Latest / A Hamster With a Blunt Penknife - a Doctor Who Commentary podcast / Hamster Book Club - Set Piece by Kate Orman (featuring Luke Sims-Jenkins, Jon Arnold & Andrew Batty)

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Hamster Book Club - Set Piece by Kate Orman (featuring Luke Sims-Jenkins, Jon Arnold & Andrew Batty) · A Hamster With a Blunt Penknife - a Doctor Who Commentary podcast

• 0:00
  They're about to have a war here, aren't they?
• 0:03
  They've already had one, actually.
• 0:05
  Ace was sitting on the stairs of Cadiarti's basement.
• 0:08
  But this whole place is in a state of siege.
• 0:11
  There's war in the air. It's going to happen soon.
• 0:15
  How soon? The doctor put down the piece of
• 0:18
  and he was examining carefully, laying it alongside the others
• 0:21
  on a blanket. He seemed rather small in the
• 0:24
  enlarged basement, sitting cross legged in the dust, his bag of
• 0:28
  barley sugars to one side. He got out of his pocket watch
• 0:31
  and flipped it open. Tonight, as a matter of fact,
• 0:35
  one of the city's gates has been left completely unguarded.
• 0:39
  Someone will spot this person, in fact, and signal the army
• 0:41
  outside. They're not very organised, are
• 0:45
  they? Within a week there'll be
• 0:47
  nothing left of the Paris Commune except memories.
• 0:51
  Parisians will be shouting Viva la Commune again in 1968.
• 0:56
  Why is it called a Commune anyway?
• 0:58
  Are they communists? The doctor picked up the ants
• 1:01
  head, turned it around slowly pivoting the antennae in their
• 1:04
  joints. He was working by lanterns.
• 1:07
  Ace wondered how he could see clearly enough Socialists.
• 1:10
  The Commune is the government elected by Parisians.
• 1:14
  It isn't the first Commune, not the first time Paris has broken
• 1:17
  away from the rest of France, and in fact similar rebellions
• 1:20
  have happened all over the country.
• 1:22
  At any rate, you're right. They're tremendously
• 1:24
  disorganized. Too much enthusiasm and not
• 1:27
  enough forward planning. They'll say.
• 1:30
  I'll go to March in here and shoot at anything that looks
• 1:32
  like vaguely recked Sameen Saglante.
• 1:36
  How many people? About 25,000 more than Templo
• 1:41
  Mayor. The doctor had pried open.
• 1:45
  A robotic head was poking around in the circuitry inside.
• 1:49
  It'll be dangerous for unaccompanied women.
• 1:51
  Milk women will be shot because their bottles might contain
• 1:54
  petrol. Well, why don't we stop it then?
• 1:57
  He looked up at her. What?
• 2:00
  We could stop it? We know exactly when and where
• 2:03
  the attack starts, right? The doctor sat back.
• 2:06
  You're not serious. Ace shook her head.
• 2:09
  You don't understand. Why don't we stop it?
• 2:13
  You tell me something else would happen to cause the war.
• 2:17
  The doctor nodded. This siege can't go on forever,
• 2:20
  so no matter what we did, things would happen just the same.
• 2:24
  Not quite. We're playing with different
• 2:26
  scales, different magnifications.
• 2:31
  Close up, we might save a life here and there, ease some
• 2:34
  suffering a little further back. We can't stop the actual war,
• 2:39
  not without tremendous effort, and not without endangering all
• 2:43
  of Earth's future history. The Russian Revolution was
• 2:46
  partly inspired by the Commune. They learned a lot further away,
• 2:51
  ASA answered herself. We've got a universe to save
• 2:55
  Silence for a bit. The Doctor kept mucking about
• 2:58
  inside the ants head, pulling out components to Ace's eye it
• 3:01
  seemed modular, the bits and pieces independent little lumps
• 3:05
  of technology. What did you do in ancient
• 3:08
  Egypt? Asked the Doctor.
• 3:10
  Kidnap the king. Silence for a bit.
• 3:15
  I didn't kill him. I think I was going to,
• 3:18
  actually. I think I was a little bit out
• 3:20
  of my skull. I know what it's like.
• 3:22
  I was stranded once myself, said the Doctor.
• 3:26
  Did you get that feeling you were caught in the big trap?
• 3:29
  Oh, yes. Like when electricity's off in a
• 3:33
  storm and you think I can't watch TV's so I'll listen to a
• 3:37
  record. But you can't do that either.
• 3:39
  You just can't do anything really like that.
• 3:42
  So said the Time Lord. Why didn't you?
• 3:46
  Sorry. Oh, well, he took me out of it.
• 3:50
  The people I was working for were just using me.
• 3:52
  I was just following orders. Right?
• 3:54
  I'm listening. I must have been out of my head.
• 3:57
  I thought they were into anarchy, right?
• 4:00
  But they just wanted to get into the palace and I just wanted to
• 4:02
  do something. Something must be done.
• 4:05
  This is something. Therefore we must do this.
• 4:09
  Yeah, yeah. I didn't tell you before
• 4:13
  because. Because I thought you'd be
• 4:15
  really pissed off. Actually.
• 4:18
  What am I going to do, send you to bed without supper?
• 4:22
  He grinned up at her. You're old enough, you're
• 4:26
  experienced enough to make your own decisions.
• 4:29
  What happened to Akhenaten anyway?
• 4:31
  He died, and the revolution died with him.
• 4:35
  The Setites got him. No, he just died.
• 4:40
  His religion was suppressed, his monuments destroyed, his name
• 4:44
  was chiseled out of the record, and his city was abandoned and
• 4:47
  fell into ruins, and he was forgotten about for a couple of
• 4:51
  millennia. No one even knows where he's
• 4:54
  buried, if he was buried. Crock.
• 4:58
  Indeed. Like the commune, history
• 5:01
  repeats itself. Not precisely.
• 5:05
  History is quasi self similar. The same patterns happening over
• 5:10
  and over, never quite the same. You're beginning to see them,
• 5:14
  aren't you? Ace?
• 5:16
  May's eyes, Yes. It's all pans to you, isn't it?
• 5:21
  Patterns that other people can't see, sometimes.
• 5:25
  Patterns which aren't even there.
• 5:28
  That's what faith is for. Faith in time.
• 5:31
  Faith that things will work out the way they're supposed to.
• 5:35
  Ace messed up her hair. Old.
• 5:37
  Yeah, yes, she was getting old. There was probably some grey in
• 5:43
  there now. So even if I had killed
• 5:47
  Akhenaten, the doctor picked up one of the components, was
• 5:51
  prodding it with a piece of wire.
• 5:53
  Time heals, always. Particularly her own.
• 6:01
  Hello everyone, and welcome back to the Hamster Book Club.
• 6:05
  My name is Luke and I am your host today.
• 6:08
  Yeah, sure, why not? And with me, as always, is Mr.
• 6:12
  Andrew Batty. Say hello.
• 6:14
  Hello. Mr. John Arnold, say hello.
• 6:17
  Hello. And I'm sorry, what was what was
• 6:21
  your what was your name? Name again?
• 6:24
  Joe. Joe.
• 6:26
  Joe. Yes.
• 6:27
  Joe Ford. Hello.
• 6:28
  Joe has it's nice to meet you. Hello.
• 6:30
  How are you? Wicked.
• 6:36
  That's right, it's going to be a something heavenly for you to
• 6:39
  talk about on on this Christmas Eve.
• 6:41
  Joe, your favorite topic? Let's call it therapy, all
• 6:45
  right? All right, it's.
• 6:47
  Out of my system today. Maybe things could change from
• 6:49
  this point on. Think you need to lay down on
• 6:51
  some kind of couch or something for this then?
• 6:54
  Well, we all take notes and give you advice.
• 6:56
  I promise to behave all right. I promise.
• 7:00
  Oh yes. So yes, we are going to be
• 7:02
  talking about Kate Orman's second novel today.
• 7:05
  Set Piece, which was a book I read not long after it came out.
• 7:13
  I don't I didn't read read all the new adventures when they
• 7:15
  came out. It was a bit sporadic, but I did
• 7:18
  read this one for some reason when it came out as a teenager
• 7:21
  and I I quite liked it then I then I found it sorry when I
• 7:26
  started rebuying all my Doctor Who books.
• 7:28
  This is one of the first ones I got and one of the first I
• 7:31
  reread. So this is my like the reading
• 7:34
  of Set Piece. Now what about you guys?
• 7:40
  Yeah, I read it the same month that came out, which
• 7:42
  coincidentally the same as the ghost of End Space, which you
• 7:44
  just. No kidding. 5 so yeah.
• 7:50
  So I would have reread it late night.
• 7:53
  I reread it early 2000s so yeah. 4th or I remember I really
• 8:01
  didn't enjoy it when it came out and I'm not entirely sure why.
• 8:05
  I did write a terrible review for the my local group at the
• 8:09
  time. Fortunately that's consigned to
• 8:11
  Mr. Times. I only know one person with a
• 8:13
  copy and my name. His name will not pass my lips.
• 8:16
  John. John, John, John.
• 8:18
  Is that what you think? Because as a special online no
• 8:23
  no. No, no, no.
• 8:25
  But I know people, so I've been. No, I haven't.
• 8:28
  I haven't. Oh my.
• 8:30
  God. So yeah, I'm quite glad because
• 8:34
  you know, it's a review. I was 20 years old and I in
• 8:37
  university and you know how pretentious you get then.
• 8:40
  So I've warmed to it a bit since, I would say not entirely,
• 8:45
  but I've warmed to it. What about you, Andrew?
• 8:49
  So I would have read this when I was about 1415.
• 8:54
  I think that was one of the new adventures that I'll have picked
• 8:59
  up after I read IQ and then was just trying to like collect the
• 9:04
  whole, the whole whole collection.
• 9:08
  And yeah, this is this I think was one of the first new
• 9:12
  adventures that I read, not the first, but an early one, I think
• 9:15
  because I knew it was Ace's departure, but I think I read it
• 9:20
  before I read Love and War. I don't know why.
• 9:23
  I don't know why I zeroed down on this one when I was a team.
• 9:27
  But yeah, I really, I really liked it then.
• 9:29
  And. It's not the cover.
• 9:32
  It's not. It's not the cover.
• 9:34
  I don't. Know why the Yeah, it wouldn't
• 9:37
  have been the cover, Definitely not, but yeah, still like it
• 9:41
  now. Other men might have been drawn
• 9:43
  to the cover, but I don't. Think you would?
• 9:46
  I don't know. It's a very odd pose.
• 9:49
  Like, I'm not sure that a real human can do that, but.
• 9:53
  So children will give it a good go.
• 9:56
  She'll give anything a go for a fiver Jesus Christ.
• 10:01
  Baby needs shoes. How about, how about you, Joe?
• 10:05
  How many, how many times have you have you had to put yourself
• 10:07
  through this now? Well, I'm really confused
• 10:09
  because my review of set piece is online and I revisited it for
• 10:13
  this and I gave this a glowing review of my Dacao reviews. 9
• 10:18
  out of 10. I gave this, you know, a
• 10:20
  celebratory end for the end of Dorothy McShane.
• 10:26
  I feel as if I've become pretentious in my older years.
• 10:29
  I've gone the reverse journey of John because I struggled with
• 10:33
  this quite a bit. But I will say as a caveat, I
• 10:38
  think the problems are me, unless the book, the book is
• 10:43
  doing exactly what the New Adventures was doing at the
• 10:45
  time. I just don't like what the New
• 10:47
  Adventures were doing at the time.
• 10:49
  So I'm kind of the problem, but I would like to talk about those
• 10:52
  issues if I may. Wow.
• 10:56
  So so we've got someone who has warmed to it over time.
• 10:59
  We've got Andrew who really likes it, we've got Joe who has
• 11:02
  lessened to it over time. And there's me, who's I
• 11:06
  absolutely. This book, though, I do have, I
• 11:11
  do have a couple of nitpicks and there's one thing I will
• 11:13
  absolutely agree with you on later.
• 11:15
  But before we get to that, let's you know we need to break some
• 11:19
  more ice. The ice is really thick.
• 11:22
  It's strong enough to not only break the Titanic, it's strong
• 11:26
  enough to break like everything, I guess.
• 11:30
  I feel like we don't know each other well enough, you know?
• 11:32
  After a year of doing this, no. Absolutely not.
• 11:36
  So I guess it's a it's a bit of a celebration, I guess, or
• 11:39
  commiseration of Ace with this book with you, Joe, you know, we
• 11:44
  know you don't like like her, but.
• 11:46
  Excuse me, please don't speak for me.
• 11:48
  I'll say my piece. All right.
• 11:51
  Joe can tell us that he hates her himself.
• 11:54
  I'm looking forward to it. So what do we all think of ACE
• 11:58
  as a whole? Maybe up to this point I would
• 12:01
  say. Would that would that be or as a
• 12:04
  whole? I don't.
• 12:05
  I don't mind either or Andrew. Yeah, I think she is, yeah.
• 12:13
  She's called complicated character, I guess because it's
• 12:18
  that thing of like her sort of on the one hand being thought of
• 12:24
  as a kind of mature character and a kind of the first time
• 12:27
  they did proper character development of a of a companion
• 12:31
  on TV. While on the flip side of that,
• 12:34
  the portrayal of her being quite CBBC in some ways when it comes
• 12:42
  when you kind of compare it to other actors who played
• 12:44
  companions. So it got kind of coupled with
• 12:47
  this quite sort of mannered performance.
• 12:51
  But then they're also try to do like proper emotional depth with
• 12:54
  it. So yeah, she's she's always kind
• 12:56
  of, there's a lot of charm to Ace, I think.
• 12:58
  And like, yeah, TV ace, I think, yeah, you can you can enjoy her
• 13:03
  for what she is as a kind of yeah, Grange Hill CBBC type
• 13:08
  character. And then the new events come
• 13:11
  along and like, yeah, do some odd things to her and kind of
• 13:18
  yeah, treat her like this. Like she was a kind of realist
• 13:22
  character, which she never really was on on TV and and
• 13:26
  insert all this kind of like angst and emotional baggage.
• 13:29
  So yeah, it feels like, yeah, she's a bit of a sort of
• 13:34
  transitionary character, I guess from the sort of TV to the more
• 13:37
  complex characters of the book. But then trying to do them with
• 13:40
  her, do that sort of emotional stuff with her didn't really
• 13:44
  work for me. But then I also kind of feel
• 13:48
  like the the new adventures, like that is what happened to
• 13:52
  Ace. Like I think because it was the
• 13:54
  first depiction of what happened to that character post TV and
• 13:58
  what happened to her, how she departed.
• 14:00
  Even if I don't necessarily like new Ace, I feel like because it
• 14:03
  did it first like that sort of in my head that's what happened
• 14:08
  to Ace and all the others are a bit sort of secondary to that
• 14:10
  because they got there later. Yeah, no, I'm sorry.
• 14:20
  The bloody garbage truck has just taken me out.
• 14:22
  It's like right next to me, right there.
• 14:24
  It's all happening on on Christmas Eve morning.
• 14:28
  But what about you, John? What?
• 14:29
  How? How do you feel about Ace?
• 14:30
  I well, the Mccoyer is pretty much mire of Doctor Who, so I am
• 14:36
  very fond of it, particularly because, you know, probably the
• 14:39
  reason I'm setting this day is remembrance of the Darks when
• 14:42
  I've been drifting away from Doctor Who.
• 14:44
  And then that episode just bang 25 minutes.
• 14:47
  So Oh yeah, watch this. 25 Minutes starts coming up the
• 14:50
  stairs. Heads up, you loved it and
• 14:52
  obviously Ate being the companion of that era.
• 14:55
  I am never going to disentangle that from nostalgia.
• 15:00
  I think she only really works as a character because of Sophia's
• 15:05
  portrayal of her. She's got AI know and she's this
• 15:10
  kind of youngish Reuters idea of, you know, of a London
• 15:15
  teenager and they I know they modelled her on a couple of
• 15:18
  other teenagers, but it was if you just played that role
• 15:22
  straight, it wouldn't picked up to because she's an alienating,
• 15:26
  alienating character. She's very angry.
• 15:28
  She's got a lot of baggage there.
• 15:30
  You know, we go right into into death.
• 15:33
  We go into all, you know, issues of, you know, racism with a
• 15:36
  friend's house getting burned down.
• 15:37
  You've got mother issues and family issues, and so I think
• 15:41
  Sophie Aldra kind of takes that edge off her.
• 15:45
  I I do agree with Joan. Sophie Aldra isn't the best
• 15:47
  actress, but she will try anything once and she and that
• 15:52
  kind of bravery really makes me like her performance.
• 15:56
  As for her in the books, yeah, I think I think Andrew's right on
• 16:01
  that. You do need to kind of flesh her
• 16:04
  out a bit because you can't have ATV character in books because
• 16:08
  you need, you know, you need to get more internal to more with
• 16:11
  their head more into their heads.
• 16:13
  And I don't think there's a great deal to that kind of TVX
• 16:16
  bar a lot of kind of unresolved anger and you and you can't
• 16:21
  sustain that across books because it just it's just puts
• 16:25
  people off. Even if you read the Doctor Who
• 16:27
  fans who are with you all the way.
• 16:29
  She is. I, I was kind of happy when she
• 16:34
  left the first time because I think, you know, I didn't think
• 16:37
  there was, there were many places left to go with her.
• 16:42
  And I, I don't think and your new benches writers are mainly
• 16:45
  young men and they don't really do anything interesting with
• 16:51
  her. But right here is Ripley from
• 16:52
  Aliens. There's no depth to her.
• 16:54
  The only thing she's there for is plot point, you know, to
• 16:57
  betray the doctor in Lucifer Rising and just, you know, just
• 17:02
  act moodly, grumpy and develop into this horrible character,
• 17:06
  which I think kind of feeds into this run of books that set piece
• 17:10
  comes at the end of which is so bleak.
• 17:13
  If there's no jokes, there's no fun, why would you travel with
• 17:16
  her? So yeah, by then got to this
• 17:19
  point, along with kind of the general feeling, I was almost
• 17:25
  quite relieved to see her go because it meant the range by
• 17:28
  the line up and we could spend more time with Benny, who was so
• 17:31
  much better at the time. Absolutely.
• 17:34
  I've always thought I agree Sophia Eldred isn't the greatest
• 17:40
  actress in in in Doctor Who, but her enthusiasm more than makes
• 17:44
  up for for me. Like she's absolutely willing to
• 17:47
  give everything to go, including like, I don't know, do you
• 17:52
  remember that Shadow of the Skirch?
• 17:54
  Which he has to scream at the ears of like, all right, some
• 17:58
  things you don't really need to give a go, but it's too much
• 18:02
  enthusiasm. But yeah, I do like that she is
• 18:05
  very enthusiastic. Enthusiastic, which I think
• 18:08
  makes up for shortcomings, at least for me with the books.
• 18:13
  I don't think it's the character's fault, but I tend to
• 18:16
  read new adventures or and reread and recollect new
• 18:20
  adventures that take place after set piece.
• 18:24
  And it's not just it's not just an ace issue, though for me,
• 18:28
  it's it's sort of sort of is and the sort of isn't.
• 18:31
  It's more like the quality of the books are better from I
• 18:34
  think set piece onwards. So those are the ones I kind of
• 18:39
  will hunt for, will look for and will more likely reread this
• 18:43
  because there's some really great books with new ace in
• 18:46
  them. I like Bruce, Lucifer rising is
• 18:48
  one of them. I think I like Remember White
• 18:51
  Darkness been quite good, Blood Heat, Conundrum, Left Handing
• 18:56
  Hummingbird, She's been in some really good books, but all of
• 19:01
  the the negatives about new ways are highlighted when the books
• 19:04
  aren't that great and there's a real chunk of them that really
• 19:07
  don't gel for me in that period. So an ace kind of sticks out
• 19:12
  like a sore thumb in those, whereas Benny makes those part
• 19:16
  her parts, those books more readable, if that makes sense.
• 19:20
  So it's not always an ace issue for me with those books, but
• 19:25
  it's it's kind of it's kind of part of it.
• 19:28
  What about you, Jay? I really love the ambition of
• 19:34
  what they're trying to do with Ace in the series, especially
• 19:37
  coming after Mel, who was, you know, 0 dimensional.
• 19:40
  The fact that they wanted to write a three-dimensional
• 19:43
  character that went on a character that where we explored
• 19:46
  the history. I.
• 19:48
  That's all admirable and the show really hadn't done it too
• 19:51
  much before. I do think Sophie Aldid has a
• 19:55
  ceiling when it comes to acting talent, usually the floor.
• 19:59
  But sorry, sorry, that's rude. But I think you can absolutely
• 20:08
  give the character a pass on television for the most part.
• 20:11
  You can sort of push aside those agonizing emotional wank scenes.
• 20:16
  You know, I didn't know she was Mama and all that bullshit, that
• 20:19
  she was terribly. What did Andrew say?
• 20:21
  Grange Hill absolutely, because her relationship with McCoy is
• 20:25
  so charming and and their chemistry on the screen is
• 20:29
  something we haven't had for years.
• 20:30
  And the 80s, she had all those fractures relationships.
• 20:33
  And suddenly you've got this warm, lovely relationship
• 20:35
  between 2:00 people and you sort of want to watch with them,
• 20:38
  which is why it's a bit baffling when he does terrible things to
• 20:40
  her. But anyway, never mind the
• 20:43
  books. However, I just think she goes
• 20:46
  off a Cliff. And the problem is, is, is what
• 20:49
  John said. But thank you.
• 20:51
  I'm just stealing all of your ideas here.
• 20:53
  John said that it's mostly male writers.
• 20:55
  No, no, it's all male writers apart from the woman in the New
• 20:58
  Adventures. That is a problem until Rebecca
• 21:01
  Levine comes along to give the New Adventures a heart.
• 21:05
  So in the first run, Ace is basically the wank fantasies of
• 21:10
  adolescent writers aiming Ace at adolescent readers.
• 21:15
  And it's just deeply unpleasant. The the The kinky leather
• 21:19
  costume, the big gun, the violence.
• 21:22
  Our first frontier. It's just so embarrassing to
• 21:25
  read now, you know? And I know we were in a place
• 21:28
  then where we were experimenting with this stuff and seeing how
• 21:31
  far we could go and how sexy could we make people and how
• 21:33
  violent could we make people. And weirdly enough, we pulled
• 21:36
  back from a lot of that because it was so embarrassing.
• 21:39
  But I think the character's pretty much doomed when she
• 21:43
  comes back in. I like Lucifer rising as well.
• 21:45
  I like Lucifer rising quite a bit, but she's just so angry.
• 21:50
  She hates the doctor for a lot of the run of the books.
• 21:53
  So I'm like, why are you here? Just fuck off.
• 21:56
  Like if you're not enjoying this, go to at least Teagan have
• 21:59
  the good sense to do that. So sort of swinging it around
• 22:03
  the set piece. I think my issue is I think the
• 22:05
  character is just damaged goods at this point.
• 22:09
  And no matter how hard Kay Orman tries and boy, she is putting in
• 22:14
  110% to try and salvage something from this miserable
• 22:20
  character that they've created. I just think she's spoiled at
• 22:25
  this point and I just don't care.
• 22:27
  So that's my issue, you know, and and also all the fucking
• 22:31
  have we not had enough Ace? Now, I did account a few years
• 22:36
  back, right? And there's been at least sort
• 22:37
  of 25 Ace stories since then where there have been over like
• 22:42
  300 Ace stories in books, comics, big finishes, you know,
• 22:47
  porn, whatever you want. But she's just.
• 22:51
  Done everything like just enough how she.
• 22:52
  Is wicked. How much more fucking leverage
• 22:56
  is there with this character? They just do it because they
• 22:58
  like working with Sophie Aldred. But the character is exhausted
• 23:02
  beyond any appeal now, and every time I see that she's coming up
• 23:05
  in another big finish, I'm like, enough already.
• 23:08
  Like just enough. I think maybe the reason why I
• 23:11
  don't dislike her and this book as much as you do on this
• 23:18
  reading is that because this is one of the first Nas that I
• 23:21
  read, I didn't come with all that baggage of of new Ace.
• 23:26
  So when I read this book, it was just like, oh, this is just a
• 23:29
  fuck a really strong ace story. This is a really strong
• 23:34
  character and it presents her as making sense.
• 23:39
  And this this story for her makes sense and her exit makes
• 23:42
  sense. So I think, yeah, when I went
• 23:45
  back and read some of those other ones, then it was like,
• 23:47
  oh, that why is she bad so badly written in this?
• 23:49
  Why is she so angry when you can have an ace that's like the ace
• 23:52
  in set piece. So for me, yeah.
• 23:56
  Because. Because this isn't because the
• 23:58
  way that I read it wasn't kind of fixing her before she went.
• 24:02
  It was just, you know, I read this as a good, good, well
• 24:05
  written Doctor Who story. So yeah, it it, it doesn't have
• 24:10
  that flaw to me, which I think it probably would if you read
• 24:13
  these all in in sequence. But even reading this in
• 24:16
  isolation, she's still behaving like a prozzie at points in this
• 24:21
  book, using her body in unpleasant ways.
• 24:24
  She's still murdering people left, right and centre.
• 24:27
  She's still looking at killing kids.
• 24:29
  And I'm like. How did we get here?
• 24:31
  From dragon fire, When you tip that milkshake over that woman's
• 24:34
  head, how do we get to a point where you're pointing a gun in a
• 24:37
  child's face like. He's not just pointing a gun.
• 24:40
  At a fire I. Don't.
• 24:41
  I just didn't want to say it. I didn't want to say it.
• 24:46
  You know the. Day you've just had Yes.
• 24:49
  Well, yes, I mean, yeah, Christmas in retail, the fault.
• 24:53
  That's crossed my mind. Well, I wasn't a huge fan of Sam
• 25:00
  Jones, but I absolutely loved her in interference.
• 25:06
  And I'm not the hugest new Ace fan either.
• 25:10
  And I really liked her in this book.
• 25:14
  I know there's the 90s edgy angstiness and especially the
• 25:19
  killing and stuff like that, but as a, as a character study into
• 25:24
  Ace and and her realizations and all this kind of stuff, it
• 25:29
  really I, I, I really enjoyed it.
• 25:31
  There's, there's parts of the book like this one chapter, it
• 25:36
  always kind of gets to me where she's ex ex exploring Egypt and,
• 25:42
  and living in ancient Egypt. And then like 1A sentence will
• 25:47
  pop up and then the doctor didn't, didn't walk around the
• 25:51
  corner and, and suddenly the doctor wasn't there.
• 25:56
  And I was like, every time, every time she did that, I was
• 25:59
  like. Stop.
• 26:00
  Can you stop? That please, I was like that
• 26:03
  really, that I found that really touching.
• 26:04
  But so, yeah, I, I'm also reading, rereading this in
• 26:13
  isolation. So I, I've not reading Warlock
• 26:16
  before this or whatever it was before Warlock is before that.
• 26:18
  So for this reading, I think for all of the readings, I haven't
• 26:24
  read the, the build up. I've read them all, I think, but
• 26:27
  just not in order, just, you know, some kind of weird order
• 26:32
  like we're in store or is in the end or something.
• 26:34
  And so each time I'm like, Andrew, I won't open this up.
• 26:40
  And I'm like, oh, this is a really good Ace story.
• 26:41
  You're not realizing that or not remembering the context that
• 26:46
  yeah, Ace hasn't been very popular for quite a while and
• 26:50
  this is an outlier rather than norm.
• 26:54
  So let's do it. Let's get into the book.
• 26:58
  There's, I want to get into all the characters and stuff first,
• 27:02
  but I really want to get into, I guess maybe the first couple of
• 27:06
  chapters first because the story really starts after that with
• 27:11
  the three characters being separated.
• 27:13
  But the first two chapters are kind of setting everything up
• 27:17
  that will be explored throughout the rest of the book.
• 27:19
  And especially Chapter 2 for me, I found very memorable.
• 27:23
  So Andrew, what did you think of the start?
• 27:27
  Oh, it's such a good opening. It's those those first couple of
• 27:31
  chapters like you're saying, they really get you.
• 27:33
  And it's that sort of cold open like this like the TV show does
• 27:40
  sometimes these days, particularly in Steven Moffett
• 27:42
  stories. Again, I think he's think
• 27:44
  there's a lot of set piece and a lot of Steven Moffett's work.
• 27:49
  But yeah, you you kind of come to it where where things have
• 27:52
  sort of already gone wrong for the Doctor, Ace and Benny.
• 27:56
  And you go to it through the eyes of Mrs. Cohen, Mrs. Cohen,
• 28:00
  Miss Cohen, Miss Cohen. Who's this?
• 28:04
  What is she? She's like a psychologist who's
• 28:06
  on this cruise ship that then gets attacked by these alien
• 28:11
  ants. And she gets taken onto this
• 28:15
  ship. And it's all kind of through her
• 28:16
  eyes. And she kind of becomes a
• 28:18
  collaborator with these experiments that these robotic
• 28:23
  ants are doing on people. And they've kind of enlisted
• 28:26
  humans to to do the work for them.
• 28:29
  And if they don't do it, then they're going to be processed in
• 28:32
  this horrible thing that sucks all the memories out and then
• 28:35
  severs their nervous system. So yeah, it's like a really
• 28:40
  horrible, like, moral dilemma that this character is caught
• 28:43
  in. And she's kind of morally
• 28:46
  reprehensible, but also she's kind of the only character who's
• 28:50
  showing empathy to the doctor. So it's just, yeah, it's a
• 28:54
  really, really strong opening of the book.
• 28:56
  And you, you just see like the utter sort of pain and torture
• 29:03
  that the doctor is going through, through Miss Cohen's
• 29:06
  eyes and see the ways that he's trying to escape.
• 29:09
  And it's like that constant frustration of he's trying to
• 29:12
  he's he's trying to escape, he's trying to do something that
• 29:15
  keeps getting escape, capture, escape capture.
• 29:18
  And the tension is ratcheting up because you're also kind of
• 29:21
  concerned for her as well and where stuff is going for her.
• 29:25
  So yeah, for me, it's kind of like a little short story in
• 29:29
  itself because it it sets up the rest of the story.
• 29:31
  But then spoiler Miss Cohen gets it at the end of the the second
• 29:37
  or third chapter. I think it is in quite kind of a
• 29:39
  shock. And so, yeah, it kind of it
• 29:43
  blasts you straight into this really exciting story and you're
• 29:46
  kind of left to piece together quite what's going on and what
• 29:50
  the doctor and Ace and Benny are trying to do where the
• 29:52
  characters actually are. So it doesn't really stop and
• 29:57
  explain things to you. You've kind of got to like,
• 29:59
  piece it all together yourself, which is quite typical of a new
• 30:02
  adventure. They often did that sort of set
• 30:05
  up. But yeah, a really, really
• 30:07
  strong opening and just sort of I stormed through this book like
• 30:11
  it some, I think I'm the slowest of us when we're reading the
• 30:14
  books. But this one, yeah, it's, it's
• 30:18
  very much a page Turner and part of it is that opening.
• 30:23
  You think that Doctor Cohen is describing things as they're
• 30:28
  happening and and each time there's a time shift, it's just
• 30:32
  like what a movie or book will always do.
• 30:35
  You know, you don't want to see every single hour every day, so
• 30:37
  you skip time. But she's not a rating things as
• 30:40
  they happen when it turns out she's literally remembering all
• 30:45
  this stuff for ship as she sucks it out of her mind.
• 30:49
  And I was just like, holy shit. And while at the same time
• 30:52
  that's happening, doctors going all hell bent trying to save his
• 30:58
  companion, you know, just over and over and over and over and
• 31:01
  over again. So I just, I just thought that
• 31:04
  kind of dual thing was was really, it really got to me.
• 31:08
  It made me feel like, all right, strap in, this is going to be a
• 31:12
  doozy. What about you, John?
• 31:13
  What did what did you think of the opening few chapters?
• 31:16
  Yeah, it's just a great sci-fi Horror Story.
• 31:19
  It's the same thing Steve Moss says.
• 31:22
  You know, you've got to bring your movie idea.
• 31:24
  This is movie idea straight away, opening it up like that.
• 31:27
  And it's not just the the kind of twist I love that there's
• 31:31
  that organic element to ship as well.
• 31:33
  That was good, you know, because it's it's always from the app on
• 31:37
  the image on the front. You know, you're kind of
• 31:39
  expecting this clinical side by thing, but you get this strange
• 31:45
  ship. It's not anything you can kind
• 31:47
  of normally imagine and you still don't know what's going on
• 31:50
  at at this point. But yeah, that bit where you're
• 31:53
  just jumping and just you're not thinking anything of it.
• 31:58
  I mean, not spy anything. But I came away from first cover
• 32:02
  chapters and the next section I just went, yeah, now I remember
• 32:07
  why I thought the time. And I still think it.
• 32:09
  Kate Orman is probably with only Ben Rondrick challenging the
• 32:14
  best technical writer of the new adventures because she, you
• 32:19
  know, she can drag you into that story and she could, she could
• 32:23
  just kind of write the phone directory and it would be
• 32:26
  brilliant. And that's just, it's just the
• 32:29
  most engaged, it's the most engaging kind of opening.
• 32:31
  It's alienating, like a lot of the new adventures are, because
• 32:34
  new adventures are, I think it's Joe alluded to a being
• 32:37
  confrontational. They, they want to be in your
• 32:39
  face. They want to change it up to
• 32:41
  they want, you know, you also want to make things feel
• 32:43
  uncomfortable. Yeah, exactly.
• 32:47
  But this one, she's drawing you in while she's doing that.
• 32:50
  So she's taking you to a very dark place to start with.
• 32:55
  And she does it so skilfully as well.
• 32:56
  Yeah. It's like it's immediately with
• 33:00
  a character that you actually give a shit about as well.
• 33:02
  Yes, Miss Cohen is really well written and often these these
• 33:05
  new adventures will open with somebody you don't know with an
• 33:08
  unpronounceable name like talking a load of crap.
• 33:11
  And it's just like, who is this? Why do I care?
• 33:13
  And then loads of horrible stuff will happen.
• 33:15
  But I felt like with with Miss Cohen, it's like you get who she
• 33:19
  is, you get a bit of her back story and you care about what's
• 33:22
  going to happen to her even though she's done horrible
• 33:23
  things. And that's often for me what's
• 33:25
  lacking from those new adventures.
• 33:27
  And you'll usually with a new adventure have maybe like 130
• 33:30
  pages of that before the cast turn out like this manages to do
• 33:34
  it really succinctly. You.
• 33:36
  Understand it. That's Kate's gip.
• 33:39
  She she can give you just enough of these characters to make you
• 33:42
  understand their motivation without, you know, be without
• 33:46
  taking up too much space. You know, this is a short book,
• 33:49
  but the characters in it are so vivid and she's just got that
• 33:52
  nap of just sketching characters in.
• 33:55
  You know, it's a deal of Miss Cohen's back stories, I think is
• 33:58
  where that all comes from. You know, her hopes of beers,
• 34:01
  Like she's just this character. Not just yeah, as as she is in
• 34:06
  plot terms, you know, just a grunt who's going to get killed
• 34:09
  off. It's to give you that punch of
• 34:13
  what the process is. So when Ace is in the ship
• 34:19
  trying to rescue the Doctor from Kitiatu and the ship's
• 34:25
  absolutely empty and kind of without saying it, you know,
• 34:30
  everyone has just been processed and everyone's dead because
• 34:32
  there's no one else around. And, you know, they all went
• 34:36
  through that same process because it's it's, it's just,
• 34:39
  it's, it's, it's horrifying. It's one of the horrifying
• 34:42
  things I think I've read and. It's the Doctor going through
• 34:45
  this repeatedly as well. Yeah, it's.
• 34:48
  Just. Can I jump in there then please?
• 34:51
  Absolutely. I'd like to know what you
• 34:52
  thought at the opening. I didn't like the opening of
• 34:54
  this book. At.
• 34:56
  All for the reason John just said there.
• 34:58
  And that is, I think the New Adventures are in a bit of a
• 35:00
  bind at this point because they've turned Sylvester Mccoy's
• 35:03
  7th Doctor, a very cute character, into a desperately
• 35:07
  unlikable person. And Kate Orman realizes that the
• 35:10
  only way we can possibly empathize with this monster now
• 35:14
  is to torture him horribly. So this is what she does in
• 35:17
  every book. She puts him through fucking
• 35:19
  hell. And of course, our heart goes
• 35:20
  out to him because we don't want the lovely, cute Sylvester McCoy
• 35:23
  Doctor. It's really unpleasant.
• 35:25
  And it does remind me as well of Time of Your Life, which I read
• 35:29
  recently, which had a character called Angela in the 1st 2
• 35:32
  chapters and was by far the best character in the book and was
• 35:36
  bumped off or removed from narrative at the end of chapter
• 35:39
  2, which is what happens here. And you're right, Missus Cohen
• 35:42
  is a great character. And then she's gone.
• 35:44
  And then for the rest of the book, I'm like, well, no one's
• 35:47
  quite as good as lovely Missus Cohen from the first two
• 35:50
  chapters. So it was well written.
• 35:54
  But I just, I just find all of this torture very unpleasant.
• 35:59
  And it is, you know, and you're right, we've just done the run.
• 36:01
  Falls of Shadow Parasite, you know, Saint Anthony's Fire.
• 36:05
  It's torture, torture, torture, torture, torture.
• 36:06
  And this is just more torture. Again, why the fuck are they
• 36:09
  going on these adventures anymore?
• 36:11
  I don't know. I certainly wouldn't want to
• 36:13
  join them. It was well written, but I was
• 36:15
  just sort of sitting there wincing.
• 36:17
  And when is something nice going to happen to these people?
• 36:23
  Yeah, but. But you also people.
• 36:26
  But the that sort of torture of the doctor, I mean, it it you
• 36:31
  come back to it later in the book, but it's the opening
• 36:35
  chapter is sort opening chapters is the sort of the wound that
• 36:39
  happens to him and then the rest of it is sort of him then
• 36:43
  dealing with it. And does he have PTSD?
• 36:45
  Does he not? Is he manipulating thing?
• 36:47
  What's what's going on? So it's kind of you get a lot of
• 36:52
  the the torture stuff out of the way at the beginning and then
• 36:55
  you come back to it at the end. But he's.
• 36:56
  Healing for all the rest of the book.
• 36:58
  He's described as having bruises and his eyes black and it's
• 37:01
  just, it's horrible. It's like, why are we doing this
• 37:03
  to the doctor? I don't understand.
• 37:06
  I know what you're saying, but by the end, by the end of it,
• 37:09
  when you find out why the doctor's trying to escape, he
• 37:13
  isn't. He knows what this process is
• 37:16
  and he's he knows Ace is one of these pods.
• 37:18
  Let's get the bloody hell out right now.
• 37:20
  And he's scouring ship and trying to distract at the same
• 37:23
  time. Oh, you think I'm escaping
• 37:25
  because I'm going over here. I'm I'm not.
• 37:28
  I'm trying to get here to find to find Ace.
• 37:30
  I think that really kind of heroic.
• 37:33
  So. They took.
• 37:34
  This idea didn't they? And they ran with it in Seeing
• 37:37
  Eye with the doctor trying multiples of something and sort
• 37:41
  of being tortured. But that was psychological
• 37:43
  torture rather than physical torture.
• 37:45
  And I don't know why, but I just found that easier to stomach.
• 37:48
  Yeah, I, I, I get it. Like, I, I hate all that torture
• 37:52
  stuff in the New Adventures, but I kind of feel like this is the
• 37:55
  best version of it. Like, if you're going to read
• 37:57
  Doctor Who, does, you know, the Doctor being tortured for an
• 38:01
  extended period, reader Kate Orman doing it because it's the
• 38:04
  best version of that. And it's kind of like, if you've
• 38:07
  done this, you kind of don't need to do it again because
• 38:10
  another writer isn't. Going.
• 38:11
  To do it as well. So I feel like, you know, this
• 38:13
  coming at the end of that run is unfortunate for this book
• 38:18
  because it does feel repetitive, but it's really good.
• 38:22
  I don't want to put words in your mouth, but you're basically
• 38:24
  saying that if you're going to put a gun in a child's face and
• 38:27
  blow his head off, it's best that Kate Orma's right in that
• 38:29
  scene. Yeah, exactly what?
• 38:33
  If we've reached a. Consensus on something?
• 38:36
  It does have the vibe of a greatest hits of the new
• 38:40
  adventures to this point. Oh, because it does it.
• 38:44
  Yes, yes it does. But I also don't mind the
• 38:47
  greatest hits. You know, sometimes, yeah, I
• 38:49
  like to listen to one of my favorite bands, favorite album,
• 38:54
  my, you know, an album. But my favorite band.
• 38:56
  Other times I'm like, you know what I just put the Cure's best
• 38:59
  off on? That's fine, you know, I really
• 39:01
  like those songs anyway, you know?
• 39:02
  So let's do what I want to. I want to sing along to them,
• 39:05
  not just listen. Yeah, and it feels like it's
• 39:08
  doing those to kind of close, close the door on them.
• 39:12
  It's kind of and the new adventures do shift after this.
• 39:16
  It's kind of as as you're saying, like it's it's doing all
• 39:20
  of that stuff that the first half of the books did.
• 39:22
  It's getting rid of Ace in a in a convincing, character driven
• 39:26
  way so that things can then move into the yeah, the I mean,
• 39:32
  they're not necessarily lighter, but they do.
• 39:35
  Damage goods lately. Two books after this is David A
• 39:42
  Mckinty Sanctuary, which I. Recently read horribly, yeah.
• 39:46
  And yeah, that's, I love reading it, but I wouldn't say it's a
• 39:50
  very happy book, no. You know what, Andrew?
• 39:54
  You didn't really have to put the end of that sentence there.
• 39:56
  You said convincingly and dramatically.
• 39:58
  But you could have just ended with they got rid of Ace.
• 40:01
  Full stop. And that was basically, I'm no,
• 40:05
  I'm not the biggest Ace fan. I do think there is a
• 40:08
  correlation with writing out that character and these books
• 40:12
  improving. Yeah, I think I sort of said
• 40:19
  that earlier in like most of the new adventures I collect are
• 40:24
  from here here to the end when I can get them.
• 40:27
  That's where most of the expensive ones too are,
• 40:30
  unfortunately. But I.
• 40:33
  Think also this book does kind of fix a lot of the problems
• 40:37
  with ACE and IT. Does tell me how?
• 40:39
  I need to know how. Well, I think because because
• 40:44
  you're in her head for a lot of it, and you kind of you in a
• 40:50
  way, it's kind of saying goodbye to the mercenary Ace.
• 40:54
  And a lot of that stuff with her in ancient Egypt is her figuring
• 40:59
  out, you know, I've been this kind of gun for hire.
• 41:02
  I've been this soldier, I've been fighting other people's
• 41:04
  wars. I've been doing that for the
• 41:06
  Doctor. And her realizing that she
• 41:09
  doesn't want to do that anymore. She wants to kind of stand on
• 41:12
  her own terms, and that's where she goes at the end of the book.
• 41:16
  And she decides, you know, she wants to be a part of history
• 41:18
  and fight for the things that she believes in rather than, you
• 41:22
  know, just doing it because someone else tells her to.
• 41:24
  And that feels like it makes that character work.
• 41:28
  And then when she does come back to the new adventures in later
• 41:30
  books, she works so much better. And they've kind of ditched a
• 41:34
  lot of the angst. And she's a much more pleasant
• 41:37
  character to be around and more fun.
• 41:39
  And she's got this time machine. And, you know, they could have
• 41:42
  brought her back more often. French colluting a backpack?
• 41:45
  Time travelling backpack where? The God, the next time we see
• 41:48
  her, you know she's fucking the groom, isn't she?
• 41:50
  I'm not sure she's that nice a person.
• 41:53
  She's not that nice of a person, but you know, like she's, it's a
• 41:57
  wedding, you know, there's gotta be some soap opera drama.
• 42:00
  I, I don't disagree with you saying that like the thought
• 42:02
  process is hell and you can actually hear her maturing and
• 42:05
  that there's a sequence later on which I wrote down which I
• 42:08
  thought was beautiful, where she's seeing like the whole of
• 42:13
  the universe and the patterns and all of that.
• 42:15
  Just the way the Doctor does. Just because she's been to so
• 42:18
  many places and she's been through so much time is
• 42:20
  vigilante. Is that it?
• 42:21
  Isn't that what they call her? And I think that's a really,
• 42:24
  really lovely idea. And.
• 42:26
  It's very 90s. But in the same breath, she's
• 42:28
  still brutalising and murdering and doing horrible things.
• 42:31
  And I'm like, yeah, you know, you're telling me you're
• 42:33
  learning and you're changing and you're still doing terrible
• 42:36
  things. She's turning into the bad 7th
• 42:39
  Doctor here. I don't know, I was just a bit
• 42:42
  confused. I'm like, you're still doing all
• 42:43
  those horrible things I hate you doing, but you're telling me
• 42:45
  you're becoming a better person. She's becoming her own person, I
• 42:49
  would say. I think that that's what that
• 42:51
  passage you mentioned. Yeah.
• 42:52
  I had that written, Daisel, Because that's the point.
• 42:54
  You're going. Yeah.
• 42:56
  She's she's independent. She doesn't need the doctor
• 42:59
  anymore. She can move on.
• 43:00
  She can. Yeah, she can be that character.
• 43:03
  She's she's her own character. You know, if it, if this was Big
• 43:06
  Finish, she'd have straight off. She'd have had 10 box sets.
• 43:10
  That's that's how much of A she's her own lead character is.
• 43:13
  I think what I want to say on that one.
• 43:15
  So I would, I would say the vision of her in France fighting
• 43:22
  and shooting at soldiers while protecting all these women.
• 43:26
  I don't care. She kills those soldiers, man.
• 43:28
  That is, that's, that's a really cool kind of heroic image that
• 43:33
  kind of implies this is what she's going to do when she
• 43:37
  travels through time. And am I all right?
• 43:39
  I think I'm OK with. I'm OK with that.
• 43:42
  Also like her, yeah. Now you go.
• 43:46
  I'm talking all over you. That's right.
• 43:49
  I was also like, all right. She also recognizes she can see
• 43:54
  patterns and stuff. She's becoming a smarter person,
• 43:55
  but she also realizes she also knows she also makes mistakes.
• 43:59
  And you you realize that she's being a bit of an idiot because
• 44:04
  you get to the Benny section since she's like, I don't know,
• 44:09
  I don't understand French. Oh shit, I've had a bit of brush
• 44:12
  up on this. Whereas Ace absolutely
• 44:15
  understands Egyptian and it doesn't twig for ages, but she
• 44:18
  figures it out herself and she's like, I'm just an idiot.
• 44:22
  It's like something obvious that she gets and she's like Eureka.
• 44:26
  It's that's a that's a kind of a doctor moment.
• 44:28
  It's also the the other thing of the boxes.
• 44:32
  So she comes from a time where there are a lot.
• 44:35
  She, as Kate describes it, women and men are put in boxes, but
• 44:40
  there are more boxes for men to be in.
• 44:42
  And in the time where Ace was around were growing up, there
• 44:45
  are more boxes for women, but there's still not as many.
• 44:49
  And then realizing just being stuck in Egypt real and there's
• 44:55
  even fewer boxes for women. There's she thinks I said think
• 44:59
  she says like there's only two, you know, wife, mother and
• 45:07
  prostitute or something like that.
• 45:09
  And and it's her kind of realizing really and fully that
• 45:14
  she needs to go her own way. She lateral thinking, thinking,
• 45:19
  thinking outside the box. I need to be outside these
• 45:21
  boxes, not in one of them. I know I just found that really,
• 45:25
  really fascinating. And I don't think any of that
• 45:27
  would have worked with a male writer writing it.
• 45:30
  I I. Need that.
• 45:32
  Egypt, that Egypt section was my favorite section of the book.
• 45:36
  I love it. But because you're just there
• 45:38
  travelling with the character and I think the passages you
• 45:41
  picked out earlier, it's it's so well portrayed how she stuck
• 45:45
  there and it's the perfect that those, you know, suddenly the
• 45:48
  TARDIS didn't materialise. That's perfect because it's just
• 45:51
  the moment, that moment of hope where you just go hang on, is
• 45:54
  that something happening ranked just round the corner when
• 45:56
  you're waiting for something you can't and she's waiting for the
• 46:00
  doctor. She isn't.
• 46:01
  And you see that. I think Kate uses that trick
• 46:03
  three times or so across that book, but and then she stops
• 46:08
  using it and you. Can see it's.
• 46:11
  It's waited and waited. Yeah.
• 46:13
  Waited. Yeah, exactly.
• 46:15
  Was ultimately very disappointed.
• 46:17
  And Ace got off her arse and. Didn't wait.
• 46:20
  And you know what? She was like absurdly competent
• 46:22
  in those Egypt scenes, which I thought was great because she is
• 46:25
  a warrior. She absolutely can exist in
• 46:28
  those times where violence talks, you know, where you've
• 46:31
  got to be an improviser and think with your fists.
• 46:34
  And I, and I did really like a lot and I like there was some
• 46:36
  callbacks as well to dragon fire.
• 46:38
  She's waiting tables at one point and the line is all back
• 46:41
  to where she'd begun, which I thought that was a lovely
• 46:43
  callback. And then there was a new
• 46:45
  Adventures call back to Ace in Dragon Fire, where they make the
• 46:50
  explicit suggestion that Savolon Glitz was trying to get into her
• 46:53
  knickers. No.
• 46:55
  Don't do that. Just don't do that, Kate.
• 46:58
  All right? You're better than this.
• 46:59
  Yeah, that's that's that part of the bit where, like I was saying
• 47:03
  earlier, where they try and make stuff from a kids series,
• 47:08
  something adult and it's like Glitz and Ace did not bug like
• 47:13
  that did not happen and like, why do you want?
• 47:15
  But why are you writing that in? Oh, it's just so.
• 47:19
  Sometimes the Nas and Torch would have some things in common
• 47:23
  when it comes to trying to be adult.
• 47:26
  But Glitz and Dipper, did they? Have we talking to you?
• 47:29
  Yeah. That's all right.
• 47:31
  Yeah. Jesus.
• 47:32
  Christ. In fact, I'm hoping we'll do
• 47:34
  mission and practical one day and we'll see what Glitz and
• 47:36
  Dibber got up to. I think glitz in male as well.
• 47:40
  I'm fine with that, yeah. Yeah, yeah.
• 47:43
  Start a young, innocent ace. You know that's horrible.
• 47:48
  Can we please talk about another issue I've got here?
• 47:51
  And that is the interminable fucking dream sequences and
• 47:56
  people talking about their bloody dreams in New Adventures.
• 48:00
  I'll tell you what, right? There's only two things that are
• 48:02
  the most boring conversations. I'm so sorry, John.
• 48:05
  And that is people talking about their children and people
• 48:07
  talking about their dreams, right?
• 48:09
  I don't think we've got much about kids in this, but boy, oh
• 48:12
  boy, there's a lot of that New Adventures dream imagery in
• 48:15
  this. I mean, I did write that a, a
• 48:17
  funeral dream indicates grief. It means there is something left
• 48:21
  of him inside your mind. Oh, fuck off.
• 48:24
  I hate it. I just hate it.
• 48:26
  It's it feels like the most cold adolescent writing.
• 48:31
  She's. Better than this, and there's a
• 48:33
  lot of. I don't mind a surreal dream
• 48:36
  sequence I but I don't. Twin Peaks then.
• 48:39
  I do, but I don't. I don't like the gods.
• 48:45
  I don't like the Time Lord God's time death pain.
• 48:48
  I I'm just I've never gotten it. I don't get.
• 48:53
  They're all reading Neil Gaiman comics.
• 48:55
  I know that's. Coming from, it's all.
• 48:57
  Like Sandman influence, but it's like it doesn't feel like it
• 49:01
  fits with Doctor Who and the Doctor Who universe or the Time
• 49:04
  Lords to have these gods and then they're real and it just,
• 49:09
  oh, it never feels like it gels for me, Andrew.
• 49:12
  Sir, I much rather prefer what David Mckinty does in
• 49:16
  introducing the Old Gods. Like the Cthulhu in kind of
• 49:20
  thing. Oh.
• 49:21
  No, please, let's not. I didn't see.
• 49:23
  Your name, pick up on it in all consuming fire and things like
• 49:26
  that. All of that bullshit as well.
• 49:30
  No, thank you. Let's do it the Craig Hinton
• 49:33
  way, you know, just bringing together all the insane,
• 49:36
  melodramatic gods of the universe that we've had and just
• 49:39
  have them up there having a massive apocalyptic battle.
• 49:42
  So I did, I did say like, whilst I absolutely adore this book,
• 49:46
  there is one thing I was going to go to bat with Joe with.
• 49:50
  Was it the word crook? Was it the word crook?
• 49:53
  No, because that turned out cracking so many cracking times.
• 49:57
  I'm sorry, crack doesn't even bother me as much as the other
• 50:00
  word they use. But I agree with I don't dream.
• 50:04
  All right, Everyone's going to be like, of course you dream.
• 50:06
  Everyone dreams. I don't remember my dreams.
• 50:09
  Well, that's why you're so interesting, Lou.
• 50:11
  We like to talk to you. So, you know, I don't
• 50:18
  particularly, I really need to hear about everyone's dreams all
• 50:22
  the time and all the weirdness that goes with them.
• 50:25
  I don't, I can't, I don't really relate.
• 50:27
  There's that's that's the thing. So I don't really if I'm
• 50:31
  watching David Lynch, though, I expect that.
• 50:33
  So I'm in a different headspace. But if I'm watching other media
• 50:37
  or Doctor Who something I don't like, dream sequences I don't
• 50:41
  like. Oh, do you know what though?
• 50:43
  You know I go on about that scene in Half Life where Fitz
• 50:46
  dreams about the bums touching in the concert room all the
• 50:48
  time. I'll make a small caveat if it's
• 50:51
  gay explicit dreams. Anything else is.
• 50:56
  Out. I don't know, it's like
• 50:58
  someone's read a really bad. It's like someone's read
• 51:00
  Councillor Troy's cod psychology book and created a dream
• 51:04
  sequence out of that. And it is typically beautifully
• 51:08
  written by Kate Orman. Yeah, it's just not my thing.
• 51:12
  Please. It's like I'd never be a
• 51:14
  therapist. Yeah, I think this is Kate
• 51:18
  developing into a good writer. She's still stuck with the
• 51:22
  Doctor Who fan writing kind of gene here, I think.
• 51:25
  You know, she comes from that Hurt Comfort background.
• 51:27
  You know, there's a chapter called Hurt Comfort in that.
• 51:29
  She knows what she's doing with it, but you can see her moving
• 51:34
  away from that. In this you can, you can see
• 51:37
  actual genuinely good writer, said 18, that opening short
• 51:40
  story, the way it goes through, but you're still stuck with the
• 51:45
  fan trucks. You're still stuck with.
• 51:46
  This is what the new adventures are.
• 51:48
  She's not a great writer yet, I would say with this well.
• 51:52
  She's stuck, isn't she, with one big problem that sets her apart
• 51:57
  from so many of these writers is that she can actually write.
• 52:01
  So whilst things may annoy us, it is quite a smooth read
• 52:06
  because the words are beautiful. She knows how to put together a
• 52:09
  really beautiful sentence, I think, even at even this early.
• 52:14
  Ancient Egypt, alien landscape, but so vivid totally you you're
• 52:19
  in those kind of this this very distinct places, the very sick
• 52:24
  times, you know, that ship, the organic terrible ship, that
• 52:28
  ancient Egypt, this kind of rough old dead world with which
• 52:33
  is alien to our perspective. And she makes it alien.
• 52:36
  And again the French Revolution, she makes that alien again.
• 52:40
  She you know, it's the characters are lost that they
• 52:42
  have to work to actually get binds.
• 52:45
  You know, so much, so often, it's due the doctor has just
• 52:47
  dropped into an environment. And no.
• 52:51
  I mean, how's this for a really simple line, Right?
• 52:53
  Just beautifully written, though.
• 52:55
  She's starting to think omnipotently like the Doctor
• 52:57
  Race. Yeah.
• 52:58
  About the universe, how it ebbs and flows.
• 53:00
  And then Kate writes, the more you interfere, the more you have
• 53:04
  to interfere. And there's like a wealth of
• 53:06
  stories you could tell with that one line.
• 53:10
  Yeah, now I'm the one. I'm going praise.
• 53:15
  See, now you're doing the praise and I'm I'm the one who's going
• 53:17
  to say that. Stop being mean about Ace,
• 53:20
  please. All right.
• 53:21
  One word that took me out of this story at.
• 53:24
  Least twice is I'm guessing Kate Orman likes a healthy dose of
• 53:29
  Red Dwarf. I do too.
• 53:31
  Maybe I'm healthy dose sometimes because I love that show, but I
• 53:35
  don't need to read the words SMEG in my Doctor Who book.
• 53:37
  Come on man. Better than croc though.
• 53:40
  Let's be honest Andrew, you swince when I said the word
• 53:45
  croc. Are you not a fan?
• 53:46
  I just. Think I just hate fake swearing
• 53:50
  and things. It's like if you're going to
• 53:51
  swear, just swear. Like don't put these cringy
• 53:56
  placeholders in. Like it's just so pathetic and I
• 54:00
  hate it in like Barscape. I hate it in Doctor Who.
• 54:03
  It's like just either do it or don't do it.
• 54:06
  Did you watch Picard when it came back?
• 54:08
  And in episode like 4 there was an Admiral that went, fuck you
• 54:12
  Jean Luc. I went Oh my God.
• 54:18
  But it had if he should have gone crack huge Jean Luc, it
• 54:21
  just wouldn't have had the same. I mourn the days that iceberg
• 54:25
  isn't too late anymore. That's the kind of line I wanted
• 54:27
  my doctor. That was every other page.
• 54:29
  Like what it? I mean, I kind of think like you
• 54:32
  don't really need any swearing in a Doctor Who book.
• 54:35
  Like, it's just not that world. You don't need it and you know,
• 54:41
  it's so transparent that it's like you can you can have a few
• 54:45
  shits and there's a lot of shits in this book I.
• 54:47
  Don't mind a few shits. But you can't go stronger than
• 54:49
  that, so therefore you have to make up a swear word for it.
• 54:52
  It's like just. Where do our conversations
• 54:55
  always come back to piss shits? Best reality I don't understand.
• 54:59
  Alex, we read a lot of virgin books from the 90s and Best
• 55:05
  Reality. Were you happy there were so
• 55:07
  many horses in this book? I don't know what the men were
• 55:10
  doing with her, but there wasn't I'm.
• 55:12
  Surprised nobody had a memory sucked out of them when they had
• 55:15
  that of of being a man with her with a horse on top of them.
• 55:18
  But. Did everyone notice the sequence
• 55:22
  where she coughed? Ace was here on a Cliff.
• 55:25
  Moffett. What?
• 55:29
  What's Buffer's big plot device? It's technology gone wrong,
• 55:34
  that's what. It's no villains.
• 55:35
  It's just tech gone wrong. I'm.
• 55:37
  Starting to think that man has not had an original idea ever.
• 55:40
  You know, beyond when he wrote Press Gang.
• 55:44
  Oh, John, John, come on, you. You literally want to punch me
• 55:47
  right now. Don't.
• 55:47
  You. No, no.
• 55:49
  No, you praise press gang. You can get away with it.
• 55:51
  You're fun. Oh, he's smart.
• 55:52
  I mean, he should have stopped at Linda Day, really, shouldn't
• 55:55
  he? Julius of Wallace's muse.
• 55:58
  That's all he needs. I wouldn't like to have seen
• 56:00
  Muffet's new adventure though, You know, that would have been
• 56:01
  quite interesting. Well, yeah, it would have been
• 56:05
  funny, which I think the race desperately needs at times.
• 56:08
  It does get funnier though after this as well.
• 56:10
  Yeah, this really is a hinge, isn't it?
• 56:12
  This book. Yes, I think it's necessary.
• 56:15
  Book Infinite Requiem is it. Infinite Requiem, Sanctuary,
• 56:19
  Human nature, original in the next.
• 56:22
  Batch When was it that Rebecca Levine actually took over?
• 56:25
  Was she already in charge at this point, or was it slightly
• 56:29
  later? I don't know, but I think it's
• 56:33
  somewhere around the middle. It's around this point, isn't
• 56:35
  it? And you could just feel that
• 56:37
  suddenly there's a beating heart in the range the the characters
• 56:41
  are being written sort of emotionally maturely in a way
• 56:44
  that they weren't as much before.
• 56:48
  So what did we think of beneath in this book?
• 56:50
  I think she got to do her Indiana Jones stick in Napoleon,
• 56:57
  France and had a fucking awesome time hanging out with like the
• 57:02
  the grandfather of archaeology. I thought it was awesome and.
• 57:07
  She showed up, Luke. Oh, my whole body relaxed.
• 57:09
  I was like, oh, here we go. Lovely.
• 57:11
  And but. She and I always have.
• 57:13
  To deal with the followers of Sue Tech too as well, which are
• 57:19
  some nice callbacks to Pyramids of Mars.
• 57:21
  Oh, and there's one nifty one, Sorry, with Ace seeing mentions
• 57:25
  of dialects in ancient Egypt as a master plan.
• 57:28
  So yeah. How do they describe it that
• 57:30
  that she has, she couldn't have had a softer landing, that she's
• 57:34
  landed in the invention of archaeology, Exactly.
• 57:37
  Her expert feels, you know, wonderful.
• 57:40
  I think just in riches when he was doing theatre for what's you
• 57:43
  know what, he bought the the boys book of archaeology or
• 57:46
  whatever it was. And and then I'm reading a book
• 57:50
  from another podcast, which I won't mention yet because it's
• 57:54
  but it's the same thing. Can't.
• 57:55
  Be another podcast. What's this?
• 57:58
  It's like Ian Martin. You know what he's like.
• 58:01
  You're only charming. Oh.
• 58:02
  He's so charming. Sorry, Carry.
• 58:03
  On, you don't have to. Tease yet?
• 58:06
  Oh, but it's these people. It's.
• 58:09
  Hang on if I can. Just.
• 58:14
  Ben Eronovich, the genius Lokai. Yeah.
• 58:18
  Can you believe? That they called one of those
• 58:20
  books The Big Hunt. I know when I was Lance parking
• 58:24
  wasn't it as well. It's deliberate.
• 58:27
  But again, to go back to the title here, it's a pun.
• 58:30
  It's just like, oh, Gee, how did I not see that coming?
• 58:35
  So. But again, Kate, she's got
• 58:36
  layers in her prose even when you're not not looking for it.
• 58:40
  And she puts her in blades like, oh, God.
• 58:42
  But yeah, the detail on the archaeology, you know, that's
• 58:46
  the things they do, the processes of it.
• 58:48
  If someone's gone deep into it, research more than, you know,
• 58:51
  reading say, a Wikipedia page, Kate actually goes in and does
• 58:54
  that hard work. And The thing is as well, I
• 58:57
  think what Kate brings really valuable is she brings the, I
• 59:02
  don't want to put the colonial perspective almost, you know,
• 59:06
  she, she has that doesn't have that British miter, which is
• 59:09
  kind of a superior one. She goes in, she knows, you know
• 59:13
  what it feels like in a country or to come from a country that
• 59:16
  has been, I wouldn't say it conquered because I don't think
• 59:19
  modern story it has been, it's kind of obviously more
• 59:21
  democratic than that, but it's more that's kind of been, it's
• 59:28
  been ruled by someone else. And I think that's a really
• 59:31
  valuable respect she brings to that.
• 59:33
  You know, we see the main people see in France are the
• 59:36
  revolutionaries, the people who have been downtrodden, rose,
• 59:39
  rose, rose up. The Egyptians again, they've had
• 59:42
  that kind of revolution of the gold.
• 59:44
  They changed their gold. That's a kind of unique
• 59:48
  perspective. Obviously, it's, it's a detail
• 59:51
  of why revolutions happen. It's not, you know, the British
• 59:54
  thing of, you know, oh, yeah, this revolution just happened
• 59:57
  for no good reason. It's these people were
• 59:59
  downtrodden. Their lives were terrible.
• 1:00:02
  This is again, I'll go back to it.
• 1:00:06
  A. World building on it, It's
• 1:00:08
  fabulous, the detail. There's even a couple of
• 1:00:12
  characters. There's one character, I can't
• 1:00:13
  remember which one, but they say they're saying like the details,
• 1:00:18
  they just don't matter. And then you cut the beneath who
• 1:00:21
  you know is, is interested in people's stories and all this
• 1:00:25
  kind of stuff and how things happen.
• 1:00:27
  And I think it's her that says like, because the details that
• 1:00:30
  they all matter and how, how things are put together, it all
• 1:00:34
  tells the story. It's not just all the, it's not
• 1:00:37
  just. And then Napoleon did this.
• 1:00:40
  Well, he ordered it. And then here's all the other
• 1:00:44
  people, here's the people that affected all this kind of stuff.
• 1:00:48
  So, yeah. And she, she effectively does
• 1:00:51
  like 4 little microcosms. You've got ancient Egypt,
• 1:00:56
  Napoleonic Egypt, you've got France, revolutionary France,
• 1:01:01
  and then you've got ship. And I think they were all quite
• 1:01:05
  vivid in in my mind. And I don't, I got to, I got to
• 1:01:09
  have Fantasia. So I can't, I can't make
• 1:01:12
  pictures in my brain. So when that's when I say
• 1:01:14
  something like that, like I can, I can, they've kind of vivid in
• 1:01:19
  my head. That's some good writing, I.
• 1:01:21
  Think that's why she's one of my favourites at home.
• 1:01:25
  Yeah, it's hard. It can be hard for a writer to
• 1:01:28
  nail one setting, but to nail multiple?
• 1:01:31
  That's a lot more research too, isn't it?
• 1:01:34
  I've got a question I'd like to ask because there was something
• 1:01:37
  that really confused me and that was separating the three
• 1:01:42
  characters for so much of the book when it's Ace's last book.
• 1:01:46
  Because trust me, they've got a lot to talk through, especially
• 1:01:52
  after the last run of books where Ace has been trying to
• 1:01:54
  murder Benny and terrible things have been happening and they got
• 1:01:59
  a lot of talking to do. And actually, I felt as if that
• 1:02:02
  wasn't adequate in the end. Like they, they all sort of
• 1:02:05
  parted on good terms, but I was like, no, no, no, there's a lot
• 1:02:09
  there. That because the story was
• 1:02:13
  ultimately, I thought it was a very simple story about these
• 1:02:15
  ants trying to punch a hole in the universe for whatever reason
• 1:02:18
  they were trying to do. And she was just telling it in
• 1:02:21
  an extremely complicated way, an engaging way.
• 1:02:24
  But that's another new adventure stripe, just writing things in a
• 1:02:28
  very complicated way to keep us interested.
• 1:02:31
  But in doing so, it meant we didn't have an Ace Benny Doctor
• 1:02:37
  last story. And I was just like, that's not
• 1:02:40
  the decision I would have made. I would have had them, the three
• 1:02:44
  of them together, the three of them coming to conclusions about
• 1:02:48
  their relationships. I would have had the therapy
• 1:02:51
  story. I've got to thinking about other
• 1:02:53
  sort of last stories for companions and how that was I
• 1:02:58
  thought about the Gallifrey Chronicles.
• 1:02:59
  Luke, mute your mic. And you had like that whole run
• 1:03:04
  in the first third of the book where Trits, the Doctor and Fitz
• 1:03:06
  are all having like a run of sort of vignette adventures
• 1:03:09
  together, you know, so you really felt as if they were,
• 1:03:11
  they were doing a lot together in that last book, even though
• 1:03:13
  they are separated and things like that.
• 1:03:16
  I don't know, I was just, I was a bit baffled by that approach.
• 1:03:18
  And I realise it was to put the spotlight on Ace and to to give
• 1:03:24
  her the last story. But in a continuing series of
• 1:03:29
  books, I felt as if they missed a trick in adequately bringing
• 1:03:35
  those relationships to a conclusion.
• 1:03:38
  Discuss. Yeah, I mean, I I can see what
• 1:03:42
  you Luke, you can put your headphones back on.
• 1:03:46
  I can see what you mean. I think because I'm not as
• 1:03:49
  invested in this crew as you. I think I did just enjoy this as
• 1:03:53
  a stand alone piece. But I can see that.
• 1:03:56
  Although those scenes at the end, like the doctor being
• 1:04:00
  fatherly to Ace and her being delirious and calling her
• 1:04:03
  calling him daddy, which is like not in not in a pervy way, but
• 1:04:07
  you know, in a very sweet way. And the way that Ace and Benny
• 1:04:11
  part on very good terms and like they call each other sisters.
• 1:04:15
  Maybe that's as you're saying, Joe just not really earned and
• 1:04:19
  kind of it's a nice place to end end up for those characters, but
• 1:04:23
  we haven't necessarily need been through all the steps that we
• 1:04:26
  needed to in order for them to get there.
• 1:04:29
  It's not Kate's fault is it? Because if the run up of books
• 1:04:32
  had been a series of adventures where they all got on and had
• 1:04:36
  jolly adventures and. It feels like you needed a story
• 1:04:39
  like this after Lucifer rising to kind of deal with all that
• 1:04:46
  stuff and then make a crew that works rather than having what,
• 1:04:49
  like 15 books or something with a completely dysfunctional team
• 1:04:53
  who don't like each other? Such a baffling decision.
• 1:04:57
  We must cover one of those because we will get the 1:00
• 1:05:00
  where they're absolutely on fire, the three of them working
• 1:05:02
  together, you know? Yeah, Conundrum's a bit like
• 1:05:05
  that, isn't it? They hate it.
• 1:05:06
  They're. Nice is, yeah, horrible in
• 1:05:08
  Conundrum. Mind you, she's horrible in
• 1:05:10
  Falls of Shadow as well. Like did I hear you guys want to
• 1:05:12
  read another Steve Lyons book or?
• 1:05:16
  We'll. Have to twist your arm, Luke.
• 1:05:18
  I know. No, yes, not.
• 1:05:20
  Though the last time we did the Steve Lyons book we had to do
• 1:05:22
  The Ghost of N Space, so I shuddered to think what would
• 1:05:25
  happen if I asked. To read another.
• 1:05:27
  One, I mean, my opening line for this episode for me was going to
• 1:05:31
  be I prefer the Ghost of N Space because it just feels more like
• 1:05:37
  Doctor Who's me. As as batshit as it is, this
• 1:05:41
  approach to Doctor Who, it just isn't my Doctor Who.
• 1:05:44
  And that's my problem, not the New Adventures.
• 1:05:47
  It's it's, it's an alienating book all the way through.
• 1:05:51
  As I say, it's societies. Ace is an alienating character.
• 1:05:55
  You get so much from her viewpoint.
• 1:05:58
  And there's leverage in that, right there is there is drama to
• 1:06:00
  be had in having an alienating companion, I suppose.
• 1:06:05
  I suppose Angie was a bit like that, as you, as we said before,
• 1:06:08
  it was a bit of a bitch, but I don't know, it's just tempered a
• 1:06:12
  bit. She's not going around sticking
• 1:06:13
  swords through people's heads and things.
• 1:06:16
  Yeah, but this, it's that run of new adventures books that just
• 1:06:21
  five, you know, it's 5 or 600 banks.
• 1:06:24
  There's no jokes. It's.
• 1:06:26
  All. Grim it's all horrible, you
• 1:06:29
  know, it's it's full to shadow parasite.
• 1:06:31
  I like Warlock, but one of the reasons I didn't get the view
• 1:06:35
  the flaw of this book is that it comes at the absolute worst, the
• 1:06:39
  kind of the lowest point of DNA's for me.
• 1:06:41
  I've read it in that sequence and he said we want to go back
• 1:06:45
  and went, my God, how did I make it through this?
• 1:06:50
  When she shot that kid in the face, I'm sorry to keep going on
• 1:06:52
  about it. The lion is she could deal with
• 1:06:55
  that later. She could handle it like I know
• 1:06:58
  the lion's supposed to be telling us, like she can't
• 1:07:00
  handle it. And that is something that will
• 1:07:02
  go back and hold her. But she's still.
• 1:07:04
  Shot a kid in the face, right? However, it is not actually a
• 1:07:10
  kid, it is a robot. Like a sort of bless you robot
• 1:07:15
  evil kid. Well, that's all right then,
• 1:07:17
  and. Also, you didn't know it at the
• 1:07:20
  time. Joe, you always want the child
• 1:07:24
  characters to die. Yeah, in my face.
• 1:07:28
  And you're. Like.
• 1:07:29
  I hate this. How dare you?
• 1:07:31
  Yeah, because I'm. Just talk bullshit, that's why.
• 1:07:35
  Because aced it and you're like, no, not like that.
• 1:07:38
  No Kill children in other. Ways that's.
• 1:07:41
  Right. Gently Hemlock Summit.
• 1:07:44
  You know I don't want them to suffer.
• 1:07:47
  If it's Angie or Sam Jones doing this, he's fine with it.
• 1:07:49
  It's no problem. Angie, man, she'd get a machine
• 1:07:53
  gun and take out a whole nursery, wouldn't she?
• 1:07:58
  Sorry. How did we?
• 1:07:59
  How did we get here? Oh my goodness.
• 1:08:02
  So we got to speak to I guess I always butcher her name.
• 1:08:07
  Kitiatu Kadiatu. Kadiatu.
• 1:08:09
  Kadiatu I've. Always done with.
• 1:08:12
  Yeah. Before we before we talk about
• 1:08:15
  her character, can I just say I love time travel pollution.
• 1:08:18
  I love that idea that every time Katyatu uses The Time Machine,
• 1:08:23
  it creates a hole in the universe in space and time.
• 1:08:27
  That's how ship is able to do all this stuff and send, you
• 1:08:31
  know, they go through time and stuff, but it also creates the
• 1:08:36
  same diner in different time periods, almost identical but
• 1:08:41
  with some distance differences to fit the locale.
• 1:08:45
  So there's one. Sorry, time travelling diner so.
• 1:08:56
  Time Travelling Diner and Heaven sent Hell Bent in one book.
• 1:09:04
  And ice was here in the Cliff. I mean, come on, we thought
• 1:09:07
  interference was bad. It's Candy Arts who's the sort
• 1:09:13
  of protector of the Earth now then, is she like, sort of.
• 1:09:16
  She's there because the Doctor isn't.
• 1:09:18
  She's in, isn't she? In a kind of antibody to the
• 1:09:21
  doctor. Yeah, that's what I thought.
• 1:09:25
  Antibody like like the Earth fighting back.
• 1:09:27
  Yeah, it's like the doctor is not answerable to anyone, so you
• 1:09:33
  have to have that kind of answer, answer back to him.
• 1:09:36
  If you know what happens if he does, something goes off the
• 1:09:38
  rails. That's what Candy After is there
• 1:09:40
  for. I mean, how she was looking
• 1:09:46
  after the Doctor was lovely. I mean, I did love those scenes
• 1:09:49
  because bloody hell, we needed it after those first two
• 1:09:51
  chapters. I mean he was drugged the whole
• 1:09:52
  time. Was he dreaming of some blooming
• 1:09:56
  flowers? Can I can I say one nice thing
• 1:09:59
  about the new adventures because I've ripped him a lot today.
• 1:10:02
  I love the house on Allen Rd. I just think that is a genius
• 1:10:05
  idea to have a base of operations where they keep going
• 1:10:08
  back to, no matter how good awful the book is.
• 1:10:11
  It's that it's a nice homely domestic setting.
• 1:10:14
  The 8th Octopus didn't have anything like that at all, and
• 1:10:18
  they probably should have. Done.
• 1:10:19
  The audios do though. The Baker Street.
• 1:10:21
  Yeah, that sort of thing. It's really nice.
• 1:10:24
  It's really. And it just gives him somewhere
• 1:10:26
  to go when he's on Earth, you know?
• 1:10:28
  On desk cottage as well. That kind of idea.
• 1:10:31
  Yeah. Yeah, I've got to.
• 1:10:33
  I've got to get around to listening to Ness Cottage.
• 1:10:36
  It's one of those things I'm like, that's really cheap, mine.
• 1:10:39
  And yeah, I think we've all done that, haven't we got at least I
• 1:10:44
  hope, hope I'm not the only one. It's the equivalent of buying
• 1:10:48
  books, I guess, and realizing you're probably going to read
• 1:10:51
  half these. But.
• 1:10:53
  I will say I've never quite got a grip on Caddy R2.
• 1:10:56
  She's in a handful of books, isn't she?
• 1:10:57
  Transit Longbarrow. I think this is a second
• 1:11:02
  appearance. I think she's in Sleepy.
• 1:11:06
  Yeah, she's in the dying days briefly as well.
• 1:11:08
  It's just she's in happy endings.
• 1:11:11
  She's got that massive long sort of character bio, hasn't she?
• 1:11:14
  Genetic experiment something to do with Brigadier, You know, all
• 1:11:19
  of the the the best of everything all in one.
• 1:11:23
  But and all this bullshit. I'm just like, just be a person,
• 1:11:26
  you know? Like for fuck's sake, it's like
• 1:11:27
  a JNT character synopsis. Yeah, I kind of felt like she
• 1:11:32
  was here to be a counterpoint to Ace, though, because I mean, I
• 1:11:37
  haven't read Transit so I don't really fully understand
• 1:11:39
  Cadiati's back story. But there's all that stuff about
• 1:11:42
  her being created and being created because of the Doctor by
• 1:11:46
  the Doctor. So everything that Cadiati is is
• 1:11:49
  kind of because of him in the same way that Ace, everything
• 1:11:53
  that she has become is because of the way the Doctor has
• 1:11:55
  manipulated her. So you kind of get, although you
• 1:12:00
  don't see the Doctor and Ace interacting very much, you do
• 1:12:03
  get him interacting with this other character who's similar in
• 1:12:07
  that way. And then you get all the
• 1:12:09
  sections which I did actually really like, which are quite
• 1:12:11
  similar to interference, where Cadiatu is kind of questioning
• 1:12:15
  the Doctor's moral compass and why does he interfere sometimes
• 1:12:20
  and not at others, and what are the ethics of interfering in
• 1:12:24
  time travel and that kind of stuff, which it's not.
• 1:12:28
  It's not a complete conversation here, and it's not wholly
• 1:12:31
  satisfying, but it's nice to see that kind of tension between the
• 1:12:35
  two of them. It's like the roots of
• 1:12:38
  something. Lawrence will talk, Yeah.
• 1:12:41
  Discuss. I think a lot better in
• 1:12:43
  interference, yeah. That's the comparison that's
• 1:12:45
  being drawn between the two. Are we saying, then, that what
• 1:12:49
  the conclusion we're reaching in set piece is Exposure to the
• 1:12:52
  Doctor has made Ace a truly hideous human being, and getting
• 1:12:57
  away from him is the best thing she could possibly do?
• 1:13:01
  Why would we ever want to come to that conclusion in a Doctor
• 1:13:04
  Who book? That's not just a New adventures
• 1:13:07
  thing. Like I'm looking at you
• 1:13:09
  genocide, you know, you know so. I suppose it's it's less that, I
• 1:13:18
  mean, Ace has ended up kind of a horrible person, but some of
• 1:13:21
  that was down to her own decisions in becoming this
• 1:13:24
  soldier and becoming a bit of a psychopath.
• 1:13:28
  And then this book is like her sort of she's still a killer at
• 1:13:34
  the end of this book. She still will kill without kind
• 1:13:37
  of well, there is the bit where she sort of she remembers how
• 1:13:40
  many people she's actually killed and she has actually
• 1:13:43
  remembered each one of those. I think she she says she's
• 1:13:46
  killed about 400 people or like one of the it's.
• 1:13:49
  One short, isn't it? Which is why that.
• 1:13:51
  Last 399. People make a good darling.
• 1:13:57
  But I think that's there to show that she does still care and she
• 1:14:01
  is still keeping count and she does still remember they do
• 1:14:03
  leave a mark on her. And it's kind of the if she,
• 1:14:10
  she's still a killer and she will still kill to do what she
• 1:14:14
  think to get the to get the the result that she wants.
• 1:14:20
  She's not afraid of killing somebody.
• 1:14:22
  I know what you're saying. Like like it's almost like she,
• 1:14:24
  because she can see the timelines how she does, she
• 1:14:28
  understands the implications if she kills somebody.
• 1:14:31
  Like she'll do it if it's something she has to do rather
• 1:14:35
  than just killing people. Yeah.
• 1:14:38
  And she knows it has consequences.
• 1:14:40
  I think that line you quoted. Because I think like at the end
• 1:14:44
  of that set piece, rather than her picking up, you know, all of
• 1:14:50
  her fancy new weapons and stuff, she's using like the French,
• 1:14:54
  French weapons and stuff off the time as well.
• 1:14:56
  So she's so because you know, like if a face really wanted to
• 1:15:03
  just bring a whole bunch of Nitro 9, all sorts of weird
• 1:15:06
  alien blasters and suddenly everyone, everyone on the other
• 1:15:12
  side has just been apparently vaporized.
• 1:15:14
  So yeah, she does have that kind of she understands the time
• 1:15:19
  ethics, I guess that that Katiatu doesn't yet.
• 1:15:22
  And Speaking of Katiatu, I like what Joe said.
• 1:15:26
  Make her a normal person because I, I would have made her a
• 1:15:29
  normal person who's really real, obviously really smart and maybe
• 1:15:34
  was able to piece together some things of about time travel and
• 1:15:40
  how it may work and stuff just from unit reports and stupid
• 1:15:44
  offhand remarks from Pertwee or something.
• 1:15:46
  Go on like, oh, I tried to do this to the this and it and it
• 1:15:49
  and it totally backfired on me and just kind of going through
• 1:15:52
  all these kind of records and being like, well, she was.
• 1:15:55
  That was transit, wasn't it? She was making a time travel
• 1:15:57
  machine in transit and the Doctor literally sabotages it
• 1:16:01
  right at the end, Doesn't he? So she so she's not the first
• 1:16:04
  human being to have time travel. Am I remembering that right?
• 1:16:08
  Max Stable has it, has it as well, sort of.
• 1:16:11
  Doesn't he in the Daleks as well?
• 1:16:13
  So that there is precedence for for for I guess humans to
• 1:16:17
  prematurely come come up with time travel technology and
• 1:16:20
  Doctor Who. But yeah, I don't know, like
• 1:16:24
  it's very 90s though that she can't just be a normal woman,
• 1:16:29
  but the gift for braids. She also has to be this bad ass
• 1:16:31
  super soldier from the future who's the most extreme and.
• 1:16:38
  Fucking gorgeous as well, with a cracking hair, you know, like
• 1:16:43
  and in transit, you know, bloody hell she can go all night, I
• 1:16:47
  mean. That was the see, Kate does the
• 1:16:50
  greatest hits, and she even remembers.
• 1:16:52
  All right, there's a lot of men reading these.
• 1:16:54
  Kitty Artu versus Oz fight. Maybe there might have been a
• 1:16:58
  few more women reading these if they weren't doing stuff like
• 1:17:01
  this. You.
• 1:17:02
  Know yes. Maybe a few more willing to put
• 1:17:07
  in submissions and stuff too, I don't know.
• 1:17:10
  Yeah, it's it's always the most glaring thing about the new
• 1:17:14
  adventures, isn't it? That that only one woman woman
• 1:17:17
  wrote for the range. But she wrote the most of them,
• 1:17:20
  so I don't think she had the most consistent bunch of the
• 1:17:24
  like, run. I don't think she had a space
• 1:17:28
  age in there. I know you don't like the Return
• 1:17:31
  of Living Dead, but Mr. Joe, but I do.
• 1:17:33
  It's a bit of fun. But yeah, I know.
• 1:17:37
  Is there anything? Yes.
• 1:17:39
  I was going to say, there's another bit that I think would
• 1:17:44
  have potentially been quite clumsy in the hands of other
• 1:17:48
  writers of the doctor's talking to Genevieve, who is the
• 1:17:52
  character Thierry's abused wife. And you kind of, she's a
• 1:17:57
  background character. And then you kind of start
• 1:17:59
  seeing more of her and the doctor sees more of her and
• 1:18:02
  understands, oh, actually this person who Kadiatu is allied
• 1:18:07
  with is actually a monster. And his wife has been going
• 1:18:12
  through this awful abuse. And there's just a really kind
• 1:18:15
  of tender exchange between the doctor and Genevieve where he
• 1:18:19
  kind of comes to understand who she is.
• 1:18:22
  And they're both these kind of broken, tortured, abused people
• 1:18:26
  who then, you know, she becomes instrumental in in the doctor's
• 1:18:30
  survival later in the book. So yeah.
• 1:18:33
  And I thought that it was just a very tender, well written
• 1:18:37
  exchange between them, which could have been really funky and
• 1:18:41
  awful in the hands of a lesser writer.
• 1:18:46
  And she does that that's and again, it's that thing of she's
• 1:18:49
  a character who maybe is on like 15 pages of the book, but really
• 1:18:53
  sings as a person. And then in the exchanges that
• 1:18:56
  she has with the Doctor, in the same way that I can't remember
• 1:19:01
  what her name is there. Or the character at the start.
• 1:19:03
  Of the book, with Miss Cohen at the start of the book, it's
• 1:19:05
  those people who were there as these very kind of short lived
• 1:19:11
  characters in the book, but that really stand out.
• 1:19:15
  And yeah, that's definitely one of her skills.
• 1:19:18
  The wheelchair went through. He got squished.
• 1:19:21
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 1:19:23
  She. Understands people, doesn't she?
• 1:19:25
  Kate Orman understands. People in a really mature way, I
• 1:19:29
  think, and no matter sort of what part, you know, where her
• 1:19:35
  books land, whether it's in the first half of the new event, in
• 1:19:37
  the second-half, the first half of the EDA is the second-half.
• 1:19:40
  I just think she, she always packs her books full of really
• 1:19:45
  mature conclusions about the characters that she writes for,
• 1:19:50
  and it's so refreshing. Yeah, you'd always know you're
• 1:19:53
  going to get that from Kate. I mean, the bit of the end where
• 1:19:55
  the Doctor goes, you're old enough, you're experienced
• 1:19:58
  enough now to make your own decisions twice.
• 1:20:00
  That was a beautiful exchange as well.
• 1:20:02
  And I did think the last couple of chapters beautifully saw her
• 1:20:06
  off, like, just so well done between her and the Doctor.
• 1:20:10
  That was all just great. I was just like, I was again
• 1:20:13
  thinking, God, I could have done this with this for sort of 10
• 1:20:16
  books, you know, leading up to this.
• 1:20:18
  But never mind, you know, this is a short book too.
• 1:20:21
  So like Kate could have, we have like.
• 1:20:24
  Another 50 pages of that that. Particular.
• 1:20:26
  Bit like that would be, yeah, Yeah.
• 1:20:29
  And she's actually really good at the kind of that.
• 1:20:31
  Mechanics right you. Know the line here is quite
• 1:20:34
  similar to the way Roz gets written out.
• 1:20:36
  And so by the scene, you know, she it's it's you know, it's the
• 1:20:39
  last defender of the commune, you know, picked up a rifle or
• 1:20:42
  whatever is here. It's just we know.
• 1:20:44
  So it's a there's an ongoing story.
• 1:20:46
  It's not a conclusion. It's just a hinge point in her.
• 1:20:50
  Life, it's important. For her, whereas Roz, obviously,
• 1:20:54
  it's a real finale for her on that front.
• 1:20:58
  Yeah, the the last few. Chapters where you.
• 1:21:01
  Where you see the future, future Ace.
• 1:21:04
  And then it kind of, well, it's they're sort of like they're
• 1:21:07
  pieced together in the wrong order, but it's seeing Aces
• 1:21:09
  travels and like the different ages that she's at and meeting
• 1:21:14
  some of the other characters from earlier in the book.
• 1:21:17
  That section was lovely. And you can see how, yeah, they
• 1:21:23
  could have taken Ace forward as that.
• 1:21:25
  Version of the character. And used her more often, but you
• 1:21:28
  could have an ace spin off where she's, you know, this times
• 1:21:31
  vigilante character hopping around in time and kind of, you
• 1:21:35
  know, doing Ace Andrew. This ace, this ace I would love
• 1:21:40
  more of this ace I. Think this is the version of the
• 1:21:43
  character that works and this is the version of the character
• 1:21:47
  that Sophie Aldred could have taken for rather than making her
• 1:21:50
  play a perpetual teenager for 30 odd years as it's been now, you
• 1:21:57
  know letting that character grow.
• 1:22:00
  And I wish that Big Finish had kind of gotten there sooner, I
• 1:22:05
  think when they brought in Hex as she.
• 1:22:07
  Was suddenly like the mentor rather than the angst written
• 1:22:10
  companion. It just suited both the
• 1:22:13
  character and the Sophie Audrey so well.
• 1:22:15
  Yeah. And she, she's got that maturity
• 1:22:18
  here and she's not. Just screaming and shouting like
• 1:22:23
  this. This is, yeah, like more of this
• 1:22:26
  ace. This is the ace we get the least
• 1:22:29
  off, isn't it? We only get like 2.
• 1:22:30
  Other. Books after this, annoying two
• 1:22:36
  other books after. What?
• 1:22:38
  She only turns. Up like twice or three times.
• 1:22:40
  Again after Yeah, this is the ace we get the least of and
• 1:22:43
  she's the most successful. I mean, it sums up her character
• 1:22:46
  quite well, doesn't it? I mean it is really unfold
• 1:22:49
  about. Ramana at the end of Warriors.
• 1:22:51
  Gate I'm like, I want this Ramana.
• 1:22:53
  I don't mind President Ramana and Gallifrey like Lala Ward is
• 1:22:56
  awesome and and all that, but I don't know, riding the time
• 1:23:01
  wins. That's so cool.
• 1:23:03
  And as much as I don't like Longbarrow.
• 1:23:07
  I think 8th is the best thing about Longbarrow for me.
• 1:23:10
  And I think it's really nice that they brought her back for
• 1:23:13
  the 7th Doctor's last story in a way that it feels like, you
• 1:23:17
  know, they could have just brought Benny back for that.
• 1:23:20
  And it would feel like maybe that would have been the obvious
• 1:23:22
  thing to do with her being a New Adventures character.
• 1:23:24
  But I think it's actually really nice that they brought this
• 1:23:27
  version of Ace back and kind of completed that loop of the books
• 1:23:31
  and tying it back to this TV series.
• 1:23:32
  So, yeah, glad to see her back on her big motorbike in that
• 1:23:36
  book. We're three books away from
• 1:23:39
  Chris and. Ross coming along and I do think
• 1:23:43
  Ross is a much better attempt at doing this new ace type
• 1:23:49
  character, this sort of competent good with her fists
• 1:23:54
  and her gum, you know, angry, angst ridden, slightly
• 1:24:01
  problematic character, but just so much more interesting with a
• 1:24:07
  really great back story where they, they, they just tell
• 1:24:11
  better characters with her because she's not just an angry
• 1:24:14
  bitch all the time. She's she's just a really great
• 1:24:18
  person to be around and really engaging.
• 1:24:20
  I don't know. I just feel like they they learn
• 1:24:22
  that you have to go for all this to get Ross and that sense of
• 1:24:26
  humour that Ross has got. Isn't it that kind of cynical?
• 1:24:28
  World where you said that just works so beautifully.
• 1:24:31
  Much better than H says because he doesn't get many gags here.
• 1:24:35
  No, there wasn't too many gags here.
• 1:24:39
  No, this is quite a heavy going book, isn't?
• 1:24:41
  It like there's. There's there's lots of having
• 1:24:46
  said that. This took me two days and I
• 1:24:49
  breezed. Through it.
• 1:24:49
  So, you know, I had a lot of fun reading it.
• 1:24:52
  What is it with me like reading these really dark computer books
• 1:24:55
  and then telling you guys, wow, that was exciting and I had lots
• 1:24:58
  of fun. That was lots of fun, no?
• 1:25:01
  I completely agree. With you, I had lots of fun with
• 1:25:04
  this. Book and found it really
• 1:25:06
  readable. And I think it's that thing of
• 1:25:09
  if you're going to do all these dark, miserable things.
• 1:25:15
  Put. Them in the hands of a good
• 1:25:16
  writer who can who can tie them to a great story and write
• 1:25:20
  really eloquently and succinctly.
• 1:25:24
  Yeah, I think that was just a such a big floor.
• 1:25:27
  Of the new adventures. Of sort of the immaturity of
• 1:25:30
  some of the writers. And the kind of.
• 1:25:32
  Lack of guilt somewhere, not, not a lack of ambition, but you
• 1:25:37
  know, the ambition and the skill level kind of not matching
• 1:25:40
  sometimes. Whereas with Kate Allman it, it
• 1:25:42
  does. We're going to remember most of
• 1:25:44
  these people had never written. Books as well, yeah, before.
• 1:25:47
  So it's like, I know, but like some people were just.
• 1:25:53
  Immediately off. The gate.
• 1:25:55
  Really, really good. The two I I I always think of is
• 1:26:00
  Kate Orman and Lance Park and who.
• 1:26:04
  Their first books were just absolutely fantastic and they
• 1:26:07
  kind of kept the quality going. What's so interesting is I read
• 1:26:11
  and we did have a bit of chat. About this in the in our thread,
• 1:26:16
  I read The Year of Intelligent Tigers, not concurrently, but a
• 1:26:20
  little bit after this. And I do think you're right,
• 1:26:23
  Andrea, and what you said is that those books set piece and
• 1:26:26
  your intelligence and they're doing 2 very different things.
• 1:26:29
  But I could see more maturity in the writing of the year of
• 1:26:35
  intelligent Tigers. And the maturity was in how
• 1:26:38
  simple it was, like she pulled back from all of this over
• 1:26:42
  complication, took a simple idea and just LED into it with
• 1:26:47
  simple, honest emotions from the characters in a way that I just
• 1:26:51
  was so gripped by it and I wasn't.
• 1:26:54
  And there and there wasn't the angst and there wasn't the dream
• 1:26:58
  sequences. That's my issue and all of that.
• 1:27:01
  And I was just like, yeah, she really learnt some lessons going
• 1:27:04
  along. I think The Room with No Doors
• 1:27:06
  is a brilliantly written character piece, like The Year
• 1:27:09
  of Intelligent Tigers as well. Like any writer, I just think
• 1:27:12
  you learn what you're really good at and you ditch what
• 1:27:17
  you're not. And she's clever enough to go
• 1:27:19
  right. I've done that or I'm not good
• 1:27:22
  at that and and just got better and better and better.
• 1:27:25
  What made me sad was when I read that was like, fuck me.
• 1:27:27
  This was just like the second last book she wrote.
• 1:27:30
  Yeah, we've got to read The Dead Star.
• 1:27:32
  I'd love to, you know. Yeah, I'm actually curious to
• 1:27:36
  read her Blake 7 novel. As well.
• 1:27:38
  Oh, I didn't know she'd done one.
• 1:27:40
  Yeah, she's got one. Set in Series 3 called Media.
• 1:27:43
  Sphere or something like that. I haven't.
• 1:27:44
  It's not. It's not bad, I think it reads
• 1:27:47
  more like. Kind of more John's ideas than
• 1:27:50
  hers in a lot of places, but she gets a character again,
• 1:27:53
  beautifully. I'd like us to do Room of No
• 1:27:55
  Doors at some point because. We'd have a really interesting
• 1:27:59
  conversation about that one. I love that book too.
• 1:28:01
  So yeah, I'd love to do that. So oh, I was just about to.
• 1:28:07
  Ask is there anything? Else anyone would like to
• 1:28:09
  mention I'll go first because I have that power.
• 1:28:14
  I'm getting drunk and mad with it.
• 1:28:16
  This is what I want to do with it.
• 1:28:18
  We've created. A.
• 1:28:19
  Monster. And through this podcast, you
• 1:28:25
  shall have that. Power.
• 1:28:28
  I mean, you did come in a. Suit as well.
• 1:28:30
  Come on now. That's right.
• 1:28:35
  So now we all know. Where to punch a Time Lord?
• 1:28:39
  How do we how do we feel about that right here?
• 1:28:41
  And there's like a cluster of a ganglion cluster in his like
• 1:28:46
  solar plexus or something like that.
• 1:28:48
  You can just like smack him on it and the doctor will just
• 1:28:51
  crumple like, well, he'll just, he'll just fold like a.
• 1:28:55
  Lawn chair so. I I liked that made me laugh
• 1:28:59
  because I think at least two people.
• 1:29:01
  Do it to him in this. Episode and this book.
• 1:29:03
  Ace definitely does it. Yeah, and Kitiatu as well,
• 1:29:09
  between your wrestling. Podcast and your Doctor Who Oh
• 1:29:13
  yeah, no, you're the move to. Take.
• 1:29:17
  The doctor out. Yes, I was.
• 1:29:20
  Hoping I'd say Ace and Kitiatu doing.
• 1:29:23
  Suplexes on each other on ship, That would be an awesome
• 1:29:26
  surprise for Luke. You know, we should contact the
• 1:29:28
  WWE. People you know and give them
• 1:29:30
  that move. So he'll be watching it one day
• 1:29:32
  and it'll be a blow, people. Oh my God.
• 1:29:37
  And. Then the commentator is like
• 1:29:39
  it's the. Ganglia, get him in the.
• 1:29:44
  Symbiotic nuclei. We didn't realise he was a time.
• 1:29:50
  Lord my God and. Then he starts regenerating in
• 1:29:53
  the ring. Oh, it's itself, doesn't it?
• 1:29:59
  That was great that. Was freaking awesome.
• 1:30:02
  Why haven't they done that? I'd like to see some wrestling
• 1:30:04
  in my in myself too. That'd be great.
• 1:30:08
  That's the. The.
• 1:30:09
  Perry and Yokanos. Adventures.
• 1:30:12
  Yeah, of course. I think in the novelisation.
• 1:30:15
  She becomes. He.
• 1:30:16
  Becomes a wrestler. And she becomes his manager.
• 1:30:19
  Yes, anyone needs to think. About Brian.
• 1:30:22
  Blessed in a leotard. All right, you see, Bash Gordon.
• 1:30:28
  But A room? Neck.
• 1:30:31
  I always think of him in sneakers in.
• 1:30:34
  Seeing himself and walking back towards a teleporter.
• 1:30:36
  With his. Runners on trainers, whatever.
• 1:30:40
  Couldn't put space shoes. On him, he's like fuck you.
• 1:30:42
  I'm wearing my. Trainers.
• 1:30:43
  This is they're orthopaedic or something, I don't know.
• 1:30:47
  So were. There any other little tidbits
• 1:30:50
  or things that they that you guys liked or didn't like about
• 1:30:53
  set piece? I've got to say the afterword.
• 1:30:56
  How many new? Adventures Do we reckon Sophie
• 1:30:58
  Aldridge have met Big Zero? She had to get in there
• 1:31:05
  somewhere. Didn't.
• 1:31:05
  She OH. Yeah, you know, grubby mitts all
• 1:31:09
  over the New Adventures, all Word in Genesis afterward.
• 1:31:15
  I wonder how she felt about some of the cover.
• 1:31:17
  Art as well. Yeah, no, well, she was for one
• 1:31:21
  of them, basically. Did she first?
• 1:31:22
  Frontier, Yeah, first one to first Frontier I'd love to have
• 1:31:25
  seen. Her face.
• 1:31:26
  Could you just get into this please?
• 1:31:28
  Well, in the photo shoot too. She's fully zipped up.
• 1:31:32
  Yeah, like, like right up here. And I would like.
• 1:31:37
  That that's perfectly fine. But no, this is the 90s and if
• 1:31:40
  you read 90s comics, every woman was.
• 1:31:45
  Yeah, it's. It's one of those embarrassing
• 1:31:47
  things about being a fan of 90s comics, where most mainstream
• 1:31:50
  comics had women with huge beards.
• 1:31:53
  Have we? Have you seen the?
• 1:31:55
  BBB covers. Everyone the sexiest?
• 1:31:59
  Yes, the. I've got.
• 1:32:02
  Covering my. Modesty here.
• 1:32:03
  I mean, it's sort of chased, isn't it?
• 1:32:05
  She's sort of looking. Over her shoulder, but.
• 1:32:08
  It's flashing a bit of collarbone.
• 1:32:10
  Yeah, yeah. Maybe she was into this.
• 1:32:13
  Maybe she's into the. Midriff, no belly button, stored
• 1:32:19
  tits. This looks like the Madame
• 1:32:21
  Tussauds version of New Ice. Fighting an insect I, however,
• 1:32:25
  am not, and you won't be disappointed.
• 1:32:27
  When we do our worst three virgin covers right?
• 1:32:34
  I didn't think we would be because I just think section.
• 1:32:37
  Eisner in that way is just so miserable.
• 1:32:41
  It's it's it's 90s laddishness and it's most extreme.
• 1:32:50
  John's like, no, no, no, I was there at the time, all right.
• 1:32:53
  OK, we were there every time. It's just like, I mean I.
• 1:32:58
  Can't talk? That I've got a bloody.
• 1:33:00
  Calendar here covered in the men naked men of Doctor Who.
• 1:33:07
  I mean, I'm a fucking hypocrite, actually.
• 1:33:09
  You know Maze, Philip. Olivier, I'll show you off Mike
• 1:33:12
  Andrew, all right? Is that the official Philip
• 1:33:18
  Olivier calendar? Because I bet there is.
• 1:33:19
  One. No, that was David Tennant
• 1:33:21
  there. Mark made it for me.
• 1:33:22
  The sexy men of Doctor. Who calendar?
• 1:33:25
  Yeah, he didn't have many to choose from, but.
• 1:33:28
  He can't. William Hartnell, January,
• 1:33:31
  right? William Hartnell in his long
• 1:33:34
  Johns. Yeah, and it's got a.
• 1:33:36
  Talking bubble above him and it says what you need is a.
• 1:33:38
  Jolly good smacked bottle. Imagine if the 2nd Doctor has
• 1:33:47
  said that to Ice Man. It's solar plexus will be
• 1:33:49
  getting a a battering OH. My goodness, did we have a?
• 1:33:58
  Did we have a? Like post, we've just talked
• 1:34:01
  about a book question thing that we we usually do.
• 1:34:04
  Oh yes, we did. Joe just alluded.
• 1:34:07
  To it our most hideous virgin covers.
• 1:34:11
  After we did our favorite ones last time.
• 1:34:13
  And I've got good spectacular examples which you're all going
• 1:34:16
  to disagree with me on. I don't.
• 1:34:21
  And since, all right, well, let's.
• 1:34:23
  Do our top three horrible covers then.
• 1:34:28
  I mean, we are. Literally.
• 1:34:29
  Spoiled for. Choice with the new.
• 1:34:30
  Adventures. Well, we are aren't.
• 1:34:34
  We I think we decided the missing adventures were
• 1:34:36
  actually. Pretty good, didn't we?
• 1:34:37
  Their covers, the design on them is lovely.
• 1:34:40
  Yeah, it's thought. Out perfect.
• 1:34:42
  And yeah, yeah, just when you put this together where it's new
• 1:34:45
  adventures, you come in with the idea of it's a scene.
• 1:34:49
  From an adventure. No, just give me something that
• 1:34:53
  sums. The book up.
• 1:34:54
  It's hit and miss, fair hit and miss.
• 1:34:56
  Is that a fair? Comment What are the new
• 1:34:59
  adventures? Virgin.
• 1:35:02
  'S best depiction of the 7th Doctor on covers.
• 1:35:06
  Cold fusion, but. They got the 8th doctor right on
• 1:35:13
  the 1st on the first try so like.
• 1:35:18
  I mean my. Live covers are on a theme of
• 1:35:20
  things I. Hated about these books?
• 1:35:24
  You're not. Narrowing it down, Joe, Mike as
• 1:35:28
  well. I feel like Joe.
• 1:35:30
  Is the most. Excited.
• 1:35:31
  So let's go. With Joe first, what is your,
• 1:35:34
  what third worst New Adventures cover of all time?
• 1:35:37
  I'm going to go for the obvious one.
• 1:35:39
  I imagine I'm not going. To be the only one, but it is
• 1:35:43
  starring Liza Minnelli in No feature no.
• 1:35:49
  Future Obviously, we've got our sexy.
• 1:35:51
  Vixen the space bitch ace. Down there in her.
• 1:35:53
  Sonny's who that is playing Bernice, but she's got a
• 1:35:57
  terrible haircut. All of their hair like it's
• 1:36:01
  airbrushed. To win within the inch of its
• 1:36:03
  life. And it like all the punk's hair
• 1:36:06
  just looks so fluffy. It's like, do they look?
• 1:36:09
  They look like those troll. Dolls, don't they?
• 1:36:11
  Or something like that. It's just like I just imagined.
• 1:36:15
  Real. Punk rockers, you know, it was
• 1:36:16
  all sort of grease and muck and, you know, grungy.
• 1:36:20
  One of them seems to have a tea cosy on his head or something
• 1:36:23
  over here. Look what's going on there.
• 1:36:26
  It's it's not a pleasant image and it's not a pleasant book.
• 1:36:30
  So yeah, that's my #3 awesome. All right.
• 1:36:35
  John, what about yourself? I will go, I think, with the
• 1:36:39
  highest science. As it is, I, I have been mean
• 1:36:44
  about this book before, but the cover, what's interesting about
• 1:36:48
  the cover, yeah, it's got a bunch of aliens wandering around
• 1:36:50
  in the background and the Doctor's just crouching down
• 1:36:54
  behind a rock, isn't he? Just like it's just.
• 1:36:58
  What's supposed to be exciting about this?
• 1:37:01
  Image What is supposed to draw me in to read this book and
• 1:37:05
  obviously read a book about a doctor hiding like a wuss.
• 1:37:09
  You clearly haven't got up to. Anything behind any rocks, John?
• 1:37:13
  Well, I can't possibly. Not not on the podcast, anyway.
• 1:37:19
  The doctor also, kind of. Looks a little bit like he's
• 1:37:21
  melted. Yes, it's.
• 1:37:23
  Awful, awful. Do you happen to?
• 1:37:25
  Have John, Can we see it? I do, but it's in Oh, don't
• 1:37:29
  worry, don't worry. Look.
• 1:37:31
  I just want to see this melted Dr. Awful.
• 1:37:36
  It's it's really hot on that planet.
• 1:37:38
  So that's that's probably probably.
• 1:37:40
  Why? That is a terrible cover,
• 1:37:41
  though. Yeah, it's awful.
• 1:37:45
  See, The thing is, I like everything.
• 1:37:47
  About it Like the giant. Tank looks cool with the multi
• 1:37:50
  levels. What?
• 1:37:51
  The Chalonians kind of look cool too, but right up most of the
• 1:37:56
  front. Cover though, is the.
• 1:37:58
  Doctor like crashed. Behind the Rock and he.
• 1:38:01
  Looks. Yeah, it's yeah.
• 1:38:03
  What about you? Andrew.
• 1:38:06
  Well, I found it quite. Easy to pick these, but then I
• 1:38:10
  was deliberating on on the number three.
• 1:38:12
  There were there were two that I was weighing up between 1 is the
• 1:38:17
  book we were actually talking about.
• 1:38:19
  Yeah, that piece and I think, I think it's.
• 1:38:22
  Not Andrew. Sorry.
• 1:38:23
  Well, I think of. Of the sexy.
• 1:38:25
  Sexy Ace covers. This is possibly the worst.
• 1:38:31
  It's a really bad likeness of Sophie Aldred.
• 1:38:34
  I don't know what's going on with her hair.
• 1:38:36
  It's a really weird, unnatural pose, which you often get in
• 1:38:41
  sort of fantasy books of just people contorting themselves
• 1:38:45
  into weird shapes to kind of thrust their tits at you while
• 1:38:49
  holding a sword. And it just, you know, Doctor
• 1:38:53
  Who was just never really this. And I know that the new the new
• 1:38:58
  adventures are not like particularly the covers.
• 1:39:00
  They're trying to be sort of sci-fi of that era, which was
• 1:39:05
  the sort of narrative images and often sexy ladies.
• 1:39:08
  And that's what you've got. So, and this is the worst one,
• 1:39:12
  but I'm cheating because I also want to include another one in
• 1:39:16
  my #3 spot because I was weighing up between one Kate
• 1:39:19
  Orman book with a pyramid on the cover and another Kate Orman
• 1:39:23
  book with a pyramid being the left-handed Hummingbird.
• 1:39:27
  Which what? What the fuck is that at?
• 1:39:32
  Least he's not carrying behind a rock.
• 1:39:34
  He's, he's, he's, you know. At least he's he looks like he's
• 1:39:37
  shot his pants. The Doctor.
• 1:39:40
  Is doing this weird contorting? Things sort of like he's.
• 1:39:45
  Trying to thrust his tits at you, Andrew.
• 1:39:48
  Oh my God. He does look like.
• 1:39:51
  He's shot his pants and then you've got I'm talking.
• 1:39:54
  Of tip you've got. This sort.
• 1:39:56
  Of blue God standing next to him but the two figures are not
• 1:40:00
  they're just sort of cutouts they.
• 1:40:02
  Don't really. It's just such a badly composed
• 1:40:06
  image, a really weird choice of how to position your lead
• 1:40:11
  character. Oh God, it's just awful.
• 1:40:15
  It is a better likeness. This is this does look like
• 1:40:18
  Sylvester McCoy shitting his pants, so I'll give it that.
• 1:40:22
  But yeah, it's. Such a shame because it's such a
• 1:40:26
  great book. It's a.
• 1:40:27
  Great book. It's a great book.
• 1:40:29
  Yeah. How dare they put that cover on
• 1:40:32
  it. But I, I.
• 1:40:33
  Think Kate almost covers do get better.
• 1:40:36
  I mean, it's year of intelligent tigers, that eye.
• 1:40:39
  Yeah, beautiful. So Viola SIM, which is one of my
• 1:40:42
  faves. So yeah.
• 1:40:44
  It gets better. Kate walking to Babylon as well,
• 1:40:48
  where she's looking. Up at the Yeah.
• 1:40:50
  That's. Gorgeous too.
• 1:40:51
  Yeah. So Speaking of rock and blue
• 1:40:55
  tits. My my #3 Maybe I should have
• 1:41:02
  made it higher. But that would have been too
• 1:41:04
  easy. Is the pit hey did?
• 1:41:09
  You like the previous book where the doctor was cowering?
• 1:41:11
  Behind a rock? No.
• 1:41:13
  What are you going to love, Doctor?
• 1:41:15
  Laying on the ground unconscious with this old timey.
• 1:41:22
  Guy, was it William Blake? And blueskin lady who's
• 1:41:26
  completely topless riding a dragon.
• 1:41:29
  It's it's fucking terrible. I don't like you.
• 1:41:33
  You're not wrong. Hey, at least you can't even
• 1:41:36
  tell if the likeness is is good. Or not for all you know, like
• 1:41:39
  the Blue Lady or William Blake could have rolled Sylvester over
• 1:41:43
  and then he could have regenerated like Alan Baker.
• 1:41:45
  Like the least he's laying face down so you can't tell.
• 1:41:49
  Has anyone chosen any missing adventures?
• 1:41:52
  Nope. No, Nuvravoy, no.
• 1:41:55
  Wow. The hit rate on.
• 1:41:57
  Those is pretty good. I'd say System Shock is a
• 1:42:00
  terrible. Cover but like.
• 1:42:02
  It's not on my list, so let's get, let's let us get down to
• 1:42:07
  #2. All right, John, what is it?
• 1:42:11
  The second worst? Cover of of Virgin see mine have
• 1:42:16
  already mentioned but. I had to go with the pit as
• 1:42:19
  well. It's, you walk into your
• 1:42:22
  bookshop, you know, Yeah, teenage lad.
• 1:42:26
  And you look at it and you go in.
• 1:42:28
  There's tits on the cover of that Doctor Who book.
• 1:42:30
  It's, it's staring out at you from the, from the shelf in
• 1:42:33
  Smith's. It's like there's a woman with
• 1:42:36
  her tits out for no good reason. You know the demographic.
• 1:42:42
  Of new adventures at this point, don't you?
• 1:42:44
  Come on, it's Rob Holmes. Go for the intelligent team.
• 1:42:47
  New Adventures Bucket. Just go for the hormonal team.
• 1:42:52
  Did it work? Have a bit of William Blake for
• 1:42:54
  the. Pretension.
• 1:42:55
  Did it work? John No.
• 1:42:59
  You didn't sneak off of a copy of the.
• 1:43:00
  Pit when you were younger. I only had a brown paper bag.
• 1:43:09
  But deserves to be on the list twice.
• 1:43:12
  I don't care, I feel bad for. Him that he has none of the
• 1:43:14
  worst book but one of the worst covers as well.
• 1:43:17
  At least Andrew Hunt has like an amazing piece of beautiful art
• 1:43:21
  adorning his one and only book. Well, I think I may have a worse
• 1:43:25
  bit of art than that next. Oh, all right.
• 1:43:32
  John's not. Going to be happy as.
• 1:43:33
  He mentioned. He really likes.
• 1:43:35
  This book but this weird fucking it's a terrible piece of art.
• 1:43:40
  It's warlock. I mean I'm I'm very confused.
• 1:43:45
  By this cover. Mostly by the same artist
• 1:43:47
  bizarrely drawn Fox down. Here.
• 1:43:50
  I mean, that is the worst drawing of a fox I've ever seen
• 1:43:53
  in my life, but you know, it is on brand because it's about
• 1:43:55
  animals. However, there's an enormous
• 1:43:59
  nuclear explosion occurring behind ACE here, and yet somehow
• 1:44:02
  the light source from it which is behind her is reflecting all
• 1:44:06
  over her suit. It's very odd, very confusing,
• 1:44:10
  some weird sort of colourful things occurring up here.
• 1:44:13
  It just looks like a kids drawing.
• 1:44:16
  Exactly. She's positioned her gun just so
• 1:44:18
  you can. Slightly see her cleavage just
• 1:44:21
  popping out yes you can just see the line of her teeth she's.
• 1:44:25
  Got the zip down but I mean it does look like a bad.
• 1:44:28
  Cartoon, doesn't it? It's.
• 1:44:30
  It's very. Odd.
• 1:44:31
  I like the idea of that colour, kind of.
• 1:44:34
  Yeah, just yeah. The positioning of it the.
• 1:44:37
  Composition of it. Lovely, but yeah, the execution.
• 1:44:40
  Why is there a load of fairy lights inside the mushroom?
• 1:44:42
  It is the same cover artist. As set piece it is.
• 1:44:46
  It it's the drugs, the. New adventures, OK.
• 1:44:50
  Well, I'll put that one down then.
• 1:44:55
  All right. So Andrew, what is your second?
• 1:44:58
  Worst. My second worst.
• 1:45:02
  Is so we've talked about the sort of likenesses of the
• 1:45:08
  regular characters on books, and this is probably the worst.
• 1:45:15
  It is white darkness. Oh.
• 1:45:19
  You've got all three. Regulars on this character.
• 1:45:22
  On this cover, you've got the Doctor, Ace and Benny.
• 1:45:24
  And when I first saw this cover, I was like, OK, are these like
• 1:45:28
  sort of monstrous clones of them?
• 1:45:31
  Because they look fucking weird. Like they're disproportionate
• 1:45:36
  and they've got weird. They don't look anything like
• 1:45:39
  you can only tell that they're the characters because they're
• 1:45:41
  wearing the right costumes. And so this is one of the ones
• 1:45:45
  which is by Peter Elson, who is a a great artist, but he's a
• 1:45:49
  sci-fi artist. He's not.
• 1:45:51
  He's not good at likenesses. He's not good at people.
• 1:45:54
  Stop giving him covers that have people on them.
• 1:45:57
  What played played to people's strengths?
• 1:46:00
  He did the TARDIS. He did.
• 1:46:03
  He did Witch Mark, which was all of our favorite cover last time.
• 1:46:06
  He can do beautiful work. Don't make him try and paint
• 1:46:09
  Sylvester McCoy and give him a week to do it or whatever
• 1:46:13
  they've done because it's clearly looks like a rushed
• 1:46:15
  piece of work. All of the kind of effort has
• 1:46:18
  gone into this zombie. The zombie looks great, but our
• 1:46:21
  regular characters, who you know, we want to see what they
• 1:46:26
  look like, we want. To be like, yeah, it's.
• 1:46:28
  It's the Doctor, Benny and Ace having a great new adventure.
• 1:46:31
  It's like who are these freaks and what is wrong with them?
• 1:46:35
  But in the effort has gone into the zombies.
• 1:46:38
  It's not a lie I expected to hear tonight, but here we are.
• 1:46:46
  Oh, I feel like we were. In some ways working.
• 1:46:49
  Our way backwards in in with some of these terrible book
• 1:46:52
  covers because my number two pick is is Parasite by Jim
• 1:46:58
  Mortimer, which is the book right before Warlocks.
• 1:47:01
  Why don't you like it? I don't know.
• 1:47:05
  What the hell I'm. Really, really looking at it's,
• 1:47:10
  it's who's it's got Benny. On the cover wearing.
• 1:47:14
  A Benny like. Yes, it's got.
• 1:47:19
  This. Weird.
• 1:47:20
  Weird. Monkey and.
• 1:47:21
  Weird basket ship thing I just don't I think it's a mess I
• 1:47:25
  think it's way too messy there's way too much on it.
• 1:47:28
  I and I don't like it It's it's not for me and it kind of
• 1:47:35
  reflects the book therein as well so it's you can judge a
• 1:47:38
  book by a cover in in this instance I'll allow it yeah.
• 1:47:41
  I don't, I don't like the cover of Parasite.
• 1:47:43
  It's it. It doesn't feel like I'm.
• 1:47:47
  I'm looking at it and. Seeing like a coherent part of
• 1:47:50
  the book. It, it feels like a whole bunch
• 1:47:53
  of stuff written on it. And the planets look like
• 1:47:56
  they're drawn so close together. It's like when the Liberator
• 1:47:59
  goes past and you're just like, all that stuff's not that close
• 1:48:03
  together. It's it's kind of weird, you
• 1:48:05
  know, You know, that kind, those kind of visuals.
• 1:48:07
  Yeah. It's just it feel like a mess.
• 1:48:09
  I don't. That was, yeah, my number.
• 1:48:13
  Two. Oh yeah, usually someone.
• 1:48:14
  Else cuts in and I'm like, no, like you're hosting this, keep
• 1:48:19
  going. This is the best bit, the number
• 1:48:21
  ones. All right.
• 1:48:23
  And they really are number ones in this.
• 1:48:28
  You wait till. We get to the BBC Ones all.
• 1:48:30
  Right. You know what only.
• 1:48:34
  Just was brought to my attention.
• 1:48:35
  The other day that. The version version of Salad of
• 1:48:39
  the 2nd Doctor on the Murder game.
• 1:48:41
  It's actually Salamander. They they got the wrong photo of
• 1:48:44
  Trout and I I'd never noticed that before and now I can't
• 1:48:47
  Unsee it. And it's on the front cover of
• 1:48:49
  The Three Doctors. The target novelist as well.
• 1:48:51
  This. B reprint.
• 1:48:53
  Oh, you're right too. Yeah, OK.
• 1:48:57
  That's awesome. But all right, John, what?
• 1:49:00
  Is your least favorite version cover?
• 1:49:03
  I was, I was. I was obviously thinking no.
• 1:49:06
  Future. Because let's think it's
• 1:49:07
  terrible, but something which is kind of on equally on a par with
• 1:49:10
  the ugliest of it. Let's go for Cat's cradle
• 1:49:13
  warhead, shall we? Oh, is that where?
• 1:49:17
  She's holding the cat. She's holding the cat in one
• 1:49:20
  arm. She's got a gun in there.
• 1:49:22
  She's firing a gun at something on the screen.
• 1:49:24
  Gun. Yeah, Ace with a gun.
• 1:49:26
  Oh, look, lads, this is what the range is all about.
• 1:49:29
  Too deep and too, too broad. Too deep for the small screen.
• 1:49:32
  No, it's, it's just you're all your fantasies come true at
• 1:49:35
  once. Woman with a cat and a gun and
• 1:49:38
  it's got this. Yeah, well, look behind it.
• 1:49:42
  It's just crap, crap urban landscape.
• 1:49:44
  It's not even kind of blade runnery, though that would have
• 1:49:47
  been a bit little bit cooler. It's just it's rundown crap
• 1:49:50
  skyscraper and a a weird. Kind of slug of a.
• 1:49:56
  Ship there? That's just not very interesting
• 1:49:59
  visually either. It's kind of really kind of
• 1:50:02
  boringly. Badly.
• 1:50:03
  Composed and the likeness is just terrible.
• 1:50:08
  It's awful. It's OK, she's wearing Asus
• 1:50:10
  clothes, but again, melty face. Job.
• 1:50:16
  If you squint your eyes. And turn the.
• 1:50:19
  Lights off. I mean, do you see her?
• 1:50:23
  Face in Warlock. I think, come on, that's just
• 1:50:27
  the lighting because of the nuclear.
• 1:50:28
  Explosion. It's.
• 1:50:29
  It's Betty in no future. I mean, come.
• 1:50:34
  On although they can't do these. Science fiction ones because I
• 1:50:36
  think transit. Is a great cover.
• 1:50:39
  Yeah, again, that. That's all clean lines, isn't
• 1:50:41
  it? As well.
• 1:50:42
  Oh, and Time Worm. No Cat's Cradle, Times,
• 1:50:48
  Crucible. I think that's a, you know, a
• 1:50:50
  big worm coming up. That's quite a nice science
• 1:50:52
  fiction cover. Yeah, but Ace looks kind of bad
• 1:50:54
  on that too. I I I also say.
• 1:50:57
  So what about you Joe? What is your number one all time
• 1:51:01
  worst virgin cover? Yeah, no one would be expecting
• 1:51:03
  this and people will disagree. With me because.
• 1:51:06
  For once in this list, it is actually a very well drawn
• 1:51:10
  cover. The likenesses are bang on.
• 1:51:13
  It doesn't have any tits on it because that would be very
• 1:51:17
  inappropriate for this cover, but it does have a fucking
• 1:51:21
  massive gun on it. It's Head Games by Steve Lyons
• 1:51:26
  and it sums up everything I hate.
• 1:51:29
  About these? Fucking books.
• 1:51:31
  Poor male screaming. In the corner of the.
• 1:51:34
  TARDIS as the Doctor points an enormous machine gun in her
• 1:51:38
  face. I mean, that's Doctor Who.
• 1:51:42
  Not the Doctor. What the hell is going on in
• 1:51:45
  this range of books, I mean. It it set out to shock and it
• 1:51:50
  does. And it is a very good like this
• 1:51:53
  of McCoy and of Bonnie Langford, Mel is facing in a weird
• 1:51:58
  direction. He's just.
• 1:51:59
  Literally traced the publicity photo in.
• 1:52:02
  I'm looking at entirely the wrong direction, I mean.
• 1:52:05
  It. Should be my.
• 1:52:05
  Number one in the pro because. She's wearing the time in the
• 1:52:07
  Ronnie costume. But yeah, it's just very
• 1:52:11
  unpleasant, like a lot of these books.
• 1:52:13
  So that's my number one. I just look at it and I sort of
• 1:52:16
  recoil like, oh God, how did we get here?
• 1:52:19
  I've said that it does look good, yeah.
• 1:52:23
  I mean. I I I haven't read it for.
• 1:52:25
  For a while, but I do have it on my shelf.
• 1:52:28
  The head games. I don't like it.
• 1:52:29
  Please God, can we cover head games we've.
• 1:52:32
  Got the best time talking about that one.
• 1:52:34
  A book that literally deconstructs and criticizes the
• 1:52:38
  new adventures. Please, please no, no, I just
• 1:52:42
  leave. Lies.
• 1:52:44
  Put it on the list. Put it on the list.
• 1:52:47
  Right, all right. I'm.
• 1:52:49
  Excited Andrew, what is your least favorite my?
• 1:52:52
  Least favorite? Well, I feel a little bit mean
• 1:52:54
  doing. This one, but it's terrible,
• 1:52:55
  though. I don't.
• 1:52:58
  Well, that's so. The New Adventures is famous for
• 1:53:02
  giving writers their first shot at writing a book.
• 1:53:06
  This book, they also gave the writer the chance of
• 1:53:10
  illustrating the cover as well, and it was a terrible decision.
• 1:53:15
  It is Shadow Mind written by Christopher Bullis with art by
• 1:53:20
  Christopher Bullis, and it is just not a competent piece of
• 1:53:25
  work. This is not a piece of
• 1:53:27
  professional artwork. This should not even be on the
• 1:53:30
  cover of a fanzine. It's why, like I thought you
• 1:53:35
  said, there weren't any tits on it.
• 1:53:37
  Tits right? There, it's got space tits.
• 1:53:40
  Firing into the sky. It's got weirdly
• 1:53:44
  disproportionate humans with these massive heads on tiny
• 1:53:48
  bodies. I think it's meant to be Benny,
• 1:53:50
  but I only know that because of the earrings.
• 1:53:52
  And, yeah, just when, maybe when the sketch came in, they should
• 1:53:58
  have been like, you know what, Chris?
• 1:53:59
  Like you're getting the book, but we're going to let someone
• 1:54:02
  else do the cover. Yeah, it's.
• 1:54:08
  It's the worst. There's only one piece of art
• 1:54:12
  adorning. A novel that's worse than that,
• 1:54:16
  and that is The Prison in Space as written by Joe Ford, age 15,
• 1:54:20
  hand drawn cover. And when we're doing the worst
• 1:54:23
  peeps, I'm going to dig it out because I've got it here
• 1:54:25
  somewhere and it is the most fucking.
• 1:54:28
  God awful thing you've. Ever seen in your life?
• 1:54:32
  Does it have? Laser tits firing into the.
• 1:54:37
  No, but it. Has a spaceship in the shape.
• 1:54:40
  Of a hexagon which I tried to make 3D with sort of flames
• 1:54:43
  coming out of the back and a huge skull with a spike for his
• 1:54:48
  eye. It's just.
• 1:54:50
  Terrible, but so we. You and you adventures reader at
• 1:54:54
  this point. Jokes.
• 1:54:55
  It sounds a very new adventures cover a prison in space.
• 1:54:59
  There's nothing to do with Dick. Sharples it was.
• 1:55:01
  I literally cribbed. I ripped off the whole Avengers
• 1:55:03
  of our Ross, the whole thing, dialogue, ideas, the works.
• 1:55:07
  I've got AB plus very imaginative, he said.
• 1:55:11
  I'll tell Philip Martin. Oh no.
• 1:55:13
  I won't. He's dead, but.
• 1:55:15
  He's fine. He doesn't really appreciate the
• 1:55:16
  fool. Oh.
• 1:55:21
  Here we go, John. I kind of wish.
• 1:55:23
  I had done mine second last now, because that that was that was
• 1:55:27
  an amazing answer. Mine mine is like time worm
• 1:55:30
  Apocalypse by Nigel Robinson. Well, he wrote the book.
• 1:55:34
  He I don't think he did the cover like Christopher Willis
• 1:55:36
  did Shadow Mind. The cover is awful.
• 1:55:38
  It's just like this giant ugly looking worm.
• 1:55:41
  But the the worm, all of the worm is purple.
• 1:55:44
  Like does it have an eye? Yeah.
• 1:55:47
  What colour is it? Purple?
• 1:55:49
  What colour is it? Is it's teeth?
• 1:55:51
  Yeah, yeah, it's the purple. That's everything, the whole
• 1:55:54
  thing. Like it's hard to, you can make
• 1:55:57
  our details because there is shading and stuff, but it's all
• 1:56:00
  one colour. Couldn't make this like all
• 1:56:02
  sorts of different colours. There's this weird blue person
• 1:56:05
  in in weird rags and. Ice.
• 1:56:07
  Looking very very very uninterested in being in this
• 1:56:11
  book on the cover as well. Put her back to it like she's
• 1:56:15
  walking away from explosion. You know she doesn't.
• 1:56:17
  Care. Yeah.
• 1:56:23
  It's. It's awful.
• 1:56:24
  It's, it's it's, yeah. I don't like it.
• 1:56:27
  It's it's terrible. I I just don't like the worm.
• 1:56:30
  I it it's not even the time worm.
• 1:56:33
  What is that? Is it the?
• 1:56:37
  Apocalypse. That's the apocalypse, not the
• 1:56:39
  time I. Don't know I I've only read that
• 1:56:41
  book once. That was that was that was fine.
• 1:56:44
  That was enough for me. So yes, time, worms, worm, worm
• 1:56:48
  apocalypse. Is my.
• 1:56:51
  My least favorite cover. So there you go.
• 1:56:53
  But she's got her jacket on, she ain't got her tits out.
• 1:56:55
  And that one has she? No, the worm does.
• 1:57:01
  Worm. Tits.
• 1:57:03
  My colour the worm's tits are. I'll check it out.
• 1:57:08
  Afterwards, I didn't expect to have so much.
• 1:57:12
  To talk about breasts. On this On this conversation.
• 1:57:15
  It's been. Lovely.
• 1:57:16
  I like that we are covering a new adventure, you know.
• 1:57:19
  This is what happens when I host the.
• 1:57:21
  Podcast Suddenly it's like boom time.
• 1:57:25
  This is the. Most heterosexual hamster A
• 1:57:28
  blood pen knife. Ever, Andrew, will you make?
• 1:57:33
  At least one cock joke before we go, please.
• 1:57:36
  Well, we've we've spoken about. Philip Olivier's.
• 1:57:39
  So I think it's it's balanced it out and you just said something
• 1:57:44
  about. Lots of worms didn't.
• 1:57:45
  You did. Did talk about the bum touching
• 1:57:48
  dream. Too.
• 1:57:49
  So we we we got a. Yeah, we did so.
• 1:57:53
  I think for everyone. That's right, we could be
• 1:57:55
  covering all the bases. Salivating to know what?
• 1:57:57
  John's last one is though. Oh well.
• 1:58:00
  I've done my last one, have you? Yeah, yeah.
• 1:58:03
  Have I missed one? What's your last one?
• 1:58:07
  Because I I did. I had I.
• 1:58:09
  Had a pen. In there.
• 1:58:10
  My last one. Was it was Warhead?
• 1:58:14
  Well, I'm so, so sorry. I work in retail at.
• 1:58:16
  Christmas, my brain starting gear.
• 1:58:17
  Oh yeah. Yeah, it was Warhead.
• 1:58:19
  It was Warhead. Yeah, because your second.
• 1:58:21
  One was the pit my throat. Yeah.
• 1:58:23
  I, I we've all done it. We made a second guess
• 1:58:25
  ourselves. I mean, we didn't.
• 1:58:26
  Double up on anything one just the.
• 1:58:29
  One, we both had the pit, Yeah, I mean, oh.
• 1:58:31
  Yeah, well, fair. Well, there's there's.
• 1:58:33
  So much to choose from. Spoiled for choice?
• 1:58:36
  Well. We I was the tits out.
• 1:58:38
  I was Luke. I was.
• 1:58:39
  Going to ask us a bonus. Question I just, I'm really
• 1:58:41
  curious. What's your preference on it?
• 1:58:44
  Is it the the black sheep approach or the virgin sort of
• 1:58:50
  art approach? Where's your heart?
• 1:58:53
  I think. I think both can work, but I
• 1:58:59
  think I think bad art is more than likely not to make you want
• 1:59:04
  to pick a book. Up unless you're.
• 1:59:05
  Already a regular reader of it or something like that, I don't
• 1:59:07
  know. People say you can't judge a
• 1:59:10
  book by any cover but. If you're a doctor.
• 1:59:12
  Who fan? And you're like, is that
• 1:59:13
  supposed to be ace? I'll pass.
• 1:59:17
  At least with black sheep, I guess they used photo
• 1:59:20
  likenesses. I guess there's less chance of
• 1:59:22
  them messing it up, but they've got some absolute garbage there
• 1:59:25
  too. I got I.
• 1:59:26
  Got a copy? Of cold heart the other day.
• 1:59:29
  Don't tell me that isn't a space vagina or a bum hole.
• 1:59:31
  It's one of those. Like it's the space, something
• 1:59:35
  like that. It's an.
• 1:59:35
  Orifice. Is there a part?
• 1:59:39
  Of the human body we haven't covered.
• 1:59:41
  Tonight I thought it was me that made this filthy.
• 1:59:49
  But I've. Not had to question that.
• 1:59:51
  I would say the Missing adventures have the best covers.
• 1:59:54
  In all of the ranges. All of them, yeah.
• 1:59:57
  I think the thing that makes me sad about I do like a.
• 2:00:00
  Lot of the black. Sheep ones, but I like seeing
• 2:00:02
  the characters and they it's like we don't really have any
• 2:00:06
  visuals of the new the BDA companions apart from like the
• 2:00:12
  early stuff that came out of Sam.
• 2:00:14
  So it feels like they feel a bit more intangible than the New
• 2:00:18
  Adventures characters, where they did kind of well, they
• 2:00:21
  attempted to make them look consistent.
• 2:00:23
  From book to. Book so you had more of a sense
• 2:00:26
  of, you know what Benny looked like and what Roz looked like.
• 2:00:29
  Chris different face every time he was on book, but at least you
• 2:00:33
  know what? What his uniform look like I
• 2:00:35
  like. Playing the game of Who's
• 2:00:37
  playing Benny this? Week you know who's depending on
• 2:00:40
  what's right is Emma Thompson. No, it's Liza Minnelli.
• 2:00:45
  I do think though with. With.
• 2:00:47
  Artist covers. You're going.
• 2:00:48
  To get different much more variety because if I have to see
• 2:00:52
  this fucking photos big. Finish does this a lot too.
• 2:00:57
  I'm like, I'm sick of that same Peter Davidson photo from the
• 2:01:01
  visitation on the on on a cover. You know what I mean?
• 2:01:03
  Like you've not seen. Now they can't use the McGann
• 2:01:06
  images from the TV. Movie them to mock up their own
• 2:01:08
  Paul McGann now and it's horrible.
• 2:01:12
  That's idiots, Frank and Paul. I'd say well, he did travel
• 2:01:18
  with. Mary Shelley.
• 2:01:19
  So totally worse. Hey, Frank and.
• 2:01:23
  Paul. I'll have to message more.
• 2:01:25
  About like, I reckon the. The best of the virgins.
• 2:01:30
  Are. Probably the best covers because
• 2:01:32
  they're really great. Like Witch Mark A really.
• 2:01:35
  That is a piece of art, you know, that I would have on my
• 2:01:37
  wall. But the worst of the Virgin is
• 2:01:42
  truly the worst cover art you've ever seen in anything.
• 2:01:47
  And black sheep somewhere in the middle.
• 2:01:48
  But black sheep can do, like you said, really, really striking
• 2:01:54
  conceptual imagery. Yeah.
• 2:01:57
  And what black sheep, when it's bad, is boring?
• 2:02:00
  The New Adventures covers when they're bad are embarrassing.
• 2:02:04
  Well, no, they're hilarious. John.
• 2:02:08
  If I remember, it's where the authors.
• 2:02:11
  Learned to ask what they wanted from black sheep rather than
• 2:02:14
  just have the this circle. There's a face, stick it on
• 2:02:18
  there, but yeah, I think. That's exactly right.
• 2:02:23
  The worst black sheep is. Is the dullest it's dull.
• 2:02:27
  It's, you know, it's the early days of Photoshop dull.
• 2:02:30
  It's a oh, we've got a new toy, but then by the.
• 2:02:33
  Time. You you as the range goes on.
• 2:02:36
  The authors have learned to kind of work out how to get the best
• 2:02:39
  at. I think we've mentioned it
• 2:02:41
  before, the year of intelligent tigers, just that people that
• 2:02:45
  that subtle. Image in the in that.
• 2:02:47
  Eye it's oh, it's good end of mad dogs and Englishmen.
• 2:02:51
  I don't think even the adventurer attempted that.
• 2:02:53
  My God, that that stuck out on the.
• 2:02:57
  Shelves when you went into. Oh yeah?
• 2:03:00
  Oh yeah. How was it?
• 2:03:01
  Weird. Game disco in hope.
• 2:03:03
  Yeah. What very odd cover that.
• 2:03:06
  Isn't it those three people? Standing there in the disco,
• 2:03:08
  yeah, but I think it's more striking.
• 2:03:11
  I just like a strong. Set, yeah, I like a strong
• 2:03:14
  central image and I think there's probably the newer bench
• 2:03:16
  covers. Sometimes they do lack that lack
• 2:03:19
  of focus on that. It's just that that.
• 2:03:23
  We need a scene from the book. Oh, it's just a scene from the
• 2:03:26
  book. It's a doctor hiding behind a
• 2:03:27
  pile of rocks. Great.
• 2:03:29
  I mean, my number one really was bullshit because that really.
• 2:03:32
  Is a strong. Central image, isn't it?
• 2:03:34
  I had the doctor holding up a gun to mail, but if only they
• 2:03:38
  were like kind of facing. Each other in a.
• 2:03:40
  Way like at least like I like the idea of the doctors looking
• 2:03:43
  at it over his shoulders is to say like what do you make?
• 2:03:46
  What are you going to do about it?
• 2:03:48
  But his body need needs to be kind of facing Mel.
• 2:03:52
  Mel needs to be kind of closer in Yeah, it's the perspectives
• 2:03:56
  off. Plus the console looks tiny and
• 2:03:58
  the round horse it's. All very strange.
• 2:04:00
  Joe muted himself and and and said something.
• 2:04:02
  It was. That I mute myself.
• 2:04:05
  I'm still here. You are now, but you held up the
• 2:04:08
  book and your your. Mouth moved and no sound escaped
• 2:04:12
  your. It's a preferable option, Luke.
• 2:04:16
  There is. I think there's one last.
• 2:04:17
  Question you need to. Ask.
• 2:04:19
  I do I Oh yes, yes, there. Is all right.
• 2:04:24
  OK, Andrew, what are the what are we doing next?
• 2:04:29
  Oh, I was like shit, I'm on the spot once.
• 2:04:32
  Again. Next time we are going back.
• 2:04:39
  Into the mists of history to read 2 not one but two
• 2:04:45
  historical classics. We are reading The Romans by
• 2:04:48
  Donald Cotton and The Myth Makers by Donald Cotton.
• 2:04:52
  So yeah, a fully historic I'm talking absolute crap.
• 2:04:57
  I don't know what I'm saying. It's too good one.
• 2:05:03
  It's almost midnight, please. Everyone be kind with.
• 2:05:05
  Him. Yes, and.
• 2:05:08
  I I appreciate everyone doing this.
• 2:05:11
  I got to. Say this at least on the
• 2:05:12
  recording that as we did this everyone War Games in Colour is
• 2:05:17
  airing in in in the UK. So I do appreciate the three of
• 2:05:22
  you. I mean, if we've been on this
• 2:05:25
  whole book, so. Like it wouldn't have happened.
• 2:05:27
  Like I understand this also. Would have been.
• 2:05:28
  Christmas Day, but Internet has got into a meltdown between the
• 2:05:33
  people. That just love the innovations
• 2:05:36
  Annie and Levine the. Music that cuts the edits the
• 2:05:43
  colour all. Of it outrageous, Ian will be
• 2:05:48
  along to. Animate to animate.
• 2:05:50
  It with his. AI project.
• 2:05:51
  To suit how it should be seen. Oh, never change, Ian.
• 2:05:55
  No. I'd love it if he colourifies
• 2:05:58
  it. Himself.
• 2:05:58
  And it turns out he's he's he's. Actually colour blind or
• 2:06:01
  something. I mean, look, would you like to
• 2:06:03
  see us out in a suitably? Set piece way.
• 2:06:06
  Put a gun in our face and shoot us or something.
• 2:06:08
  No, but I also. But I do want to.
• 2:06:11
  Say that between now and the next time I recalled, I hope
• 2:06:16
  flowers of pain do not blossom. In any of your.
• 2:06:19
  Chests. It's just flowers of love and
• 2:06:22
  Christmas and New Year's and we all have a fucking awesome time.
• 2:06:26
  We didn't talk about blossoming flowers, but Kate fucking loves
• 2:06:30
  gardening. I mean, you had to.
• 2:06:33
  Get one more chess reference in. Didn't you?
• 2:06:39
  Shall I cut it there? Yeah.