:17:36
  which they're starting to live beyond what their natural
• 1:17:40
  lifespan would have been. And so these are people, these
• 1:17:43
  are now, they're probably about 8090 years old and they're
• 1:17:47
  beginning these young tearaways who are like, oh, what's the
• 1:17:51
  point? We just need to like give in to
• 1:17:52
  being vampires. But then you have the the
• 1:17:54
  elders. So we're the ones who are at
• 1:17:55
  least 100 years old, as you say, are just bored that there is
• 1:17:59
  there is nothing to do after a while that you are.
• 1:18:02
  It's not romantic, is it? Like, yes, you know, you know,
• 1:18:04
  like how they do it in the Twilight movies and things like
• 1:18:07
  that. There's nothing seductive about
• 1:18:09
  being a vampire in this book at all.
• 1:18:12
  It's just tedium. And all of the elders have had
• 1:18:16
  to sort of find different ways to.
• 1:18:19
  Amuse themselves so one. Of them has been has been doing
• 1:18:22
  a legal course for the past 20 years.
• 1:18:26
  You can only do night courses. That's why it's taking so long.
• 1:18:29
  And one of them is their leader, Joanna Harris is a, is a, is a
• 1:18:35
  sort of, there's a lot of speculation about the fact she
• 1:18:37
  might be a leading geneticist. But the problem is she's had to
• 1:18:39
  be entirely self-taught over a century because there's no way
• 1:18:42
  that she can actually access, you know, regular education for
• 1:18:47
  any of this. Didn't you love the way she was
• 1:18:49
  softly introduced to the story as Shackle's lab assistant
• 1:18:53
  before she's revealed as the head of the vampires?
• 1:18:56
  I thought that was really nice. And obviously, we learned later
• 1:18:58
  on that she's been working on Shackle for years, you know,
• 1:19:02
  giving him a sense of true despair that the work they're
• 1:19:05
  doing is never going to come to anything.
• 1:19:07
  And he's eventually asked. It's like trying to convince her
• 1:19:10
  a lamb to walk into a slaughterhouse.
• 1:19:12
  She wants to turn him, but she wants it to be his choice.
• 1:19:16
  Yeah, yeah. It's it's that disconnect from
• 1:19:21
  the world. There's a genuinely I found it
• 1:19:27
  quite upsetting cliffhanger quite late in the book where Sam
• 1:19:32
  references earlier on to we spent a lot of time in Joanna's
• 1:19:35
  laboratory and she makes part in reference to having a second
• 1:19:38
  laboratory where she has to do, you know, where she needs to do
• 1:19:40
  experiments that that take up more room.
• 1:19:43
  And quite late in the book, Sam follows her back to her other
• 1:19:45
  laboratory, which is this where this sort of abandoned
• 1:19:48
  warehouse, seemingly abandoned warehouse and follows her into
• 1:19:50
  the backroom. And she just finds a room full
• 1:19:53
  of cages of naked humans who have spent their whole lives in
• 1:19:57
  these cages are basically being bred as Lab Rats for battery
• 1:20:02
  humans. Battery humans is the phrase,
• 1:20:05
  and genuinely a really shocking. Image the way it's the bit, the
• 1:20:12
  way it's described. I do stop a horror that that
• 1:20:16
  point of the book. I really needed that because
• 1:20:19
  whilst I think there is some stunning characterisation
• 1:20:22
  throughout this book, great sort of dialogue exchanges and
• 1:20:25
  things, the pacing, as we've said in the chat, is a little
• 1:20:30
  off. There's a couple of stunning set
• 1:20:31
  pieces, but they're spread quite far apart with lots of standing
• 1:20:36
  around talking in between, talking about interesting
• 1:20:38
  things. But and then in that moment when
• 1:20:42
  we said about the doctor being, you know, someone who can
• 1:20:44
  improvise, he's done a a blood fasting with Joanna Harris to
• 1:20:48
  show that he can be trusted. So they're linked psychically, I
• 1:20:52
  think on some somehow and that they can sort of see through
• 1:20:55
  each other's eyes. She's about to kill Sam Jones
• 1:20:58
  that's tripped on a little secret warehouse and then the
• 1:21:02
  doctor get out. Wonderful moment.
• 1:21:04
  Just opens a window and leaps out and says if you hurt her, I
• 1:21:08
  will kill myself again. That's not something I could see
• 1:21:11
  the 7th doctor doing. No, no.
• 1:21:14
  And you can you can see Paul McGann performing that bit,
• 1:21:16
  can't you? You know, it would be 10 wish
• 1:21:18
  entirely, you know, achievable on television, I think, and very
• 1:21:23
  dramatically so. Yeah, it's really good they'll.
• 1:21:27
  He'll also have a bit of fun without getting too because
• 1:21:31
  vampires, they're sort of one of those generic, everybody gets to
• 1:21:35
  do them monsters along with zombies and werewolves.
• 1:21:39
  Every franchise is free to do to do them at some point.
• 1:21:42
  But obviously Doctor Who, they do have this mythology from
• 1:21:45
  State of Decay. And I think the book is quite
• 1:21:49
  wise in terms of how lightly it uses that continuity.
• 1:21:54
  You know, it doesn't tie itself directly to State of Decay like
• 1:21:56
  Blood Harvest does or the 8 Doctors does.
• 1:21:59
  They just sprinkle in bits of that to give just to give a bit
• 1:22:03
  of colour to the to the vampires.
• 1:22:05
  And in fact, they are at times almost depicted as it's, it's
• 1:22:10
  that thing of Lance Parker said when we spoke to him about
• 1:22:11
  continuity. You know, what can I use as
• 1:22:13
  fuel? And it's used interestingly to
• 1:22:15
  make interesting points about the vampires and to compare and
• 1:22:18
  contrast the doctrine. Joanna Harris So that discussion
• 1:22:21
  about how old he is, she says she was born the day that
• 1:22:24
  William the Conqueror died. So he realizes that, oh, you're,
• 1:22:27
  you're about the same age as me then they're both just over
• 1:22:30
  1000. And, and that's really
• 1:22:33
  interesting. And there's a point made that
• 1:22:36
  there are 14 vampires in the coven, which is the traditional
• 1:22:39
  number because it means they have one more life than the Time
• 1:22:41
  Lord. And that's a, that's a, that's a
• 1:22:44
  lovely little detail. There's a lovely gentle
• 1:22:46
  reference to the times where he says, you know, more people are
• 1:22:49
  usually very dramatic in how they deal with these sort of
• 1:22:52
  things, so maybe you should deal with me.
• 1:22:53
  OK. Yeah.
• 1:22:55
  I wish is lovely because the thing about Goth opera was it
• 1:22:59
  LED into all of the Russell on in premature and how that's all
• 1:23:06
  linked into vampires and all of this Gallifrey mythology, which
• 1:23:10
  is so fucking tedious. I'd rather watch a load of bored
• 1:23:13
  vampires killing people, frankly, than dealing with all
• 1:23:16
  that nonsense. There's a there's a weird sense
• 1:23:19
  of of melodrama to them and grandiosity away from all that
• 1:23:24
  continuity. Yeah, yeah.
• 1:23:26
  And in fact, they sort of hand wave some of it where as well,
• 1:23:29
  where the point is made that the the vampires do sort of know
• 1:23:34
  about the Time Lords, but they only know of them as being like
• 1:23:36
  a legend in the same way that vampires are a myth and legends.
• 1:23:39
  But oh, what they're real. And that's, you know, that's
• 1:23:43
  sort of as as far as they go. There is a connection.
• 1:23:46
  There is a connection here, but it's worn quite likely.
• 1:23:49
  Interestingly, I think the only other book that I've read that
• 1:23:53
  does anything interesting with the vampires is damaged goods in
• 1:23:57
  which the vampires don't appear, but the threat is a time lured
• 1:24:01
  weapon that was designed to hunt down vampires.
• 1:24:04
  That's interesting as well, but again takes a very different
• 1:24:07
  angle on it and doesn't actually have the sort of state of the
• 1:24:10
  Capri rule. Means you can just sort of tell
• 1:24:12
  an original story about them. Still tie it into Doctor Who
• 1:24:17
  without leaning on all that continuity or being too obsessed
• 1:24:21
  with it, because the thing that's interesting about the
• 1:24:23
  vampires in state decay is is that little talk about the bow
• 1:24:26
  ships and you know, raging cross.
• 1:24:29
  That's that's the bit that's interesting.
• 1:24:30
  Not not not the not the people in make up stand, you know,
• 1:24:35
  proclaiming so. So I did think the.
• 1:24:38
  Vampires were really well done, although I didn't really think
• 1:24:41
  the actual vampire. I think Joanne Harris is
• 1:24:43
  brilliant but the others are could sort of take or leave.
• 1:24:47
  There was one that was leaning into all the gothic trappings,
• 1:24:50
  wasn't it? And wearing, you know, an
• 1:24:52
  enormous collar and a Cape. Yeah, I quite like.
• 1:24:57
  Oh, what's his name is Slake? Is it Slake, not Slake, Abner.
• 1:25:02
  Abner. I quite liked who's who's the
• 1:25:05
  the youngest of the elders. He's about 100 years old and
• 1:25:08
  he's unimpressed with all of that nonsense.
• 1:25:10
  Just unimpressed and bored. And he's just he's just, you
• 1:25:13
  know, just wanting to make it through the days.
• 1:25:15
  He's quite fun, quite liked him. Point of, as I say, their base
• 1:25:20
  of operations is an old theatre, which is nice, the Orpheum
• 1:25:23
  Theatre, named after Orpheus, who of course went to the
• 1:25:25
  underworld. Yes, they're very good.
• 1:25:27
  And she has a Joanna has a secret laboratory underneath it.
• 1:25:33
  Like they have to go through loads of tunnels to get to it.
• 1:25:35
  That's so Doctor Who though, right?
• 1:25:36
  It's so Doctor Who. It's so adventure fiction in
• 1:25:39
  which people just have tunnels, secret tunnels underneath
• 1:25:43
  densely populated areas. Sorry, why isn't?
• 1:25:45
  Why isn't subsidence a bigger problem in adventure fiction?
• 1:25:48
  Stop thinking about it by all, right?
• 1:25:53
  Can I highlight two very dramatic scenes towards the end
• 1:25:57
  of the book that I4 sort of culminated things really, really
• 1:26:02
  well. One of them is the scene between
• 1:26:06
  the Doctor and Sam about what to do about the vampires because
• 1:26:10
  they start having that conversation and then the doctor
• 1:26:12
  has to dash off and he thinks he's done with that.
• 1:26:15
  You know, we've had that conversation, it's fine.
• 1:26:17
  And she literally pulls him up and says no, no, no, you ran
• 1:26:20
  away. We didn't finish that
• 1:26:21
  conversation. This is what I think.
• 1:26:23
  I think they should all die. And it's a really well done
• 1:26:27
  scene with two people opposing points of views just told so
• 1:26:32
  clearly and emotionally. I really love that.
• 1:26:34
  And I thought Sam came out of that brilliantly, but not as
• 1:26:39
  well as she came out of the scene between her and Joanna
• 1:26:41
  Harris where she turns around and says I've seen loads of
• 1:26:45
  girls like you, you know, you talk the talk but you don't walk
• 1:26:50
  the walk. And Sam is a little coward by
• 1:26:52
  that. And then she really fiercely
• 1:26:56
  defends her position and says no, I'm here.
• 1:26:59
  That's what I'm doing now. I'm taking that step out there
• 1:27:03
  to try and do something good so I can say that I am this.
• 1:27:08
  What's the right word for her? Eco warrior or whatever she
• 1:27:11
  wants to call herself? I don't know.
• 1:27:13
  I really like the way she defends her position and sticks
• 1:27:16
  up for herself. I I just wish more writers did
• 1:27:19
  this sort of thing with her instead of moulded her into this
• 1:27:22
  generic companion role. It does feel like they are
• 1:27:26
  working out their issues with the character outline as it was
• 1:27:29
  given to them, but then it feels like a gift, right?
• 1:27:32
  This they, they, they turned her into from zero dimensions to
• 1:27:36
  three and they hand it to Mark Morris for the Body Snatchers
• 1:27:40
  and said, there you go, you got a fully fledged character, go to
• 1:27:43
  town. And then we it's just sort of
• 1:27:46
  Victorian London Professor Lightfoot and Zygons.
• 1:27:50
  We do get a. I'd like to just a a little
• 1:27:52
  moment that warms my heart when Carolyn is given the job of
• 1:27:59
  looking through the TARDIS library for any references to
• 1:28:03
  vampires. I know where you're going and
• 1:28:05
  there's a reference to it. Contains books and scrolls and
• 1:28:09
  cd-roms and data crystals. My God, please, please, please
• 1:28:15
  tell me he's got in Carter. Cd-roms you.
• 1:28:19
  Say oh hello 1997 oh I thought you were going to mention the
• 1:28:23
  two bats from the TV movie that flew at her.
• 1:28:26
  Oh yes what their names? Oh my God, I did write made a
• 1:28:30
  note the. Doctor has pet bats.
• 1:28:33
  In the oh, no, I, no, I can't find it.
• 1:28:37
  I'm so sorry. There's also, again, just sort
• 1:28:40
  of as we were talking about Sam and the Doctor in their
• 1:28:43
  relationship and the uncertainty about it.
• 1:28:44
  There is a bit where before the confrontation, the Doctor tells
• 1:28:48
  Sam to go back to the TARDIS to find out if Carolyn has found
• 1:28:51
  out anything useful about the vampires.
• 1:28:54
  And she says you're just, he says, you're just sending me
• 1:28:56
  back to Get Me Out of way and keep me, keep me safe, aren't
• 1:28:59
  you? And he goes, oh, so that's a
• 1:29:02
  really good idea. I'd probably have thought about
• 1:29:04
  it. You're not that important.
• 1:29:07
  You know, I really. OK, I'm going to come on to a
• 1:29:11
  couple of issues then because I did have a few issues with this.
• 1:29:14
  But because we're doing up, this is the first time I usually tear
• 1:29:17
  through this book. And this is the first time where
• 1:29:19
  I kept putting it down and sort of struggled to come back to it.
• 1:29:22
  And I was trying to figure out why.
• 1:29:24
  One is because I've read this book about 10 times, so I know
• 1:29:27
  it so well. So there aren't any great
• 1:29:29
  surprises in here for me. But two, I do think there are
• 1:29:32
  patient issues in this book and I think there could be far more
• 1:29:36
  instant and a little less character at times and. 3I.
• 1:29:41
  Don't like the ending where the doctor has injected himself with
• 1:29:45
  antiplastic? Sorry vamp away and you know,
• 1:29:51
  encourages Slake to bite his neck and then that kills off all
• 1:29:54
  the vampires because it just feels a bit easy given all the
• 1:29:58
  moral complexities we've gone through to get here to do it all
• 1:30:03
  with a sleight of hand. Yeah, it felt a bit quick.
• 1:30:07
  Yeah, I'd agree. I I, I did think I've missed
• 1:30:10
  something about what was going on.
• 1:30:13
  I think having. And maybe that's because, as you
• 1:30:15
  say, the the book largely deals with with character in some
• 1:30:18
  ways, it's almost a always was like a sort of dramatic treaties
• 1:30:22
  of points on some of its theories, you know, working
• 1:30:23
  these things out. And and that is that is really
• 1:30:25
  good. And there were so many, you
• 1:30:26
  know, write down so many quotes from this book and so many
• 1:30:28
  wonderful insights that I think we've discussed.
• 1:30:30
  But it it does, it does struggle with with the plot to keep that
• 1:30:34
  moving, to propel that along in a way that say a book like
• 1:30:39
  discussed in the past, like Father Time or Damaged Goods
• 1:30:41
  doesn't, you know, they have a lot of that same stuff going on,
• 1:30:45
  but the plot is there. And I think maybe that's that's
• 1:30:49
  why the ending feels a bit rushed, because actually all the
• 1:30:51
  way through the actual incident has has rarely been it's strong
• 1:30:54
  point. There's a lot of talking,
• 1:30:55
  talking, talking, confrontation, backing down, talking, talking,
• 1:30:58
  talking, conversation, backing down.
• 1:31:02
  So so so. Yeah, but that doesn't mean it's
• 1:31:05
  not a very insightful and interesting book.
• 1:31:09
  Well, do you? Have any other any other
• 1:31:11
  problems with vampire science? No, I think I.
• 1:31:18
  Think the pacing is is something it doesn't it doesn't it doesn't
• 1:31:21
  compel you in the way that the books do.
• 1:31:23
  But but otherwise I was really impressed by I think I don't
• 1:31:28
  entirely buy the Caroline, the Caroline and James relationship.
• 1:31:33
  I think Kramer could be given more to do.
• 1:31:36
  I think my only other issue is Sam's arc in this book is so
• 1:31:40
  fantastic and it's so good and is, is very strong and you know.
• 1:31:46
  Grasps the problems. With that character as she has
• 1:31:49
  presented. The.
• 1:31:53
  I think for me the resolution of her arc should be, but she
• 1:31:58
  doesn't want to carry on the Doctor.
• 1:32:00
  I think it feels like by the end of the book.
• 1:32:03
  She should just be going. Home like she notes that they're
• 1:32:05
  actually only a couple of weeks after she left and it does feel
• 1:32:09
  a bit like that's the natural conclusion here.
• 1:32:11
  And were this the the were this a new adventure and there was
• 1:32:15
  that greater collaboration between authors and, you know,
• 1:32:17
  sharing drafts, discussing and I'm leaving this here so you can
• 1:32:20
  pick that up there. I feel like the next book would
• 1:32:22
  have dealt with that and maybe the that book would have dealt
• 1:32:24
  with what is and brought it round and actually know, you
• 1:32:26
  know, put her in a happier place.
• 1:32:29
  But it just feels like. The resolution is a little bit
• 1:32:35
  lacking. That she doesn't trust the
• 1:32:36
  Doctor by the end of it, And maybe that's a problem of the
• 1:32:39
  range rather than this book, but it's just never resolved.
• 1:32:44
  My issue with Sam is. I think I don't think the book
• 1:32:47
  comes to the wrong conclusion. I think what comes after this is
• 1:32:51
  because then we have a small run of books where she's generic Sam
• 1:32:56
  and then they decide come alien bodies.
• 1:32:58
  No, no, no, actually, we're going to make this suggestion
• 1:33:00
  now that she's generic for a reason and someone's been
• 1:33:03
  tinkering with her timeline and it's like, no, no, no, look at
• 1:33:07
  vampire science. You've created an interesting
• 1:33:09
  character. Just write an interesting
• 1:33:11
  character. And they decide, they decide not
• 1:33:13
  to do that. And then they decide to
• 1:33:14
  highlight the fact that she's so unflowed when she we've already
• 1:33:19
  come to the conclusion in this book she's deeply flawed.
• 1:33:22
  It's it's it's yeah, you're right.
• 1:33:24
  There's no editorial consistency with any of it, and people are
• 1:33:29
  doing interesting things because I think I'm the Scarlet Empress.
• 1:33:31
  You get a great showing for Sam there.
• 1:33:33
  Our Natural History is doing really interesting things with
• 1:33:35
  her. Character Interference sees her
• 1:33:38
  out brilliantly. But it's a rough it's.
• 1:33:42
  A bumpy rise and it didn't need to be because I think all the
• 1:33:45
  all of the tools were here. Little Easter egg for.
• 1:33:50
  The fans as well. That's Sam here puts on her
• 1:33:54
  Greenpeace T-shirt for the first time, but not the last.
• 1:33:59
  Not the last. And many years later, that
• 1:34:03
  green, that Greenpeace T-shirt would be found in the TARDIS by
• 1:34:09
  Ember in the War Doctor novel Engines of War by George Mann.
• 1:34:15
  So she's not forgotten? Well, no, the trouble with Sam
• 1:34:19
  Jones is she becomes a footnote in the Gallifrey Chronicles
• 1:34:22
  where she's murdered off screen. I listened to that episode.
• 1:34:27
  Someone should have corrected you.
• 1:34:29
  Because they find Sam's grave in the Gallifrey Chronicles.
• 1:34:31
  But it gives her full name and it's the full Lynn Jones.
• 1:34:35
  It's the full name of Dark Sam. Her alternative self, not Blonde
• 1:34:40
  Sam. So blonde Sam may still be out
• 1:34:43
  there. Oh, what a shame.
• 1:34:45
  I thought that was a happy ending.
• 1:34:46
  That was a happy ending to the discussion.
• 1:34:48
  Nobody wants her alive. Let's be honest.
• 1:34:52
  Now look quickly. Look at your notes and any
• 1:34:55
  quotes you didn't get to say. Now is your child.
• 1:34:57
  I'm going to start with this one.
• 1:34:58
  You ready? Go on, send it.
• 1:35:00
  Otherwise I won't receive it. So I won't come here.
• 1:35:03
  And if there's one thing I don't need in my life is another
• 1:35:05
  temple paradox. I love that line.
• 1:35:08
  I liked the the 8th Doctor commenting.
• 1:35:12
  Do you remember we mentioned in the in Damaged Goods when the
• 1:35:15
  7th Doctor says that it can't stay dark?
• 1:35:18
  You know, the world can't stay dark like this forever.
• 1:35:20
  The universe can't stay dark. It's got to lighten up again.
• 1:35:22
  I've got to become a different man.
• 1:35:23
  And here the 8th Doctor says sometimes, sometimes it does
• 1:35:27
  seem that nothing's ever going to change again, That I can't
• 1:35:30
  imagine the future being any different from the present or
• 1:35:33
  the past. But then somehow there's always
• 1:35:36
  something new. Yes, I like there's a.
• 1:35:41
  Line here, which I swear Steven Moffett must have read at some
• 1:35:44
  point because he absolutely leads into this with Clara later
• 1:35:47
  on where Kramer goes. Of course they can deal with
• 1:35:51
  their world. They don't have to deal with our
• 1:35:53
  world at the same time when talking about the Doctor and Sam
• 1:35:56
  and their adventures. And obviously he does that,
• 1:35:59
  doesn't he? One foot in the TARDIS, one foot
• 1:36:01
  out. See that Moffett does that later
• 1:36:03
  on, which I I find really interesting.
• 1:36:05
  Back to you, pop quiz hotshot, what do you believe in?
• 1:36:10
  I just thought that was quite a nice line.
• 1:36:14
  I did like the. Line no one's even sure the time
• 1:36:16
  laws are real. They've gone down in in history
• 1:36:19
  as this mythic, terrifying creation with the vampires, but
• 1:36:22
  they've actually sort of forgotten the facts of the
• 1:36:24
  history. And the Virginia adventures are
• 1:36:27
  not forgotten, because when the Doctor and Joanna do, the blood
• 1:36:31
  fast and she sees his memories, and she sees Metabolis, she sees
• 1:36:36
  Andrazzani, and she sees Yamaya from Kate Ormond's new adventure
• 1:36:42
  Sleepy. Brave of you, you know.
• 1:36:45
  To reference a book that you've not read, I I want to say
• 1:36:50
  there's the with one scene where absolutely it's written for
• 1:36:53
  Grace. I want to go with you, she said
• 1:36:56
  the last time you offered, I said no.
• 1:37:00
  Yep. And.
• 1:37:03
  I think. I think that might be.
• 1:37:07
  It I think this is a very strong book, yeah.
• 1:37:13
  That is, has got. One foot still in the door of
• 1:37:16
  the new adventures. I think it's kind of a shame we
• 1:37:18
  didn't do a bit more of this going forward and and sort of
• 1:37:22
  went so trash stroke rad. But I think it's quite a a
• 1:37:26
  pleasant way for the new adventures to end by so sort of
• 1:37:31
  cleverly contrasting the two doctors and letting the sort of
• 1:37:35
  the younger man emerge and all of his strengths and weaknesses.
• 1:37:38
  It feels a little. Bit.
• 1:37:39
  Like Steven Moffett coming back to write an episode for Russell
• 1:37:44
  D Davis's relaunch, doesn't it? It's like they got The New
• 1:37:47
  Adventures back for one book in the in the relaunch.
• 1:37:50
  Yeah. Although he's doing another one,
• 1:37:52
  isn't he? So yeah.
• 1:38:04
  Well, Michael? Thank you very much for that.
• 1:38:07
  We finally got there to Vampire Science Now.
• 1:38:10
  What book are you recommending for this book club episode?
• 1:38:14
  I'm going to recommend The Long Game by Paul Hayes.
• 1:38:19
  What the Hell's that? It's from 10 acre books, non
• 1:38:23
  fiction book looking at the history Doctor Who's long
• 1:38:28
  returned to television between 1996 and 2005.
• 1:38:32
  It begins with the broadcast of the TV movie and it's it's
• 1:38:36
  ratings failure. And then basically it's behind
• 1:38:38
  the scenes history of all of the efforts to bring Doctor Who back
• 1:38:44
  to telly. What stood in between it, the
• 1:38:46
  successes, the failures, the different plans between 1996 and
• 1:38:49
  2011 all the way up to the revival.
• 1:38:50
  Was there a law? There's a lot more than you
• 1:38:53
  might think. So basically the idea of Doctor
• 1:38:55
  Who coming back to telly never really went away across that
• 1:38:57
  period. Lots of different ways approach
• 1:38:58
  lots of people teams had different proposals, tried
• 1:39:00
  different things. So he brings in things like
• 1:39:02
  Doctor Who 2000, you know, the the Clay Hickman, Gareth Roberts
• 1:39:07
  one they put together around 2000.
• 1:39:09
  I think Derek Jacobi as the doctor talks about things like
• 1:39:14
  the Bbci web casts, you know, scream of the shell kick.
• 1:39:17
  As mentioned, death comes to time because in there, as well
• 1:39:19
  as a lot of the sort of behind the scenes, just sort of the,
• 1:39:23
  the, the politics of the BBC and the BBC drama, the ways in it
• 1:39:26
  which it was being changed and the personnel there.
• 1:39:28
  It's fascinating really. Well, it's just this whole era
• 1:39:31
  of Doctor Who. You know, Doctor Who's history
• 1:39:33
  has been picked over so many times.
• 1:39:35
  This, this history of this, this one period in in doctor's
• 1:39:40
  history that we hadn't really known much about it before, but
• 1:39:42
  you hear all whispers. And just putting that all
• 1:39:44
  together, it's absolute treasure, treasure trove of
• 1:39:48
  information. And I think any doctor exam will
• 1:39:51
  gobble it up. Yeah, I don't actually know how.
• 1:39:54
  I don't know that that exists because that's right on my
• 1:39:57
  street. That is in a recent interview
• 1:39:59
  with Rusty Davis at a university.
• 1:40:02
  I don't know if you saw it. It's on YouTube.
• 1:40:04
  And he basically says that it was a pure coincidence that he
• 1:40:07
  was at a party. And I can't remember if it was
• 1:40:08
  Jane Tranter or Lorraine Pegasus.
• 1:40:10
  It was one. I think it was Tranter.
• 1:40:13
  And she's there. And Judy Gardner says to her,
• 1:40:17
  oh, Russell's a massive doctor hoofan.
• 1:40:19
  And they've been looking to to find somebody to helm this.
• 1:40:23
  And it was like the light bulb moment, you know?
• 1:40:25
  Now, he says, Now, she probably would have said that anyway at
• 1:40:28
  that party had I been there or not.
• 1:40:30
  But the fact that I was just prompted the conversation.
• 1:40:33
  And he goes from that day, it was on.
• 1:40:34
  It was just on. It just goes it just goes to
• 1:40:37
  show they were desperate to do it.
• 1:40:39
  Yeah, and and and it's it's not just what's really good about
• 1:40:42
  the book is that it's not just the fannish stuff about what was
• 1:40:44
  Russell T Davies up to? They do go into all the stuff as
• 1:40:47
  a fan. You miss that.
• 1:40:48
  It's just about sort of the BB CS views, the BB CS dramas views
• 1:40:51
  what it wanted to do. They go into all the stuff
• 1:40:54
  about, you know, BBC films have supposedly having a film in pre
• 1:40:58
  production for donkeys ears. It it's it's brilliant, right.
• 1:41:03
  You're going to get it well very quickly.
• 1:41:04
  Then I'm going to recommend to you if you haven't got it
• 1:41:07
  already and you should if you do like the books.
• 1:41:10
  I who non fiction book by mad Norwegian press.
• 1:41:15
  I think, jeez, when I first there's three volumes and when I
• 1:41:19
  first got this, I poured over it like you would not believe.
• 1:41:23
  Most of the obscure facts I know about the books come from here.
• 1:41:27
  Now the reviews I've spent most of my time arguing with aloud,
• 1:41:32
  but it sort of cuts it up into really interesting segments,
• 1:41:35
  memorable moments, sex and spirits, arse whoopings, TV tie
• 1:41:38
  insurance, novel tie insurance, character development.
• 1:41:41
  It is basically the the most in depth reviews that you're going
• 1:41:46
  to find in published form away from the Internet.
• 1:41:51
  It's by Last Pearson. He's a really engaging writer.
• 1:41:55
  He does sort of top ten lists in there as well.
• 1:41:57
  We love that sort of shit, don't we?
• 1:41:59
  Top ten books of that period, top 10 best moments, things like
• 1:42:03
  that as guys to the books during the wilderness years.
• 1:42:07
  It's absolutely invaluable. Michael, I may have alluded to
• 1:42:12
  this earlier, but where are you and I heading next?
• 1:42:16
  Well, we're going to be back a little bit sooner, a little bit
• 1:42:20
  quicker than we tend to be, because those people whose
• 1:42:24
  frames of reference is to extend beyond Doctor Who will be aware
• 1:42:27
  that there's some robbing rumblings happening in the UK at
• 1:42:31
  the moment. So very soon Michael and Joe
• 1:42:34
  will be back on the Hamster Book Club with a Hamster Book Club
• 1:42:38
  election. Special expect contention, baby.
• 1:42:43
  Yes, we will be the Alistair Campbell and Rory Stewart of
• 1:42:47
  Doctor Who Podcasting. As we are talking, we'll be
• 1:42:50
  talking about The Dying Days by Lance Parkin.
• 1:42:54
  Now I don't have a physical copy of that and there's no way I'm
• 1:42:57
  spending £1000 to get it all right, so I'm going to have to
• 1:43:01
  find sort of slightly devious ways of reading this thing.
• 1:43:05
  Oh no, it's on BBC isn't it? Yeah, it's ebook.
• 1:43:09
  I don't know. If they're still up there, but
• 1:43:10
  it was, that's where I first read it.
• 1:43:11
  Oh, I'll have a look. I'll have to read it on my PC.
• 1:43:15
  We've spoken to Lance Parkin about this book.
• 1:43:17
  We're enormous Lance Parkin fans.
• 1:43:19
  I'm assuming stroke hoping that we just have a blast for this
• 1:43:23
  book. I think we will.
• 1:43:25
  Yeah, absolutely. I am looking forward to
• 1:43:27
  revisiting it very much. Michael, you've done 2 recorders
• 1:43:31
  with me tonight. I've kidnapped you for 3 1/2
• 1:43:33
  hours. Thank you very much for your
• 1:43:36
  time. Thank you, Joe.