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Hamster Book Club - The Crooked World (Redux) by Steve Lyons featuring Luke Sims-Jenkins, Jon Arnold & Andrew Batty · A Hamster With a Blunt Penknife - a Doctor Who Commentary podcast

• 0:06
  Gloomy Forest was living up to its name.
• 0:09
  Almost as soon as the spook wagon had crossed its threshold,
• 0:13
  its driver, Mike Leader, was trying out a new shortcut.
• 0:17
  The sky had darkened. At first, Angie had put this
• 0:21
  down to the thick canopy of leaves above her.
• 0:24
  Then she realised that without any warning, storm clouds had
• 0:27
  gathered. There was no rain, but
• 0:30
  intermittent forks of lightning lit the darkness, followed by
• 0:34
  ominous rolls of Thunder. The black wisdom trees formed
• 0:38
  ghoulish silhouettes as if they were reaching out with sharp
• 0:41
  talons. A mile or so down the winding
• 0:44
  Rd. the van had broken down. The cause of its malaise are
• 0:47
  known. Mike, a tall, blonde, handsome
• 0:51
  19 year old who dressed older, had looked under its bonnet, and
• 0:55
  Angie hadn't been able to resist peering over his shoulder.
• 0:58
  The van, she had been surprised to see, had an engine, or at
• 1:02
  least an approximation of one. For all she knew, it could have
• 1:05
  been a lump of scrap metal. Well, gang, Mike had said, it
• 1:09
  looks like we're going to have to find a garage.
• 1:12
  You mean we've got to walk through this spooky old forest?
• 1:16
  The skinny, nervous Tim Coward had wailed on foot.
• 1:20
  Like, what if we run into a ghost?
• 1:24
  Oh, Tim, the dumpy Thelma brains have groaned, huge eyes blinking
• 1:29
  through the lenses of her thick framed glasses.
• 1:32
  How many times do I have to explain to you that free
• 1:35
  floating spectral manifestations cannot exist in the rational
• 1:39
  world? Still, perhaps Tim's got a
• 1:42
  point, the group's slender redhead Harmony Looker had said.
• 1:47
  Perhaps somebody ought to stay to look after the van.
• 1:49
  It's got all our instruments inside.
• 1:53
  Angie had been left out of the ensuing discussion and
• 1:56
  preoccupied with her own thoughts, she hadn't followed it
• 1:58
  too closely. She wasn't sure how it had come
• 2:02
  to be that Mike, Thelma, and Harmony had all got to stay in
• 2:05
  the warmth and relative safety of their vehicle while a
• 2:08
  reluctant Tim had headed into the dark forest with only his
• 2:11
  pet dog for company. What should we do until Tim and
• 2:15
  Fearless come back? Mike asked.
• 2:17
  Harmony. I don't know, Shrugged Mike, and
• 2:20
  he and the two girls stared through the windscreen,
• 2:23
  occasionally blinking but otherwise motionless.
• 2:27
  Angie paced restlessly outside, wrapping her arms about herself
• 2:31
  to stave off a chill wind and wondering if she should have
• 2:34
  gone with Tim Coward after all. At least then she would have
• 2:38
  been doing something. When first she had flagged down
• 2:41
  the spookwagon and met the Skeleton Crew, a clean cut
• 2:45
  teenage rock band with a shaggy canine mascot, she had thought
• 2:49
  they seemed fairly normal. She was in danger of revising
• 2:53
  that opinion. Then Tim returned, breaking
• 2:57
  through the trees at a rum, his hair standing on end, his Bony
• 3:01
  arms waving frantically, his dog at his heels.
• 3:05
  His friends jerked into action, leaping from the van to greet
• 3:07
  him, Mike shouting a concerned. What's wrong, you guys, we ran
• 3:13
  into a ghost, Stammered Tim through chattering teeth.
• 3:17
  He pointed vaguely back the way he had come.
• 3:20
  Then he and Fearless dived beneath the spook wagon.
• 3:23
  Although they're shaking legs and Fearless, his stumpy tail
• 3:26
  remained visible. Thelma folded her arms and
• 3:29
  smiled indulgently. Oh, don't be ridiculous, you 2.
• 3:34
  I already told you there's no such thing as.
• 3:38
  A. Ghost gasped Harmony as a
• 3:41
  bizarre apparition came stumbling towards them.
• 3:45
  You've got to be kidding, said Angie, joining the others to get
• 3:48
  a better look. I believe I may be forced to
• 3:51
  reconsider my objections. Well, Thelma?
• 3:55
  Mike cried. Let's get dado.
• 3:58
  It's a man with a luminous green sheet over his head, said Angie.
• 4:02
  But Mike, Thelma and Harmony had already turned and, well, not
• 4:05
  fled exactly. Not yet.
• 4:08
  Their feet were peddling the air with insane speed, but they
• 4:11
  didn't move forwards. It's got eye holes, she said.
• 4:15
  And look, you can see one of his shoes.
• 4:18
  The trio gained traction and shot away as one as the ghost
• 4:22
  Lombard closer. It came to a halt as it saw
• 4:25
  Angie and they regarded each other with mutual suspicion.
• 4:30
  The ghost raised its arms and tried an experimental.
• 4:37
  Oh please. Hamster Book Club, The Doctor
• 4:53
  Who Novel Review Podcast with Joe Ford, Andrew Batty, Luke
• 4:58
  Sims Jenkins and John Arnold. The Crooked World by Steve
• 5:17
  Lyons. Welcome back to the Hamster Book
• 5:36
  Club. Now, if you think that you are
• 5:39
  seeing things in your podcast catcher today, you may notice
• 5:42
  that the book being spoken about is The Crooked World by Steve
• 5:47
  Lyons. What's this?
• 5:48
  The Crooked World by Steve Lyons has already been covered by the
• 5:51
  Hamster Book Club, by another book club that we're we're
• 5:54
  grateful enough to appreciate its riches and it's great comedy
• 5:59
  and it's startling characterization.
• 6:03
  So today another book club who absolutely are there for it are
• 6:07
  going to take it up. No, the the reason this is being
• 6:10
  done is, is just to get fresh perspectives on a book that's
• 6:13
  already been covered and to see if we can drag some new stuff
• 6:16
  out of it. And I'm sure we will and.
• 6:20
  Like normal hamster, isn't it? Yeah.
• 6:23
  It'll go on. If you go on twice.
• 6:25
  It'll be being done again in a year, don't worry.
• 6:27
  Like well. Who?
• 6:30
  I hear you ask is going to ring new things out of the Crooked
• 6:33
  World by Steve Lyons. I have with me today 3 cartoon
• 6:37
  experts with me, Mr. Andrew Batty.
• 6:42
  Hello, Andrew. Hello.
• 6:44
  I'm a big cartoon fan. Are you?
• 6:47
  Yeah. Your favorite?
• 6:49
  Is in this book I feel I feel qualified.
• 6:52
  If you was to put on an animated show tonight after this episode
• 6:57
  recorded, what would you actually put on?
• 7:00
  Oh that is a good question, thank you.
• 7:03
  Oh, the first one that sprung to mind was the Animals of
• 7:06
  Farthingwood, because apparently I just want to experience like
• 7:13
  the most extreme sad emotions in the world.
• 7:17
  You won't be. Disappointed with this book then
• 7:20
  Mr. John Arnold. Hello, John.
• 7:23
  Hello. And which animated TV show are
• 7:27
  you watching tonight? Oh.
• 7:28
  I'm just going to stick on the classics.
• 7:29
  You know, Road Runner, Road Runner, Wile E Coyote, Me.
• 7:33
  Maybe. And last but never least, the
• 7:38
  Tegan lover himself. Sorry, I'll always introduce you
• 7:41
  as that. That's all right.
• 7:43
  Mr. Luke Sims Jenkins. Hello, Luke.
• 7:46
  Hello, I would I'd put on some Scooby-doo, mostly some episodes
• 7:51
  that don't have fucking Scrappy in them.
• 7:56
  Oh, justice for Scrappy. You won't be disappointed by
• 7:59
  are. There any Australian cartoons
• 8:06
  that we wouldn't have seen that were like Bus 6?
• 8:09
  I don't know man. You might have heard of Blinky
• 8:11
  Bill, maybe? Never heard of it.
• 8:13
  No, no. What's that about?
• 8:16
  So to answer your question, no Blinky Bill is just this little
• 8:20
  animated koala. To be honest, you could make any
• 8:23
  shit up. Oh yeah, it's about a man with a
• 8:28
  horse on him. There is, there is mileage in
• 8:34
  that, you know, Or at least we're getting some fucking
• 8:36
  mileage out of that joke. You know, I'd put on Bob's
• 8:41
  Burgers because I'm currently watching series 2 of Bob's
• 8:44
  Burgers and I'll tell you what, it's one of the funniest shows
• 8:47
  I've ever watched it. Just gets better as well.
• 8:50
  Oh, really? The early series is not as good
• 8:53
  as. One was good, but two, he's been
• 8:55
  amazing. So I mean, my belly laughs are
• 8:58
  being complained about and the characters are so nice.
• 9:02
  Oh. They they just.
• 9:03
  Look, you know, don't you love the mum?
• 9:05
  Oh, Barbie, the sheets. Great.
• 9:09
  Well, look guys, before we talk about the crooked world, I would
• 9:12
  like to ask you. I thought the question posed
• 9:16
  about an hour ago, as usual, was what do you prefer?
• 9:20
  Do you prefer these sort of quirky sidesteps or is
• 9:24
  traditional doctor basically trad or rad?
• 9:27
  What is your who to use 90s terms?
• 9:30
  John Obviously massive in the 90s on records.
• 9:34
  Doctor Who you know, giving many authors mental breakdowns.
• 9:39
  Can you please explain the terms rad and trad please?
• 9:41
  Yeah. Traditional was more Doctor Who,
• 9:44
  like your mum used to make it seeks to emulate what you saw on
• 9:48
  TV. So it's just like almost a
• 9:50
  Terran sticks transcription to the page as close as possible.
• 9:54
  Rad it wanted they wanted to stretch Doctor.
• 9:57
  You know, it's the kind of thing you had starting in time where
• 10:00
  revelation and moving on from that where they wanted to make
• 10:03
  doctor this literary thing where we want to push what you could
• 10:07
  do with doctor. What you know, put the doctor
• 10:09
  into place is he wouldn't go normally.
• 10:12
  You know the the AIDS metaphor, for instance, in 1111 war that
• 10:18
  that big alternative is in blood heat.
• 10:20
  You know, the stuff that too big and too deep for the small
• 10:23
  screen. And well, I mean, and I'm sure
• 10:27
  all of us like both of those things.
• 10:29
  Like we love traditional Doctor Who because we're Doctor Who
• 10:32
  fans and we love radical Doctor Who because we love exploring
• 10:36
  the books of what they can do. But what would be your
• 10:38
  preference? Like, you know, if you were
• 10:39
  going to pick one off the shelf, what would what would you sort
• 10:41
  go towards first? Actually, you were getting jobs.
• 10:46
  Sorry. OK.
• 10:47
  I would, being what I was in the early 2000s, I'd be going for a
• 10:52
  rad book. You know, I think the trad stuff
• 10:54
  absolutely has its place. It's this, it is that kind of
• 10:58
  thing. If you're in, you know, if
• 10:59
  you're down, you need a mood, you need something to pick you
• 11:02
  up. You know, I've, I've just been
• 11:03
  listening for another podcast to the Annihilators, which is
• 11:06
  absolutely traditional thing and which is good fun.
• 11:09
  You know, you can listen to it all, washing the dishes, all
• 11:12
  good fun. But if, you know, if I'm going
• 11:14
  to pick something else, I'm going to pick up something I
• 11:16
  remember that stood out. Yeah, I'm going to pick up the
• 11:18
  Crooked wall. I'm going to pick up
• 11:20
  interference. I'm going to pick up any Paul
• 11:22
  Mars book. So I would be gravitating to
• 11:26
  something that's that. You know that I remember blowing
• 11:28
  my mind because I would just track my eyes straight off.
• 11:32
  You, you had a look of a radical man about you.
• 11:34
  I'm total radical. That's the Doctor Who.
• 11:39
  Luke So do you prefer sort of, you know, the radical?
• 11:43
  So Fitz standing on a big tower contemplating suicide or, you
• 11:48
  know, Fitz, I don't know, running around chasing Wasps in
• 11:52
  the 1930s English countryside? Brad or Trat.
• 11:57
  I don't think you can have one without the other.
• 11:59
  I think apart from maybe season 7, most of my favorite eras of
• 12:03
  Doctor Who have that feeling of you don't know what's coming
• 12:07
  next. I know you don't watch a lot of
• 12:09
  classic error in order and stuff, but if you've watched
• 12:11
  Hartnell everything as we all eventually do in order, it's
• 12:15
  weird. It's it's terming so many
• 12:17
  different clashing tones and styles and things like that.
• 12:21
  And that's what I love about these EDA's more a little more
• 12:26
  than the new adventures. I feel like.
• 12:30
  All right, here's 8 of Wasps. Now we're going to spend a year
• 12:33
  on Tiger World and and then you just don't know.
• 12:37
  Now we're doing fairy tales. Now he's a historical in a whore
• 12:40
  house. He's cartoon world.
• 12:43
  But you've got some more kind of traditional books kind of
• 12:47
  sprinkled in as well. I like to read a trad book after
• 12:52
  I've read something that's blown my mind.
• 12:55
  So I've read, you know, after the interference, I've read like
• 12:59
  2 new series of ventures just to kind of, you know, just what,
• 13:06
  read something bit traditional and just to chill out a bit.
• 13:09
  Like a sorbet after a heavy meal.
• 13:11
  Yeah, it's like a nice little, little bit of bit of dessert.
• 13:14
  So I'd prefer my my rad books, but I do need the calm down
• 13:21
  after after the big high and something nice and very Doctor
• 13:25
  Who we Oh, that is a giant calm down.
• 13:30
  Jonas just held up the ghosts of Ed the space.
• 13:32
  I mean, I'd say that might be rad rather than OK.
• 13:39
  Well, Andrew, we're going to have a clean sweep.
• 13:41
  Rad or trad? Yeah, well, I agree with Luke
• 13:45
  that you can't have one without the other.
• 13:47
  You kind of need the trad in order to have something to react
• 13:50
  against. But yeah, I think nowadays if
• 13:55
  I'm going to read a Doctor Who book, I kind of want to read
• 13:57
  something that's going to be challenging and good and doing
• 14:00
  something interesting. I think I probably read and
• 14:03
  watched enough trad Doctor Who in a lifetime that if I'm
• 14:08
  actually picking up a book, investing that amount of time in
• 14:11
  it, like I want something, yeah, that's that's going to be
• 14:14
  interesting and doing doing unusual things.
• 14:19
  And that isn't to say that like you can't sort of take, it's not
• 14:23
  necessarily the subject matter that has to be radical.
• 14:25
  You can also take like different approaches through narrative and
• 14:29
  how you tell the story. And that can sometimes make a
• 14:32
  more traditional story, you tell it in a different way.
• 14:36
  So yeah, I think I also yeah, towards the the rad.
• 14:45
  Well, it's 4 for four then, because I, I think I'm
• 14:48
  definitely, although I think as I'm getting older that because
• 14:51
  of the recent books, I've read two of the ones I've liked.
• 14:54
  The. Most, or I've just enjoyed the
• 14:56
  most were Shakedown by Terrance Dicks and He Is A Wasp by Trevor
• 15:00
  Baxendale. Those are the two I flew through
• 15:02
  in like a day. And maybe it is because it's,
• 15:06
  yeah, predictable. It's sort of following the beats
• 15:08
  that I know. But there's something very
• 15:10
  comforting about it, like putting on a pair of lovely old
• 15:12
  slippers, you know, And it is what of what got me into Doctor
• 15:16
  Who books way back when. And I read it and I was like, I
• 15:19
  wonder, I wanted more after reading this, you know,
• 15:23
  familiar, but a bit nasty as well.
• 15:26
  I will say one thing about rad and trad is when they're done
• 15:31
  badly, both of them is just the worst.
• 15:34
  When a a trad book is done badly, it's like Colony of Lies.
• 15:39
  You know it's the blandest thing you've ever read in your life.
• 15:42
  And when a rad book is not bad. And I'm going to pull up the
• 15:45
  death of art out of the bag for this one, I thought, what the
• 15:49
  fuck was that all about? I don't actually have a.
• 15:53
  Glue because he's trying to do so much you don't even know but.
• 15:57
  Yeah. And actually, I kind of knew
• 15:59
  because because of where we've been in the book club and the
• 16:02
  months we've talked about that we would all air on the side of
• 16:06
  RAD. Well, let's talk about a radical
• 16:10
  Doctor Who book then, or Doctor Who fits an Angie visit cartoon
• 16:14
  lands. Can I ask you all, first of all,
• 16:20
  when did you first read this? I'm really curious.
• 16:23
  And what on earth did you imagine you were going to be
• 16:27
  getting looking at that bloody cover?
• 16:30
  And let's go reverse this time, Andrew.
• 16:34
  So I don't think I've read this one in order because it was
• 16:38
  history when I won, when I started reading in order.
• 16:41
  And then I went back and read some of them.
• 16:43
  And I think that this one already had like a really good
• 16:45
  reputation. So I didn't go in thinking, you
• 16:48
  know, what the hell is this? I went in thinking this is going
• 16:51
  to be a good one. And also Steve Lyons on the
• 16:53
  cover. And I kind of trusted that it
• 16:56
  was just going to be great. So yeah, went into it knowing
• 17:00
  that it was a good one and came out, I mean for definitely was a
• 17:04
  good one. And the cover itself.
• 17:06
  What did you think? Hate, hate, hate this cover.
• 17:11
  Explain yourself, Sir. Well, I don't hate the concept
• 17:15
  of it. The idea of doing Doctor Who was
• 17:17
  the Hanna Barbera cartoon. Amazing.
• 17:19
  Fantastic, brilliant concept for this cover.
• 17:24
  It's just a really shit attempt to.
• 17:27
  It's like I could do this in 5 minutes in Photoshop.
• 17:31
  It doesn't look like Paul McGann.
• 17:33
  If you're trying to capture someones essence in the cartoon,
• 17:35
  that doesn't do it. It's just a weird face and then
• 17:38
  you've got like these sort of clone stamped birds where it's
• 17:41
  like the same bird just and pasted I it.
• 17:46
  And even and I have no. Artistic aptitude at all, but
• 17:49
  even I could draw a better pig than the one.
• 17:53
  Yeah, I just, I just think, and there's so many great Doctor Who
• 17:57
  like cartoonists who would have done such a better job at this.
• 18:00
  So I would have got Roger Language to do the.
• 18:03
  That would have been amazing. Actually, we're never going to
• 18:07
  do that. Well.
• 18:09
  No indeed, although I do love it when they do these wrap around
• 18:12
  ones like this. I do like it when it's a cover
• 18:14
  like Vanderdecker's Children and Someone Help me out.
• 18:17
  Anyone else? Any others?
• 18:19
  Drift. Kind of.
• 18:20
  Oh yeah, that's a pretty one. Anyone will think we're talking
• 18:24
  about covers later in this episode.
• 18:26
  Luke, you saw this delectable piece of art.
• 18:29
  What do you think? Of the cover I don't mind it
• 18:35
  there are too many watching call it's on it but I don't know I
• 18:39
  can't I kind of like it because it actually looked like someone
• 18:42
  might have put a pen to paper for a blank sheet cover rather
• 18:45
  than just booted up the computer instead but so I kind of like it
• 18:50
  but that pig is fucking ugly He. Is.
• 18:55
  Oh, streaky Baker I. Wish he'd successfully shot
• 18:58
  himself if he looked like that. Like, come on.
• 19:03
  Awful. I was looking in a mirror.
• 19:04
  How dare you? How did you approach this book?
• 19:10
  Yeah. I read this book when it came
• 19:13
  out and I when I was a little kid my both my parents worked
• 19:17
  full time so I was babysat before and after school and
• 19:23
  there was always like cartoons on usually Hannah Barbara.
• 19:27
  If I was lucky, there'd be some bloody Hey Man or Transformers
• 19:29
  or something, but I didn't mind, like Scooby-doo and quick drama,
• 19:34
  growl, Flintstones, all that kind of stuff.
• 19:36
  So I I, it's one of the few things that Doctor Who
• 19:40
  references back when I was a teenager that I was like, yeah,
• 19:43
  I know all these references, this is cool.
• 19:45
  Rather than coming back to them as an adult and going, oh, this
• 19:47
  is what I've missed. So I loved the book when it
• 19:52
  first came out. That's not going to shock anyone
• 19:54
  listening to this. And I loved it even more this
• 19:59
  time. If you if you'd have come back
• 20:01
  to this book, right and said you'd hated it, It's the first
• 20:04
  time we're talking about Steve Lyons, I.
• 20:06
  Know. I've taken your fan club badge
• 20:09
  away. John Yes, indeed.
• 20:12
  I would have read it from the enough in order because I read
• 20:15
  everything the month that came out because I was a tragic like
• 20:20
  that. Yeah, I'm you hear the idea that
• 20:24
  you know someone's the doctor's going to go to Cartoon Land.
• 20:27
  Basically, you go in a book. What the hell are you doing?
• 20:31
  Steve Lyons. There's some authors.
• 20:33
  You go. No chance.
• 20:34
  It's never going to put off. Steve Lyons is going.
• 20:36
  OK, let's see what you've got. So yeah, I don't think I've
• 20:42
  reread it since. Yeah.
• 20:44
  What? Since it came out.
• 20:45
  But that's just good of lack of time more than anything else.
• 20:48
  And yeah, and I was idiot. And my wife looked at this cover
• 20:52
  way. I love that cover.
• 20:54
  That's great. She could only see the front.
• 20:55
  She couldn't see the pig. So you know.
• 20:58
  Covering it with your hands. It's like one of those
• 21:00
  situations where you don't want someone to walk into the room
• 21:03
  while you're watching Doctor Who.
• 21:04
  Instead it's like, hold the spine so they don't see smoothie
• 21:07
  bacon. Oh God, being a nice kid, you
• 21:10
  used to just hang on. I'm not sure.
• 21:12
  Next. Time you haven't done the chores
• 21:14
  and she's wailing at you like a banshee.
• 21:16
  I'm only assuming she does that. Just hold up the pig, all right?
• 21:21
  Boil away. Yeah.
• 21:22
  Sorry, she's reading the giggle at the moment so she's haven't
• 21:25
  done that way. What your missus is?
• 21:27
  Yeah, she's been coming. To a book club near you.
• 21:29
  Sod you, lot. I sure love it.
• 21:34
  Yeah, but I'd love the kind that the little mystery machine in
• 21:37
  the background as well, right in the corner on the back.
• 21:40
  It's gorgeous. Yeah, I just read it and it's
• 21:45
  just an even richer book than I remembered.
• 21:48
  I may be blowing my my heavy on what I think of it, but yeah,
• 21:51
  it's just it's such a pleasure to revisit it.
• 21:55
  I, I'm like you, I read these. So I came in all these Wasps and
• 21:59
  then was reading and what a great point to come in and
• 22:02
  obviously lapping them up at this point, you know, I'd had
• 22:04
  adventurous and Mad Dogs and trading futures and Book of the
• 22:09
  Steel and with all this lovely. And in this cartoon cover I saw
• 22:12
  being advertised, I think it's a Doctor Who magazine.
• 22:15
  I can't wait to get hold of this.
• 22:17
  This looks like the best thing I've ever read.
• 22:18
  But I did have reservations like you because like I've recently
• 22:22
  read. Oh no it isn't.
• 22:25
  And that's another book that is doing something that you're
• 22:28
  supposed to see and experienced as a whole rather than on the
• 22:33
  printed page and the two approaches.
• 22:36
  It's so weird how the cartoons work so well in the printed
• 22:40
  form, whereas I didn't think the pantos did.
• 22:44
  I ranted about that before, didn't I?
• 22:46
  There's less depth to a no isn't kind of interrogation of what
• 22:50
  it's doing. It's just taking the surfacing
• 22:53
  it wants the big gags, that big campness.
• 22:57
  This. It's going so deeply into these
• 23:01
  cartoon characters. I feel like this is the guy who
• 23:04
  wrote Sorry, this is the This is obviously written by the same
• 23:08
  guy who saw the mind rubber when he was a kid and just has
• 23:14
  successfully, I think, mined aspects of it in his writing.
• 23:18
  This is the guy who's building off like conundrum to a similar
• 23:22
  extent head games and also even a different way.
• 23:27
  It's a different way of picking on TV than time of your life,
• 23:31
  which is more about like live action TV at the time of when
• 23:36
  where the book set like 80s television and things like that.
• 23:40
  So I this is Steve building kind of on those blocks and kind of
• 23:47
  taking them to AAI. Wouldn't call a cartoon.
• 23:50
  What a logical conclusion. But yeah, if this was the first
• 23:56
  time book, I'd be a little bit more more nervous.
• 23:58
  But I also feel like Steve had a bit more writing on this
• 24:03
  particular ace Doctor novel because I maybe I'm the only
• 24:08
  one. But I'll also acknowledge it's
• 24:10
  his worst book, The Space Age. I don't have the.
• 24:13
  Last 8th doctor book isn't it? So I can understand if people
• 24:16
  were a bit skeptic. Picking up.
• 24:20
  So yeah, I think maybe maybe he decided all right, we'll go back
• 24:24
  to a bit more of my of, of basics, what works for me, what
• 24:28
  can I do to kind of pop. And I think he's got the
• 24:32
  cleanest, the really clean writing style that kind of helps
• 24:36
  with cartoons because cartoons can be very matter of fact and
• 24:40
  blunt. And I feel like Steve Lyons,
• 24:42
  he's got some nuances and and stuff there, but he's got a very
• 24:45
  clean matter of fact writing style.
• 24:48
  And because things will go from absolutely hilarious to really
• 24:52
  tragic and dark, the matter of fact writing style makes it feel
• 24:57
  like it's a bit of a punch each each time.
• 24:59
  So yeah, I feel like it's his last.
• 25:02
  I think this is his last book for BBC books.
• 25:05
  I know he does steal his dreams, but he's his last from this era.
• 25:08
  And I think it's what a book to end on, really.
• 25:12
  I think Steel of the Dreams is actually doing the format again,
• 25:15
  the Conundrum, Crooked World format.
• 25:18
  The Conundrum is doing books. This is interrogating cartoons,
• 25:22
  and Steel of the Dreams is interrogating TV and they all do
• 25:26
  those different things in really interesting ways.
• 25:30
  Well, in order to sort of break this down, because there's a lot
• 25:34
  going on in this book and the regulars are very quickly
• 25:37
  separated and given their own plots in Zanytown, this fabulous
• 25:43
  cartoon world that we're visiting today.
• 25:46
  Honestly, I'll take you guys to all the best places, don't I?
• 25:49
  Hi, Smiro. We've been to where else?
• 25:51
  Where else? Oh no, that miserable planet in
• 25:53
  the Doctor Trap. Sorry about that.
• 25:56
  One TripAdvisor lied all right. And that's.
• 26:01
  Oh yeah, Jesus, sorry. Moving on.
• 26:06
  Don't open the tourist stages. Let's tackle the cartoons that I
• 26:15
  mean. I do wonder if Sue Vance was a
• 26:17
  bit worried about the lawyers looking over his shoulder.
• 26:20
  He was writing this book. I read it into you actually on
• 26:23
  BBC website where he went. Now we just assumed they weren't
• 26:26
  reading these BBC Doctor Who book.
• 26:28
  We get away with it. But like the three big cartoons
• 26:32
  that are here, So you've got a take on Scooby-doo, we've got a
• 26:35
  take on Looney Tunes, and what's the third one I'm missing?
• 26:41
  Wacky Races. Thank you.
• 26:43
  And and there's Tom and Jerry as well.
• 26:45
  Yeah, yeah. Yeah, who wants to take that?
• 26:48
  Well, look. Who wants to take?
• 26:51
  Wacky Races. I'll, I'll take, I'll take Wacky
• 26:56
  Races. I'll take that.
• 26:58
  My I've got tiny nitpicks and I think I've got like one major
• 27:02
  one and sometimes that doesn't bother me and sometimes it might
• 27:05
  So, but my, my tiny nitpick is you're going to do Wacky races,
• 27:09
  man. My favorite 2 characters are not
• 27:12
  in this book at all. I was a huge fan of Dick
• 27:17
  Dastardly. I mean there is a Dastardly
• 27:19
  character. A little bit.
• 27:20
  And Motley, you know the fucking laugh.
• 27:22
  He already said so all right, I can I can overlook that.
• 27:26
  But we live in a post Barbie world, everyone.
• 27:29
  So Penelope pit stop is Margot Robbie for me, and I just cannot
• 27:33
  blame Fitz one in my mind. But I so a lot of Penelope and
• 27:45
  Rocky races and stuff that's going to revolve around Fitz.
• 27:48
  And I would say if you're a fan of Fitz, you're going to love
• 27:51
  this. And I think if you're not a fan
• 27:53
  of Fitz, well, he gets his come up and and he's the butt of the
• 27:55
  joke almost the entire time in this book.
• 27:58
  So I feel like it it it really works because very early on in
• 28:03
  the book, Angie very early on in the book realizes that.
• 28:07
  Oh, I don't have I don't have the bits.
• 28:10
  Oh, OK, cool. She could have told Fitz
• 28:13
  anytime. No.
• 28:14
  So when Fitz finally, by the way, helicopter, can you see in
• 28:18
  here? No, my eyes are on the outside.
• 28:21
  What do you mean can? I see in here.
• 28:23
  So when they're in the helicopter, Fitz and penalty pit
• 28:26
  stop and he finds out it's it's something you've been waiting
• 28:31
  for for that the whole book and it and it and it's amazing just
• 28:35
  because it's a little bit of a comeuppance.
• 28:37
  He's been a you know, he's been a bit of a CAD in he's been in
• 28:41
  this book. So he kind of deserves it.
• 28:43
  So I I really I really like it. The rocky races and it kind of
• 28:50
  opens up the world from from that perspective because the
• 28:52
  wacky races was one on early they're all milling about racing
• 28:57
  Penelope pit stops this I'm just a girl.
• 29:00
  Oh my God, I need someone to come save me.
• 29:02
  Oh thank you, Lord Purcell. I won't do my lady voice
• 29:04
  anymore. I'm sorry.
• 29:05
  No, please. I think I sound like I sound
• 29:08
  like Terry Jones or something like that.
• 29:09
  Let's go to the starting. So that opens up up up the the
• 29:18
  world with the with the Iraqi races and and all that kind of
• 29:21
  stuff. We get to see some of the
• 29:22
  cartoon shenanigans. We get to see her story arc
• 29:25
  start here as being just totally clueless.
• 29:29
  And it's both sides of Penelope Pit Stop because they used her
• 29:33
  in another show called The Perils of Penelope Pit Stop.
• 29:35
  Yes, but. The was it cool?
• 29:37
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 29:38
  So Oh my God, we've got the Hooded Claw who's obviously like
• 29:44
  it's the Master Reasel and all this kind of stuff.
• 29:47
  And you know, so it sets up things, the rocket races.
• 29:51
  There's no money. Money is irrelevant.
• 29:53
  Why has everyone forgotten money for there's no economy in the in
• 29:56
  Zadie town at all. And I think that's because like
• 30:00
  it's cartoons and no one's really making anything.
• 30:02
  And also it's the brain of a child and economies and money
• 30:08
  and things like that don't really like kids know money is
• 30:12
  important, but they don't quite grasp how important it can be.
• 30:17
  So I feel like that child like perception of money is kind of
• 30:21
  filtered out throughout the book as well.
• 30:24
  And the racket races are fun. I would have maybe put a huge
• 30:28
  one in the thing. I mean, I think he gives me
• 30:30
  enough to be like, all right, I really enjoyed that.
• 30:34
  But I also, he also leaves me wanting a little more with each
• 30:38
  each little part except for scooby-doo.
• 30:41
  I feel like he it's a banquet and he kind of feasts on the
• 30:45
  Scooby stuff. But yeah, the Wacky Races kind
• 30:48
  of helps establish a lot of things, and that's going to move
• 30:52
  on For the rest of you love. Fixes, you know, can't you?
• 30:56
  Can you not say but that is the masked weasel dressed up in an
• 31:01
  old woman's dress? Like, for God's sakes, what are
• 31:04
  you talking about? She goes.
• 31:06
  It's my aunt and my lovely old aunt.
• 31:09
  Angel. Can I ask you a question about
• 31:13
  Fierce? Because really interestingly,
• 31:15
  the other book club that did this hated that scene and
• 31:19
  thought that Fitz came across very badly.
• 31:21
  And I'm wondering, do you need the context of Fitz the
• 31:24
  character? Because it was all of their
• 31:26
  first read of Fitz and they were just like, oh, my first read of
• 31:31
  this character. Is it a cartoon?
• 31:33
  Well, news. Come on to a cartoon character.
• 31:38
  Well, you know, Margot Robbie as Angel falls there done.
• 31:42
  But I, I, I read, listen to that episode yesterday just to get a
• 31:51
  just to, I don't know, just to see what was it was.
• 31:53
  A mixed response, which is fair. It is it is fair.
• 31:56
  They are. They were all kind of relatively
• 31:59
  new EDA readers as well, so they didn't quite have the the back
• 32:05
  story. I guess if you what read just
• 32:07
  one, you would venture and Benny's off shag and like half
• 32:10
  half the dudes in it and getting pissed drunk.
• 32:13
  You might have that reaction to Benny as well, but I feel like a
• 32:16
  lot of us, I mean, we've heard audios now we've, we've, there's
• 32:19
  the heaps of Benny. So we we kind of got a bit of
• 32:22
  feel for it, but. If you just read Damaged Goods,
• 32:25
  you know, you'd think that Chris Quedge was sucking off people
• 32:29
  down back alleys as a side plot in every Doctor Cooper, wouldn't
• 32:32
  you? And they would have been a lot
• 32:34
  better if he had. He was it's just happening off.
• 32:39
  Screen at least. We like to think so, anyway.
• 32:44
  I think what they do with fits in the book is it's quite brave,
• 32:48
  I guess, to make him quite this unlikable.
• 32:51
  And it's sort of, I think it it shows how confident of a range
• 32:56
  this was in that they they were confident enough in those
• 33:00
  characters to do interesting things with them and not worry
• 33:04
  about them always being likable. And I think sometimes in more
• 33:09
  recent years, characters have become a little bit too perfect.
• 33:12
  And yeah, it's nice in this book that.
• 33:15
  I mean, I felt a little bit uncomfortable at the start when
• 33:17
  Fitz was really quite pushy with with Penelope, Pit stop,
• 33:22
  whatever her name is, Angel Falls.
• 33:25
  And. But I think you're meant to feel
• 33:27
  uncomfortable about it. I think it's written to feel
• 33:30
  uncomfortable. And then the way that it goes,
• 33:33
  he kind of gets his comeuppance. Yeah.
• 33:36
  And it kind of, I think it's part of the way that the Doctor
• 33:42
  Fitz and Angie are affecting this world and sort of infecting
• 33:46
  it with their ideas. And some of those ideas are not
• 33:49
  nice ideas. And that's a really important
• 33:52
  part of the plot. And it was also, it was quite
• 33:56
  the way that they reveal that stuff about the characters not
• 34:01
  having genitals. They do it in kind of a it's not
• 34:04
  a he pulls a pants down type scene and I'm so.
• 34:07
  Because that would be. Horrific.
• 34:08
  It's the after the event. Isn't it?
• 34:10
  Yeah, after it happens off screen at well off page as it
• 34:15
  were. And then you kind of Angie then
• 34:17
  sees like two of the Daphne and Fred trying to go out and
• 34:21
  realizes that that's how things work in this world.
• 34:25
  And that that. Yeah.
• 34:27
  So it's kind of it's it's it's not salacious and it's not like
• 34:31
  CD. It's kind of it's part of the
• 34:34
  what's happening in thematically in the book.
• 34:37
  I mean, doesn't she open a cupboard and they're sort of
• 34:39
  rubbing their plastic bits against you?
• 34:43
  A very innocent way that you would think about having.
• 34:46
  Sex. And then there's the bit of the
• 34:50
  freaky bacon is is dating Velma from scooby-doo and he says, oh,
• 34:57
  this evening we might go go back to hers and rub up against each
• 35:01
  other. There's a combo.
• 35:05
  We never thought we'd get married.
• 35:06
  Porky Pig and Velma. What I did love about the Wacky
• 35:11
  Races plot, though, was that Angel Falls has the agency to
• 35:16
  eventually turn up at like, the doctor's doorstep and say I want
• 35:20
  to take control of my life. She's like the most mature
• 35:23
  person in the book at that point because she's the one character
• 35:26
  that says this isn't right. I want to change and I love that
• 35:30
  bit. And if you want to go back to
• 35:32
  it, that's exactly what happens in the Barbie film.
• 35:34
  So Lucas Barbie. What?
• 35:38
  It's the game. Handing your gay cards?
• 35:42
  Come on. Yeah, it's great.
• 35:45
  It's it's a lot of fun. The guy that plays Ken is
• 35:47
  smoking hot as well. Oh well.
• 35:50
  The guy that plays, plays Ken Ryan, which. 1.
• 35:54
  Yeah, which Ken? Yeah, which Ken isn't.
• 35:56
  Yeah, I couldn't remember shooting.
• 35:57
  As well. And it's complimentary things
• 36:00
  about Matt Smith's acting, so, you know.
• 36:02
  It couldn't really last between us.
• 36:04
  Samuel, Samuel Lou as well. Like, he's a really good, yeah.
• 36:09
  Well, OK. Man, I'm talking about all the
• 36:11
  two guys. It's a good movie like.
• 36:13
  Who has the courage enough to take on Scooby-doo Silence?
• 36:25
  I I kind of thought it was the least interesting part of the
• 36:28
  book. He has so much fun with it.
• 36:30
  And, you know, taking them when when they take the route around
• 36:35
  to the spooky house, it's that circuit circuitous route because
• 36:40
  it's the quickest way there. It's it's the one where he kind
• 36:45
  of picks up on the ridiculousness of that cartoon.
• 36:48
  Logical is where. Yeah.
• 36:50
  When they go in, when they open it up, they find the villain.
• 36:54
  It's a, it's a bloke in a mask. Oh, it's gorgeous.
• 36:59
  It's what I love about what lines up with, with cars, with
• 37:03
  all the others. He takes, carries and he says
• 37:05
  exactly what everyone had been saying about these cartoons for
• 37:09
  all these years. scooby-doo, It's a bloke in a mask for the
• 37:12
  globe. You know, he's got numerous
• 37:14
  paint on his costume. Whatever.
• 37:17
  It's a good it's it's maybe the kind of the slightest one for me
• 37:22
  because it's not quite playing into the deeper issues as the
• 37:26
  wacky racist does by basically pulling Doctor Who apart or, you
• 37:30
  know, squeaking and Jasper with their free will.
• 37:34
  But it's funny. It's this is where he, I think
• 37:36
  this is where he indulges that lighter side of the book again,
• 37:40
  that's it's a sex scene with friend Daphne.
• 37:43
  Because, you know, in the 90s, it when you're growing up, it's
• 37:47
  like, yeah, the thing you saw as a kid.
• 37:48
  You just think it's putting the filth in there, aren't you
• 37:52
  really? It's it's like Fred, Fred and
• 37:54
  Daphne, they were at it. Yes, they were.
• 37:57
  You don't notice this until you're older that they're that
• 38:00
  that Fred's just like, hey nerd, go off with your dog and do some
• 38:04
  go over there and do that shit. I'm going to hang out with the
• 38:06
  ladies over here. And he's like, what A.
• 38:09
  Oh, isn't that Sarah Michelle Gellar and her Avirov in the?
• 38:12
  Middle. No wonder everyone thought they
• 38:15
  were at it. How is I don't know the names of
• 38:17
  any of the men? What is wrong with me dropping
• 38:23
  Angie? Into that though.
• 38:25
  I thought was brilliant and what works so well about Angie in
• 38:28
  this book is she is a creature of logic and.
• 38:31
  Rules and everything being utterly defined, and
• 38:34
  unfortunately she's been dropped into a world where there isn't a
• 38:37
  single straight line anywhere. Everything is WAVY and different
• 38:41
  lengths and none. But as the book goes on, she
• 38:44
  starts to figure it all out. She's like, OK, there is
• 38:47
  predictability in the unpredictable nature of this.
• 38:51
  And then you drop her in the middle of a scooby-doo cartoon
• 38:53
  where she is the person going, well, look, it's a man in a
• 38:57
  mask. Look at him.
• 38:58
  Come on now. I mean, that's just hilarious
• 39:00
  when you've got a straight man in the cartoon pointing out all
• 39:03
  the logistical flaws. Oh, that's very funny.
• 39:07
  Yeah, You can only do it something like this, which is
• 39:08
  critiquing. You can't do it in the cartoon
• 39:10
  because it destroys it. There is a more recent kind of
• 39:13
  scooby-doo, which is a little more knowing and really does
• 39:16
  work. But this just, this is what you
• 39:20
  could, you know, essentially the end point of cartoons.
• 39:23
  It's you couldn't to the series again, because you'd have
• 39:27
  pointed out to even the darkness viewer exactly what's going on,
• 39:30
  exactly that you're watching the same thing week after week after
• 39:33
  week, all those patterns of behaviour, how dark the
• 39:36
  characters are. We love it though, right?
• 39:39
  We love the predictability of cartoons.
• 39:42
  Yeah. And just how they sort of spread
• 39:43
  their imagination within those predictable roles.
• 39:47
  I'm a huge Beavis and Butt Head fan, but I understand that it's
• 39:51
  all going to be her her and you know the jokes.
• 39:54
  But The thing is like that's like a bit of a safe space for
• 39:57
  me. Like I, I know what I'm getting
• 40:00
  and I've bought into it. I'm I'm I'm there for it.
• 40:03
  Angie, by the by the way, she's trying to figure out what this
• 40:07
  world is all about. And then when the when the
• 40:11
  skeleton crew turn around and be like.
• 40:14
  Can you tell us about God and all this kind of stuff?
• 40:16
  And he's like, Oh no, no, I'm trying to figure this out.
• 40:19
  No, don't ask. I'm the worst of the three of us
• 40:21
  to. Ask.
• 40:22
  She does think about that, though, doesn't she?
• 40:23
  She does think about whether she should.
• 40:25
  Give them religion or not, Then she thinks, no, maybe they're.
• 40:28
  Better off about it. And I feel like the skeleton
• 40:32
  crew sections, the scooby-doo sections, the parts that Steve
• 40:37
  has his has in his back pocket. All right, we're going to kill.
• 40:40
  We're going to kill a few characters here.
• 40:42
  Here's a bloody riot. All right, let's cut back to the
• 40:46
  Scooby gang and have Angie going from one door in the same
• 40:50
  corridor, back through the other one, back through the different
• 40:53
  door, but in different combinations with people.
• 40:55
  And she's like, what the, you know, I feel like he uses the
• 40:59
  Scooby. The Scooby stuff never gets too
• 41:02
  serious. I think that's the one part of
• 41:05
  it because I feel like he's kept that in his pocket being like,
• 41:08
  all right, I need a joke here. Let's go back to scooby-doo.
• 41:11
  And he also makes the green ghost the guy who Angie unmasked
• 41:15
  like get out of here. It's just a dude in the market
• 41:17
  makes him the whole bad guy of the whole entire novel, just
• 41:22
  totally away from them. Him, the masked weasel, the evil
• 41:26
  Daffy duck like character all join again feeling because
• 41:31
  they're sick of losing so. I don't think Angie's ever
• 41:34
  watched a cartoon in her life, you know, Because, you know,
• 41:38
  she, she just doesn't get it, does she?
• 41:40
  At the sort of how repeated it is, how predictable it all is,
• 41:44
  and how I. Can see a thing in a childish
• 41:46
  yeah. Well, I think that is a little
• 41:49
  bit of a flaw in the book, though.
• 41:51
  The fact that Angie and Fitz aren't like that scooby-doo.
• 41:56
  Like, I feel like it's just, it's just one of those things
• 41:59
  that just stretches credibility a little bit because it's like
• 42:01
  they're from the right era. They would know all these.
• 42:03
  Cartoons. Or at least most.
• 42:05
  Of them pitches pre Scooby-doo isn't.
• 42:06
  He well, he'd He'd know all the Warner Brothers stuff.
• 42:08
  He'd know. He'd know Tom and Jerry.
• 42:10
  And he'd. Know.
• 42:12
  In the Book of the Steel, Angie that thinks that Rianne who is a
• 42:17
  character in that book looks like a dumpy Velma from
• 42:21
  scooby-doo. That is the book.
• 42:23
  Before this. So unfortunately that is an
• 42:25
  editorial wearer there, so. Yeah, Book of the Still is the
• 42:30
  book that came comes out right before The Crooked World.
• 42:34
  So do I think Steve's been reading the books?
• 42:37
  I think it's yeah. There's references to a whole
• 42:40
  bunch of them and you'd. Hope that Justin has been
• 42:41
  reading them. But I'm blaming Justin for this
• 42:45
  one because like, Steve's busy writing the book that's coming
• 42:48
  out after Book of the Still, so he's not going to analyse like,
• 42:50
  oh, you got a Velvet reference there?
• 42:51
  I better fucking adjust my book now.
• 42:53
  So yeah, let's let's blame Justin for.
• 42:55
  That or you know, creative consultant are St. and Goddess
• 42:59
  Jacqueline Rayner was also heavily involved at the time as
• 43:02
  well. I was going to mention that idea
• 43:06
  that, oh, it's not an idea, it's true.
• 43:09
  Fitz and Angie don't recognize a lot of the characters from the
• 43:11
  real versions, like Torquey Pig is streaky bacon and all that
• 43:14
  kind of stuff. And I think I think it works for
• 43:19
  me because the the like, I think the book has enough references
• 43:24
  of gags without everyone's in a monologue being like, that's
• 43:27
  scooby-doo. Oh, Scrapper is Scrappy Doo.
• 43:30
  Oh, that's from this cartoon. Because I feel like non-stop
• 43:34
  sentences of that would get pretty tiresome very quickly.
• 43:39
  So I don't mind that he's just gone.
• 43:41
  You know what, let's just have them go with the flow with the
• 43:47
  with the universe or to different degrees, because Angie
• 43:49
  was still trying to bring logic to it.
• 43:50
  And Fitz is like. It's prefer to read the classics
• 43:54
  you know, rather. Than watch card.
• 43:57
  You could have done something a bit cheeky with it and then
• 43:59
  like, oh, whatever is causing this has some sort of like
• 44:02
  copyright filter on it. That's why.
• 44:06
  That's a fuck. That's that's really clever.
• 44:08
  I like that, yeah. I was just gonna say, you know,
• 44:11
  sorry, John. Imagine we wipe Steve Lyons name
• 44:14
  off the cover and we slap Steven Moffett's name on it.
• 44:17
  The meta jokes about the cartoons would be.
• 44:19
  Through the roof, wouldn't they? They'd probably be very funny as
• 44:23
  well, but. But this well, I mean, this is
• 44:25
  part of it. You go the characters, the
• 44:28
  cartoon characters getting into a models because it I think
• 44:31
  Chuck Jones, you know, who did the he saw them as forces of
• 44:35
  nature. You know, they have one
• 44:37
  motivation. You know, Rd.
• 44:39
  Religious wants to go and run and escape Coyote.
• 44:43
  Coyote wants to kill Roadrunner. It's a basic motivation and he
• 44:49
  just adds life to them. It's gorgeous.
• 44:54
  Andrew, I'm going to put you in the unfortunate position now of
• 44:59
  I'm going to hand you this decapitated mouse.
• 45:01
  There you go. And.
• 45:04
  And hand you the Looney Tune section to get us going on that.
• 45:07
  Well, the decapitated mouse is actually Tom and Jerry.
• 45:10
  Tom and Jerry is the one that I wanted.
• 45:13
  Oh, you do Tom and Jerry, you do Tom and Jerry, and then I'll do
• 45:16
  Looney Tunes then. That's why I stayed quiet during
• 45:19
  scooby-doo. So yeah, the the Tom and Jerry
• 45:24
  sections of the book, so that this is the characters who've
• 45:26
  been renamed Jasper and Squeak. So the, the the sections from
• 45:34
  Jasper's perspective are my favorite parts of the book.
• 45:37
  And they are so moving. And it's just, you know, his
• 45:43
  skill as a writer being able to take these cartoon archetypes
• 45:47
  and just invest them with so much emotion.
• 45:51
  And like, yeah, you will be crying during this book.
• 45:56
  I did. I did.
• 45:57
  Yeah. And I think and what he does
• 46:00
  that that is really clever is when you're a kid, when you're
• 46:04
  watching these cartoons, particularly like Tom and Jerry
• 46:07
  or Waileu Coyote, you do you do kind of have this desire for the
• 46:14
  villains to win. Like they always look and
• 46:17
  they're always humiliated and they always try so hard.
• 46:21
  And then this smug little mouse or this nasty, but always gets
• 46:25
  the better of them. And there's a little bit inside
• 46:27
  you that just wants to get to get the don't know and.
• 46:31
  You should be very happy with this book then.
• 46:34
  Yeah. Well, I mean, that's exactly
• 46:35
  what happens and it's, you know, it shows you that sort of desire
• 46:39
  for that and then the consequences of it when it
• 46:42
  actually happens. So we get Jasper the cat, who
• 46:47
  was introduced really early on in the kitchen of the hotel,
• 46:51
  sees Fitz and sort of tags onto Fitz.
• 46:54
  And it's through seeing Fitz and the way that he doesn't, that
• 46:59
  Fitz isn't sort of working in a pattern and he's not repeating
• 47:04
  things over again. And he he makes his own
• 47:06
  decisions. That kind of inspires Jasper to
• 47:09
  go beyond the kitchen and start to search for something beyond
• 47:12
  himself. And then, tragically, he's taken
• 47:15
  back to the kitchen and he decides no.
• 47:18
  Sad change things. What do you drag back?
• 47:21
  Yeah, he's he's, he's learned to grow.
• 47:23
  And the other thing about Jasper is he can't speak.
• 47:26
  He's a mute character, like like Tom and Tom and Jerry, so all of
• 47:32
  his stuff is internal monologue. And then he becomes the first
• 47:36
  person on the Crooked world to commit murder when he
• 47:39
  decapitates Squeak. And yeah, it's just, it's such a
• 47:46
  powerful moment and you know, it's, it's done through cartoon
• 47:51
  characters and it's just, it's great.
• 47:53
  It's. Terrific.
• 47:54
  That moment when he bites the head off isn't.
• 47:56
  It yeah, because it, it's quite graphic and it talks about the
• 48:00
  blood spurting and landing in in his face and he immediately
• 48:05
  regrets what he's done and it's the.
• 48:07
  Head in his mouth. Yeah, so I feel like that those
• 48:14
  those sequences with Jasper are kind of like the the core and
• 48:18
  part of the book. And it's through that character
• 48:22
  and he's sort of he gets redeemed at the end, which is
• 48:25
  which is lovely. And he does.
• 48:27
  He just feels this intense guilt about what he's done.
• 48:30
  And when there's other there's other characters who are sort of
• 48:32
  rebelling and becoming monstrous, he just completely
• 48:38
  takes it in on himself and sort of goes catatonic and is sitting
• 48:42
  in a prison cell just contemplating what he's done.
• 48:46
  And yeah, it's, it's powerful stuff.
• 48:50
  What, you know, the, the, the big courtroom scene where the
• 48:54
  doctors like explaining in a way that these people just cannot
• 48:58
  understand to start over that Jasper's in a cycle of abuse and
• 49:02
  everyone's just going, well, yes, and he's a cat.
• 49:06
  That's what a cat's supposed to. Do in a cartoon, you know.
• 49:10
  And he realizes it as well, doesn't it?
• 49:13
  Yeah. It's not fair what I was being
• 49:15
  put through. And it's it's sort of reminded
• 49:19
  me of like, you know, when you're like a kid and you first
• 49:23
  realize that people can die and not come back and your whole
• 49:27
  worldview changes right from this world that you're into.
• 49:31
  Oh, my God. The world's suddenly really
• 49:33
  scary that that moment of realizing it was a bit like
• 49:36
  that. So maturely written, but simply
• 49:40
  written. Yeah.
• 49:42
  And it's, I think, I mean, they're both very similar
• 49:46
  concepts. And I imagine that there was a
• 49:49
  bit of an influence upon the crooked world by the film
• 49:52
  Pleasantville, which which is another bill, another story
• 49:59
  about characters from outside of a fictional world going in, sort
• 50:04
  of infecting it with these new ideas and people changing.
• 50:08
  And that also has a courtroom scene, which is kind of pivotal
• 50:12
  to the story, has a character put on trial and then the kind
• 50:17
  of the the person who's putting him on trial, then sort of
• 50:21
  breaking, breaking the rules themselves during the trial,
• 50:24
  which is quite similar to what happens here.
• 50:27
  Not that, you know, I mean, they're also quite different in
• 50:30
  the subject matter and the way the story is told.
• 50:33
  But yeah, that's, that's another great sort of example of this
• 50:37
  sort of story. And if people enjoy the crooked
• 50:39
  world, I'd say go and watch Pleasantville as well.
• 50:41
  It's. A beautiful film, isn't it?
• 50:43
  Yeah. And they're both kind of looking
• 50:45
  at that innocence to experience type narrative.
• 50:51
  I mean, that one has more kind of like biblical garden of even
• 50:54
  type references going on and has yeah, more sort of religious
• 50:57
  overtones to it. Whereas this is yeah, more kind
• 51:01
  of what's the word. Yeah, yeah.
• 51:09
  So yeah. I don't don't know where I've
• 51:11
  gone with that, but you know, in.
• 51:13
  Pleasantville. It's the fella who runs
• 51:15
  Pleasantville, is it? It's the mayor.
• 51:17
  And he loses his temporary and he goes, He's not screaming.
• 51:20
  And then he's all colour. Yeah, black and White's colour.
• 51:22
  It's so funny in the crooked world.
• 51:24
  It's this sheriff who's been. Saying God darn.
• 51:27
  What's his name in the car? Dog.
• 51:30
  But in the actual cartoons, normally, what's that character
• 51:34
  called? Deputy Dog Deputy.
• 51:38
  Dog. I've never heard of Deputy Dog.
• 51:39
  Oh, it's DAWG. He's he's.
• 51:41
  A deputy. Dog.
• 51:42
  A dog with a hat, the waistcoat and the sheriff's badge.
• 51:47
  Missed out it. Was very very similar.
• 51:50
  But. When he loses his semper, his
• 51:52
  swearing gets worse and worse until he finally goes piss off.
• 51:58
  My favorite. You heard that swear, Steve
• 52:01
  Lawrence. My one of my favorite lines in
• 52:04
  the book up and just paraphrase it is just like who brought in
• 52:08
  the idea of swearing into this world and the doctor and Angie
• 52:12
  just say at the same time fits. There's quite a few moments,
• 52:18
  isn't it, where they sort of look to the heavens and go, oh,
• 52:20
  fits you? Know.
• 52:22
  Oh yeah. I suppose then, that leaves
• 52:26
  Looney Tunes and the expertly drawn streaky Bacon on the cover
• 52:32
  of the book, who I think is my favorite character in the book.
• 52:36
  Just gorgeous. The first chapters entirely from
• 52:39
  his point of view. What's I know it's Roadrunner in
• 52:43
  the cartoon. What's the?
• 52:44
  The watch people call it. No.
• 52:46
  Is it Elmer Fudd? Is that his name with the gun?
• 52:48
  Is that? Who's drinking it?
• 52:48
  Yeah. Yeah, he's a bit of a cross
• 52:51
  between, yeah, bit of Porky Porky Pig and Yosemite Sam.
• 52:55
  Kind of smushed into one. We're going through all the
• 52:58
  motions. Of of him chasing the watchman.
• 53:01
  Call it about and the funniest bit absolutely is where.
• 53:04
  He draws a female, watch him recall it on the wall, and then
• 53:08
  what you recall, it comes along and the female walks off the
• 53:10
  wall and there's all love hearts around them and they go.
• 53:12
  Off together and then the TARDIS lands at the end of the chapter
• 53:16
  and the Doctor, the oh God streaky shoots the Doctor in the
• 53:21
  chest. And this is the Doctor post
• 53:24
  adventurous on Henrietta Street. So he's got one heart.
• 53:27
  So he's very weak for the first quarter of the book, which I
• 53:30
  think really allows Fitz and Angie to shine in those early
• 53:34
  sections whilst he's laid out. And then it sends poor old
• 53:41
  streaky Bacon on a cycle of existential crisis as he
• 53:46
  discovers the meaning of murder and people not just getting up
• 53:50
  when they're shot, covered in soot and being all right again.
• 53:55
  And we go on a real journey with him, don't we?
• 53:58
  Throughout the book of him really suffering from terrible
• 54:03
  depression because of what he's done to the doctor and the
• 54:07
  meaning of life basically to a point where he picks up his gum
• 54:13
  and he tries to commit suicide. And I and I've seen that so
• 54:17
  move. It's so ridiculous that a pig is
• 54:19
  picking up a rifle and trying to shoot himself in the face.
• 54:22
  And and then all that happens is what happens to cartoons is his
• 54:26
  face goes all sooty and and he can't kill himself and he just
• 54:31
  puts his hands in his trotters and like, cries at the end of
• 54:33
  the chapter and I've got teasing.
• 54:36
  He's coming into. My eyes, I'm like.
• 54:38
  What is happening? This is the magic of Doctor
• 54:41
  Henry Wright, taking these absurd ideas and moving you to
• 54:44
  tears. And then, yeah, his journey
• 54:47
  throughout is a journey of identity, I guess, of figuring
• 54:52
  out who he is. And by the end of the book, he
• 54:55
  owns himself. And he's, he's the sheriff,
• 54:59
  isn't he? He's taken over.
• 55:00
  And when he gets the badge put on him, he's so proud, isn't he?
• 55:04
  It ties a lot into boss Dog because boss dog, he's he's like
• 55:09
  that. I don't know that part.
• 55:11
  Conservative politician or pundit who or humor.
• 55:15
  I guess he's just like, we don't, I don't like change.
• 55:18
  We don't want change. Everything should just be how it
• 55:22
  was how it is in the good old days and all this kind of stuff.
• 55:25
  And St. he's like, am I still, am I still a deputy?
• 55:30
  Should I just go back to him? But he made an exception for him
• 55:33
  because he understood he needed help policing.
• 55:36
  So I don't know with boss dog, he's he's slow to change.
• 55:41
  And by the time he's needed, really, really, really needed to
• 55:46
  act because he hasn't really kind of caught on with things as
• 55:50
  they're happening, he's ill equipped to do to do really
• 55:54
  anything. Even if he could help, what help
• 55:56
  would he provide? Because he's refused to kind of
• 55:59
  empathize with these people at almost every turn.
• 56:02
  So it's streaky who has to. That's my mother-in-law.
• 56:10
  That's all right, everyone. She read The Crooked World.
• 56:12
  Does she have an opinion? It's kind of appropriate we get
• 56:16
  mother in law's in on a cartoon episode.
• 56:20
  I'm expecting a broom to come and whack.
• 56:24
  I was. Not expecting that for at least
• 56:29
  another hour, that's OK, but. We must know by the end of the
• 56:34
  episode, though, whether she had a shower or not.
• 56:35
  All right, don't leave us hanging.
• 56:36
  Yeah. But he he refuses almost every
• 56:40
  chance for personal growth that there is.
• 56:43
  So when Streaky takes over, he doesn't know if he's equipped or
• 56:48
  qualified or anything like that, but he just wants to kind of
• 56:51
  jump in and help people and and stuff.
• 56:54
  So you've got this guy who's like, I'm a cartoon cliche.
• 56:57
  I want to kill myself too. I think I've got all the tools I
• 57:01
  need to empathize with like all my other fellows Anytown
• 57:05
  residents and make a difference. So yeah, I think Shrinky Bake is
• 57:09
  absolutely fantastic and just ignore how he looks on this.
• 57:12
  Cover can I? Ask you all, because I mean,
• 57:16
  I've written quite a few notes about this, but like zany town
• 57:18
  itself and the quirky little side bits that Steve does with
• 57:23
  the town to sort of paint this cartoon world.
• 57:27
  Was there any bits you particularly liked or thought
• 57:29
  were quite amusing? Oh, is it, there's the cat there
• 57:32
  isn't it the the other cats that like the evil cats come to try
• 57:36
  and take Jasper off and they're coming in and the Oh, and the
• 57:40
  TV, the T they use the. TV the way.
• 57:43
  They use the TV as they do it. Oh, it's gorgeous the way they,
• 57:48
  you know, the doc the doctor accept.
• 57:49
  Yeah, we can just step into TV and we're there.
• 57:52
  We're where we need to be. And the news?
• 57:54
  The news reader is talking straight to you, and he is
• 57:57
  talking to the characters. Well, if you don't want to
• 58:00
  listen to what I've got to say. The the TV reporter calling Fete
• 58:08
  the uglier 1 when he's in the room.
• 58:14
  It's a double take you get off that.
• 58:17
  There was one lie, right that made me crease up laughing.
• 58:21
  Meanwhile, a spokesperson for the Crooked World Electric
• 58:24
  Company announced that the large increase of the number of ideas
• 58:29
  their supply of light bulbs exhausted, which I thought was.
• 58:32
  Hilarious. Just little gags like that.
• 58:38
  My favorite gag was the one about the French letter.
• 58:42
  Oh. Yeah, please explain next year.
• 58:45
  So this the stork, the babies are delivered by stork in in the
• 58:50
  crooked world. And I think it's the the mast
• 58:54
  weasel makes the joke about, well, if you didn't want a baby,
• 58:56
  you should have used a French letter.
• 58:58
  And what he means by that is you should have.
• 59:01
  So everyone writes a letter to the stork to say they want a
• 59:03
  baby. So you should have written a
• 59:04
  letter in French, because the stork can't read French and
• 59:07
  wouldn't know what you would. Say, oh, did you notice if you
• 59:13
  have eggs for breakfast, freshly squeezed was an option.
• 59:16
  That was very funny. 00 And when Angie went Oh no, not talking
• 59:24
  dogs, not again, That was funny. So he does keep it light,
• 59:31
  doesn't he? Well, he keeps it light, but
• 59:35
  then it's also just a very dark, serious book at the same time.
• 59:38
  So it's the balance of the two do.
• 59:41
  You think that's a tough act to? Pull off, yeah, but I think he
• 59:45
  does it really well and it doesn't feel like sort of knee
• 59:50
  jerk changes in tone throughout. It feels consistent and it has
• 59:55
  that kind of balance of the humour and also the the sadness
• 59:59
  as well. So it's kind of it, it's a
• 1:00:02
  really fine line to tread and he does it really well.
• 1:00:06
  You know what I got from this book?
• 1:00:09
  Because, you know, the last book we read was interference and I'm
• 1:00:13
  just going, this is doing exactly the same thing.
• 1:00:16
  This is talk about are we just the signals we receive?
• 1:00:19
  It's questioning Doctor Who, you know, because when they, because
• 1:00:23
  they're all of them suddenly band together, they have to act
• 1:00:25
  like they're in a Doctor Who story.
• 1:00:27
  It's questioning what a Doctor Who story is.
• 1:00:28
  At the same time, it's doing what Lawrence Miles does, but
• 1:00:32
  it's still in a much more audience friendly manner.
• 1:00:35
  It's not in your face. It wants you to laugh and have a
• 1:00:39
  good time, whereas Lawrence is definitely not invested in his
• 1:00:42
  audience having a good time. And in half the time and far
• 1:00:46
  less. Of a headache for Luke as well,
• 1:00:47
  yes. Yeah, that's the other thing.
• 1:00:51
  I think this is a Jack Rayner thing.
• 1:00:53
  It's a Steve Lyons thing because even in East Virgin books
• 1:00:57
  usually clock around the same amount of pages and Jack Rayner
• 1:01:02
  has this too. I open to Steve Vines walking.
• 1:01:05
  Oh, the print is normal sized. Fucking BBC print.
• 1:01:09
  Sweet. And it's only 250 pages.
• 1:01:12
  Obviously BBC went paying them by the by the word.
• 1:01:17
  They're paying them by the something like that.
• 1:01:19
  They're just paying them by like bring the book on time probably.
• 1:01:22
  So all these people trying to do 700 pages and 280.
• 1:01:28
  I mean, I'd say there's as many characters and as much substance
• 1:01:31
  as interference. In these 250 pages.
• 1:01:34
  You. All notice the terrible racist
• 1:01:37
  slur that was in this book. No it.
• 1:01:41
  Was it against? Cats absolutely appalling.
• 1:01:45
  He goes. No I won't work with the
• 1:01:47
  villains from Anime City. Those big googly eyed freaks.
• 1:01:52
  Steve Lyons. Not an anime fan.
• 1:01:55
  Cartoons, no. What's on the top with the anime
• 1:01:58
  characters Virtue? He gives little teasers of an
• 1:02:02
  anime world, Jetsons slash Futurama ish kind of world,
• 1:02:06
  could Futuria or something like that.
• 1:02:09
  And there's also a Flintstones kind of world as well.
• 1:02:14
  Yeah, Mike Mason instead of Frank.
• 1:02:18
  Yeah, did you like the bit with a custard pie gun as well?
• 1:02:23
  If you want a face full of dairy products, you better back off.
• 1:02:28
  And they're terrified, aren't they?
• 1:02:30
  What are they trying to do? Are they trying to blow up the
• 1:02:32
  world? I can't remember now.
• 1:02:33
  They're using a big laser. Pretty much they they torture
• 1:02:38
  fits these darcely villains. You know, the green goes the the
• 1:02:43
  masked weasel and the, and the dastardly Daffy duck and all.
• 1:02:48
  They torture him. They torture him pretty much
• 1:02:51
  Spanish Inquisition style Monty Python, you know, bring out the
• 1:02:55
  feather and they're just going to start tickling it.
• 1:02:57
  And he tells them pretty much every 60 games.
• 1:03:00
  Bone plot. So what do they take as their
• 1:03:05
  their plan? Now we know what he's been
• 1:03:07
  watching. It's very what's the one you're
• 1:03:11
  only live twice with the volcano and.
• 1:03:14
  Yes, the volcano. Yeah, it's, it's very, it's very
• 1:03:17
  only live twice. Another time where they roll
• 1:03:19
  their eyes and go oh fits for God's sake.
• 1:03:22
  Oh yeah, I hope he didn't put the piranhas in this.
• 1:03:26
  Oh yes. That band of villains were
• 1:03:28
  terrible, weren't they? Although it was very funny when
• 1:03:31
  Boss Stock said to them, honestly, you people are going
• 1:03:34
  to want to stop losing next as well, won't you?
• 1:03:37
  There's just so many funny lines in this.
• 1:03:39
  Well, can I ask you guys about the big issue that the other
• 1:03:44
  book club had? We've always spent about half
• 1:03:46
  the episode discussing because this that was a book club that
• 1:03:49
  requires a defined world and a purpose for it being there,
• 1:03:53
  which comes very late in the day in the crooked world.
• 1:03:58
  And how do you all feel about the explanations that you're
• 1:04:00
  given? And or do you even need the
• 1:04:02
  explanations? I.
• 1:04:05
  Think yeah, go. We all went at the same time.
• 1:04:11
  I quite like that there is an explanation.
• 1:04:13
  I think it did need it in this book.
• 1:04:15
  And I think it's it's the way that the world has explained is
• 1:04:19
  is linked thematically to all of it.
• 1:04:21
  So I think if it was just ambiguous, it potentially
• 1:04:23
  wouldn't be as strong because the so the explanation is that
• 1:04:30
  it's sort of a malleable world of concepts.
• 1:04:34
  And a little girl has been sort of shipwrecked on this planet.
• 1:04:39
  And then her imagination through all the media that she's
• 1:04:42
  consumed has kind of has created this world.
• 1:04:45
  And then boss Dog or the, the character that then became boss
• 1:04:52
  dog through her influence, recognized that things were
• 1:04:56
  getting out of control and sort of let her die.
• 1:05:00
  And I, I think that that, so that sequence of events is
• 1:05:05
  important to the ending of the book where it's kind of about
• 1:05:08
  confronting the darkness of the past and not shying away from it
• 1:05:13
  and moving forward from it. And that's kind of key to the
• 1:05:16
  book, that kind of innocence to experience part of it and not
• 1:05:22
  shying away from the darkness in your past, acknowledging it and
• 1:05:26
  moving forward with history. So it's kind of it's about
• 1:05:30
  societal maturity, I guess of yeah, not trying to pretend
• 1:05:38
  everything's lovely and hide from terrible things that have
• 1:05:41
  happened, but to acknowledge them and, you know, move forward
• 1:05:45
  and, and mark them and remember them.
• 1:05:49
  Coming of age. Coming of age, yes.
• 1:05:52
  Luke. I like all the little
• 1:05:59
  explanations like there's like we need we exist in an infinite
• 1:06:03
  multiverse, Angie. Everybody's dreams must come
• 1:06:05
  true somewhere. I always feel like like every
• 1:06:10
  Doctor Who fan was just like it will say something to the effect
• 1:06:13
  of I like Doctor Who. We can go anywhere in space and
• 1:06:15
  time. And then it does.
• 1:06:16
  And then they're like, how is it here?
• 1:06:18
  It's the TARDIS brought him that, Yeah.
• 1:06:24
  So that's kind of how how I feel about it.
• 1:06:26
  However, if I thought if I felt that this was if this was a
• 1:06:29
  virgin book, you'd have to give a super super super ultra
• 1:06:32
  storyline reason as to why it was.
• 1:06:35
  Which is maybe an early virgin. Yeah, which is why I'm glad the
• 1:06:39
  land of fiction existed, because he could have just, he's like,
• 1:06:42
  Oh no, it's land of fiction. There you go.
• 1:06:43
  That's. But I also feel this is one of
• 1:06:48
  the explanations for this world. Is the Doctor commenting because
• 1:06:53
  they've been to Albert by now, which is grim reality.
• 1:06:56
  He's commenting that like something is going on with
• 1:06:58
  reality. It's it's becoming more
• 1:07:00
  malleable. It's coming a bit worn in some
• 1:07:03
  places. And things are getting
• 1:07:05
  definitely getting weirder and stranger, which will culminate
• 1:07:09
  in, I guess the last resort mostly with with how reality is
• 1:07:14
  all all messed up. So you got that.
• 1:07:16
  That's pretty light. If you weren't if you weren't
• 1:07:18
  reading the books one after another or with hindsight, you
• 1:07:22
  might miss miss that. That has light ties to the
• 1:07:25
  previous books and and future books as well.
• 1:07:28
  But I loved it's it's it's it's the little girl is it's the
• 1:07:34
  innocence of the world from the start and the end, like this is
• 1:07:39
  an innocence to the world. That's a kind of adorable and
• 1:07:44
  fun. And then everything that happens
• 1:07:46
  in this book is kind of like this, not everything, but it
• 1:07:50
  becomes a bit of a tragedy and and things that people have to
• 1:07:54
  learn from. And that's that's this little
• 1:07:57
  adorable child. It's like, you know, a child
• 1:08:01
  could bring this to life. And then the tragedy of just
• 1:08:04
  like what happens to her. And I do.
• 1:08:06
  I do remember one point of some someone saying there's this lady
• 1:08:10
  from the future watching old cartoons.
• 1:08:12
  And I was like, well, Mr. Garibaldi loves Daffy Duck and
• 1:08:15
  Marvin the Martian. So if you ever watch Battle on
• 1:08:18
  Five, Garibaldi loves his Warner.
• 1:08:20
  Brothers in the very first episode.
• 1:08:22
  As well. There you go.
• 1:08:23
  He's showing to Len some Warner Brothers cartoons.
• 1:08:26
  So it happens. And just in case you don't think
• 1:08:30
  it happens, I like a show that was made 9 started in 1963.
• 1:08:35
  It's 60 years old and I'm still liking it.
• 1:08:38
  Also, we don't know where that little girl came from.
• 1:08:40
  She could have been kidnapped from 1990 and taken to this
• 1:08:46
  planet there. You go the lightning storm or
• 1:08:48
  whatever that took Ace, that it took this little girl and
• 1:08:53
  starvation on the same. Town.
• 1:08:56
  You people are trying to piss me off now.
• 1:08:58
  Babylon 5 now Fenrick. For God's sake, someone
• 1:09:02
  mentioned Sophie Aldrin. Come on.
• 1:09:04
  I was going to say our special guest.
• 1:09:08
  She was voicing the duck, of course.
• 1:09:11
  She was the grayest. She was Captain Duck, wasn't
• 1:09:14
  she? Exactly, he needs a duck voice
• 1:09:18
  in Doctor Who. Older woman.
• 1:09:20
  If you need any voice in Doctor Who, she's free.
• 1:09:23
  All right. John, did you like the answers
• 1:09:26
  at the end of the book? Yeah, because again, it's that
• 1:09:29
  moment of pathos with the child. It's a really it's a dark secret
• 1:09:33
  at the heart of the world. It's got that emotional kick to
• 1:09:36
  it, which which allows of you to have had all this fun for so
• 1:09:41
  long. I'm I mean, for me, if it's
• 1:09:44
  story that works, if I'm happy with that kind, the explanation.
• 1:09:47
  Lucaloo too. Reality's getting a bit worn in
• 1:09:49
  places. One line.
• 1:09:51
  I don't care about the mechanics of it.
• 1:09:54
  Tell me the story. Come up with a good idea.
• 1:09:57
  Come up with at least, you know, one justification you can come
• 1:10:00
  up with something, even if it's just one line that allows me to
• 1:10:04
  have so much fun for 250 pages. I'm pretty easy going on that
• 1:10:09
  front, you know, I'm not someone who needs that early virgin
• 1:10:13
  stuff of we need to know the exact mechanics of exactly how
• 1:10:16
  this rule was constructed. It's nice.
• 1:10:18
  But now I don't want an engineering book, you know?
• 1:10:23
  If Neil Penswick had written this, where on earth do we have
• 1:10:26
  ended up? Who knows?
• 1:10:29
  I don't, I don't think it comes too late.
• 1:10:32
  If that was the criticism as well, 'cause it, it's definitely
• 1:10:35
  signposted throughout the book. Yeah.
• 1:10:37
  And it, it's, it's the conclusion.
• 1:10:40
  You find out the solution to the mystery and there's all that
• 1:10:43
  stuff with Angie slowly working it out when the doctor is
• 1:10:46
  clearly trying to steer her away from working it out.
• 1:10:49
  But she she has all those really clever deductions about she sees
• 1:10:54
  the in jokes in the world and she's like, well, if that's an
• 1:10:56
  in joke, there has to be an intelligence behind it.
• 1:10:58
  She notices that it's all Americanism.
• 1:11:00
  So therefore this has come from Earth.
• 1:11:02
  So the pieces are being put into place before you get to the end.
• 1:11:06
  And it's kind of the point of the book waiting to find out.
• 1:11:09
  Love it when they write. Write her smart like that.
• 1:11:12
  Yeah. You know, when she's the most
• 1:11:14
  observant one in the room. I love it.
• 1:11:16
  And it's just like that last jigsaw piece clicking into
• 1:11:19
  place, that last revelation, isn't it?
• 1:11:21
  I mean, I just like to think that a cartoon world exists out
• 1:11:24
  there. If that ending hadn't have
• 1:11:26
  happened and it just happened to me that there was a cartoon
• 1:11:28
  world and the fictions there, you know that void in Warriors
• 1:11:32
  Gate? Why not I'm.
• 1:11:34
  Actually surprised this isn't something they've done in the
• 1:11:37
  new series. I'm not saying do the crooked
• 1:11:39
  world in the new series, but you know.
• 1:11:42
  But I mean, the closest you know is can you hear me?
• 1:11:44
  Isn't it where they've got that animated sequence?
• 1:11:46
  I'd love to see more of that kind of thing.
• 1:11:48
  I do wonder if there's two sort of types of Doctor Who fan and
• 1:11:53
  one type is like how? And one type is like what?
• 1:11:57
  And we, I think all of ours are sort of like what?
• 1:11:59
  What's happening on this world? Tell us about this.
• 1:12:02
  And others are like, well, how does this exist?
• 1:12:04
  How is this like? You know they.
• 1:12:06
  Need the nuts and bolts of it first.
• 1:12:08
  And that was the other book club.
• 1:12:09
  And so I could imagine this would be frustrating if you are
• 1:12:12
  that person. It's very much that Doctor Who
• 1:12:16
  found because it's the reason we got Doctor Who is so well
• 1:12:20
  documented is that you've got so many fans of Doctor Who want
• 1:12:23
  that how so you want the how how every story is put together
• 1:12:26
  from, you know, commissioning right through till how it was
• 1:12:31
  edited picture lockdown all the details, but like my.
• 1:12:35
  Into every Doctor Who story is always the characters, yeah,
• 1:12:38
  It's never so much the world building.
• 1:12:40
  If the world building is good, great.
• 1:12:42
  But if the characters are engaging like this and are
• 1:12:45
  moving and funny and all that, I don't give a shit about the
• 1:12:48
  periphery stuff. I just want to go on that
• 1:12:50
  journey with those people. Yeah, completely.
• 1:12:53
  Whereas I don't think that's, that's not everybody, you know,
• 1:12:56
  that's not everybody. I think a lot of it was the,
• 1:12:58
  with that whole thing, it's kind of that younger science fiction.
• 1:13:00
  I read a lot of science fiction when I was young.
• 1:13:03
  You know, the the classics, you know, Azimar Betal, and they are
• 1:13:07
  very much about that world. This is how this world works.
• 1:13:10
  These are the ideas and they're not very much about character.
• 1:13:14
  So, but I can, I can, you can get through that with enthusiasm
• 1:13:17
  when you're younger, but I think as you get older you need more.
• 1:13:22
  And this is what Steve Lyon really does give you here.
• 1:13:25
  He gives you big ideas and the characters to go with them.
• 1:13:30
  Well, let's summarize our thoughts on the cricket world.
• 1:13:34
  If there's anything you haven't mentioned that you'd like to
• 1:13:36
  mention, let's say our piece. Now for my piece, the only thing
• 1:13:41
  I really want to add to everything everyone's already
• 1:13:44
  said is I've just really love the doctor of this period.
• 1:13:49
  And I like how dark here sometimes, you know?
• 1:13:54
  And he is staying on this world because he knows that they've
• 1:13:58
  infected it. He realizes that very early on
• 1:14:00
  and he's not going to manipulate it.
• 1:14:03
  He's going to let them go on the journey, but he isn't going to
• 1:14:06
  stop them from experiencing the harder parts of life as well
• 1:14:11
  because you have to experience like the spectrum.
• 1:14:14
  This is the same doctor from Father Time for sure.
• 1:14:16
  Absolutely. And and.
• 1:14:17
  Make your own voice. You know, I'll just read.
• 1:14:19
  What it was terrified, you know, absolutely devastating when a
• 1:14:22
  few boss was squashed and didn't care when a man was killed.
• 1:14:26
  And there's a line which I think sums it all up beautifully, is
• 1:14:29
  where the Bus Doctor goes. Free will is dangerous and the
• 1:14:32
  Doctor goes, well, maybe, but don't you find it exciting?
• 1:14:35
  And there's just that edge to the 8th Doctor in this run that.
• 1:14:40
  That kind of glint in the eye, isn't it?
• 1:14:43
  Sort of a bit dangerous. You know, devil may care.
• 1:14:46
  Kind of that bit sexy, you know, and thinking of Paul McCann
• 1:14:49
  doing it, yeah. Anyway, give you that
• 1:14:52
  completely. Over to you guys to summarise.
• 1:14:56
  There was something that we started talking about when we
• 1:14:58
  were before we started recording, but it was just the
• 1:15:01
  thing of how we all pictured the book because seeing a cartoon,
• 1:15:07
  were we seeing live action? What were we all seeing?
• 1:15:10
  Roger Rabbit. Yeah, I was doing Roger Rabbit
• 1:15:13
  style. I had it different.
• 1:15:16
  I kind of saw it as like it was live action when they were in
• 1:15:19
  the TARDIS and then the moment they step outside of the.
• 1:15:21
  Tardis. Everything's animated, including
• 1:15:24
  the Doctor, Fitz and Angie because there's they don't walk
• 1:15:28
  out and kind of see, oh, there's a drawing in front of me.
• 1:15:32
  It's more there's a pig in front of me.
• 1:15:34
  And it kind of takes them a while to figure out that it's a
• 1:15:37
  cartoon world. So for me, there was something
• 1:15:39
  going on with Perception where they were also sort of part of
• 1:15:43
  this world. And then when they were in the
• 1:15:45
  TARDIS and when the other character, the cartoon
• 1:15:47
  characters went into the TARDIS, then they were maybe a bit more
• 1:15:50
  3D and like. Don't you kind of like the idea
• 1:15:53
  of a live action sort of CGI world done realistically but in
• 1:16:00
  the style of a cartoon? That would just.
• 1:16:02
  Look insane, wouldn't it, with all those wiggly lines?
• 1:16:05
  Everywhere. See.
• 1:16:06
  I kind of have them as real, but they just perceived everything
• 1:16:10
  as they were. You know, it's an extra layer of
• 1:16:13
  gag. They don't, you know, they never
• 1:16:15
  acknowledge it's cartoon. It's just real people that just
• 1:16:18
  interacting like Bob Hoskins does in Roger Rabbit, really.
• 1:16:22
  I do like. I do like the crooked world
• 1:16:26
  itself because all the tables have legs of different sizes.
• 1:16:30
  All the steps, they're all crooked.
• 1:16:31
  All the buildings have a lean. Why?
• 1:16:34
  Because in cartoons? What is the most important is
• 1:16:38
  what's in the foreground. What's in the background is just
• 1:16:41
  supposed to be enough to give you like the impression of where
• 1:16:44
  they are. So like artists, even in comic
• 1:16:47
  books, a lot of maybe not so much newer stuff because they
• 1:16:50
  try to get ultra detail these days.
• 1:16:52
  But comics would just have like, all right, you know, Spidey
• 1:16:56
  swinging through buildings. Do you want if you want me to
• 1:16:59
  draw every bit of glass? No, you don't.
• 1:17:01
  It's one panel. Get out of here.
• 1:17:03
  We're going on to the next thing.
• 1:17:04
  So it's it's like it was a cheapest thing for the animation
• 1:17:08
  just to be be like, all right, well, Porky pigs detailed a
• 1:17:12
  character of a pig thing. Everything else you can kind of,
• 1:17:18
  you can kind of do that, which made the world feel very much
• 1:17:20
  more cartoony for me because it didn't, it never felt like a
• 1:17:26
  real, real city. It just felt like some artists
• 1:17:31
  had best been like, oh shit, I got, I got three hours fucked.
• 1:17:36
  There you go. Send that off and that's the
• 1:17:37
  background for the fucking for the scene this time, you know?
• 1:17:41
  Oh, you've seen Star Trek the Animated Series, have you?
• 1:17:45
  Very cheap. Although even that was done as a
• 1:17:48
  sort of character. Never used those belts any in
• 1:17:51
  any other Star Trek series. Like just put a belt on and
• 1:17:54
  suddenly you can just go out into space and do whatever you
• 1:17:56
  want because it's from. Angie's point of view that you
• 1:17:59
  that Steve Lyons riots, you know all the lines, none of them were
• 1:18:04
  the same size. They were all WAVY and wonky and
• 1:18:09
  she absolutely comes from a a straight line society doesn't
• 1:18:13
  she? In London, A Society of numbers
• 1:18:16
  and stocks and bonds and big square.
• 1:18:19
  Buildings. Yeah, very clever.
• 1:18:22
  Good, good sort of contrast. Yeah, I think Angie's the kind
• 1:18:26
  of companion that I wouldn't get along with in real life, but
• 1:18:30
  absolutely adore reading you. Oh, she's.
• 1:18:33
  Such a bitch sometimes, you know I love.
• 1:18:35
  It she's amazing. It's what I think it goes back
• 1:18:38
  to why I'm sorry, it's flawed characters.
• 1:18:40
  You can relate to these people, you know, they're not, they're
• 1:18:43
  kind of perfect people or, you know, to a certain extent,
• 1:18:46
  Doctor Who these days, it has to have an almost perfect act, you
• 1:18:50
  know, young, good looking actor in the companion rules.
• 1:18:53
  And you don't need that list. Yeah.
• 1:18:55
  Remember that I love. Graham or something different?
• 1:18:57
  What was that girl's name in Ruby red again?
• 1:19:00
  The companion of the Doctor? I can't even remember, she was
• 1:19:03
  so boring. You mean not Ruby?
• 1:19:06
  I feel sarcastic, Luke. I mean, she was very dull in
• 1:19:12
  that book, wouldn't she? But what got me, I think it's
• 1:19:16
  it's what Joe saying about the free will thing.
• 1:19:18
  It's it's it's kind of what the theme just works on every
• 1:19:21
  fractal levels, every kind of story and affected with it,
• 1:19:24
  including a comment about Doctor Who because this is at heart,
• 1:19:28
  it's a really straightforward Doctor Who story of they go to
• 1:19:31
  world disrupt it and you know, is leave it for the better.
• 1:19:35
  Hopefully this questions are they here?
• 1:19:38
  Are they going to do it for the better?
• 1:19:40
  Are they just locked into these patterns of behaviour as the
• 1:19:43
  cartoon characters are? And it's really thematically
• 1:19:47
  such a stunningly tight book. They have the conversation,
• 1:19:50
  don't they, the doctor, Like, are we responsible for this
• 1:19:53
  world now that we've created this?
• 1:19:55
  Do we have to stay and see this through?
• 1:19:58
  And Angie's like, no, let's let's go.
• 1:19:59
  Come on. What a cow.
• 1:20:04
  Any other thoughts then guys? I can't believe it's taken us
• 1:20:10
  over a fucking there's a lot of F boss there.
• 1:20:13
  Sorry, I can't believe it's taking this place.
• 1:20:15
  You need to do a God damn Steve Lyons book.
• 1:20:21
  Hooray. We finally do a Steve Lyons book
• 1:20:23
  and it's. I think my favorite book was
• 1:20:26
  when we said to Luke we were doing the Steve Lyons book and
• 1:20:28
  his face was like beautiful. So and then we do a Steve Lyons
• 1:20:35
  book that we've I didn't think we'd cover because you covered
• 1:20:39
  it this. So this is like me getting my
• 1:20:42
  managra all over. Giving him little Christmas
• 1:20:46
  presents as we go. How can we surprise him next
• 1:20:48
  time? I do have, I put out a picture
• 1:20:54
  of the cover on Twitter and asked people very quickly to
• 1:20:57
  give their thoughts and just a handful of people got back in
• 1:21:00
  touch that read it. So I'm just going to read a
• 1:21:02
  couple of those out very quickly.
• 1:21:04
  Michael Storm, my nemesis from Strictly Come Hamster, says.
• 1:21:08
  A clever and thought provoking book that goes far beyond the
• 1:21:11
  fun parodies of beloved cartoon characters.
• 1:21:14
  Questions of identity, loss of innocence and the and corruption
• 1:21:17
  all get thrown into the mix. Plus we have one of the most
• 1:21:20
  horrifying deaths in the entire range.
• 1:21:23
  I think we know what he's talking about there.
• 1:21:25
  Hang on, is he agreeing with you?
• 1:21:28
  He won't lie. The world's gone wrong.
• 1:21:30
  We've we've broken our hands, Baby guns.
• 1:21:33
  He likes Nightmare and Silva, remember?
• 1:21:36
  Cy Heart said. It's brilliantly bonkers and
• 1:21:38
  unexpectedly moving and poignant.
• 1:21:40
  A real gem. Paul Smy says The Crooked World
• 1:21:43
  is an absolute gem of a novel. Currently my favorite EDA.
• 1:21:46
  Very funny but also quite moving, especially with Jasper
• 1:21:49
  the cat. Steve Lyons cannot put a foot
• 1:21:52
  wrong and this is my absolute favorite of his.
• 1:21:55
  Two more. Oscar Groucho says it's not, and
• 1:21:58
  this was I thought was a great comment.
• 1:22:00
  Like one of Darren Morgan's X File episodes.
• 1:22:03
  Using comedy to examine the character and format,
• 1:22:06
  deconstructing the cliches of the range to point a way forward
• 1:22:09
  with some sterling character work.
• 1:22:11
  Lions returning to ground, trodden in conundrum to equally
• 1:22:15
  potent effect. A favorite.
• 1:22:17
  And then finally, someone had to be a negative.
• 1:22:19
  Nearly. No, not the Mayan probe, who I
• 1:22:24
  believe is Yonder fella from who corner to corner, isn't it?
• 1:22:29
  What's his name? I can't remember now.
• 1:22:31
  Is it Jeff? No, the other gentleman.
• 1:22:35
  I've actually podcasted with him.
• 1:22:36
  This is very rude, yeah. I'm brain farting because I
• 1:22:38
  listen to this so now I'm like. I remember reading that book
• 1:22:43
  back in the day, but I can't for the life of me remember a damn
• 1:22:46
  thing about the story. How could you forget this?
• 1:22:50
  That's actually not very helpful.
• 1:22:51
  Is it kind of a pointless? Tweet really.
• 1:22:53
  It's yeah, things to do. Somewhat ambiguous way to end
• 1:23:01
  our conversation on the crooked world, but.
• 1:23:03
  Not many people on the on the Twitter are that self aware.
• 1:23:06
  Why am I writing this? I don't know.
• 1:23:10
  I'm going about my day now, Thea.
• 1:23:12
  Yeah. Andrew, will you please
• 1:23:14
  introduce what is going to be potentially my favorite ever of
• 1:23:18
  our top threes that we ever do? Yes, well we are appropriately
• 1:23:25
  for a book about an animated world talking about book covers.
• 1:23:32
  So we are going to give our top three black sheep covers.
• 1:23:37
  And black sheep is not a character from the cuckoo world.
• 1:23:41
  It was the design agency that did all of the this era of BBC
• 1:23:45
  books, so 97 to 2005 62. 1005 yeah, December.
• 1:23:52
  Much better when they got out of the swirl phase, you know?
• 1:23:56
  I don't mind the swirl. Oh, you don't.
• 1:23:59
  I think was quite smart and like a way to sort of like make
• 1:24:04
  everything look consistent. Draws the eye, doesn't it, to
• 1:24:06
  that central image on the book? I had to find somebody that
• 1:24:09
  liked the swirl, and here we are.
• 1:24:11
  Well, look, do you want to start us off?
• 1:24:13
  We'll go round and do 11 apiece and we'll sort of go round in a
• 1:24:16
  circle. OK.
• 1:24:18
  Are we counting to the best one? Yes, number 321, yeah.
• 1:24:24
  Yeah, so my number 3 is Adventurous of Henrietta St. and
• 1:24:32
  I really like this one. I think because the the BBC
• 1:24:38
  books never really had representations of the
• 1:24:41
  characters on the covers. And I think this is the only one
• 1:24:45
  which has the Doctor Fitz and Angie on it.
• 1:24:48
  They're in silhouettes. So they're they're still quite
• 1:24:51
  ambiguous, but it's just that really strong image of the
• 1:24:55
  central trio with fire behind them and the sort of ring and
• 1:25:00
  the blue and the and the fire. Fire is not a colour.
• 1:25:07
  It is now. I'm quite tired.
• 1:25:09
  Yes, I really like I really like that cover.
• 1:25:13
  Really strong book, really strong cover and a nice chance
• 1:25:17
  to see the TARDIS team TARDIS team that we kind of don't see
• 1:25:21
  an official imagery. John, who's going to go?
• 1:25:27
  Oh, am I John? Let's see you pick up on and so
• 1:25:33
  I'm going to go with Parallel 59, which is book.
• 1:25:36
  I can remember very little of about the cover because the
• 1:25:40
  cover's quite simple. It's just that big one of those
• 1:25:43
  big images of porn Gandhi had that those limited ones you saw
• 1:25:46
  so on. And it's just for a few streaks
• 1:25:48
  of blood down that cover and it's just really simple, really
• 1:25:52
  effective. It's like, what the hell is
• 1:25:54
  going on here? It's it's like that interference
• 1:25:56
  with the blood in the tart. It's just like, hang on, there's
• 1:25:58
  blood, there's a doctor. This isn't supposed to happen.
• 1:26:01
  So it's kind of it's really strong that I really want to
• 1:26:04
  what's going to happen here and then.
• 1:26:08
  Yeah. So.
• 1:26:14
  Oh, Luke. I usually hate Doctor Who DVDs,
• 1:26:20
  books and audios that will use the same in picture of the
• 1:26:26
  Doctor, like every time. And I'm going to choose one as
• 1:26:32
  one of my top three favorite covers because I fucking love
• 1:26:34
  the cover to the burning normal. Like you've all seen it from the
• 1:26:40
  TV movie Paul McGann holding up his clock, his clock, his pocket
• 1:26:45
  watch and that. And it's the same one you've
• 1:26:48
  seen all the time. They don't even try to hide it.
• 1:26:50
  It is and flames Simple. It's awesome.
• 1:26:55
  And it kind of got me back into these.
• 1:27:00
  Yeah. So.
• 1:27:01
  It does say on the cover what's going to happen in the book,
• 1:27:04
  right? It's Paul McGowan and a load of
• 1:27:06
  fire. Yeah, it was nice that they kind
• 1:27:08
  of used Paul McGowan quite sparingly on the covers.
• 1:27:11
  And I think using him on that kind of relaunch book was smart
• 1:27:15
  to kind of draw people back in and be like, look, it's the
• 1:27:17
  Doctor, you love him. Before I choose my third, I just
• 1:27:21
  want to say I would have chosen all the eyes, but I'll mention
• 1:27:24
  them all the time. Year of Intelligent Tigers and
• 1:27:27
  CNI. Love both those covers.
• 1:27:29
  So simple, so striking, but too obvious.
• 1:27:33
  So my first one is Sometime Never by Justin Richards.
• 1:27:38
  What? Not by Justin Richards the
• 1:27:40
  cover, but it's so simple. It's Octane from the council of
• 1:27:43
  A, this fabulous crystal skeleton with his hand out
• 1:27:48
  holding the TARDIS. It's just such a enticing image
• 1:27:52
  as to what on Earth could be happening inside.
• 1:27:55
  Very simple. Like I think the Best of Black
• 1:27:58
  Sheep covers are. Yeah.
• 1:28:01
  And like a proper science fictiony cover as well.
• 1:28:03
  So yeah, I love that one. And it's blue, which is a bit of
• 1:28:06
  a theme. So my my second one is another
• 1:28:13
  Tardis E cover. It's city of death, not city of
• 1:28:18
  death, city of. The dead.
• 1:28:20
  City of. The dead.
• 1:28:21
  It's an amazing cover, yeah. So it's that brilliant image of
• 1:28:25
  the TARDIS in the middle of the graveyard in New Orleans, among
• 1:28:31
  all the kind of mausoleums and. In the city of the dead.
• 1:28:34
  Yes, with the lightning coming out of it.
• 1:28:38
  And there's something about black sheep covers where they're
• 1:28:44
  sort of, although they're using Photoshop, they're not really
• 1:28:47
  photorealistic. There's this sort of strange
• 1:28:50
  flatness to them, which might not be intentional, but it's
• 1:28:55
  kind of really distinctive. And sometimes it doesn't work
• 1:28:58
  and but sometimes it really does.
• 1:29:00
  And this book, it doesn't look like a painting, it doesn't look
• 1:29:04
  like a photograph. It's this weird sort of early
• 1:29:08
  Photoshop photo montage thing where they're often like setting
• 1:29:13
  the filters on on Photoshop, like bubble wrap filter 100%.
• 1:29:17
  And it's the kind of thing where you've used Photoshop a little
• 1:29:20
  bit. You're like, oh, OK, oh, it
• 1:29:21
  would never do that. But I guess because it was this
• 1:29:23
  new tool they're they're using all of those things that people
• 1:29:26
  hadn't seen before. And I think these books get
• 1:29:29
  slagged. The covers got slagged off a lot
• 1:29:30
  at the time because it was that move away from painted covers.
• 1:29:34
  But they when they're doing it well, they're really kind of
• 1:29:37
  creating strange things and using the tools to their limits
• 1:29:41
  to create them. So yeah, I think, I think they
• 1:29:45
  get a bit of a bad rap. And when it works like it does
• 1:29:47
  on City of the Dead, it works really well.
• 1:29:52
  John, think you're next again? I'm going to go the thing I
• 1:29:57
  really like about black sheep compared to virgin virgin,
• 1:30:01
  particularly on I think it went right to the end of the range.
• 1:30:03
  They always kind of insisted that the scene on the cover had
• 1:30:08
  to be in a book. That's really kind of limiting
• 1:30:11
  because I I like these kind of conceptual covers, the ones that
• 1:30:13
  reflect the themes of the book. And the one I'm going to pick is
• 1:30:17
  history one O 1, which is a just the it's the colours, so colours
• 1:30:23
  so rich and it's a book about perception.
• 1:30:25
  It's about the way we see things and it's just this slightly kind
• 1:30:29
  of odd painting on it. It's rich backwards.
• 1:30:34
  So it's a really kind of subtly unsettling cover which
• 1:30:39
  completely kind of captures the book themes.
• 1:30:41
  And I think there's thank the authors because I think the
• 1:30:43
  authors, as I remember at the time, I might be on read mailing
• 1:30:46
  this Mike, in interviews, they said the thing you need with
• 1:30:50
  Black Sheep is to know exactly what you want from the cover and
• 1:30:53
  they would deliver that. Obviously authors didn't quite
• 1:30:56
  maybe know or didn't think in visual terms.
• 1:30:58
  Isn't that but history? Johnny Morris went back several
• 1:31:01
  times, didn't he, with an acrobia and said this isn't what
• 1:31:04
  I want and he made them change it.
• 1:31:07
  And it's and that's that's what I had on my long list as well.
• 1:31:10
  Yeah, me too. That's a good cover.
• 1:31:12
  Like the like the thing with the apple in front of his face.
• 1:31:16
  Darling, Yeah. Just a bit of blood.
• 1:31:19
  It's. A bit of blood.
• 1:31:22
  Sam Mcgree. Mcgree.
• 1:31:24
  It's my number one. Oh shit.
• 1:31:26
  OK, well, we'll get. That sorry Andrew, it's boy
• 1:31:31
  list. Well, well, I don't care if
• 1:31:37
  you're a child reading these books or my age and older.
• 1:31:43
  If you see this cover either of Wasps, don't worry.
• 1:31:47
  Who fan? It's my Marshall list.
• 1:31:49
  Look not. Want to read that?
• 1:31:51
  Look at that. What is that eater of Wasps and
• 1:31:56
  the cover giant a mouth with like Wasps in it?
• 1:32:01
  It's here's what the blurb says. You just want to it is a.
• 1:32:06
  Proper kind of 70s horror cover, isn't it?
• 1:32:08
  That track is horror. It.
• 1:32:10
  Literally was the cover, which is why I picked it up.
• 1:32:13
  I just it was facing outwards in the oticas that it was in and I
• 1:32:18
  was like I must read that book. I talked to who, but I'll get
• 1:32:21
  it. Here we are today.
• 1:32:24
  Either of what? It's just it's another one of
• 1:32:26
  those simple designs. I wish.
• 1:32:27
  Black sheep. Maybe they can just say black
• 1:32:29
  sheep on the back. Maybe in the middle.
• 1:32:32
  Tell me who used the Photoshop program this week so I know who
• 1:32:36
  I know who to be like. I like your Photoshop skills 20
• 1:32:40
  years ago. Who does the shit ones and who
• 1:32:42
  does the great ones? You.
• 1:32:43
  Know well the same person didn't do camera obscura because that's
• 1:32:47
  just an ugly looking rose on the oh I.
• 1:32:49
  Love camera Obscura I. Love my number.
• 1:32:52
  What? No, it's not.
• 1:32:53
  No. But eater of Wasps and then you
• 1:32:56
  had your cup follow that up with you of intelligent tigers.
• 1:32:59
  It's just like it's the doctor in the eye of the target.
• 1:33:02
  But yeah, look at that. Who doesn't like a bit of horror
• 1:33:06
  in there? Doctor Who?
• 1:33:06
  Like, come on, someone. It's probably someone.
• 1:33:10
  Hideous teeth I've ever seen as well.
• 1:33:13
  Oh God, get to the dentist. Whoever you are.
• 1:33:16
  It's he's dead from eating all the.
• 1:33:17
  Wasps. If I was Trevor Baxendale, I
• 1:33:20
  would have seen this cover and being like, holy shit, thank you
• 1:33:23
  so much. That's amazing.
• 1:33:25
  Yeah. I my next one is also blue and
• 1:33:29
  it's another 8th doctor book. Is anyone choosing anything?
• 1:33:32
  From the past doctor range. I haven't.
• 1:33:35
  I haven't either. My second choice is the Blue
• 1:33:39
  Angel, which I just think is stunningly beautiful and weird
• 1:33:45
  and psychedelic with this sort of angelic looking boy with
• 1:33:50
  wings standing in. I don't know, I feel as if I'm
• 1:33:54
  taking hallucinatory drugs looking at what he's standing
• 1:33:57
  in, but it's just so strikingly visual.
• 1:34:01
  It's very beautiful. And I just think it's a great
• 1:34:03
  bit of graphic design as well. So yeah.
• 1:34:06
  Also that he's kind of weird and misshapen as well, that you
• 1:34:10
  can't quite tell what you're looking at and what he's
• 1:34:12
  holding. And it's that thing about the
• 1:34:14
  black sheet covers where there's always just something a little
• 1:34:16
  bit off and strange about them, but in a good way.
• 1:34:20
  Also seems to be naked as well, but we'll skip.
• 1:34:23
  Over It's a Paul Mars book. Yeah.
• 1:34:26
  Paul Mars does get great covers, doesn't he?
• 1:34:29
  Joe, I wonder what Andrew's number one is?
• 1:34:33
  Well, Andrew, yes. So anachrophobia.
• 1:34:39
  Yeah. I just love, love that one so
• 1:34:42
  much. It's so atmospheric and it's
• 1:34:45
  such a strong image from that book.
• 1:34:47
  And it's, you know, you can tell that when Johnny Morris was
• 1:34:51
  writing that book, he was thinking in visual terms, and
• 1:34:55
  that image was always going to be front and centre on the
• 1:34:59
  cover. It's green, which is unusual in
• 1:35:03
  the range. They're often kind of blue.
• 1:35:04
  And it's got that sort of washed out green color, and then you've
• 1:35:08
  got the splash of red blood across it that's really strong.
• 1:35:12
  And it's also got some, like I was saying, about like sort of
• 1:35:15
  weird Photoshop stuff, like the trees on the horizon.
• 1:35:19
  They're all the same tree, they've just been cloned.
• 1:35:21
  But in this instance, it kind of adds to the weirdness of it, and
• 1:35:26
  it's one of those things that's probably not intentional.
• 1:35:28
  They've just like Clone, clone Invert.
• 1:35:31
  But it adds to that kind of feel of these books that there's just
• 1:35:37
  the kind of weird artificiality to them that I really love it.
• 1:35:42
  Was nightmarish that cover, doesn't it?
• 1:35:44
  Yeah, love it. A nightmare I do not want to
• 1:35:49
  have, but I do want to. Read right, John.
• 1:35:55
  See, I'm going to go. I know Joe's gone with, you
• 1:35:59
  know, with his blue covers. I really love the white covers
• 1:36:03
  they used to do because they're just so elegant.
• 1:36:06
  So I had, you know, I was thinking, do I do Father time?
• 1:36:09
  You know, the Infinity Doctors, which is gorgeous, that image.
• 1:36:14
  But but I want to go with drift. Drift.
• 1:36:17
  Yeah, that was on my list. Yeah, that was on my list as.
• 1:36:21
  Well. Oh, it's.
• 1:36:22
  So simple. Yeah, just the TARDIS
• 1:36:24
  essentially in a snowdrift. That's all you need and it's
• 1:36:29
  perfectly what the book's doing where it's set.
• 1:36:33
  I I you know, and a white cover is eye-catching from what you
• 1:36:36
  compared to a Doctor because you're thinking you're going to
• 1:36:38
  get lurid colours again. The another one on our I'm sure
• 1:36:42
  everyone's long. This was mad dogs an Englishman
• 1:36:46
  and this is the polar optic, literally, but it works.
• 1:36:50
  It's eye-catching. It's beautiful, it's
• 1:36:53
  minimalistic, and it's just the opposite.
• 1:36:56
  It's the opposite of what you expect from Doctor Who cover and
• 1:36:59
  I'd love it. It's it's like you said earlier,
• 1:37:02
  and this is not to knock the new adventure covers because I think
• 1:37:05
  some of them are absolutely beautiful.
• 1:37:07
  Some of those like which mark is beautiful, but it is the sort of
• 1:37:12
  cover you never would have got. I think it's too simple for a
• 1:37:15
  new adventurous cover, but that is is strength I think in drift.
• 1:37:21
  Well, I did let the cat out of the bag before we started
• 1:37:25
  recording. I like the balls of these guys
• 1:37:30
  to be like it's a milestone. Let's celebrate with the pinkest
• 1:37:34
  cover you've ever seen. Yay.
• 1:37:39
  Poodle with a with a kind of can't be looking 60s ray gun
• 1:37:45
  fifty 60s sci-fi ray gun with a cigarette in a cigarette holder
• 1:37:50
  sitting on some kind of leopard print couch.
• 1:37:54
  It is as pink as you can get as well.
• 1:37:56
  It's probably the only pink book as well.
• 1:37:58
  Let's celebrate our milestone. Are you exhausted after the
• 1:38:01
  previous book? By the way, the cover will just
• 1:38:04
  like make you relax. Just the cover of this book will
• 1:38:08
  just be like, OK chill. It's no heterosexual men get
• 1:38:12
  very stressed out looking at that cover.
• 1:38:14
  All right, they've got a buy in the shop.
• 1:38:17
  But that's why I've never baked it.
• 1:38:18
  It's because, you know, Doctor Who's been, particularly this
• 1:38:21
  time, it's this thing that's in the closet almost, you know, as
• 1:38:25
  a Doctor Who fan. And if you're gay, you can't
• 1:38:28
  conceal it. There's no way you can see that
• 1:38:31
  you're out and pregnant if you're buying that do.
• 1:38:33
  You remember the reaction to that cover at the time though?
• 1:38:35
  Yeah, People were incensed, weren't they?
• 1:38:38
  How dare you mock Doctor Who? This very serious.
• 1:38:43
  You know, graphic adult series of books America.
• 1:38:47
  Is turning in its grave. Did I say that Luke was the
• 1:38:52
  straightest man on this call? Whirly opinions have been
• 1:38:56
  revised. Low bar.
• 1:39:03
  OK, well, I hate to be predictable, but I'm going to
• 1:39:06
  be. It isn't.
• 1:39:06
  Blue, but it is white and it is father time and I just think
• 1:39:12
  this is an example of photoshopping done extremely
• 1:39:15
  well because I can't see the fucking seam from where the
• 1:39:19
  little girl was sitting in with her white covers and the the
• 1:39:23
  snow that she's sitting in. It's beautifully dumb.
• 1:39:26
  Again, simple. A snowy landscape just is
• 1:39:29
  magical. And the little girl peeking out
• 1:39:33
  of the covers looking at, I mean who is that child?
• 1:39:35
  Does anyone know where are you Father time girl I.
• 1:39:39
  Mean. It's Clark Kent.
• 1:39:43
  I mean, it's a photo, right? Yeah.
• 1:39:45
  Yeah, well. Maybe it's the same little girl
• 1:39:48
  who was the son in the Teletubbies.
• 1:39:52
  Well, look. I did go on the hunt for Portia
• 1:39:54
  de Costa, Now I shall try and find.
• 1:39:56
  The little girl from the middle of.
• 1:39:58
  Father Time cover but. They, they somehow managed to
• 1:40:04
  wrap her in a sheet that looks like freshly laid snow as well.
• 1:40:09
  And it just, I mean, if a book, if a cover is supposed to
• 1:40:12
  summarize what the book is about, that does the job just
• 1:40:16
  perfectly and beautifully as well.
• 1:40:19
  The other thing that I love about Black Sheep Books is the
• 1:40:23
  spines. I think the design is really
• 1:40:27
  clever because with the new adventures and the missing
• 1:40:32
  adventures, they're just white or they're black.
• 1:40:34
  They all look the same on the bookshelf.
• 1:40:37
  They look the same on the on a bookshop, bookshop bookshelf,
• 1:40:40
  whereas these are all different, but they're all consistent
• 1:40:44
  because they have the design elements of the logo.
• 1:40:46
  This little box that shows you the front cover and the tech.
• 1:40:51
  Yeah, but they're wrap around, so they're all different
• 1:40:54
  colours. So you can have the apart from
• 1:40:56
  grim reality, which isn't the little picture, but it means you
• 1:41:01
  have consistency. But they all look different.
• 1:41:04
  And you can have a shelf with all these pretty different
• 1:41:07
  colours and you can pick out a different one.
• 1:41:09
  And they all have their own distinct identity.
• 1:41:11
  And it's clever graphic design and I love it.
• 1:41:13
  I don't know if you heard the sigh heart top ten and bottom
• 1:41:17
  10, but he's never put them in order.
• 1:41:19
  He does it as a rainbow across the spectrum and he goes from
• 1:41:22
  white all the way to black. And I said.
• 1:41:25
  You're fucking mad, you are. That would drive me potty.
• 1:41:28
  But. You'll have seen Joe in our
• 1:41:31
  house. That's how Rich organises his
• 1:41:33
  books. Like the ones in the living room
• 1:41:35
  are all rainbow whereas I'm more more ordered with.
• 1:41:39
  It I mean, it's fabulous living room, right?
• 1:41:41
  Sorry, I'm going to reveal some secrets now, Andrew.
• 1:41:43
  And I was just sort of looking around, trying not to be too.
• 1:41:46
  So yes, if I was watching the TV instead, I was sort of looking
• 1:41:48
  at all the shelves. I'll turn around.
• 1:41:50
  And behind me was the most beautiful Marco Polo LP cover.
• 1:41:55
  Oh my God, absolutely. I mean, sorry, black sheep,
• 1:41:59
  those LP covers have got your feet.
• 1:42:00
  They are gorgeous. Probably the best covers we've
• 1:42:03
  ever had. They are.
• 1:42:05
  They're expensive. Well fellas, I hope we have as
• 1:42:11
  much fun and I'm sure we will lamenting the bottom 3 black
• 1:42:16
  sheep covers because I'm I think there might be as many to choose
• 1:42:19
  from. As the ones in the.
• 1:42:23
  But until then, would somebody please, in a disconsolate way,
• 1:42:29
  tell the listeners where we are going next?
• 1:42:35
  Bastards are making me read a pertly book and it's not even
• 1:42:38
  one of the good ones, so thanks a lot.
• 1:42:41
  It's the ghost of NSP. Wait, going to Italy?
• 1:42:47
  Because the title has been mentioned, I think Andrew should
• 1:42:50
  have to do a Jeremy Fitz Oliver impression every time we mention
• 1:42:54
  the title of the book. So, Andrew, please.
• 1:42:57
  The ghost of NSP. Well, that's a lot per.
• 1:43:00
  We. Yeah, yeah, maybe we need to
• 1:43:04
  relist them to nail my Jeremy Oliver.
• 1:43:07
  You got it perfect in the other one when you were talking about
• 1:43:10
  the tourists. Yes, that is indeed right.
• 1:43:14
  The Ghost of Airspace by Barry Letts, a book that has
• 1:43:18
  historically turned up on three bottom 10 lists so far and I've
• 1:43:23
  only done 7 episodes. It was that when Doctor Who
• 1:43:27
  Magazine did the poll of all of them, it was right there at the
• 1:43:30
  bottom of the missing adventures.
• 1:43:32
  Oh, so so So what you said, Joe, is it's rivaling Dalek
• 1:43:35
  generation. I've got to talk about that on
• 1:43:39
  Wednesday, please. Oh, I've got to on Tuesday as.
• 1:43:42
  Well, oh, we've. Got to do it this.
• 1:43:44
  Way we can forward to, yeah. Terrifying.
• 1:43:47
  Well, good. Stuff for that.
• 1:43:48
  Sure. I mean, I'm going to let in on a
• 1:43:50
  tiny spoiler. I have already read the ghosts
• 1:43:53
  around the space. And I quite enjoyed.
• 1:43:58
  It so I got away and. I think Andrews got a secret
• 1:44:01
  love from his time listening to the audio of this one that he
• 1:44:04
  talked about. So you 2 are going to be the
• 1:44:07
  Scroogees on the next call. I'm going to be the, I'm going
• 1:44:10
  to be the, it's going to be like coming to like the previous
• 1:44:15
  Crooked World episode where they weren't necessarily EDA fans.
• 1:44:18
  I've never heard the ghost of N Space either.
• 1:44:22
  So I'm going to come at this completely fresh.
• 1:44:26
  Well, I'm going to end this episode.
• 1:44:29
  Can everybody please try and do the that's all folks at the same
• 1:44:32
  time? If I count down from 321 go oh
• 1:44:40
  hideous, I'll cut it there.