Latest / A Hamster With a Blunt Penknife - a Doctor Who Commentary podcast / Top and Bottom Tens - Hamster Book Club Extra!

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Top and Bottom Tens - Hamster Book Club Extra! · A Hamster With a Blunt Penknife - a Doctor Who Commentary podcast

• 0:01
  The Doctor stood alone on a Devonian.
• 0:03
  Through the ruin it was a mess of the time to my eyes.
• 0:08
  I am all too conscious and they've walked around the.
• 0:11
  City there, but it may prove the.
• 0:15
  Sun smiled down the country, The world.
• 0:18
  All around the cloched cloistells.
• 0:20
  By Sanatorium at Glenwood Springs, Co was never a place.
• 0:25
  To. Visit them.
• 0:27
  It was an ordinary summer. Welcome back to the Hamster Book
• 1:02
  Club. My name is Joe Ford and in the
• 1:05
  shadow of Votan himself, outside the controversial Doctor Who
• 1:11
  fans very own pub, the Jeremy Bentham, we are recording a
• 1:16
  special extra episode today. We have assembled the cabal of
• 1:23
  Mr. Dan Pin. Hello, Dan.
• 1:25
  Hello, how are we? And what's it like to be here in
• 1:28
  person? It's lovely, I've had a really
• 1:31
  good day. I also have the extremely
• 1:34
  handsome Mr. David Gillespie Pratt.
• 1:36
  Hello, David. Hello everybody, welcome from a
• 1:39
  slightly cold St. in the middle of London in the shadow of the
• 1:42
  Post Office tower. And last but never least, with
• 1:46
  his delicious flat cap up on his head.
• 1:50
  Let's check. Oh no, I need to get his surname
• 1:53
  right. Gareth Boley.
• 1:58
  Oh, Joe, it's great to be here and we're not all in boxes on a
• 2:00
  screen. For once, yes.
• 2:03
  We've got. Bodies.
• 2:05
  We've got bodies today. Now look, I'm going to be
• 2:09
  putting my phone towards the direction of people talking.
• 2:12
  Fingers crossed I'll be able to get everyone talking.
• 2:15
  No, the reason we're here today. Well done.
• 2:17
  Why are we here today? What are we talking about?
• 2:20
  Well. A while back we did our top ten
• 2:24
  and our bottom 10 Doctor Who books tops and bottoms, tops and
• 2:27
  bottoms. Yeah, I, I, which I didn't know
• 2:30
  the significance of that, but I have learnt that since, you
• 2:33
  know, becoming friends with Joe. But but today we are doing,
• 2:40
  we've got two extra, two extra tops and two extra bottoms.
• 2:46
  So we had to be here in person. So let's Lube up folks and get
• 2:51
  on with this. So I'm going to do a, a top and
• 2:56
  then a bottom and I'm going to go round and.
• 2:59
  Then a top because then. You finish on the positive.
• 3:02
  You'd rather finish positive. Yeah, after topic.
• 3:06
  OK, Yeah, a bottom first, then a top, then a bottom, then a top.
• 3:11
  Yeah. OK, we'll do a bottom 1st and I
• 3:16
  don't really know what way David really feeling.
• 3:20
  Slightly confused because you're all kind of giggling away and
• 3:24
  and I don't. I don't understand what what's
• 3:26
  what's making you all laugh so much.
• 3:27
  I feel someone needs to explain really explicitly.
• 3:30
  Bottom's a funny. Word there's.
• 3:32
  A thought as well that Dan was putting into it, really thinking
• 3:35
  it through as a decision and a choice.
• 3:37
  Yeah, yes. No one's talking basically about
• 3:39
  sex, so. No, but we don't want you to
• 3:42
  bottom first. That would be a first.
• 3:47
  Well, we've learned something there.
• 3:48
  It's like. What do you want from me by a
• 3:52
  bottom? OK.
• 3:55
  You want your bottom? Come on.
• 3:58
  OK, if you want a an additional bottom to the ones I previously
• 4:02
  picked in my slightly hurried list, I'm going to be done.
• 4:06
  Pick one that we we have done in a book club.
• 4:07
  But it is a book that disappointed me massively.
• 4:10
  And that was time of your life because I remember this is a
• 4:15
  book with a good reputation. It's six Doctor book and I was
• 4:19
  really looking forward to it. And OK, our thoughts are well
• 4:24
  recorded, but basically it's a book with too many characters,
• 4:27
  too many characters you don't care about.
• 4:29
  It's the six doctors barely in it for a chunk.
• 4:32
  Then it gets excessively violent and none of it is interesting.
• 4:36
  So I think if I was doing that top ten again or doing the top
• 4:39
  ten bottom 12, should I say that would definitely be in there.
• 4:42
  It was a it there's good books and bad books, but there's also
• 4:45
  disappointing books and, and basically it let me down so and
• 4:50
  that's the book's fault. How?
• 4:51
  Rare is it as well to have a book club where it's a four way.
• 4:55
  We didn't like it. Like we've had twos and twos.
• 4:59
  We've had, you know, like I can't remember what it was for
• 5:02
  Paradise Death. I think that was 2 and 2, maybe
• 5:05
  one against three. Possibly reckless engineering.
• 5:09
  It was Tutu, wasn't it? We liked it.
• 5:10
  You guys weren't too sure. Yeah, OK.
• 5:14
  Time of your life. And I think I remember when we
• 5:16
  picked it and we were all really super enthusiastic.
• 5:19
  We were all really looking forward to it.
• 5:21
  And I think like Lions and that enthusiasm evaporated.
• 5:24
  I think. I think the first couple of
• 5:26
  chapters were quite good. I remember it was a joke.
• 5:27
  You just started reading and saying this is rough to a really
• 5:30
  good start. And then it just falls back.
• 5:34
  He just falls off a Cliff. Yeah.
• 5:37
  It it, it disappointed me, so it let me down.
• 5:40
  It let us all down. And I was lied to by Doctor Who
• 5:43
  magazine. That gave it a good review.
• 5:46
  Oh my God, you should see the indignation on his face right
• 5:50
  now. My God.
• 5:52
  Yeah, absolutely. It's the disappointment on that
• 5:54
  one. I have a disappointing bottom,
• 5:56
  Gareth. No, no.
• 5:57
  That springs to mind. No, no.
• 6:01
  Would you care to graceless with your first?
• 6:03
  Bottle Yes, I'll disgrace you with my bottom.
• 6:08
  Yeah. So my choice is Heart of Tardis.
• 6:11
  Heart of. TARDIS.
• 6:12
  Yeah, it yeah, it could be a knee problem, this one.
• 6:16
  So I read it years ago and remember just not really getting
• 6:21
  it. And I read it again recently and
• 6:24
  I just didn't really get it. It's one of those books where
• 6:29
  you've got two different doctors.
• 6:30
  You have to follow it really closely to remember which doctor
• 6:33
  you're following at a given time.
• 6:34
  So I think I've said before, I'm quite vivid in terms of how I
• 6:37
  how I see the doctor in my head. So suddenly I'm reading and I'm
• 6:41
  reading Tom Baker. But then I figured out as I'm
• 6:43
  reading it should be Patrick Troughton and I have to make
• 6:45
  that swap and that throws me out of the book every time.
• 6:48
  Quite different. I can't tell he's not writing it
• 6:51
  well. No, no, this is again, This is
• 6:53
  why it's a me problem, I think because I'm I'm projecting that
• 6:56
  doctor in there. But I mean, I'd even forgotten
• 6:58
  UNIT were in this book. That's what I mean.
• 7:01
  That's how memorable this is. There is a Time Lord in there
• 7:04
  who has no vowels in his name. How do you pronounce?
• 7:07
  Bubluk. I have absolutely no idea.
• 7:10
  But again, you trip. I tripped over it too much.
• 7:12
  You threw me out of the book and that is why that one is in my
• 7:15
  body. TARDIS Well, I mean, I'm not
• 7:17
  surprised to find the Dave Stone in there.
• 7:19
  He can be controversial. Now, Dan.
• 7:23
  Hello. Hello.
• 7:24
  Now I believe this is you're quite new to experiencing bottom
• 7:28
  in the head, so why don't you tell us what your first
• 7:31
  experience is like? Yeah, it wasn't good.
• 7:34
  It wasn't very good. Yeah.
• 7:37
  So the first of my 2 for the bottom half is Belt and Pissed
• 7:43
  by Jim Mortimer. So I, I think there's a bit of a
• 7:49
  back story to this. So I was quite lucky in the fact
• 7:53
  that I found 38th Doctor books in a charity shop and they were
• 8:01
  all £2.50 each. So naturally I feel my boots, I
• 8:05
  had all of them. And I think as I've said before,
• 8:09
  I've got quite a chequered history with the the 8th Doctor
• 8:13
  range. I kind of, I started with them,
• 8:16
  got up to Legacy of the Dark, the second John Peel and I go,
• 8:20
  I'm out and I and I, I kind of, yeah.
• 8:27
  And then I kind of dipped in and out of it kind of thing with
• 8:31
  some were good, some were bad, you know, kind of thing.
• 8:35
  So I decided that I was going to read them from the 8, the 8
• 8:39
  Doctors all the way up to the Gallifrey Chronicles.
• 8:43
  And I got further. This time I went through some
• 8:48
  absolute dogs genocides, the two John Peel Daleks.
• 8:53
  Sorry, Gary Russell, placebo effect.
• 8:55
  I didn't really like that one. It's terrible.
• 8:58
  Stacy. And Sassault but.
• 9:00
  I I, I got through them. I got to Bell Tempest and I'm
• 9:06
  probably 100 pages in. That was two years ago.
• 9:09
  I haven't been able to finish it two years.
• 9:11
  Yeah, I've, I've tried, I've really, really tried.
• 9:17
  I've picked it up several occasions and I've managed to
• 9:19
  read a couple of pages and gone. No.
• 9:23
  And I and I, and I think that's the thing.
• 9:25
  I don't think it's a poorly written book.
• 9:27
  I, I think like we, we, we went through this with Jim Mortimer,
• 9:31
  with Parasites. He, he, he's a good writer, but
• 9:38
  he's just obsessed with death and violence and unpleasant
• 9:45
  things happening to people. And I, I think cause 'cause like
• 9:50
  I, I put blood heat in my top 10.
• 9:53
  So it's not that I don't and I, I still enjoy that book, but it
• 9:56
  is on the very grim side. But since then, I, I, we've read
• 10:00
  Parasite, I've, I've read eternity weeks.
• 10:04
  So that's. His game every time, doesn't it?
• 10:06
  How much pain can I spread? And, and it's just not for me
• 10:10
  and, and, and I haven't been able to, to finish that book.
• 10:14
  I haven't been able to carry on that journey to the point where
• 10:16
  I thought, right, OK, where did the, where does this range start
• 10:19
  getting good? So I went to the earth, the
• 10:21
  Earth arc and started from there.
• 10:23
  And I've really enjoyed that range.
• 10:25
  But I think like the, the, the new adventures, it gets off to a
• 10:29
  really slow start, really hit and miss and it finds its feet
• 10:33
  halfway through and then it's quite good.
• 10:35
  But unfortunately, Belle Tempest I think might be the only Doctor
• 10:40
  Who book I will never be able to finish.
• 10:42
  It's a shame because it's got a great premise, those, those
• 10:45
  aliens that give birth and take out entire solar systems as they
• 10:49
  go. But yeah, you're right.
• 10:51
  Yeah. What did we say about Parasite?
• 10:54
  What was the word of the day? Pain, pain, pain.
• 11:00
  Well, just to sort of go the other way, my first bottom and
• 11:07
  that would be quite something. Words.
• 11:12
  Is from the second-half of the 8th Doctor books, which is
• 11:17
  period I usually Lord, but I have recently read The Infinity
• 11:22
  Race by Simon Messingham and boy it was a slog.
• 11:28
  Not only did it have a lack of incident, especially after like
• 11:32
  History One O 1, Camera Obscura Time 0, it's a great run of
• 11:36
  books full of incident and excitement.
• 11:38
  And then we're off on holiday whilst the multiverse is
• 11:42
  shattered and nothing happens in it.
• 11:45
  There's there's a, there's a yacht race and someone's making
• 11:50
  time travel out of ice or something.
• 11:55
  Weirdest thing I've always is the first person narrative that
• 11:58
  it deploys. You've got the Doctor Fitz,
• 12:01
  Angie, you've got Sabbath, you've got Bloom the native,
• 12:07
  you've got the governor. Like every character is written
• 12:11
  first person and they all start and it's really irritatingly
• 12:14
  chatty. Hello, It's me, Fitz again.
• 12:18
  I'm picking up the story again. Like who the fuck are you
• 12:20
  talking to? Are you talking to me?
• 12:25
  Yeah. God, it was boring.
• 12:27
  And I really generally, I know that's a run that troubles you,
• 12:30
  Gareth, because it's full of multiverses, but got it.
• 12:34
  That was a real. That was a real struggle in a.
• 12:38
  Excuse me, what is going on over there in a series of books that
• 12:44
  I really, really love. Right.
• 12:46
  David, it's time now for you to be much more comfortable in life
• 12:50
  and start topping again. What's your first top?
• 12:54
  Well, it's quite hard, really. It's difficult and I'll have to
• 13:01
  find a way of just kind of fitting and fitting it in.
• 13:05
  But and, and I was, it was actually on our little walk
• 13:09
  through London today that I thinking about what, what to
• 13:12
  kind of slip in here. And we were walking along, we
• 13:19
  were walking along Henrietta St. And obviously we pointed out
• 13:25
  we've been on Henrietta St. And I was like, you know what?
• 13:28
  That's a. Bloody good book it is.
• 13:32
  So unlike. There's a possibility I can't
• 13:34
  remember my top ten. It might have been on there, it
• 13:36
  might not. Why?
• 13:36
  What's the? New top No it.
• 13:39
  Was I just have? A spreadsheet for this, I think
• 13:44
  I do. It's got such an unusual format.
• 13:47
  It just breaks. It's so unconventional.
• 13:49
  What it is a when I say it's hard read, it is literally a
• 13:52
  hard read because it on purpose. No, that wasn't on purpose
• 13:57
  because the the but it works. It works the typeface, the
• 14:01
  typeface in the book is really small and it is it is difficult
• 14:06
  to read on a Kindle. You can make the prose bigger,
• 14:09
  but it's got it's told from historical records perspective.
• 14:12
  It's got some first person. It's got characters whose names
• 14:16
  have been redacted, so you're not entirely sure who it is.
• 14:19
  So just the format of the book is unlike anything I think I'd
• 14:23
  seen in the range before or since.
• 14:26
  And then you get to the content, which when you're reading it as
• 14:28
  a teenager, this is a book set in a Bodillo.
• 14:32
  It's got conversations about tantric sex.
• 14:34
  It's actually got depictions of tantric sex.
• 14:37
  It's even got with a big fat. Belly and it's going away at
• 14:41
  this and it's also. Got the.
• 14:42
  It's also got a little. Listener, you do not want to
• 14:50
  know that there's descriptions of the 10 trick as well because
• 14:54
  it actually has a kind of almost good dunk, good dunk as well.
• 14:57
  You're surprised that you can get away within a doctor.
• 14:59
  But this is because I think it's the early noughties.
• 15:02
  No one's really paying attention to the range and they could just
• 15:04
  go for broke. But this is different from
• 15:06
  getting new adventures where it felt mature as it was.
• 15:08
  This felt like it was in service of the story.
• 15:11
  It was telling a story in this world.
• 15:13
  It didn't feel as salacious or anything as we saw in some early
• 15:17
  90s. So it's just it's in that sort
• 15:20
  of top, my top 12 now because it's just, it's so completely
• 15:23
  different. And it's in the midst of one of
• 15:25
  the best ones of Doctor Who books ever.
• 15:27
  They're coming for me now. Oh.
• 15:30
  My God they really are. Take him away for his outrageous
• 15:34
  opinions. Time of your life is a classic.
• 15:37
  It's a fire. Ranger to come to call.
• 15:39
  Joe down. Yeah.
• 15:40
  Jesus Christ. I'm Gareth, please may we learn
• 15:44
  about your first experience with the top now, Yes.
• 15:47
  So I'm going to be going for the top, which is original sin.
• 15:53
  Oh, hello, Mr. Bourne, Yeah. Well, that's part of the reason
• 15:57
  for it. So I mean, what's not to like
• 15:59
  about this book? You know, essentially you've got
• 16:01
  a 2000 ADS megacity that we're going to be talking about.
• 16:04
  You've got adjudicators that are essentially the judges from
• 16:08
  there. It's a great staple, wonderful.
• 16:10
  It feels fresh. We finally got rid of Bernice.
• 16:13
  So, you know, we get Chris, we get Ross, we can't get.
• 16:17
  Those plays but back, please. We get something fresh.
• 16:20
  It's the adjudicators passing by.
• 16:22
  We get something fresh in the books.
• 16:23
  Now what is your? Issue with Bernice I'm.
• 16:26
  Just not bothered about Bernice. He's not bothered.
• 16:30
  I. Just yeah, she's.
• 16:32
  Alright. I'm not gonna make you read Ben
• 16:35
  and Polly books until you love her like Ben and.
• 16:37
  Polly, she's okay. She's.
• 16:39
  Just that. But also, yeah, the villain is
• 16:45
  the big thing for me because I never saw that coming.
• 16:49
  We can spoil the. He's already done it, so we're
• 16:52
  kind of there. But it's not.
• 16:53
  It's not just the villain reveal, but it's the nature of
• 16:56
  the villain reveal and how that ties into the invasion and what
• 16:59
  happens at the end of the invasion, which I think is
• 17:01
  brilliant and perfectly works for me.
• 17:04
  Oh, wonderful choice, yes. I mean, there's no side men in
• 17:09
  it though, is there? It's just.
• 17:10
  It's just. Him.
• 17:11
  Just him as a robot. Fabulous.
• 17:14
  Oh, what a wonderful choice. I think our list is getting
• 17:16
  longer now. We've decided books today what
• 17:18
  we're going to do, but there may be more along the way.
• 17:21
  Dan, would you please care to grace us with your first top I?
• 17:25
  Will so so my my rather haphazard 8th dock journey has
• 17:36
  had me bouncing around the range.
• 17:41
  But I, I had the privilege of of covering this book with with Ian
• 17:46
  Martin on his podcast. So it is History 101 by Magzel
• 17:52
  Halliday and I enjoyed this book so much and and it and it was
• 17:59
  one of those ones where I I felt I don't know if I can talk about
• 18:04
  this book and and do it justice because I think it is such a
• 18:10
  highbrow kind of book. And I think as people that have
• 18:13
  listened to me do this podcast realise that I'm I'm not really
• 18:18
  that way. Brilliant episode.
• 18:21
  I love episode. She was.
• 18:23
  On there as well, yes. I know.
• 18:25
  Oh, that. Was the.
• 18:26
  Best bit of it. I mean don't listen to my bit,
• 18:28
  but go skip straight to the interview.
• 18:32
  But. It, it's just, I think it's just
• 18:35
  absolutely superb because it, it, it takes a bit of art in, in
• 18:41
  this case by Pablo Picasso and uses that as the premise of the
• 18:46
  book, but then goes to a period of history where I, I roughly
• 18:54
  knew stuff about it, but not a great deal.
• 19:00
  But but instead, I mean for those that know the Spanish
• 19:03
  Civil War is socialists versus fascists.
• 19:08
  But it shows that not all on the left of, of, of a political
• 19:15
  viewpoint agree with each other and unnecessarily nice people.
• 19:23
  And I just, I just think it's such a clever book And it, it
• 19:28
  really fuelled my fascination, not only for that, that period
• 19:33
  of, of history. And I did a lot of a lot of
• 19:36
  looking into it and I know much more about it, but also it made
• 19:39
  me go, you know what, this feels like a really great bit of the
• 19:44
  8th Doctor range. I'm going to start with
• 19:48
  Henrietta St. and I'm going to read all of the Sabbath book.
• 19:52
  That's Sabbath Ark. I've kind of done the
• 19:56
  alternative universe 1 as well, which is kind of mingled in with
• 19:59
  it. And I and I think it's it's just
• 20:02
  fab. And I think if you haven't
• 20:04
  haven't read that, read it because it is a really, really
• 20:08
  good book. You've said something to me that
• 20:11
  I've been longing to hear for so long, You read.
• 20:14
  I think the aim for Doctor Fitz and Angie are great.
• 20:17
  I was like, oh finally I. Mean I, I think over time
• 20:22
  they've become one of my favorite TARDIS teams of, of, of
• 20:26
  all Doctor Who formats, whether it's the TV audio and and
• 20:31
  they're just I think they're just superb, you know, trio
• 20:34
  together and there is some absolutely fantastic books with
• 20:38
  those and those guys in at least there's.
• 20:40
  Some odd talking sense about companions around this.
• 20:42
  Good grief. I couldn't possibly comment
• 20:46
  about that. I couldn't say, couldn't say.
• 20:50
  That was me. Well, what?
• 20:53
  Am I doing? What's your first time, Tom?
• 20:55
  How unusual. OK, I am going to actually, it's
• 21:00
  quite close to the one that you just talked about, because I
• 21:03
  think that it's such a superb run of books.
• 21:05
  They ain't the Crooked World, which I do think is glorious.
• 21:09
  It is an adventurous, which I think is wonderful.
• 21:11
  In fact, that whole run Anachophobia, which I think is
• 21:14
  amazing. But for me, I just tore through
• 21:17
  this book at ridiculous speed. It's Camera Obscura by Lloyd
• 21:22
  Rose. I think every line of prose is a
• 21:26
  banger. Every bit of dialogue is great.
• 21:29
  The scenes between the Doctor and Sabbath are peak Dr. villain
• 21:33
  scenes. It's brutal, but it's also
• 21:36
  really funny. It's full of twists and turns.
• 21:40
  I just think it is riveting. Plus it just dives into that
• 21:43
  Victoriana that for some reason weed dogs and who fans are all
• 21:47
  fucking obsessed with is easily one of the best Doctor books
• 21:51
  I've read in years and years, alongside my other top for this
• 21:55
  list. David, I'm sorry to get you back
• 21:59
  to bottoming again, but here we go.
• 22:02
  OK, so I'll with this, we'll come, I'll I'll tell a story and
• 22:06
  then I'll reveal the book. So I have mentioned on several
• 22:09
  podcasts and in fact, a guest on my own podcast is my old school
• 22:12
  friend Chris. And last year we went to visit
• 22:16
  Chris and his family over in Liverpool and his house,
• 22:19
  surprisingly the old lovely house has a name and the house
• 22:24
  is named Kersal. And of course you would have.
• 22:29
  Said Longbarrow. I would have laughed my head off
• 22:32
  and the. Thing is, the second that we
• 22:33
  pulled into the drive and I saw the name, the first thing I
• 22:35
  think of was the Doctor Who novel Cursor, which he is.
• 22:38
  You free him it he's bought but never read.
• 22:41
  So he asked me the question, is it any good?
• 22:43
  To which I think, and this is this is me giving my very brief
• 22:48
  version of this. No, it's not I I remember very
• 22:54
  little about it other than it being tediously dull.
• 22:57
  So there is nothing. Sometimes bad books can be
• 23:00
  enjoyable. Paradise of Death, which I
• 23:02
  nearly dropped him. I can't have two books you've
• 23:04
  done on a book club. That feels really boring as
• 23:05
  well. But Paradise of Death is so bad
• 23:08
  at times it's entertainingly bad.
• 23:10
  Parasite is quite bad, but we were, we got a lot to discuss
• 23:13
  from it. And there are other books that
• 23:15
  are bad, but you know, something like Transit is a pretty bad
• 23:20
  book, but it's still got a lot to mind.
• 23:24
  Boring is worse because boring gives you nothing.
• 23:27
  And one of the things I've been saying when we're back today,
• 23:29
  like trying to decide future books going, wouldn't it be nice
• 23:32
  to pick a book nobody talks about because it just has left
• 23:35
  no impression? And Kasala's made a good example
• 23:39
  of that, of a book that has just left absolutely no impression.
• 23:42
  I own it, I've read it, I remember nothing about it.
• 23:46
  So, So for me, it's got werewolf, It's got werewolf on
• 23:48
  it. So 1.
• 23:50
  Because it allowed me to tell that little bit of story and
• 23:52
  pass things out. But, but I felt, I felt that it,
• 24:00
  I felt that it exemplifies the typifies the the completely
• 24:05
  forgettable Doctor Who book. So that's my second bottom.
• 24:11
  Infinity Race is utterly forgetful.
• 24:13
  Well, you're right. When they're just so dull you
• 24:16
  can't remember a thing. I know.
• 24:18
  I think it's I've read the Infinity Race.
• 24:20
  I couldn't tell you a thing about that book.
• 24:22
  I remember all good stuff at all the others of that range about
• 24:24
  time Infinity race. It just strikes me the dull
• 24:28
  thud. I mean, the one after it, David,
• 24:30
  the domino effect, which no one seems to like, but I have great
• 24:32
  fun with. I mean, alternative Ace got shot
• 24:35
  in the neck and her whole head exploded.
• 24:38
  I mean, I'll never forget that. Wow, Gareth, it's time to spread
• 24:46
  some scorn. Well, it's definitely spreading
• 24:49
  something. So this this book I have
• 24:53
  actually, I got quite jealous on the way down with Dan and I have
• 24:57
  been on the socials putting pictures of our journeys and,
• 25:00
  and Dan showed the wonderful book that he's reading in, in
• 25:03
  his pictures and I sadly have been reading this on my journey
• 25:08
  down today. It's.
• 25:10
  Got a light? Cover It's a beautiful cover.
• 25:12
  Beautiful cover. Shame about the book.
• 25:14
  Oh, what's a? What's a good old book?
• 25:16
  Is it? It is, yes.
• 25:19
  It is bullet time and it's it's a 7th Doctor book and it can't
• 25:25
  really decide what book it wants to be.
• 25:27
  If I'm brutally honest, on the face of it, it should be really
• 25:29
  good. The Doctor is basically
• 25:31
  ensconced in a group of triads trying to help an alien being
• 25:34
  that's crashed on Earth to get off Earth.
• 25:36
  That sounds wonderful. We've.
• 25:38
  Got Sarah Jane. Doing her investigative best in
• 25:40
  the same area and nary their path across into the last 40
• 25:44
  pages. Again, on paper so you should be
• 25:46
  wonderful, but it's just turgy to get through it it it feels.
• 25:52
  Really fun it. Hasn't decided whether he wants
• 25:54
  to tell the Doctor's story or Sarah's story, he said.
• 25:57
  We're introduced to a load of the cat again.
• 25:59
  UNIT make an appearance in this which I've forgotten about.
• 26:02
  Unit's now becoming cannon fodder scenes and in these books
• 26:05
  that I've been picking up for the bottoms Harris.
• 26:07
  Anti unit propaganda continues. I know it's quite like Unit I.
• 26:13
  Really like unit. I just they don't really need
• 26:15
  much of A after affecting your memory on this book.
• 26:18
  But the yeah, he can't decide what he wants to be.
• 26:21
  The idea of the 7th doctrine, ensconcing himself into
• 26:23
  something to save somebody who's.
• 26:25
  Feels. Route One should be a good story
• 26:27
  in itself. Or even if you flipped a story
• 26:28
  about Sarah investigating something and uncovering the
• 26:31
  Doctor's involvement. Exactly.
• 26:32
  They've read it, they understand this, they're agreeing with me.
• 26:35
  Oh my. God, there are poem fire bullets
• 26:38
  I. Know it's absolutely.
• 26:40
  And Hong Kong the. The worst, the worst and most
• 26:43
  egregious thing this book does, And again, spoilers.
• 26:46
  But then, as as you've heard about four, you might as well
• 26:47
  hear about this is that Sarah Jane is killed.
• 26:50
  But it gets worse than that. The penultimate paragraph has a
• 26:53
  spelling mistake in it, The absent.
• 26:56
  Because there's a, there's a. Final coding it.
• 26:58
  There's. A well, it's essentially got the
• 27:00
  word gone with the with the letter E missing.
• 27:02
  Oh God. So you literally get to the very
• 27:04
  end and go oh, oh, oh, oh. So it never really lands at the
• 27:08
  end. I think they play out this scene
• 27:09
  at the end where you think Sarah hasn't been shot and the
• 27:12
  doctor's just saying goodbye to a bird.
• 27:16
  That's pretty much it. You know that That.
• 27:19
  Oh, no. I can't say a word.
• 27:21
  Dan hasn't read it yet. OK, well, we'll come back to
• 27:24
  this conversation about companions dying once he's
• 27:27
  ready. Sometimes.
• 27:28
  Never. No, no, it's fine.
• 27:30
  It's fine. It's fine.
• 27:31
  Where am I going next? Dan?
• 27:33
  Hello. Hello, hello, hello, hello,
• 27:35
  hello. A bit lower page.
• 27:37
  Thank you. Hello, that's not what I was
• 27:40
  talking about. Cancel the table again, but
• 27:43
  we're. We're outside.
• 27:44
  I can't do that sort of thing outside.
• 27:46
  I'm not getting arrested. Yeah, I I'm one of one of my
• 27:51
  colleagues here today has already spoken about this book,
• 27:55
  but disparaging. Way yes.
• 27:59
  So I'm in total agreement with with with said colleague.
• 28:03
  It's the Infinity race. Yes, a boring.
• 28:10
  Man alive, it is such a good range of books at this point and
• 28:16
  you, you've got through, you know, Camera Skewer, Henriette
• 28:20
  St. History 101.
• 28:23
  Go, go, go. Yeah.
• 28:26
  And then you get to this one and it's like, Oh dear.
• 28:31
  There's, there's nothing in it that I can kind of relate to
• 28:35
  because I think like it, doesn't it?
• 28:38
  I mean, this is technically the first in the alternative
• 28:40
  universe arc. Is it though?
• 28:43
  Exactly. It's gotten it.
• 28:46
  It's got nothing to to as a reference point, whereas with
• 28:50
  domino effect, you've got like a eternative Great Britain where
• 28:55
  basically it's racist, it's sexist, It's all of these
• 29:00
  horrible things that we're kind of 2026 exactly.
• 29:03
  We're seeing these things kind of playing out around us, which
• 29:06
  is quite unsettling. It's not like reckless
• 29:10
  engineering where where we we've got that, you know, we know time
• 29:15
  is messed up because we've got references to work with.
• 29:18
  We haven't with this because it's on planet ZOG.
• 29:21
  We don't know what what's different.
• 29:24
  Why is this not? Why is this alternative universe
• 29:27
  like None? Of us, clearly written, I'm just
• 29:29
  sure, wasn't it? Yeah, definitely.
• 29:32
  Then again, it's got nothing to kind of connect with me because
• 29:37
  basically it's a regatta posh people sailing boats, betting on
• 29:44
  boats and all that sort of stuff.
• 29:46
  And, and it's just got nothing that kind of appeals to me.
• 29:49
  I don't why should I be interested in this?
• 29:50
  It's it's not, it's not my background.
• 29:53
  You know, I'm working class. I, you know, sailing is for, for
• 29:59
  people that have got a lot of money.
• 30:00
  I haven't got a lot of money. So, you know, it doesn't,
• 30:02
  doesn't kind of appeal to me. We're.
• 30:04
  Interested Engineering, you know you go forward to and that's all
• 30:07
  about that working class community.
• 30:08
  Exactly. You love that book.
• 30:09
  I love that book. So yeah.
• 30:11
  So it's got nothing that kind of grabs me and also they hate it
• 30:16
  as well. Did you?
• 30:19
  Say the sticker in there. We hate the Infinity race that
• 30:23
  was. In the car.
• 30:24
  Wow, yeah. What a what a perk.
• 30:25
  What a perk. And then and then, and then I
• 30:29
  think obviously you've then got like an indigenous or or a
• 30:34
  native, a form of humans. Cannot end well that.
• 30:40
  Have got an affinity with the sea, they can so they can they
• 30:43
  can read the. The.
• 30:45
  Currents and the flow of it so that means that it's perfectly
• 30:49
  acceptable for these rich people to to kidnap them, enslave them
• 30:56
  and use them to navigate the seas of this this planet.
• 31:00
  And I think don't they even call them like block heads or
• 31:02
  something like that yeah. So it's just, it's just, and
• 31:06
  there's this character. That that blue.
• 31:07
  Yeah, but then. He's been written first person.
• 31:10
  Again, yes. It's like a real simpleton.
• 31:14
  Yeah. And it's quite obviously, you
• 31:16
  know, we're talking about, I don't want to use the word
• 31:19
  savages, but but that that's kind of the the way it's
• 31:22
  portrayed. So, yeah.
• 31:25
  So it's a real, it's a real misstep in that great run of
• 31:29
  books, unfortunately. So I I totally agree with you,
• 31:32
  Jake, remember, said he. Wanted to write a light hearted
• 31:34
  romp with racism. Nothing.
• 31:39
  Says. Light hearted then racism.
• 31:42
  Does it really? Well, David, break out the Lube.
• 31:46
  It's time to top again. Let's go.
• 31:48
  Haven't. You got to possible yet.
• 31:51
  Oh, do I? Yeah.
• 31:52
  Oh God, just skipped. Him on Oh God, that was.
• 31:54
  Not the first. Time.
• 31:58
  Table again. OK, don't throw things at me,
• 32:02
  all right? I read this recently and God, it
• 32:08
  was such a chore to read. It was a mixture of utter
• 32:13
  pretentiousness and Time Lord mythology of the most boring
• 32:19
  kind imaginable. I'm talking about Mark Platt's
• 32:24
  lung Barrow. I'm so sorry.
• 32:27
  Like I get that some people like this weird Gorman Gar style
• 32:31
  gothic horror, but to me it's just that.
• 32:34
  What did Andrew Batty say? And he put it in his bottom 10.
• 32:37
  It's a load of fucking boring weirdos in a house together and
• 32:41
  that is it. And the alternative to the
• 32:43
  Doctor's hideously dull family is hanging out on Gallifrey
• 32:48
  doing Gallifrey's arc of Infinity.
• 32:49
  It's the invasion of time. They're talking about
• 32:52
  transduction barriers and bio data extracts and all those
• 32:56
  boring things. Positive.
• 32:57
  About the arc of Infinity Joe. In comparison, perhaps No, no,
• 33:04
  I, I just, I wonder. I wonder why this wasn't allowed
• 33:09
  to be the last new adventure. I think it's because it's really
• 33:13
  boring. The Dying Days comes next.
• 33:16
  Fuck that is a RIP roaring adventure for the 8th Doctor.
• 33:19
  Benny on form. An amazing invasion.
• 33:23
  It's like a bouncy plot and unforgettable set pieces.
• 33:28
  In comparison, Lungbarra is so reflective, it's so inward
• 33:32
  looking. It's so obsessed with all of
• 33:34
  that Time Lord mythology. And as a summation of the Second
• 33:38
  Doctors Adventures in print is basically saying, yeah, we don't
• 33:41
  really look forward, we mostly look back.
• 33:45
  I didn't like it at all. Oh, absolute silence.
• 33:49
  Well, there we go. Which is a.
• 33:50
  Bit Marmite though, isn't it? I think some people either
• 33:53
  really love it or really hate it.
• 33:54
  I. Think it's mostly really loved
• 33:56
  so I just I I think it's. OK, I I like it.
• 33:59
  I. Don't come up against it as much
• 34:01
  as I do as I've grown up in. AI think like the the Time Lords
• 34:08
  of this era of Doctor Who and and I think that then kind of
• 34:12
  spills into the the 8th doctor range as well, where you've got
• 34:15
  like interference and ancestor cell and eight.
• 34:18
  Doctors, yeah. Well, yeah, maybe that's taken
• 34:21
  too fast. They're it's a much more
• 34:23
  interesting take on it than what we get to see on the TV because
• 34:28
  I just think like it does feel like they're certainly like the
• 34:33
  the sets of the five doctors. It feels like they they're in,
• 34:36
  you know, a garden centre with like a little water feature
• 34:39
  going on. I.
• 34:40
  Swear that it was all just set in rooms and corridors like TV.
• 34:46
  But but I think then you've got the the the House of Bloomberg
• 34:49
  and it because because it is that kind of like you say Gorman
• 34:53
  gas like furniture. Dancing about it reminded me of
• 34:56
  Doctor Widow and the Wardrobe in the worst possible way.
• 34:59
  I had a very boring murder mystery.
• 35:03
  Well, anyway, not not a favorite of mine.
• 35:06
  Unfortunate. Maybe we'll get onto that one.
• 35:10
  It sounds like an interesting conversation right now because
• 35:13
  of my he's been putting on the loop for ages.
• 35:16
  Let's go. It's time to top David.
• 35:18
  It's best to. Be hanging around for quite some
• 35:20
  time I'm. Sorry, I've lost momentum.
• 35:23
  Too flaccid? Well.
• 35:28
  That's the BT Tower. Thank you.
• 35:35
  Does yours go round at the top like that?
• 35:38
  My. God, not anymore.
• 35:41
  Can someone talk all out down room now, please?
• 35:44
  All right, I realise that we're going to get Lotus.
• 35:47
  I'm going to go back on track because, you know, that's just.
• 35:50
  It's my. Job.
• 35:50
  Well actually I can see him picking 1 barrel just to be
• 35:54
  contrary, but I never finished it.
• 35:58
  Oh damn it. Where?
• 36:00
  Did your bell turn? It's only because it's so rare
• 36:04
  that when I was at university in Liverpool, you could borrow it,
• 36:07
  but you had to go into the special reading and read it
• 36:09
  under supervision and because it's part of their special
• 36:12
  collections, because rare books and are You?
• 36:16
  Sure. It wasn't because it was so
• 36:17
  dull. They were scared you were going
• 36:18
  to fry at the morning well. I did.
• 36:19
  I managed to sit through and read the whole list of violence
• 36:21
  in going in every few days to read a few chapters now and
• 36:24
  again, but for some reason I didn't finish Lumbaro because it
• 36:27
  just didn't grip me. That were in 2000 and two 2003
• 36:32
  might. Have debate there for the length
• 36:33
  of time to finish a book. So yes, I wasn't grippered
• 36:37
  enough by it, but that's so therefore it is not in my swamp.
• 36:43
  This is very difficult because I haven't gone back to a lot of
• 36:45
  these books for a very long time.
• 36:46
  So I'm dealing with what I remember and the that renovate
• 36:50
  tractor books. You've got that prophobia, which
• 36:53
  is absolutely superb. Camera obscure.
• 36:55
  I can't disagree with. I love the crooked world.
• 36:58
  There's just so many. And then even in that sort of
• 37:00
  middle to late virgin period, you've got just war, you've got
• 37:05
  happy endings. Original sin which was my.
• 37:07
  Therapy. Therapy.
• 37:09
  There's just so many really, really good books.
• 37:13
  So trying to pick just like of what I remember.
• 37:17
  I just absolutely love reading. It comes back to just War.
• 37:20
  I was probably influenced a little bit by the audio
• 37:23
  adaptation because I listened to it first and then read the book.
• 37:27
  And yes, the doctor is absent from the audio version, but you
• 37:32
  don't miss him because that's not storage.
• 37:33
  That just where he's telling. It is Bernice's story.
• 37:36
  It is set in a very real world. The science fiction element is
• 37:41
  it's there, but it's not. That's not the story it's trying
• 37:43
  to tell. Am I remembering the audio
• 37:45
  version? No, no, no, he dropped.
• 37:47
  A slave, but he's on the. Side it is, it is Bernice.
• 37:52
  And I'm sorry guys, I am a big Bernice fan, starting from Lisa
• 37:57
  Barrowman's performances. That character's just imprinted.
• 38:01
  I can't read it without hearing her voice and it has been a
• 38:04
  while since I read it. But it is definitely a book and
• 38:07
  an adaptation that left an impression and that left a
• 38:09
  really good impression coming from a point, we've said this
• 38:12
  before about the range maturing at that time.
• 38:15
  And for me that has time. And that for me typifies that
• 38:19
  kind of mature writing. It's it's not gratuitous or over
• 38:25
  the top. It's character study and very
• 38:27
  mature character study. And I think it's very, very
• 38:30
  effective for that. That's what my 25 year old Alan
• 38:33
  Memory tells me about it. But it's, it's lingered.
• 38:35
  It's it's wedged in there as it was being one of the good ones.
• 38:39
  Coming soon to the Hamster Book Club starring David Gillespie,
• 38:42
  Pratt, Gareth Bowley and Dan Pin who just wore You can't get our
• 38:49
  names wrong. We've only got 3 letters on
• 38:51
  letters. Come on now Gareth.
• 38:54
  Now wow, as with your last. Well, it's only fair that I
• 38:59
  think we did my top 10 roundabout a couple of years ago
• 39:03
  and that I ought to pick something that not picking
• 39:06
  something we've covered, but picking something that I've read
• 39:08
  in the last couple of years. I'm going to start this by
• 39:11
  saying I don't like short story collections.
• 39:15
  I'm not a big fan of short story collections.
• 39:17
  I I've got to be in the right frame of mood for it, I always
• 39:21
  end up getting feeling a bit half cheated by them.
• 39:24
  However, this particular book is a short story collection that I
• 39:29
  thought was phenomenal and it's party like it's 19980.
• 39:34
  Yes. Yes.
• 39:36
  Sorry, I've just come. That's the table again, yeah.
• 39:44
  It it it is. It is an absolute.
• 39:46
  Love letter to the EDA's. It's full of great stories and
• 39:52
  even the 7th Doctor makes an occasional appearance, which is
• 39:55
  a wonderful surprise. They're.
• 39:58
  They're, they're brilliant stories, Brilliant.
• 40:00
  I, I, I didn't find one in that I didn't really like.
• 40:03
  And I think I I completed it a couple of days, which again,
• 40:07
  it's phenomenal for me in getting through a short story
• 40:09
  collection. The one where the 8th Doctor
• 40:12
  blunders in on the 2nd Doctor's plan?
• 40:15
  Yeah, take down Trump Tower, that was.
• 40:19
  So funny I, I, I don't want to say too much about it because I
• 40:21
  know it's only it's not been out that long has it but it but they
• 40:24
  are wonderful stories. If you like the 8th Doctor
• 40:26
  adventures, this is a must, an absolute must to read because it
• 40:32
  finishes things off just right. It's got a wonderful sense of
• 40:36
  love about it. It's.
• 40:38
  Brilliant. Absolutely.
• 40:39
  Brilliant. Oh, I never thought about that
• 40:41
  one at all. I probably would have picked
• 40:42
  that as well. And I thought about it.
• 40:47
  Yeah, I think me and you are in line today, Joe.
• 40:49
  I am so glad I changed my mind. On.
• 40:56
  That one, yeah. I mean, again, I mean, what,
• 41:02
  what can I say that you haven't already said?
• 41:04
  I haven't already said about, you know, such a strong run of
• 41:09
  books at this point, I suppose of the Ark, this is probably the
• 41:14
  most Sabbath heavy. We've had even.
• 41:18
  More so than Henrietta Street, I would have said.
• 41:21
  And I and I think he's, he's such an interesting, I mean, I,
• 41:27
  I want to say adversary for the doctor, but I don't even know if
• 41:30
  he's that. It's just because I think like
• 41:33
  ambiguous. Isn't it?
• 41:34
  Yeah, exactly. He's, he's not a villain, but he
• 41:36
  is because, because he's trying to control all of those time
• 41:43
  streams, but which I guess the Doctor is trying to do.
• 41:46
  He's trying to put them back, you know, and and sort of thing.
• 41:50
  And, and whereas whereas the doctor's quite chaotic, he's
• 41:53
  quite methodical, quite planned. And I and I think it it he's,
• 41:58
  you know, you know, yeah. It's kind of like almost a
• 42:05
  throwback to to earlier doctors that were a bit more planned, a
• 42:09
  bit more, you know, where, where is where is on the.
• 42:12
  Well, Yeah. And where is Mcgahn?
• 42:15
  His doctor, you know, is very much off the cuff.
• 42:20
  We're going to make this up as we go along and see what
• 42:23
  happens. No, it's.
• 42:25
  In History 101, Sabbath is in the cafe wearing a white linen
• 42:30
  suit and in camera obscura. He's called Times Champion, yes.
• 42:35
  Yes, it's it's it's it's signposted that that yeah, that
• 42:39
  that how the Doctor has changed in this incarnation.
• 42:46
  But but yeah, I mean, I think there's so much to kind of love
• 42:49
  in this book. I think, like you say, that kind
• 42:51
  of Victorian era. It suits Doctor Who really well.
• 42:54
  I love the fact that there's some of it set on dart more.
• 42:57
  It's a place that I I kind of know from from growing up and,
• 43:01
  and what have the. Atmosphere, yeah.
• 43:03
  And and, and and it and it, and it really is that sort of place
• 43:07
  where you know, and, and especially that bit where, you
• 43:11
  know, the, the doctors kind of like racing through the
• 43:14
  landscape and stumbling over, you know, into rivers and stuff
• 43:19
  like that. Monsters on the port, yeah.
• 43:23
  Flash of light in a new yeah. Yeah, yeah.
• 43:25
  You know, so, so there's. So there's a lot in it that's
• 43:28
  really appealing to me. And I think that that also, I
• 43:32
  really love the fact that by this point, the doctors only got
• 43:36
  the one heart. His other heart Sabbath has kind
• 43:40
  of shoved into his own chest and they're linked and, and then
• 43:45
  you've got like this that, that horrible death in the theatre
• 43:48
  where where basically the doctor is fundamentally crushed,
• 43:52
  crushed to death by a massive sandbag.
• 43:54
  It is, it is absolutely gruesome, but he lives because
• 44:00
  he's linked to Sabbath. And, and I just, I think there's
• 44:02
  so many great ideas in it. And, and I think what's really
• 44:07
  interesting about my, my 2 choices that, that a rarity to
• 44:11
  Doctor Who books that were written by female authors.
• 44:15
  And I think that goes to show that, yeah, it, it goes to show
• 44:19
  that that that was something that the, the Ed as put right.
• 44:23
  We we didn't have enough of a female voice in the the virgin
• 44:27
  books, whereas it was something that we, we it, it kind of got
• 44:31
  better as as the range went on and and added that kind.
• 44:34
  Of perfect. No, no, I mean that Rayner.
• 44:38
  Lloyd Rose. Kate Allman, Kate.
• 44:41
  Allman. So there's not many but, but I,
• 44:43
  I think it goes to show that that having female writers for
• 44:48
  Doctor Who is quite essential for giving that.
• 44:51
  That. Kind of perspective to it, the
• 44:54
  kind of thing that we don't tend to get that often I can.
• 44:57
  I say that's anything but a superb choice.
• 45:00
  Well, I've. Got something to add?
• 45:02
  Because when you talk about Sabbath being maybe potentially
• 45:05
  parody or pastiche or 7th Doctor Sabbath day or the Sabbath day.
• 45:11
  Is the 7th day is. The 7th day really Name that's
• 45:18
  deliberate. Well, I I posted a major that
• 45:22
  Dan did for my camera obscure episode.
• 45:25
  It's wonderful illustration of Sabbath and Joe Lister saw that
• 45:30
  he. Messaged.
• 45:31
  Me and he went. Isn't Sabbath just supposed?
• 45:34
  Isn't it Lawrence Miles transposed into Doctor Who
• 45:38
  books? I said what?
• 45:40
  Trying to control all the action and being a total cunt about it?
• 45:44
  Yeah, it possibly is. You know I don't.
• 45:46
  I don't know what he looks like. So I I didn't really have that
• 45:49
  as a question, Laura. Smiles.
• 45:50
  Yeah. No, thank you, David.
• 45:54
  You know that I. Had to Google that just to be
• 45:56
  sure before I did anything. I said times championed my arse.
• 46:01
  My last choice then is going to be oh, sorry Gareth.
• 46:03
  No, no, no, I. Was just going to say you
• 46:05
  actually calling your ass Time's champion?
• 46:10
  No, maybe the time vortex. It's the only thing John Burley
• 46:17
  hasn't plugged up right? My Last Choice is a book I read
• 46:24
  recently and I always knew it was good but I didn't realise it
• 46:27
  was as good as it is. It's one of the last third of
• 46:30
  the new adventures. I just thought the writing was
• 46:35
  so mature. It's the also People by Ben
• 46:39
  Eronovich. The world building was
• 46:41
  spectacular in that book. Like the first half of the book,
• 46:45
  it's basically a holiday novel where the Doctor, Chris, Benny
• 46:50
  and Ross, it's them just stopping all of the horror, all
• 46:55
  of the violence, all of the terrible things that happened in
• 46:59
  the New Avengers and them thinking about their lives,
• 47:02
  where they are now, where they're going, what they mean to
• 47:05
  each other, whether they trust. And it's just, it is wonderful.
• 47:10
  It's good therapy before bad therapy.
• 47:12
  And then in the second-half of the book, this robot, the only
• 47:16
  bad thing that happens in it is this robot is hit by a streak of
• 47:19
  lightning in the middle of the night.
• 47:21
  And Roz does a wonderful murder mystery with everything we read
• 47:28
  this a spectacular twist that the man she's always like hated
• 47:34
  her body and hated herself essentially because her mother,
• 47:38
  her mother was so awful to her. And in this book, she lets in a
• 47:41
  man who lives on this holiday planet, this Dyson sphere, and
• 47:45
  he turns out to be the person that killed the robot that she
• 47:49
  has to arrest at the end of the story.
• 47:51
  And that sequence, that unveiling, it's so beautifully
• 47:56
  written. I just thought it was an
• 47:58
  extraordinary book. After Transit, which I just
• 48:01
  thought was a horrible, dense, just a miserable read.
• 48:06
  It's like someone who's been around a bitch.
• 48:08
  Chill the fuck out, mate, and just write.
• 48:11
  Do the world building, but have some fun and all the jokes.
• 48:15
  I mean, the Doctor coming down from the plane in the parachute
• 48:19
  and having a conversation with him about existentialism and all
• 48:22
  the jokes about God, you know, is so, so funny.
• 48:27
  Yeah. The also people, I think it's
• 48:28
  our absolutely cracking read and everyone is nodding their heads,
• 48:33
  so I'm pleased. Now, look, chats before we out
• 48:36
  this episode, I won't ask you through a bonus choice, but I do
• 48:39
  have a question for all of you. Perhaps I should have asked you
• 48:42
  when we first did this. That is, now, you know, you've
• 48:46
  read a lot of Doctor Who books, and I just want to know as a
• 48:50
  sort of a personal question. What do?
• 48:52
  Doctor Who books mean to you, And since you all look a little
• 48:57
  bit nervous about answering this, I'm going to go to Gareth
• 49:02
  first. Doctor Who books for me is where
• 49:05
  my love of reading comes from. It's where it all started.
• 49:08
  Well, my daddy and Mabel Thorpe said you can have a book, I'll
• 49:10
  buy you a book. And there were four target books
• 49:13
  in a in a shop and I went these two, the Romans and the
• 49:15
  invisible enemy. And since then I now have shells
• 49:19
  of the things around me. But it it has then opened me up
• 49:23
  into other areas of reading, such as the cracker novels
• 49:27
  because of various authors that link into it and to Agatha
• 49:30
  Christie. You start building out this
• 49:32
  detective fiction that I start getting science fiction fantasy
• 49:35
  and now at the age I am now and will eventually get to read
• 49:38
  Dickens and start to enjoy that I want to read Wuthering
• 49:40
  Heights. It's given me a this for reading
• 49:43
  that's. A wonderful answer, Dad.
• 49:46
  Yeah. I think I may have, I may have
• 49:50
  mentioned this before. I don't know whether on on the
• 49:53
  book clubs or, or other other podcasts that I've kind of been
• 49:57
  on, but my my dad hated science fiction.
• 50:01
  So I kind of didn't always get to watch Doctor Who when it was
• 50:06
  on on TV, but I knew it was something that I would love and
• 50:12
  I would enjoy. And fortunately I, I guess it's
• 50:16
  true of many of us of this kind of generation school library had
• 50:21
  plenty of like target books. And it, it was, you know, it was
• 50:27
  the books that really set the fire going, going for me, for my
• 50:32
  love of Doctor Who. And, you know, my first contact
• 50:36
  obviously was Peter Davidson on, on the TVI did watch a few of
• 50:39
  those. But it was, it was those Target
• 50:42
  books that kind of cemented my fandom, My, my, you know, and,
• 50:49
  and I was, I was really lucky. There was a local, the town I
• 50:54
  grew up, there was a local bookshop, an independent one.
• 50:58
  And, and they were selling loads of Targets, 60 PA part brand
• 51:02
  new. And I just, I, I just feel my
• 51:05
  boots and, and, and I, and I think, you know, till I kind of
• 51:08
  follow on from what Gareth said. It's sort of like not only did
• 51:11
  it set, you know, the ball running with Doctor Who, it
• 51:16
  fired my imagination as well to want to create stuff, but also
• 51:22
  it gave me a passion for reading as well.
• 51:26
  So, so you know, it, it goes beyond Doctor Who and it goes to
• 51:31
  lots of other genres and, and, and yeah, and it was, it was, it
• 51:36
  was, it was Doctor Who books that really started all of those
• 51:39
  things. I certainly hope that in
• 51:42
  discovering these books again, that passion for creating has
• 51:46
  been ignited again. It certainly.
• 51:47
  Has it certainly has as as hopefully people have been
• 51:51
  enjoying them. I don't know the the I'm not.
• 51:55
  Sending you the messages, right? I will keep you sending some.
• 51:58
  I've had some really, really kind ones as well, you know,
• 52:01
  sort of thing. But yeah, yeah.
• 52:03
  So yeah, it's it's sort of continuing to kind of keep that
• 52:06
  creativity going. Normally humbleness is really
• 52:10
  annoying. He somehow manages to make it
• 52:12
  very sweet. David.
• 52:16
  I can start by seeing some similar things, which is I was
• 52:20
  reading these books when I was young kind of helped me develop
• 52:22
  my reading. But the New Adventures and the
• 52:26
  Ed as when I kind of got into them sort of late 90s, that was
• 52:31
  when my parents were divorcing. Home life was.
• 52:35
  Not. The best.
• 52:36
  So the A Toxford Adventures became a bit of my escape and
• 52:40
  kind of somewhere to lose myself.
• 52:42
  And the fact that they were coming out every month and the
• 52:44
  reliability, the ongoing stories.
• 52:46
  There's a bag of rubbish flying right towards me right now.
• 52:51
  The housing on all sides are coming from there.
• 52:56
  I'm being I'm being attacked by trash moving.
• 53:00
  And the gang is approaching personal It's the wildrum from
• 53:07
  records engineering. And then when I was at uni and
• 53:11
  the first crazy uni, we're not the happiest of times.
• 53:13
  And again, the the books were somewhere that I lost myself.
• 53:15
  And so they are tied to very particular points in growing up.
• 53:20
  But if I was to be a little bit sentimental, a little bit soppy,
• 53:23
  that returning to those books in the last three years has brought
• 53:27
  me to sitting outside the Jeremy Benton Park in the shadow, in
• 53:32
  the shadow of the Post Office tower.
• 53:34
  Because we started doing these book clubs and the book clubs
• 53:36
  was also my getting ready to do in the world of podcasting.
• 53:39
  So what do Doctor Who books mean to me now?
• 53:41
  Well, it means it's brought me into this bigger, wider world of
• 53:45
  wonderful people that I've met and spend time with.
• 53:48
  So that's what Doctor Who books mean to me as of 2026.
• 53:51
  That. Is a wonderful answer, I suppose
• 53:54
  for me, you know what? And funnily enough, the first
• 53:56
  thing that came to my mind was the the diversity of the books
• 54:02
  that are available and just how many of them there are.
• 54:05
  I loved the fact that if I started Genesis and I've read
• 54:08
  all the way through to the stuff that's coming out now, oh, she's
• 54:11
  my attack. I've been very amusing.
• 54:14
  I by the time I got to it again, I could only go back to Genesis
• 54:18
  and start the run again. Like, I could literally just
• 54:20
  read these bloody things for the rest of my life.
• 54:23
  And I think you've got all kinds of diversity in there.
• 54:26
  You've got a diversity of doctors and companions of
• 54:28
  styles, of genres of writing styles.
• 54:31
  I think you can pretty much study writing by looking at
• 54:35
  these books from the targets through to the current day
• 54:38
  because there are so many different types of Doctor Who
• 54:40
  book. But you've just pointed out
• 54:43
  something far more important than that, and that is in
• 54:46
  starting this book club, it's the friendships that I've made
• 54:49
  and the groups of people that utterly accidentally came
• 54:54
  together because I put these book clubs together in order of
• 54:59
  the people that said, yes, I would like to do that.
• 55:01
  And I write right, that's four more people.
• 55:02
  They're going to be a book club. That's four more people, they're
• 55:05
  going to be a book club. And the fact that somehow a bit
• 55:09
  of magic's happened with every single one.
• 55:12
  You know, we've, we've had a lovely day out today.
• 55:16
  I'm. Glad.
• 55:17
  I'm glad they agree. I'm glad they agree.
• 55:20
  Yeah. So I think friendship would be
• 55:23
  the order of the day when it comes to me saying what Doctor
• 55:25
  Who books mean to me. And diversity.
• 55:28
  Otherwise, fellas, perhaps we should move on from this rowdy
• 55:33
  pump now. I think they're all about to
• 55:35
  fucking move on in a second anyway.
• 55:37
  Yeah. So how do we end this in Jeremy
• 55:40
  Bentham sort of a way? I I I don't know what, what
• 55:46
  what? Maybe we just should get on some
• 55:49
  sort. Of awkward cliffhanger.
• 55:51
  Can't we say Doctor Who is required?
• 55:56
  Well done. I literally cannot believe we
• 55:59
  are about to finish and these cunts are moving on.
• 56:02
  Unbelievable.