Latest / A Hamster With a Blunt Penknife - a Doctor Who Commentary podcast / Hamster Book Club - Face of the Enemy by David A. McIntee (featuring Luke Sims-Jenkins, Andrew Batty & Jon Arnold)

Transcript

Hamster Book Club - Face of the Enemy by David A. McIntee (featuring Luke Sims-Jenkins, Andrew Batty & Jon Arnold) · A Hamster With a Blunt Penknife - a Doctor Who Commentary podcast

• 0:00
  The Master held up a hand. Please don't insult my
• 0:04
  intelligence. He put on a more companionable
• 0:08
  expression, as if the matter meant nothing to him.
• 0:12
  You know you've shown greater courage to most of my employees.
• 0:17
  Ambition, Dr. The will to succeed.
• 0:20
  These are the traits I see in both you and myself.
• 0:24
  Baron risked A wavery smile, and the Master gestured to his
• 0:27
  chair. Sit down.
• 0:30
  He suggested mildly. Baron stumbled to the chair,
• 0:34
  then turned back. Whatever it is I had nothing to
• 0:38
  do with. Sit down.
• 0:40
  The Master commanded, and Baron practically fell into the seat.
• 0:44
  That's better. The Master suddenly grabbed
• 0:47
  Baron's chin, his gaze boring into his frightened human eyes.
• 0:51
  Now you are going to tell me all about your friend, Miss Kyle, I
• 0:56
  can. The Master concentrated more
• 0:59
  strongly, focusing all his powers of hypnosis on Barham.
• 1:03
  You are going to tell me about Miss Kyle, I can.
• 1:08
  Baron snarled, shoving the Master away.
• 1:12
  Some minds were impenetrable due to either stubbornness or, as
• 1:16
  was probably the case here, psychosis.
• 1:19
  A psychotic mind could easily be too fragmented to capture
• 1:24
  intact. Live shone back into Baron's
• 1:26
  eyes as he realised that the Master had failed in his attempt
• 1:30
  to hypnotize him. Doesn't work.
• 1:33
  Too smart for the Master. Backhanded Baron across the jaw,
• 1:37
  sending him rocking back in his seat.
• 1:39
  Insolent, primitive. He caught himself in time and
• 1:42
  suppressed the anger. It would be his undoing someday,
• 1:46
  if he was ever undone. A dead Baron would be of no use
• 1:49
  to him anyway. So the master restrained
• 1:51
  himself, a hesitantly magnanimous gesture to his
• 1:55
  opponent. Congratulations, you're one of a
• 1:58
  very select breed. You know humans who can resist
• 2:01
  my will. It's something to be proud of,
• 2:05
  as he expected this fruit Baron off guard.
• 2:07
  Wha. Well, some of us have got it, I
• 2:10
  suppose. I didn't mean no respect.
• 2:12
  I just, I just mean, I don't know anything.
• 2:17
  He wasn't a good liar. Those who dealt our punishments
• 2:20
  didn't need to be. I wish I could believe you, Mr.
• 2:25
  Barron. The master said with a hint of
• 2:27
  apology in his tone. Unfortunately, I cannot.
• 2:31
  He reached into his jacket for his tissue compression and
• 2:33
  eliminator, but hesitated. Humans had a need for less
• 2:37
  subtlety, didn't they? He drew an automatic pistol
• 2:41
  instead and pointed at a Barron. Oh, right, with Baron Scott.
• 2:45
  As if you're going to kill me before finding out what you want
• 2:48
  to know. Baron had been his
• 2:50
  organization's usual interrogator.
• 2:53
  He knew that such things didn't get results.
• 2:55
  He was also proceeding from a false premise, the Master was
• 2:58
  glad to know. The Master merely raised an
• 3:01
  eyebrow. A predictable, if unwise
• 3:04
  response. He shot Baron in the left knee,
• 3:07
  twisting his shin and foot round in a burst of blood and sending
• 3:11
  the torn out patellar arcing into the corner of the room.
• 3:14
  The Master paused until the human screams that subsided.
• 3:18
  Now I'm not a patient man. Sooner or later you are going to
• 3:21
  tell me what I want to know. You shot me.
• 3:25
  Baron gasped, his face white the surprising.
• 3:28
  His voice was so comical that the Master laughed easily.
• 3:32
  Was the laughter a response to the question, or just an
• 3:34
  exclamation of the shock and injury?
• 3:37
  No matter. He had laid clear rules with the
• 3:39
  first shot. Answer correctly or be hurt.
• 3:43
  Tell me about Miss Kyle. If I do, she'll kill me.
• 3:48
  Baron looked up at him pleadingly.
• 3:50
  Baby seals must look like that, the Master thought, before
• 3:52
  Hunters club them. He fired again.
• 3:55
  This time the shot neatly scraped Baron's earlobe, barely
• 3:58
  drawing blood. Baron's scream was almost
• 4:01
  religious in its intensity. Despite the harmless shot, the
• 4:05
  Master sat on the desk calmly waiting for the noise to subside
• 4:09
  to a moan. I assure you, Mr. Baron, this is
• 4:12
  hurting you far more than it is me.
• 4:14
  He pursed his lips. It must be an interesting
• 4:17
  experience for you, being on the receiving end.
• 4:20
  I wonder how long it usually takes you to make someone talk.
• 4:24
  I'd be ashamed if I didn't do better.
• 4:26
  Go to hell. Baron finally grunted through
• 4:29
  gritted teeth. The third shot splinted his
• 4:32
  right forearm, just above the wrist.
• 4:35
  This time. It took a lot longer for the
• 4:36
  screamers to die, and the Master began to wonder if he hadn't
• 4:39
  made a misjudgement. It was possible that Baron might
• 4:42
  die of shock and blood loss before actually giving up the
• 4:45
  information. He might have to start offering
• 4:47
  concessions, which would encourage Baron to resist.
• 4:50
  Further movement caught his eye, and he realized Baron wasn't
• 4:53
  just shaking from shock and pain, but was nodding his head.
• 4:57
  I'll tell I'm listening, the master said.
• 5:01
  I'll see your pain is eased afterwards.
• 5:03
  She's from the, He winced. East.
• 5:05
  Russian mafia or something. The Soviets don't admit to
• 5:08
  having crime, but it's there. She and I have been working to
• 5:11
  get her people jobs here in the West, out from Soviet rule.
• 5:16
  Our gels are cushy compared to theirs, The master rumphed.
• 5:20
  It was an obvious tissue of lies, yet Baron's eyes held no
• 5:23
  deceit. Resentment, yes.
• 5:25
  Shame, yes. Hatred, yes, but no deception.
• 5:31
  The Master wasn't surprised though.
• 5:33
  If his suspicions about Marianne Karl were correct, she could
• 5:36
  hardly tell anyone the truth about her origins.
• 5:39
  The Master's mind wandered back to his meeting with her after
• 5:41
  his escape from the paramilitaries in Aylesbury.
• 5:45
  He had dismissed her suggestion that they had similar aims,
• 5:48
  thinking that she could not possibly even be aware of the
• 5:50
  world's he planned to conquer. Perhaps she did.
• 5:55
  You said you'd help. Me.
• 5:57
  Baron reminded him breathlessly. The master nodded solemnly.
• 6:01
  And I always keep my words. He pointed the tissue
• 6:05
  compression eliminator at Baron and triggered it.
• 6:09
  Baron's breathless screams were cut off by the popping of bones
• 6:12
  as they contorted and collapsed in on themselves.
• 6:16
  The Master made to leave, but then hesitated.
• 6:20
  He had just had an amusing idea. Hello everyone, and welcome to
• 6:40
  the Hamster Book Club. My name is Luke Sims Jenkins,
• 6:43
  and today me and three other people will be covering the face
• 6:48
  of the enemy. So with me today is Mr. Joe
• 6:52
  Ford. Say hello, Mr. Joe Ford.
• 6:54
  Hello. Were you tempted to say welcome
• 6:56
  to the Mar and Chess Club then, instead of the Hamster book
• 6:59
  club? I was going to get it wrong
• 7:02
  somehow. I'm glad.
• 7:03
  I'm glad I got it right. I had to think about it.
• 7:05
  You could see the cogs turning in my head.
• 7:06
  You through, couldn't you? Sorry about the fact that you're
• 7:08
  hosting Stay Luke, because you're the one who sort of
• 7:11
  dragged your ass out of bed at 4:00.
• 7:12
  In the morning. That's what I'm doing when I'm
• 7:15
  hosting Myron Chess Club anyway. So yeah, I have to, you know,
• 7:19
  I've got all my makeup on as well, hide the bags under my
• 7:21
  eyes, all this kind of stuff. So.
• 7:23
  I hope you're going to say it's on my own podcast, but I'm
• 7:25
  delighted to. Be here.
• 7:26
  Thanks for having me. We also have Mr. Andrew Batty
• 7:31
  say hello. Mr. Andrew Batty.
• 7:32
  Hello, hello, I'm looking forward to some masterful
• 7:35
  discussion. Oh, I said what you did there.
• 7:38
  And finally, we have Mr. John Arnold say hello.
• 7:41
  Mr. John Arnold. Hello Queen to Mara's Bishop for
• 7:47
  check. Horsey to Queen Bish 3 I just
• 7:54
  got. I just got Quig in my my my head
• 7:56
  now. Can somebody insult?
• 8:00
  Can somebody insult? John, a lot on this call,
• 8:02
  please, because I'm very used to podcasting with him and his son
• 8:05
  these days and I'm just used to hearing him being ratted on for
• 8:09
  about two hours by his son. Honestly, it's a true insight
• 8:13
  into his domestic arrangements. Oh yeah, it's not the half of it
• 8:18
  I tell. You really?
• 8:20
  It's worse than that. As soon as he's old enough, just
• 8:23
  drop him out of the house. That's fine.
• 8:25
  Yeah. Oh yeah.
• 8:25
  Oh, it's awesome. So 10 months I think before we
• 8:28
  can get rid of. You indoctrinated that child,
• 8:31
  all right. This is all your fault.
• 8:33
  I know he probably got it from Capaldi when he met him.
• 8:39
  Oh, that photograph. Oh my God.
• 8:42
  Oh. Yeah, even your heart goes it
• 8:45
  now. Even you.
• 8:47
  Even every child ever conceived your child though, Good grief.
• 8:53
  Just all the rest. How are we this far off paced
• 8:56
  already? Sorry.
• 8:58
  Yeah. All right.
• 8:59
  It's easily done about people who aren't here and podcast, but
• 9:03
  isn't this one? We're professionals here,
• 9:07
  Andrew. You get us on track.
• 9:08
  Please load place. All right, so before we talk
• 9:11
  about Face of the Enemy by David A Mckinty, let's talk about the
• 9:15
  master first. Our impressions of the master,
• 9:17
  what we think of the master, all that kind of stuff.
• 9:19
  Let's start with Andrew. What do you think of the Master?
• 9:24
  I think I'm a bit so so on the Master, like I can enjoy a
• 9:28
  Master story, but I don't think the Master is like my favorite
• 9:33
  adversary of the Doctor. I think I probably prefer like
• 9:37
  classic series Master where he's just kind of a camp villain
• 9:40
  rather than like a psychopath. I'm not sure that, yeah, I'm not
• 9:47
  sure that like how into all of the, like, psychological layers
• 9:50
  of stuff that just mean that he shouts at things a lot that
• 9:52
  they've added in the new series. But yeah, I think, yeah, maybe
• 9:57
  maybe it's just like that Moriarty thing.
• 9:59
  I'm just not that interested in in Doctor Who.
• 10:01
  I think I'd prefer like more born off baddies and like
• 10:07
  monsters, I guess to to the Master.
• 10:11
  I don't know. I think it's just because he
• 10:12
  keeps coming back and it's never like tied up.
• 10:14
  Yeah, Yeah, he's all right. He's all right.
• 10:21
  Oh, John, I was about to say Andrew again.
• 10:24
  What do you think of the master? Go.
• 10:26
  This is the regenerated Andrew. Tell us what you what do you
• 10:29
  think this time? Yeah, I.
• 10:31
  Mean the bee isn't everything. He is the new incarnation.
• 10:33
  He is all this time. Andrew doesn't know it, but I'm
• 10:39
  the one after that, you know? I'm the one to come.
• 10:42
  Andrew. All right.
• 10:43
  Oh, so you're the Ali the camp? Yes, Yes.
• 10:47
  That's right, yes. Right.
• 10:50
  So Luke. So Luke, one of us is Eric
• 10:52
  Roberts. So you know, we have to.
• 10:53
  You're dressed for the occasion, so it's all good.
• 10:57
  I'm the monk. I'm yeah, I'm the monk.
• 11:00
  You be a great medley. Monk.
• 11:05
  Perfect. Yeah, I see.
• 11:07
  I talk about, I prefer the Monk because he's kind of this force
• 11:10
  of chaos in all this stuff. The Master, it's just he's a bad
• 11:15
  guy. He's kind of a generic bad guy.
• 11:17
  I know there's the, you know, people have done the hard work
• 11:20
  then years to try and give him a background, but it depends on
• 11:24
  the actor so much. Then This is why I think
• 11:27
  Delgado, I can watch the Delgado master for Delgado because he's
• 11:32
  never bad. And you know, something like the
• 11:34
  time monster. That's his story.
• 11:36
  I I love Thomas because he basically plays the role of the
• 11:40
  doctor all all through that story.
• 11:41
  It's glorious, you know, Amy's Amy's Master is generally quite
• 11:48
  sort of generic until, well, I think it possibly a popular
• 11:53
  godless and survival to the to the beginning and the end.
• 11:56
  The other one, because I did a short story for an anthology a
• 12:00
  few years where you had to write the Master without the Doctor,
• 12:04
  and writing the Amy Master without the Doctor is hell
• 12:08
  because that Master, it's just all about the Doctor.
• 12:11
  There is nothing else in his universe.
• 12:13
  He's just there to piss the Doctor off, That's it.
• 12:16
  Which I kind of delivered. So he's just basically a troll
• 12:20
  which is out of respect. Was he in disguise at any point
• 12:24
  in that short story? He was, yeah, I think he was
• 12:28
  there We. Go did he go through?
• 12:30
  He he, he, he he a lot. And it was a crap anagram as
• 12:34
  well. Yes, that's basically the
• 12:35
  character. There you go.
• 12:36
  That's it. Job done.
• 12:39
  Yeah, I, I kind of like, I, I find the most interesting thing
• 12:42
  and he's done with it is probably missing that kind of
• 12:45
  relationship because it does dig into it and make it almost
• 12:50
  dramatic, I think. But yeah, everything else is
• 12:52
  kind of just that moustache twirling villain who, you know,
• 12:57
  you can't kill off. So he's just like the villain in
• 12:59
  a horror movie. If even if you hacked his hair
• 13:01
  up, he'd be rising up from the water behind you, right.
• 13:05
  Slash the throat. So it's kind of.
• 13:08
  You would be able to hack his head off.
• 13:09
  Dude. He's the greatest swordsman in
• 13:11
  all France. But have you thought we're not
• 13:15
  in France? So yeah, he's kind of depends on
• 13:24
  the execution is my Cop 8 answer.
• 13:28
  And Joe, what do you think of the Mastermate?
• 13:31
  I think I used to be where Andrew is.
• 13:35
  When I was Shangri I used to be like, it's sort of like a
• 13:38
  nothing character with bad motivations who keeps coming
• 13:42
  back with no explanation as to. How he got out.
• 13:45
  Of the last scrape, just a throwaway line.
• 13:49
  And he is, he is a sort of a nothing character.
• 13:51
  That's that that Moriarty thing. It's sort of the basic thing you
• 13:55
  could possibly do with a villain.
• 13:58
  But as I've got older, I do think all the actors who played
• 14:02
  the master bring a lot of value to the stories they're in.
• 14:05
  And like, as much as Amy probably is the weakest man,
• 14:09
  when he turns up in Trial of a Time Lord, it's wonderful when
• 14:12
  he's there on the screen going. I've been watching this fucking
• 14:14
  ramshackle trial the whole time. And starts laughing his head
• 14:18
  off. Or, you know, when K Omara kicks
• 14:20
  him in the nuts and mark of the Rani, you know he could.
• 14:22
  Be a lot of fun. Delgado is just incredibly
• 14:26
  charismatic and draws your eyes to him whenever he's on the
• 14:30
  screen. And all of the new series
• 14:34
  masters. I absolutely agree with you,
• 14:36
  Andrew. I think they sort of call it
• 14:38
  development, but it does just mean a lot of intense shouting.
• 14:42
  But they're good actors, so they they can pull off really, really
• 14:46
  great work. And I do really want to have it
• 14:48
  off a slash at 1, so I'll always give him a pass.
• 14:51
  So yeah, I think, I think he's a a kind of nothing character, but
• 14:57
  with the right pairing between the two axes of the Doctor and
• 15:01
  the Master, it can sort of sizzle on the screen.
• 15:04
  So I'm a lot kinder on him now than I was then.
• 15:07
  But I think we have had a bit too much of the Master over the
• 15:12
  years. And if they just rang it back
• 15:14
  and we didn't see him for a couple of eras, even I would be
• 15:18
  quite happy because what else is there to say about him?
• 15:22
  Oh well, it's my turn so. Leave the best for last.
• 15:29
  All right, we'll move on. No, I like the Master, but like,
• 15:35
  I watched old Pertwee's and I think, man, you're so
• 15:39
  charismatic. You're just a giant loser every
• 15:42
  time. You can't even get like just a
• 15:45
  little victory. Just this is where you give him
• 15:47
  a whole bunch of little victories and then he loses the
• 15:49
  big one. Like can't we do now?
• 15:51
  He's going to lose everything all the time.
• 15:54
  I'm like, Oh my God. And Amy, I love, I love him and
• 15:59
  I love him in the Davison era, but he's an even bigger loser.
• 16:02
  His plans are even worse. I'm going to go back to ancient
• 16:06
  dinosaur times or whatever and then be this like racist
• 16:10
  caricature or something, I don't know, like now I'm now I'm the
• 16:13
  greatest swordsman in France. Why?
• 16:17
  Well, find out. Find out why.
• 16:18
  I've got an episode about that coming up.
• 16:21
  Coming up, King's name, but but I think I liked the Master more
• 16:27
  in the new series. I I think especially the Missy
• 16:31
  stuff, which I didn't gel with the first time around.
• 16:35
  But because of this podcast, this very one I'm on right now,
• 16:39
  I went back and rewatched all of the Capaldi era.
• 16:42
  All right, there's still parts of it I really don't like, but
• 16:45
  there's parts of it I absolutely fell in love with, and Missy was
• 16:49
  one of them. Especially like how her era ends
• 16:54
  in that Simon story with the the 2 masters just killing each
• 17:00
  other that that that neither of them know how they start or end
• 17:03
  or something like that. And just that ending was just
• 17:07
  that was masterful do. You think Steven Moffett may
• 17:11
  have read this book because there's a similar scene at the
• 17:14
  end of this book, right? With two masters.
• 17:17
  I'm starting to realise that he read all of these he had he did
• 17:25
  what Andrew did it does sometimes and he's got his copy
• 17:28
  of I Who right here. I also love the Sasha Dhawan
• 17:34
  Master as well because he got he's.
• 17:37
  Got it there. Book Missy and Sasha.
• 17:44
  Oh my God, we've become the I Who?
• 17:46
  Marketing podcast. I know Where's I Who four?
• 17:51
  I wanted them to finish off the 8th Doctor range.
• 17:54
  Sorry, Luke. That's.
• 17:56
  All right, he's on my friends list.
• 17:58
  Yeah, we'll stop bugging him, you know, every every day until
• 18:02
  he does it. But yeah, I like the Sasha de
• 18:04
  Wine master as well, so I'd like to see him come back.
• 18:07
  I I really like he get him and Missy.
• 18:11
  They actually get to win sometimes, you know, not in the
• 18:13
  long run. They don't get their
• 18:15
  comeuppance, but they actually get to get the feeling that
• 18:19
  their plans come together and they get to have a victory or
• 18:21
  two, which kind of makes them a bit more of a threat to me as
• 18:23
  well. So yeah, no, I, I really, I
• 18:26
  really like those two versions of the master.
• 18:28
  The master's like the joker. You get a really good act of
• 18:30
  playing the Master and against the Doctor.
• 18:33
  It's fantastic. It's the same with Batman and
• 18:35
  the Joker. You get a really good Joker and
• 18:38
  the Batman could be passable and it'll still work because the
• 18:41
  Joker has been so good. Yeah.
• 18:43
  You know, with Missy, yeah, right.
• 18:45
  I do like Missy. I do.
• 18:47
  And I do like Michelle Gomez. But sometimes I feel like some
• 18:51
  of the nuances lost because she's always acting like a mad
• 18:56
  old art that's down, you know, a litre of vodka.
• 18:59
  And so I'm like all of that, all of that sort of that she does
• 19:04
  all the. Time, you know, crazy eyes and.
• 19:06
  I don't know so and that's not acting.
• 19:09
  What was it? Well, she has just down to a
• 19:13
  litre of vodka. Fair enough.
• 19:15
  She killed Mary Poppins and replaced her.
• 19:18
  I mean, like, he keeps coming. He she keeps coming back.
• 19:21
  So you know there's something there, right?
• 19:26
  Yeah, well, I think because we got messy, it made, I think at
• 19:32
  least me and maybe other fans think that we'd never get a
• 19:34
  Ronnie as well. So.
• 19:35
  But here we are. Yeah, we got 2 Ronnies.
• 19:40
  Oh my God. Potential.
• 19:42
  Sequel to Time and the Ronnie in the Year of our Law, 2025.
• 19:46
  What a Time to be Alive A. Potential sequel to Dimensions
• 19:51
  in. Time dimensions in time
• 19:54
  canonized, yes. Well, all I'm saying is, what's
• 19:59
  the inspiration? It's of Ronnie standing in front
• 20:01
  of the Queen Victoria, because who was the landlady of the
• 20:03
  Queen Victoria for that many years?
• 20:05
  Oh, need to Dobson. Yeah, exactly.
• 20:07
  There you go. Yeah, see, I wouldn't have known
• 20:10
  that it's all went. I'm not upset that I don't know
• 20:14
  that. Russell's predictable.
• 20:18
  Who would have thought Angie Watts secretly had a little
• 20:20
  pocket watch all that time? Well, she was the last lady.
• 20:24
  The. Queen.
• 20:24
  Oh my God, we can go back and watch all those episodes.
• 20:27
  It's the Ronnie. Why go?
• 20:30
  Maybe that was her pocket watch. You.
• 20:36
  Get the tech app, just come round and take down away the
• 20:38
  next scene. You just missed it.
• 20:42
  All right, so we are going to talk about the David A Mckinty
• 20:45
  face of the enemy book. This was this has been in in the
• 20:48
  in the works for us for a little while now.
• 20:51
  Well, I think we moved up our my schedule with the David Mckinty
• 20:58
  book because of his untimely passing, which was very sad.
• 21:02
  I remember reading, I think sanctuary again that week, the
• 21:06
  week I found out and fell in love with that book all over
• 21:09
  again. I think it's my favorite of his,
• 21:11
  but he's got a couple good books.
• 21:14
  I think I might before we go into that, let's just let's talk
• 21:18
  about the guy. But do you guys, what are you,
• 21:21
  what are you guys impressions of his, of his work, of his Hoover
• 21:26
  and all that kind of stuff? John I.
• 21:31
  Think I've always referred him when he was dealing with
• 21:34
  historical stuff because I think the one thing with David and and
• 21:40
  we'll come to this in this book is that you could always feel
• 21:42
  the sweat he'd done to write it. You know, all the research,
• 21:46
  because it always seemed that, you know, he couldn't leave a
• 21:49
  little bit of research behind, which can be a good thing, can
• 21:53
  be a bad thing. I mean, it's why I think, you
• 21:55
  know, laws of storm is a fantastic idea.
• 21:57
  You know that colony that is not just the white English colony.
• 22:03
  It's a it's a different culture He's put in the hard yards.
• 22:06
  It's but my God, I can't get through that because it's just
• 22:10
  solid. You know, there's a, you know, a
• 22:14
  gun is not a gun as we've come to.
• 22:16
  So he he was always very, very good with details.
• 22:21
  And yeah. And you know, it's not a guy
• 22:24
  you'd you would necessarily go Oh my God, he's there on on the
• 22:28
  schedule scan. And you're right, Sanctuary is
• 22:30
  fantastic, but you'd always get a kind of a good, solid read out
• 22:35
  out of him. You know, it be the guy.
• 22:38
  He delivers on time. He delivers well.
• 22:41
  And you know, you're going to have a good time that month.
• 22:44
  It's great. It's it's not, you know, Kristen
• 22:46
  was doing this again. Thank God.
• 22:49
  It's Yeah, it's, it's kind of I, I liked him, but I, he could, I
• 22:54
  think with the pros he could, he could plod slightly for my
• 22:58
  tastes. Yeah, no, I can definitely say
• 23:02
  that. What about you, Joe?
• 23:04
  I think David A Mcinty is at his most comfortable and is having
• 23:10
  the best time when he's writing action, when he's writing The
• 23:14
  Master and when he's knitting continuity together.
• 23:18
  So he was literally having the best time writing this book, I'm
• 23:20
  telling you. But those are the those are the
• 23:22
  three things where I can really see the passion in his work.
• 23:26
  Like, I had big trouble for the same reason, John, with First
• 23:30
  Frontier. There's so much detail in that
• 23:34
  historical setting. And I learned about so many
• 23:37
  weapons. I mean, I felt like a real man
• 23:39
  by the time I finished that book.
• 23:41
  I could make a Molotov cocktail. But I do think he can.
• 23:46
  Surprise as well, because one of his last, possibly his last book
• 23:51
  was the 11th Tiger, and that was a really well researched,
• 23:57
  beautifully realised, quite touching character tale.
• 24:02
  And there's character moments in the book we're going to talk
• 24:04
  about today which are quite beautiful, I think.
• 24:08
  So I think like I think of him as the most heterosexual Doctor
• 24:12
  Who writer of all time, possibly outside of Steven Moffat, of
• 24:16
  course, but I think he he can put heart in his work when he
• 24:22
  wants to as well. So I he's written so many Doctor
• 24:25
  Who books there. There's what, 15 something like
• 24:28
  did he do every Doctor until we got the new series?
• 24:32
  He did a lot though, didn't he? Right, he.
• 24:33
  Did I think he'd written he didn't do 4?
• 24:37
  Yeah, he did Shadows of Wenchuang.
• 24:38
  Yeah, I think he did every classic doctor.
• 24:42
  And then obviously he did the 8th, the 8th Doctor as well.
• 24:45
  So with that much being that prolific, it is going to be
• 24:49
  mixed because you don't hit every time unless you're Lance
• 24:53
  Parkin. But I always approached his book
• 24:58
  thinking, OK, you know, I'm going to man up a bit reading
• 25:02
  this. But I think I generally came
• 25:04
  away from every single one of his books being impressed by
• 25:07
  something, something in there, whether it was the research,
• 25:11
  whether it was genuinely like dynamic action, because he can
• 25:15
  write really great. That's great action set pieces
• 25:17
  in this. But mostly the Master, I think
• 25:21
  he's the best writer of the Master in the books.
• 25:23
  He's in love with that character and it just beams when he writes
• 25:27
  him. I think he's, what, one of two
• 25:30
  authors of original Doctor Who novels to write for all eight?
• 25:33
  Would that be right? The other one being who?
• 25:38
  Who went who one up? David McKinsey and also wrote a
• 25:41
  Benny novel. So there there is that, for
• 25:44
  better or worse. Tempest.
• 25:46
  I think it's not that bad actually.
• 25:48
  Andrew What what what? What about you mean?
• 25:51
  I hadn't really read that much of his stuff.
• 25:55
  I've read The Dark Path and I'd read some of his short stories
• 26:03
  and short trips, but when I gave up on Shadows of Wang Chihan
• 26:07
  because I really didn't enjoy it.
• 26:08
  But I don't think I've, he's like an author that I've had
• 26:11
  like a negative sense of. It's just when I was because I
• 26:16
  was quite a selective reader, I didn't read everything.
• 26:18
  And I think his titles didn't always just jump off the shelf
• 26:23
  at me. I think I've been intrigued by
• 26:24
  them. Like Sanctuary, I've always
• 26:25
  wanted to read, and Wages of Sin was always one that I thought
• 26:31
  looked quite interesting for their historical settings.
• 26:33
  And you know the TARDIS teams in them.
• 26:36
  Rasputin, yeah. Yeah, I guess they were always
• 26:39
  just a bit further down the list and they're not ones which feel
• 26:42
  like they're burning to be red. But it was quite nice to to read
• 26:48
  Face of the Enemy this time and and enjoy more of his work.
• 26:52
  But actually I want to say the one that the one story of his
• 26:56
  that I have really enjoyed is a story called Degrees of Truth,
• 27:01
  which is it's from the first volume of short Trips, the BBC
• 27:07
  One, but it's only on the audio cassette.
• 27:11
  And it's a really touching little story about.
• 27:15
  It's sort of like, I was going to talk about this when we talk
• 27:18
  about UNIT stories later, but it's like a unit intersecting
• 27:22
  with the real world in that it's kind of a it's a father whose
• 27:31
  son has been killed in the demons, and he doesn't know why
• 27:34
  his son has died. So he kind of bursts into the
• 27:36
  UNIT offices with a grenade like demanding to know what happened
• 27:40
  to his son. And the Brigadier and the Doctor
• 27:43
  can't tell him what happens, but they tell him a version, which
• 27:46
  is as much as they can to kind of diffuse the situation.
• 27:48
  And it's just like a, it's a really nice like short little
• 27:50
  character piece about this sort of devastated father and the
• 27:54
  loss of his son. And they were both military men.
• 27:56
  And it's that kind of like military minded men struggling
• 28:03
  with their emotions, which I think he does really well.
• 28:05
  And he does well in this book as well.
• 28:07
  So yeah, he's quite a good fit for that unit era, I think.
• 28:11
  And if, yeah, if you haven't read Degrees of Truth, you can't
• 28:15
  read it because it's only on audio.
• 28:16
  But it is on like the audio book version of Short Trips, which is
• 28:19
  somewhere on Audible. But yeah, it's a good way to dip
• 28:23
  your toe into his work, I think. How do you feel being like, Oh
• 28:29
  yeah, you can only get your story on the cassette, No one
• 28:31
  can actually read, read that's. Well, I think it was kind of
• 28:37
  good because it was like. I guess.
• 28:39
  They put an exclusive one on the tape to make people buy the
• 28:41
  tape. So like, and it was his that
• 28:44
  they chose. So yeah, I'd, I'd probably be
• 28:46
  pretty pleased with that. And you get to hear, what's his
• 28:49
  name? Nicholas Courtney Reader.
• 28:51
  I'll dig. Oh, shut up there now.
• 28:53
  So you can record you reading it.
• 28:54
  You can't complain. This I I always, I always like
• 28:58
  these books. I don't know.
• 29:00
  Maybe because I'm a merely man? You used to be.
• 29:13
  I, I, I like the details he puts in these books like First
• 29:17
  Frontier. Yeah, it might be overstuffed,
• 29:19
  but it's got you'll know everything there is to know
• 29:21
  about Roswell at the time, from the 1950s and things like that
• 29:25
  as well. You'll know everything there is
• 29:27
  to know. He liked to create his own
• 29:31
  monsters and races too, that he'd he'd have come back in
• 29:34
  other books like the Veltrochny would would come back in I think
• 29:39
  Mission impractical and they were in I think what was it, the
• 29:43
  Dark Path and things like that. He's got the Tizun as well,
• 29:47
  which the Veltrochny wiped out almost completely.
• 29:50
  So yeah, you can't. Remember either of those races?
• 29:53
  And I've read all of his books. Yeah, so he doesn't.
• 29:59
  His books can feel sometimes a little Star Trekky, especially
• 30:02
  mission, impractical things like that.
• 30:04
  I think he's one of the few. Doctor Who?
• 30:07
  The Dark Half The Dark Half literally has a Starship going
• 30:11
  around with various races from the Doctor Who universe making
• 30:14
  up the crew. It's like Doctor Who's version
• 30:17
  of Star Trek. Yeah, have another look at that
• 30:21
  then. It sounds great.
• 30:22
  But yeah, he's one of the few Doctor Who authors that actually
• 30:26
  wrote a Star Trek novel as well. I can't remember what it was
• 30:30
  like, but I didn't hate it, so there is that.
• 30:33
  But yeah, is. It a Voyager 1.
• 30:36
  I can't remember. It's called Indistinguishable
• 30:37
  for magic. I think it's.
• 30:39
  No, it's A Next Generation. That's a TNG book.
• 30:43
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 30:44
  So he only wrote the one. But no, I remember.
• 30:46
  I remember enjoying it at the time.
• 30:48
  So yeah, Yeah, he did. The Voyager programme going.
• 30:50
  The only two other authors I can think of that have that
• 30:53
  distinction. John Peel and Una McCormack
• 30:58
  Yeah. So this, there might be one or
• 31:01
  two that I'm I'm missing out on, but yeah.
• 31:03
  I love Star Trek. Nothing would entice me to read
• 31:07
  a Star Trek novel. I just can't imagine reading
• 31:10
  techno Babble on a page. There's good, I tell you, Peter
• 31:15
  David's other ones to look. At Oh, he's just recently
• 31:18
  departed as well, hasn't he? But they they're, they're
• 31:21
  character work. They're not.
• 31:22
  They're not. Recommend something?
• 31:25
  He makes he he makes Shelby from best of both worlds.
• 31:29
  The first officer of this ship in in in series.
• 31:33
  It's amazing. For Lower Decks, how are we
• 31:35
  talking about Star Trek now? Because David McKinney liked it.
• 31:40
  I I also think his historicals were, were great.
• 31:43
  So I see this macho man kind of rider likes his details and his
• 31:48
  continuity. And then you get to a book like
• 31:49
  Sanctuary and it's like it was probably like the first pure
• 31:53
  historical since Black Orchid, I think at the time.
• 31:57
  So it had been a while. Yeah.
• 32:00
  So I and I love that book. It's it's like I think 2 books
• 32:06
  after set piece. So you go, it's the book after
• 32:08
  Infinite Requiem. It's the book right before human
• 32:10
  nature. So I think it gets overshadowed
• 32:14
  by maybe human nature and the book after the original sin.
• 32:16
  But I think it it holds, it holds its place, you know, in
• 32:20
  that that trilogy of books. It's just wonderful.
• 32:23
  So, yeah, I like your stuff. And we get to talk about what
• 32:27
  it's in the garage and I'm in the house today, so I don't have
• 32:29
  the book with me. So.
• 32:32
  But no one can see it anyway because this is an audio show,
• 32:34
  Luke. I said everyone's waving Roger
• 32:36
  Delgado at Luke right now. Yeah, that's right, rubbing my
• 32:39
  face in in the and. Look, Andrew, it's one of those
• 32:43
  swirly. Oh, it's not quite swirly.
• 32:45
  It's sort of psychedelically swirly, isn't it?
• 32:48
  Yeah, a touch of swell. What's the light here above the
• 32:52
  brigadiers hit that's. A random photoshoot.
• 32:55
  OK. Lenswear.
• 32:58
  Lenswear, OK. So this is really.
• 33:01
  Early on the run of BBC books too, isn't it?
• 33:03
  It's Is this still a normal Buffini era or is it early
• 33:07
  Stephen Cole? This is Cole by now.
• 33:10
  She was. She didn't do any, did she?
• 33:12
  Yeah, she was about 5 or 6. No, you didn't do.
• 33:15
  Yeah, you're in the second year. So yeah, she, she she
• 33:19
  commissioned that first batch, don't we?
• 33:20
  She did much beyond that. No, so this is a Stephen Cole
• 33:24
  novel, edited novel then. So all right, let's just start
• 33:29
  talking about Face of the Enemy. You guys have been wanting to
• 33:32
  get me into some 3rd Doctor stuff apart from, you know,
• 33:36
  Ghost event space because I can be a little down on the era.
• 33:40
  And so I guess the best place to choose is.
• 33:43
  The. Doctor and Joe aren't even in
• 33:46
  it. As 1/3.
• 33:49
  Doctor Booker, you probably say the ghost of airspace is
• 33:52
  superior. Well has a giant John Perry
• 33:57
  fighting a demon so. I'll bring it in terms of him
• 34:00
  actually being in it. Yeah, no, it's true.
• 34:03
  He's only. Briefly in it isn't.
• 34:06
  It Yeah, this is like a. Cold in space.
• 34:08
  What's been happening while typing away?
• 34:12
  Oh yeah, and that prologue is such bad.
• 34:15
  Like it's just how do you get the TARDIS?
• 34:17
  You can't select the TARDIS. That is not the only thing in
• 34:21
  this book that is fan wank John. It's.
• 34:24
  Very fast. But yeah, it starts with a, a
• 34:34
  page titled Habitual bit of waffle at the start, which is
• 34:38
  basically a a mini treatise on unit dating.
• 34:43
  And I read and it's like, I just do not care.
• 34:46
  I do not care. You know I totally missed that
• 34:50
  page. I started at the protocol.
• 34:53
  It's all this stuff. I'm knocking up work into that,
• 34:56
  hasn't he? He's got a lot of thought into
• 34:58
  this. But I think we all know it
• 35:02
  doesn't really matter what year they take place and like,
• 35:04
  there's no real reference to any current affairs in this book, so
• 35:08
  it could be anyone who cares. It's the it's generically the
• 35:11
  70s. They literally strip it in in
• 35:14
  the new series all the time, don't they?
• 35:15
  To go the 70s or the 80s, Yeah, Like, yeah.
• 35:19
  It was 19 seventies, 1970 unit, I mean.
• 35:22
  This is undoubtedly the 70s alright.
• 35:24
  This is the world of The Sweeney.
• 35:26
  Joe's out tight not did not survive past the year 1970.
• 35:33
  It comes dipped in Bruton High Karate.
• 35:36
  Trust me. Copy smells of it.
• 35:39
  I like that the book has a treatise on Here's what I think
• 35:41
  of Unit Dating. Unit dating does not play a
• 35:44
  factor in anything else in this whole book.
• 35:48
  I also say Mckinty is one of those one of three writers off
• 35:51
  the top of my head that he's their books always drip in in
• 35:56
  some form of fan wank. It's it's him, Craig Hinton and
• 35:59
  Gary Russell. It's like those three I think
• 36:02
  had the most kind of fan wanking moments in in their novels than
• 36:05
  a lot of other writers I would say.
• 36:07
  But I do think this is 1 where he's been told go for it.
• 36:11
  All right, just go for it. Any unit thing.
• 36:14
  You a bit like David Bishop when he wrote Who Killed Kennedy?
• 36:17
  Whatever you want to throw in this one, just have fun and boy
• 36:21
  doesn't. I feel like probably about 7 out
• 36:29
  of 10 of it works, like, because I think it works when it's like
• 36:33
  interconnecting all the unit stories and stuff and making it
• 36:36
  feel like a real world where these things all link to each
• 36:39
  other and they have consequences and, you know, following the
• 36:43
  Master from his imprisonment and all that stuff.
• 36:45
  It's when it starts linking to things outside of the era where
• 36:49
  I feel like it doesn't. Like when you have Bannerman
• 36:52
  spaceship. Yeah, yeah.
• 36:55
  Yeah. Yeah, although actually 1.
• 36:58
  So one thing that I think really went and you know, when it's
• 37:01
  like, well that's a continuity reference that works because
• 37:04
  it's like thinking logically about what is around during this
• 37:08
  era that the book is set with. So the bit that I really liked
• 37:10
  was the using the the handheld time machines from Day of the
• 37:15
  Daleks as a way to kind of hop between the universe because
• 37:18
  it's like, yes, that is the sort of thing that would be lying
• 37:20
  around in the Doctor's lab. So it makes sense to use that.
• 37:23
  It's when you've got like complete unconnected bollocks,
• 37:27
  like just shoved into this book when you're like, oh, it just
• 37:31
  doesn't. Not necessary.
• 37:33
  When he had like that tight knit team of obviously we'll get
• 37:36
  there, the Brig unit, Ian and Barbara and the master, right?
• 37:39
  Yeah, that's enough characters to be going along with along
• 37:42
  with your original characters as well.
• 37:44
  And then he started. I know where you're going with
• 37:45
  this. We started bringing in Harry and
• 37:48
  other people, and I was like, no, don't do that.
• 37:51
  We don't need Harry in this. And then at the end, there's
• 37:53
  like this little cameo from Olly Hawthorne.
• 37:55
  I'm like, what? She what?
• 37:57
  What the hell? Where it makes the world seem
• 38:00
  smaller because it's all these like the only people in the book
• 38:04
  are people from Doctor Who constantly bumping into each
• 38:07
  other. And yeah, I think it just needed
• 38:10
  a little bit of that cutting out and I think it would have been
• 38:13
  much stronger for it. But I do think that core group
• 38:18
  of characters I just named there, obviously all not his
• 38:22
  original characters came together spectacularly with
• 38:27
  really good results. So I think the core of it was
• 38:31
  really solid. It was just some of that
• 38:33
  extraneous bunting that was around there that.
• 38:36
  Was a bit gaudy. Continuity Bunting.
• 38:41
  So I have a question a few gentlemen, and I think I was
• 38:46
  slow on the uptake the first time I read this because I
• 38:48
  didn't, I just didn't expect it. But the second time I could see
• 38:51
  it and it was so fucking obvious.
• 38:55
  Idiot, young teenage like stupid.
• 38:58
  But reading this book this time around, if you haven't read it
• 39:02
  before or the first time you read it, when did you how how
• 39:05
  long did it take you to twig that this was spoiler for anyone
• 39:10
  who hasn't read this nearly 30 year old Doctor Who novel.
• 39:13
  By the way, when did you guys twig that this book is
• 39:16
  essentially a sequel to The Inferno?
• 39:20
  Andrew's going to say when I picked up I Who and went through
• 39:23
  it so. I this time round I knew, so I
• 39:28
  was. Looking for the clue.
• 39:29
  Yeah. Yeah, I did.
• 39:30
  I thought it was seated really well.
• 39:32
  There was great clues layered about this.
• 39:34
  The first time I read this, it floored me.
• 39:36
  I had no idea. So the the twist hit in exactly
• 39:39
  the way it was supposed to. Yeah, same first time I read
• 39:43
  this, absolute surprise. This time around I was like, by
• 39:48
  page 80, something else to say. Oh, well, I'm an idiot.
• 39:54
  Teenage man's dumb, Yeah? I think first time rang much I
• 39:59
  was it's what how the inferno world ended.
• 40:02
  It's like you know, the inner fanboy was jumping up down in
• 40:05
  rage and horror at the spoiling the end of inferno.
• 40:09
  But it's fine. It's done well.
• 40:12
  It's and. I I do quite like the idea of
• 40:15
  the rich powerful bastards jump having a a jump off point,
• 40:19
  that's really nice. I figure they was all down in
• 40:23
  some nuclear bunker, you know, when that lava was rolling, no?
• 40:27
  They were in base. Where was I in space?
• 40:30
  Yeah. Oh, they were in space.
• 40:33
  They were on the moon base. Thanks Thanks to Bannerman
• 40:37
  Rockets. Not the moon base, was it?
• 40:40
  Just a moon base. Oh, OK.
• 40:41
  All right. See, I do wonder with the
• 40:43
  Bannerman thing if he put the sun in there originally because
• 40:47
  obviously they were similar, even that kind of classic sci-fi
• 40:51
  retro design. And then Steve Cole went no
• 40:54
  stick, just stick it reference people get in there.
• 40:59
  I mean, it's kind of risky doing a sequel to such a beloved story
• 41:04
  like Inferno, but it isn't really that, is it?
• 41:09
  Like, and it doesn't really affect watching Inferno having
• 41:13
  this happen afterwards because it's all in our world.
• 41:16
  So I thought it had sort of all the excitement of, Oh my God,
• 41:18
  it's a sequel to Inferno without any of the fear of fuck, they're
• 41:22
  going to ruin my favorite story. Yeah, and like, you are correct
• 41:27
  that yes, I did entirely spoil it for myself and I did know
• 41:30
  that it was the Inferno Gang bloody book.
• 41:33
  They read it and I, but this was the last.
• 41:35
  Person. So this.
• 41:39
  Is 4 volume. This is the first time I read
• 41:45
  this book, so I knew what was coming.
• 41:47
  So I was kind of looking out for the references as we went.
• 41:49
  And I think I don't think you are an idiot Luke 'cause I don't
• 41:52
  think it is obvious. I think he does a really good
• 41:54
  job of hiding it and misdirecting it.
• 41:57
  And I thought as I was reading it, there's actually another
• 42:01
  villain that it feels like he's hinting towards that it's not,
• 42:05
  which is the chameleons, because the plot point is all about.
• 42:09
  Playing. At the sky or coming back
• 42:13
  without people on board. And it's all about people being
• 42:15
  replaced by duplicates of them. So I feel like there was a, if I
• 42:22
  was reading it from scratch, I'd be like, it's the comedians.
• 42:24
  It's definitely the comedians. And they're kind of close in the
• 42:27
  era to this one. But it's not it's and it takes
• 42:30
  quite a long time for him to kind of put his cards on the
• 42:33
  table and reveal that it's the inferno world invade, invading
• 42:38
  our world. And even then it's still, it's
• 42:40
  like little subtle bits, maybe about 100 pages in that then
• 42:45
  might start your mind going and then eventually it's like, oh,
• 42:48
  OK, that's where we are. But yeah, it's a really long
• 42:51
  time into it before it's like definitely the inferno world.
• 42:53
  So yeah, I think Luke, you're you.
• 42:56
  You get a pass on this one. It wasn't obvious.
• 42:58
  But it is. Satisfying I.
• 43:00
  Think I think when you get the answer, it makes sense of
• 43:03
  everything you've been told so far, and it's an exciting twist
• 43:06
  as well. Yeah.
• 43:07
  And I think like, like, like John just said that plot point
• 43:13
  of it being not own 'cause they they could, I think, I can't
• 43:17
  remember which character is he points out to them.
• 43:19
  Like they could have just come across to our world and like got
• 43:23
  got like set up a little. They could have just, you know,
• 43:27
  bought some houses and been safe.
• 43:28
  But it's not that they just want to save themselves.
• 43:31
  They also want the positions of power that they had in that
• 43:33
  other other universe. They've got this.
• 43:36
  Yeah. Killing people and replacing
• 43:37
  people. It's like, yes, that is exactly
• 43:39
  what these bastards would do. They're not happy enough just to
• 43:41
  survive and like be homeless. They've also got to like be
• 43:47
  powerful bastards in this universe as well as the last
• 43:49
  universe. And I was like, yes, yes, that's
• 43:51
  very good characterisation and exactly what these people would
• 43:54
  do. Yeah, I'm the Kyle character.
• 43:58
  I think part of the reason it gets is that you're looking at
• 44:01
  the background of the car character with her talking about
• 44:04
  her husband, what she did to her husband all the way through that
• 44:06
  power struggle, and you don't kind of associate it with that
• 44:10
  Inferno world. I don't think it's not even when
• 44:13
  you're on the radar. Yeah, with her line dancing.
• 44:17
  I I my instant fault was the IT was the autumns and then it may
• 44:21
  immediately went. Tick.
• 44:22
  No, it's not the autumns. No, I was like, oh, bugger, all
• 44:25
  right. I.
• 44:26
  Think again. Then obviously I knew this time.
• 44:28
  And then I started thinking, Oh my God, this is the first time I
• 44:30
  read it. I was like, oh, it's going to be
• 44:32
  one of those sort of Sweeney type plots where people in power
• 44:36
  are being replaced by Russian agents.
• 44:37
  Duplicates that look exactly like something like that.
• 44:40
  No, it was a sequel to Inferno. Wow.
• 44:45
  Yeah, it it looks like a little kid, right?
• 44:48
  Now, Oh yeah, it was great. I had so much fun with this
• 44:51
  burger, I'm not going to lie. Yeah, I I did too, even though I
• 44:56
  see the fun I had this time is sometimes you you'll read or
• 44:59
  watch something that has a twist in it and then you watch the the
• 45:03
  next time you you go through that piece of media like The
• 45:05
  Sixth Sense, you've all seen it. I'm going to assume you've all
• 45:08
  seen the 6th sense now re watch it knowing the twist.
• 45:12
  It doesn't work. It just doesn't work.
• 45:15
  So I know the twist in this. It's the inferno world.
• 45:19
  And I just had a good time spotting like, oh, it's from a
• 45:23
  hot atmosphere. Oh, I wonder why?
• 45:26
  And all these and then, and then they just then he just keeps
• 45:31
  dropping all the seeds. And I had a good time picking up
• 45:35
  on all the things that he that David McKinsey was putting down
• 45:38
  with the all the little inferno seeds that he was planting the
• 45:42
  whole time. So I had a great time.
• 45:45
  I found it very satisfying to not know.
• 45:49
  I guess the first time and then now no.
• 45:52
  And then think I was. Doing, I think, Barbara says at
• 45:55
  one point, it's a bit like when that volcano erupted in
• 45:58
  Krakatoa. I was like, OK.
• 45:59
  That's it. Now we know where we are.
• 46:01
  That's it. That's it.
• 46:02
  I think there might be 80 something pages or something in
• 46:05
  maybe a little later. No, that was.
• 46:07
  No, it was way later than that. Way later.
• 46:10
  Yeah. That's when she's there.
• 46:11
  Yeah. So it's right near the end of
• 46:13
  the book. So yeah, we got to talk about
• 46:18
  all the characters, but I think the two we got to start off with
• 46:21
  is the 2 that aren't from the poet we era, and that is Ian and
• 46:25
  Barbara. Yeah, there there's a way.
• 46:30
  There's a book out there in some alternate universe, the Inferno
• 46:33
  world, where the inclusion of these two characters in into
• 46:37
  unit just doesn't work. Fortunately, we don't live in
• 46:41
  Inferno world, we live in this one.
• 46:43
  Because I'm going first this time I'm fucking hosting it.
• 46:46
  Why does somebody else always have to go 1st?
• 46:48
  I'm going first. I want to.
• 46:51
  Talk about Power Mad without bloody podcast, doesn't it?
• 46:56
  Because I freaking love them in this book.
• 46:58
  They fit like a glove. They've got a life away from the
• 47:03
  adventures they had. Like how he, he kind of, he
• 47:07
  doesn't delve into it too deeply, David, but he, he goes
• 47:09
  into just how they were able to kind of pick their lives up.
• 47:13
  And it's because by the time they got back to Earth in the in
• 47:17
  the 60s and the last a couple of years, the doctor is known to
• 47:20
  people and he's known to travel through time and things like
• 47:24
  that. So he had, they both had some
• 47:27
  help. Maybe it's some of the doctor's
• 47:29
  friends from the war machines or something like that.
• 47:33
  Maybe some contacts there helped him help them both out or
• 47:35
  something. They don't think he went that
• 47:37
  deeply into it. It was just enough to be like,
• 47:40
  all right, that's plausible. Let's move on with the story.
• 47:42
  Like, we don't need more continuity in this book, all
• 47:45
  right? No, I like their relationship in
• 47:49
  this now, like it wasn't an instant like attraction or love.
• 47:55
  It's just something that just developed over time and just
• 47:57
  because they were in constant danger and they were the only
• 48:00
  two people that they could relate to about all this kind of
• 48:02
  stuff. So I felt like a very mature,
• 48:05
  realistic kind of love and relationship as well, which I
• 48:08
  appreciate it. And there's one moment in the
• 48:12
  book I messaged you guys that I fucking hated and I didn't like
• 48:15
  it because I'm it's just, that was just like a little bit too
• 48:21
  fucking real for me. And that's when Ian thinks
• 48:24
  Barbara is dead and he just considers offering himself and
• 48:29
  stuff. And I'm, I don't remember
• 48:32
  everything about this book, but I did remember they both lived.
• 48:36
  So there is that. But there's also this thing
• 48:40
  about old Doctor Who books taking companions post where
• 48:43
  they left in the series and then shitting on them.
• 48:46
  You know, there's no just look at Liz Shaw and Sarah Jane and
• 48:52
  Bullet Time and things like that.
• 48:54
  Like Bad Dodo in. There are scenes with Barbara
• 48:59
  running concurrently with that. We absolutely know she's going
• 49:03
  to be fired. You're going to be reunited.
• 49:05
  I think though, that it might be an I who it might have been in
• 49:10
  something that was released at the time that the original
• 49:13
  intention was to kill Barbara. And Stoke.
• 49:16
  And he, he, the story was that he, he said you can't kill
• 49:20
  Barbara, but you could have Ben and Polly and you can kill
• 49:23
  Polly. And he was like, and David, a
• 49:25
  McKinsey was like, no, I, I, they don't, they won't work as
• 49:28
  well in the story because they're not as iconic.
• 49:30
  But it was just the 90s like that.
• 49:33
  Anyone thinks I'm going to kill Barbara.
• 49:35
  What? Right.
• 49:36
  And have her incinerated in a car or, you know, if I can't
• 49:40
  have that, if you can't, you can't do that, but you can do it
• 49:42
  to Polly. It's like the 90s, just like
• 49:44
  rock companions alone. I can't know, but I know it's
• 49:47
  not the only time he's suggested either.
• 49:49
  No, it was bullet time. He wanted to kill Campania
• 49:52
  fairly regularly and kept pushing for him until he was
• 49:55
  allowed to. Like saying that, I do genuinely
• 50:00
  think the sequence where the master comforts Ian and tries to
• 50:07
  get him to continue working amazing.
• 50:09
  It's one of the best things McKinney has ever written and
• 50:12
  it's so true to the master whilst being empathetic and
• 50:17
  slightly aloof and sarcastic and honest about his intentions as
• 50:21
  well. And.
• 50:22
  I think. It's the call, and he knows that
• 50:24
  Barbara is not dead, so to let him think that she is, what a
• 50:29
  bastard. Yeah, he gets to be good, but
• 50:32
  then, yeah, he goes back to being an absolute prick.
• 50:35
  But that I hated that moment, but only because it felt like
• 50:38
  way too real for me as a, as a, as a husband and things like
• 50:41
  that, as a, in a way that it wouldn't have kind of shocked me
• 50:44
  when I was, I don't know, 1615. Too well written, I think.
• 50:48
  Yeah, it's, it's too real. And I don't want to think of my
• 50:53
  heroes, especially Ian, in that way because I love Ian.
• 50:57
  So yeah, I think they're wonderfully written.
• 51:00
  I think they fit in this unit world like a glove.
• 51:03
  And it's almost a crime that this is the only time they do
• 51:06
  this in the books at all. And and this book and imaginary
• 51:11
  friends do the thing of pissing me off by not letting Ian hang
• 51:15
  out and meet the 3rd Doctor. What's this Doctor's fucking
• 51:18
  problem with meeting them? Fighting them?
• 51:21
  What's his problem anyway? What did you guys think of Ian
• 51:26
  and Barbara in this book, Don? I I, I totally agree.
• 51:33
  They are beautifully characterized.
• 51:35
  The relationship script, I don't quite think the same characters
• 51:38
  we saw on screen because the heart lever is so different in
• 51:42
  tone. Yeah, there's always that's
• 51:45
  like, I'm not going to say Charles Edge more family kind of
• 51:49
  friendly edge. And I think Ian in particular
• 51:53
  and Barbara occasion, they're slightly sillier characters than
• 51:57
  we get here. So I think they've been kind of,
• 52:01
  how should I put it, they they've been kind of forced into
• 52:04
  the shape of the book a bit. But I you're right.
• 52:07
  I absolutely kind of I did buy what we got from them.
• 52:12
  It it is, it is kind of that 90s grim dark thing.
• 52:15
  I think you know, where you have to make them a darker, get the
• 52:19
  dark tone in. So I I'd love that.
• 52:23
  You know, Ian is absolutely resourceful.
• 52:25
  He's a scientist. Barbara, you know, her deal of
• 52:28
  expertise might not quite be as good, but again, she's brave,
• 52:32
  she's inquisitive, She helps drive the plot forward.
• 52:35
  You know, she go, she will happily go into just face the
• 52:40
  parliamentary gun, find the bot and she you know, she is shot
• 52:44
  back, but she'll deal with it. I thought yeah, their their
• 52:48
  characterisation as a kind of re characterisation.
• 52:52
  Despite that I might not keep. I thought I was so beauty.
• 52:55
  And you're absolutely right. That scene with the Master, it's
• 52:59
  perfect because it's it's 2 characters and they trying to
• 53:05
  get to the essentially get to the same goal but for entirely
• 53:10
  different reasons. It does that.
• 53:12
  It manages that scene of the Master kind of taking the
• 53:14
  Doctor's role without kind of spoiling the Master's character,
• 53:18
  and I think without kind of spoiling Ian's either it.
• 53:22
  Shows you how that premise could work, doesn't it?
• 53:24
  It shows you how that premise of the Master being the lead of
• 53:28
  this show, master Who or whatever you want to call it,
• 53:31
  could genuinely work. Yeah, you put an anti hero in
• 53:34
  there and it's put a yeah and we'll come to the master it.
• 53:37
  Might be a bit more fun actually.
• 53:40
  Yeah, but yeah, I mean, I mean, it's not a great deal of fun for
• 53:43
  them, but yeah, it's it's just beauty to and it's the the books
• 53:48
  need time to kind of tend to treat them really nicely.
• 53:51
  I think because they are, they want those characters, those
• 53:54
  TARDIS teams just always kind of, I think they're hard to do
• 53:57
  badly in the books because of the nature of the heart.
• 54:01
  So it's quite nice to see them kind of dipped.
• 54:03
  Into another Have you read Byzantium, John?
• 54:07
  I have I've. No comments.
• 54:11
  Ian as a cockney white boy with his harem of women coming after
• 54:15
  him. I.
• 54:17
  Can just imagine. You know Keith's favorite films,
• 54:19
  don't you? I can just imagine this master,
• 54:24
  the master in this book on the Liberator, he'd fit right in.
• 54:28
  Especially like the series C or D Liberator.
• 54:31
  Yeah. You want that same loop, don't
• 54:34
  you? From orbit with Master coming
• 54:37
  out, Joe Broad weighs 72 kilos. Got a tissue compression
• 54:44
  eliminator right here. I can make you lose weight right
• 54:46
  now, man. Oh God, we're talking about
• 54:49
  another show again. Sorry.
• 54:52
  Andrew, what do you think about it in Barbara and this?
• 54:55
  Yeah, I think they were really well written.
• 54:58
  I'm I enjoyed reading them. I always like a companion return
• 55:03
  and when we get to kind of see how their lives have developed
• 55:08
  since we left them and I'm glad that they're together and that
• 55:12
  this sort of like cements that as as a thing.
• 55:16
  What I would say, though, is I just the thing I'm not sure that
• 55:22
  they completely fit into this concept of the book, because I
• 55:27
  feel like that what the book is trying to do is like a story
• 55:29
  about what happens when the Doctor isn't there in the
• 55:32
  Pertwee era. So I'm not entirely sure why
• 55:35
  we've brought characters from the Hartnell year in era into
• 55:38
  that rather than just seeing like how UNIT operates and
• 55:42
  functions when the Doctor's not there.
• 55:44
  Because the, the obvious thing to do is like a the grim dark
• 55:50
  thing of the Doctor's not here. So therefore the unit are kind
• 55:53
  of unencumbered by that and they can go further than they usually
• 55:57
  would. But I guess writing for this era
• 56:00
  of Doctor Who books, they did that anyway with books with the
• 56:02
  Doctor in. So it wouldn't have been that
• 56:04
  original to do that. So it's just sort of what is
• 56:08
  what is the book trying to do and why And why are Ian and
• 56:13
  Barbara here and not say, Liz Shaw, who was the character of
• 56:16
  the era, who could plug their role in the book quite easily
• 56:20
  and is of the era and would feel of the era and would maybe make
• 56:24
  it more of a kind of reflection on the Pertwee era.
• 56:29
  But yeah, that said, they are well written in it and it is
• 56:32
  nice to see them. I just feel like it could maybe
• 56:34
  have been a bit more like thematically stronger without
• 56:38
  them. And that's like my my important
• 56:44
  reading of the book. But the the other thing is like,
• 56:46
  why does David A McKinney keep shitting on Barbara's looks in
• 56:49
  this book? What the?
• 56:50
  Fuck man, rageous. He keeps saying they cannot
• 56:54
  stand. Yeah, like considering that like
• 56:57
  Marianne, Kyle is constantly curvaceous and curbing her ways
• 57:02
  away in the rooms, whenever Barbara is described, it's like
• 57:05
  she was handsome but not beautiful.
• 57:07
  It's like like she's a fuck you, Donna.
• 57:09
  Like have you seen Jacqueline? And also like the the Hartnell
• 57:13
  era is really weird in that like constantly people are lusting
• 57:16
  over Bob Bob like she's one of the most like lusted after
• 57:20
  companions in the series. Beer Perry.
• 57:24
  Yeah, with like men, like villains, goodies, like they're
• 57:27
  all constantly after Barbara. So like, what the fuck?
• 57:30
  Why are you saying she's playing?
• 57:31
  She's clearly not. Nero was all over it.
• 57:34
  Like come on, all words. Like terror ganitus.
• 57:42
  Oh God. Basil.
• 57:47
  Yeah. I forgot about that, but it's
• 57:50
  all. Words like imperious and
• 57:52
  statuesque and just like OK. She a librarian.
• 57:56
  Yeah, she's fucking gorgeous. No, I agree.
• 58:02
  And she rocks a chunky jumper. I I agree a little bit with
• 58:07
  Andrew I. Are we having a manly man?
• 58:10
  I went here, Luke. I think we're all on the page
• 58:14
  when it comes to Jacqueline Hill, yeah.
• 58:17
  Yeah. Oh, absolutely no.
• 58:19
  I agree with Andrew though that I while I do love Eden Barber in
• 58:22
  this and he does give an explanation as to why Liz Shaw
• 58:26
  isn't in this book, I'm like fuck you dude.
• 58:28
  I want to see Liz Shaw interact with the Master.
• 58:30
  Like get out of here. No, Luke, not just Liz Shaw, we
• 58:33
  do a whole tick list and Travers.
• 58:35
  No. Liz Shaw, no.
• 58:36
  Rachel Jensen? No.
• 58:38
  Was there anyone else I missed? Liz Shaw's hat, you know.
• 58:45
  It was very. Surprised that Barbara didn't
• 58:46
  put the hat on given like the amount of continuity wank in
• 58:50
  this book, it's not being on a peg in the.
• 58:52
  Cover Average looking face, apparently, according to David
• 58:55
  McKinsey. Oh, Barbara in the Oh, hello,
• 58:58
  oh. It was initially pierced, right?
• 59:01
  Because I thought, OK, so Ian's sort of in unit doing all the
• 59:06
  sort of investigations and Barbara's just sort of sent off,
• 59:09
  isn't she? So they're kind of constantly
• 59:11
  trying to sideline her. But actually ultimately in this
• 59:13
  book, she gets the most to do right.
• 59:15
  She goes off, she's investigating.
• 59:17
  I love the scenes with her and the copper, you know, where he's
• 59:20
  like, what a shame she's taken because, you know, she could
• 59:23
  handle a copper, that one. And then obviously she gets
• 59:27
  murdered, bundled off. She's in the alternative
• 59:29
  universe. So she does loads words.
• 59:31
  Ian just sort of hangs around and mopes a bit, you know?
• 59:37
  But the the result of that really sick moment where the
• 59:42
  body is burning in the car is their reunion at the end of the
• 59:46
  book. And that's so beautifully
• 59:49
  written. I mean, I've got a little
• 59:50
  passage here where he'd simply grown accustomed to her
• 59:53
  presence, then to be shaken by her loss.
• 59:56
  So he held her face buried in her hair, because he wanted to
• 59:59
  see here, feel and smell the life in her, and because he was
• 1:00:03
  half afraid that if he let her go, he might lose her again.
• 1:00:07
  That's real. I was like.
• 1:00:08
  Oh my God, I so shit Ian and Barbara so I'm all over.
• 1:00:13
  This that's long term relationships that you know,
• 1:00:16
  that's not just I just met her last weekend, People we check
• 1:00:19
  together. It's it's beautifully done.
• 1:00:23
  Yeah, it's yeah, No, that's, well, that's kind of sweet
• 1:00:27
  remembering. No, that's great.
• 1:00:30
  So do we, do we want to break up the the UNIT members or just
• 1:00:34
  kind of group them all all together?
• 1:00:35
  We'll save. Might as well save the master
• 1:00:37
  for for for last, I guess. I think the, the Brigadier gets
• 1:00:41
  the most characterization out of the three main unit leads
• 1:00:45
  because there's lots of references to him with, with his
• 1:00:50
  misses and all that kind of stuff and, and just him juggling
• 1:00:53
  all that. So it feels like he's paid
• 1:00:56
  attention to stuff from, say, maybe the battlefield
• 1:00:58
  novelization, which I still haven't read because for some
• 1:01:01
  reason, even the fucking reprints over fucking $40.
• 1:01:04
  Why? It's a RIP.
• 1:01:08
  It's annoying, but it feels like he's, he'd done his research, I
• 1:01:13
  guess just with full Brigadier characterization of what his
• 1:01:17
  relationship status would have been during these UNIT years and
• 1:01:21
  things like that. He gets the most, I think depths
• 1:01:24
  out of the three. The other two, well, they're
• 1:01:27
  just Yates and Bent. And really they, they don't like
• 1:01:30
  Yates, get stood up by Joe. They're supposed to go out on
• 1:01:35
  some kind of date. Never.
• 1:01:36
  Going to work. Let's be.
• 1:01:37
  Honest. No, it never happens in.
• 1:01:40
  Didn't he end up with a load of blokes and a monastery or
• 1:01:43
  something? Oh, money, that's.
• 1:01:46
  Right did. He end up with a Samarian or
• 1:01:48
  something and happened. I feel like he copped up.
• 1:01:55
  With a Marian or something. Julian and Sandy ones.
• 1:01:59
  Yeah, I think so. What the hell does a human do
• 1:02:02
  with a Silurian? I don't want.
• 1:02:04
  To ask, Ask Lee Sean Eternity weeps.
• 1:02:07
  Ask. Ask Madam Thatcher and and
• 1:02:11
  Jenny. Yeah.
• 1:02:14
  Steven Moffat has been reading these stories.
• 1:02:16
  There was a. Very small, like really small
• 1:02:19
  subplot about Carol Bell in this more continuity to explain what
• 1:02:25
  happened to her, why she just vanished because they've
• 1:02:28
  kidnapped her brother. So she's delivering sort of
• 1:02:30
  information to the enemy. But I thought that utilized
• 1:02:34
  Benton quite well because they're both sort of side
• 1:02:36
  characters and I could feel there was a sort of gentle
• 1:02:41
  relationship between the two of them.
• 1:02:42
  So that was quite nice. I wish they'd gone further with
• 1:02:44
  the corporal Belle thing because because she's such like a
• 1:02:49
  nothing character. They could have made her a full
• 1:02:52
  in the inferno evil evil Belle. But.
• 1:02:59
  The whole time, Andrew, even in the freak river.
• 1:03:02
  Conditions and all that, I guess they could have done, yeah,
• 1:03:04
  amazing. But yeah, instead she's just
• 1:03:07
  sort of being blackmailed into doing it, which I guess I mean,
• 1:03:11
  did they just throw her in prison at the end of this book?
• 1:03:13
  Like she's betrayed her country like.
• 1:03:16
  She has to sail next to Morgain. Yeah.
• 1:03:20
  Well, don't wait. This is the ballad, of course.
• 1:03:25
  Bathroom. But yeah, I mean, they could
• 1:03:29
  have like they could have made her like, what?
• 1:03:33
  What's her name? Marianne Kyle Superior or
• 1:03:35
  something. She could have been like real
• 1:03:37
  deep cover. Bad ass bitch.
• 1:03:40
  And she's another sort of beautiful lady, isn't she?
• 1:03:43
  Called? They could have put her in black
• 1:03:44
  leather, you know, given her a big machine gun.
• 1:03:48
  Yes, that felt like a little bit of a missed opportunity for me
• 1:03:51
  because it's often like these little side characters where I
• 1:03:54
  mean, you, you can't kill Ian and Barbara, but like you can do
• 1:03:57
  a lot with somebody who's in only in like a couple of scenes
• 1:04:00
  and really. Especially because she vanishes,
• 1:04:02
  right? So it's there to to take on.
• 1:04:05
  I did like all of the Brigadier sort of marital internal
• 1:04:09
  monologue. I like learning a bit more about
• 1:04:11
  Fiona Tick. And obviously he's now in a
• 1:04:15
  relationship with Doris Tick. But at the end of the book, he's
• 1:04:19
  decided because you know the dangers of his work and that's
• 1:04:22
  the reason why Fiona left him ultimately was because he was
• 1:04:27
  quite cavalier with his own life and not really thinking about
• 1:04:30
  him and Kate Tick that he was like, okay, I think I'm going to
• 1:04:36
  give Doris a miss actually, which does lead into the
• 1:04:39
  Battlefield 1 where you get a flashback to just after Morgan
• 1:04:43
  undead where Doris decides to go to that that little place that
• 1:04:47
  he's living and say, marry me, Brigadier.
• 1:04:50
  So like it all does. Of course, Mckinty's continuity
• 1:04:53
  all makes sense. Sidebar, I always find Doris
• 1:04:58
  quite hilarious in Battlefield because she's like this lovely
• 1:05:02
  upper class lady, whereas like the implication in Planet of the
• 1:05:05
  Spiders is like she's the brigadiers like bit on the side,
• 1:05:09
  like good time girl who he's like running off to have like
• 1:05:12
  secret rendezvous in Brighton with.
• 1:05:14
  And I feel like get that like that she's meant to be like,
• 1:05:20
  yeah, not a very well to do lady.
• 1:05:23
  But then when we actually meet her, she's like down the garden
• 1:05:26
  centre. When she's got her man, she's.
• 1:05:30
  Fine, nobody classy has rendezvous in Brighton.
• 1:05:36
  In ACD 70s pub. Oh, and didn't you like as well?
• 1:05:40
  Any of those. Definitely, yeah, two more
• 1:05:45
  ticks. The two jimmies, Jimmy from the
• 1:05:49
  Invasion. Who is the upper Jimmy?
• 1:05:51
  Oh, the one from Spear from Space, yes, more continuity
• 1:05:54
  there. He's having a reunion with that
• 1:05:56
  pair as well. So I thought there was like
• 1:05:58
  little implications about his home life and his social life,
• 1:06:02
  which was nice. It was nice colour.
• 1:06:05
  It's kind of subtle. I mean, the thing I really like
• 1:06:09
  is that he knows his way around weapons.
• 1:06:11
  I think this gives him this kind of perfect Season 7 military
• 1:06:15
  background. But he is a character you'd go.
• 1:06:18
  He'd know exactly what Gun did what.
• 1:06:21
  Yeah, so do we now. Yeah, we, I mean, it does go
• 1:06:25
  over the top. Let's face it, it's.
• 1:06:28
  A gun. It's never just a gun in this
• 1:06:30
  book. It's a Mark 15 something,
• 1:06:35
  Beretta 17 calibre. I don't know if because Ashley.
• 1:06:40
  Carl. Put together, but a gun is a
• 1:06:43
  fucking gun and just call it a gun.
• 1:06:44
  Like we don't get that. I'm sure there's like guiding
• 1:06:48
  how to strip every single gun in this book halfway through.
• 1:06:51
  And a gun does not just shoot somebody in this book.
• 1:06:54
  Oh no. Within an instant, a large
• 1:06:57
  portion of his raised full brain was spread across the screens
• 1:07:02
  for blood sprayed into pouches, eyes momentarily blinding him as
• 1:07:07
  well as shocking him. Yeah, that's how you were male.
• 1:07:10
  It's. Probably used in films, isn't
• 1:07:15
  it? This, I think I really got into
• 1:07:20
  the character of of Boucher as well.
• 1:07:25
  And I wasn't like, nothing. Maybe my one pic is I wasn't
• 1:07:30
  satisfied with how he's written out.
• 1:07:31
  He's pretty. He's essentially written out of
• 1:07:33
  the story just so we can introduce Harry.
• 1:07:37
  And I was like, yeah, but he doesn't get to avenge his like
• 1:07:40
  his nephew. And what about?
• 1:07:43
  No, he's just dead. And I don't know.
• 1:07:45
  I kind of really he starts off with.
• 1:07:47
  This doesn't it? Yeah, he starts off, maybe it's
• 1:07:50
  just kind of the macho asshole cop, but maybe he doesn't change
• 1:07:54
  that much from that. But I kind of, I could see where
• 1:07:57
  he's coming from. I kind of glommed onto him.
• 1:08:00
  I like his interactions with Barbara as well.
• 1:08:03
  So it's. Great.
• 1:08:04
  Yeah, he was a smart man, following leads and things like
• 1:08:08
  that. And then unceremoniously, boom,
• 1:08:12
  you're out. You're out of the story for
• 1:08:16
  barely ever mentioned ever again.
• 1:08:18
  I'm like, oh, but what about his sister who just lost his net,
• 1:08:23
  the nephew, son and all this kind of stuff?
• 1:08:25
  So I might have made his end a little bit maybe more heroic
• 1:08:31
  than turned out to be. But yeah, he's dumped pretty
• 1:08:36
  unceremoniously, like. It's funny, isn't it?
• 1:08:38
  How it's like it's such like a book of two halves in like the
• 1:08:41
  the first probably like 2/3 of the sort of gruff Sweeney type
• 1:08:47
  70s action men plot. And then pretty much after
• 1:08:52
  Butcher dies, it's just pure Doctor Who continuity porn.
• 1:08:57
  And you kind of it's a it's a shift in tone because you kind
• 1:09:01
  of lose all of those like gangster characters and sort of
• 1:09:07
  muscle for hire type people who you've been with for for the
• 1:09:11
  first bit of the book. And then it all just goes to a
• 1:09:13
  completely different place, which I don't necessarily mind
• 1:09:16
  because I find all of that stuff quite tedious.
• 1:09:19
  But yeah, it is. It is an interesting sort of
• 1:09:22
  tonal shift that it takes. I mean, he calls one of the
• 1:09:25
  muscles for hire Baron, for God's sakes, the Baron is in
• 1:09:29
  this. Yeah, the.
• 1:09:32
  The there's, oh God, the Shore and Collins, you know, the
• 1:09:34
  professionals. Oh God, I love Private Walsh.
• 1:09:39
  Two in the roll across the bloody bonnet.
• 1:09:42
  Oh, thank you very much. I didn't.
• 1:09:46
  I did actually quite enjoy a lot of do.
• 1:09:48
  You know what, Andrew? I was surprised too the bit
• 1:09:51
  where where that massive helicopter came down and blasted
• 1:09:55
  the shit out of the. Building that the master was in
• 1:09:58
  and he's like, oh, I'll get my revenge and I can't slate.
• 1:10:01
  Out does. I'm paraphrasing there that.
• 1:10:05
  The master getting under one of the helicopters and spraying it
• 1:10:08
  with with an Uzi, that's freaking cool.
• 1:10:10
  It's so. Cool.
• 1:10:14
  The masters, the action scene so well, it's the geography of
• 1:10:16
  action. Scenes is so touched.
• 1:10:18
  He loves it. He's having the best time
• 1:10:20
  writing. The Inferno, You know, he
• 1:10:22
  storyboarded every. Single one.
• 1:10:24
  Oh yeah, I like when the inferno people try to kidnap the master
• 1:10:28
  from his prison, only for the master to already be in control
• 1:10:33
  of that prison. Like completely see them coming
• 1:10:37
  and as they're coming down one way, he's gone back up the other
• 1:10:39
  way. Killed the people that are
• 1:10:41
  waiting near the helicopter and just flowing the fucking.
• 1:10:43
  Thing I know he wants to wave at him doesn't he goes no no, no
• 1:10:47
  you know I. Won't be too old for the top,
• 1:10:48
  but. He just flies away.
• 1:10:50
  And then, and then he goes to fucking UNIT.
• 1:10:52
  He's sitting at the Brigadier's desk, waiting for him to come
• 1:10:55
  in. Oh, hello, Brigadier.
• 1:10:57
  You know, I've come for some. Protection.
• 1:11:00
  And he's like, Nah, fuck off, I don't give a shit about this.
• 1:11:03
  But then then the problem comes to him.
• 1:11:05
  He's like, you know what? Yeah.
• 1:11:07
  All right, I'll, I'll, I'll offer to help them now.
• 1:11:11
  Oh please, can we talk about the Mouse?
• 1:11:12
  That is the best thing about this book by a country mile.
• 1:11:15
  Absolutely. I the only bad thing, the worst
• 1:11:20
  thing about this book is that it's the only book like this.
• 1:11:25
  I I I think this is generally considered a rather popular
• 1:11:29
  book. I don't think I've heard too
• 1:11:32
  many bad things about it, so I think it was pretty well
• 1:11:34
  received. So I would have been, hey,
• 1:11:37
  David, can you, can you do this again?
• 1:11:40
  Master is the lead please. No, I'm writing a Frobisher book
• 1:11:43
  next. Leave me alone.
• 1:11:45
  Oh, OK, sorry. It's going to have Glitz and
• 1:11:47
  debber in it. Oh yeah, I mean, it's.
• 1:11:50
  Fine, we might have to do that one day.
• 1:11:52
  Jesus Christ. Oh no, he doesn't look happy.
• 1:11:58
  Because we're making and read a column book, that's why.
• 1:12:01
  Imagine how many Doctor Who planets is putting that high
• 1:12:04
  story. Come on.
• 1:12:07
  There's a there's a lot, but all right, let's, let's do it.
• 1:12:10
  Let's do the master. Joe, what do you think about the
• 1:12:13
  master in this book? I mean, it's just so cool, isn't
• 1:12:16
  it? Like, honest to God, at one
• 1:12:18
  point, you know, he's listening to David Bowie, reading the
• 1:12:20
  Financial Times. He's in a John Phillips suit and
• 1:12:23
  drinking expensive liqueur. I mean he out calls John Pertwee
• 1:12:27
  12:50. That cigar, he gets scarred.
• 1:12:29
  As well yeah properly. Oh he's just and I thought he
• 1:12:33
  was good in the first half of the book but in the second-half
• 1:12:36
  where they basically take that 5 minute section of clause of axos
• 1:12:40
  where the master is working with unit and that's the second-half
• 1:12:43
  of this book and it just works like gangbusters because he
• 1:12:46
  never stops being the master. He never stops being calculating
• 1:12:51
  and in control and, you know, rude to everybody.
• 1:12:56
  But he is also helpful and charming.
• 1:12:59
  And yeah, I just thought he was wonderful in this.
• 1:13:03
  And, and Mcinty just gives him quick, witty lines as well, just
• 1:13:08
  like Delgado had in stories like Clause of Exodus 2.
• 1:13:11
  So I could just see Roger Delgado playing every scene in
• 1:13:15
  this. It's like he's studied.
• 1:13:17
  He's. Studied Delgado.
• 1:13:19
  Isn't he quite, quite a lot? Yeah, I how much of an absolute
• 1:13:24
  bastard he is in this book as well.
• 1:13:26
  Like when he's beating up gangsters and stuff and like
• 1:13:31
  when he when he wants information out of the guy and
• 1:13:34
  he's like shooting him in the legs and then shoots him in the
• 1:13:36
  arm. And yeah, it's like that utter
• 1:13:39
  ruthlessness, which, yeah, you it's kind of implied or it's
• 1:13:43
  like done with like laser weapons or whatever in the
• 1:13:45
  story. But having him in that like sort
• 1:13:49
  of gangster world and sort of seeing the master unleashed on
• 1:13:54
  these nefarious characters is, is really fun.
• 1:13:59
  And yeah, like, like you said, the the bit with the the
• 1:14:01
  boardroom meeting where he just like shoots another gang bot
• 1:14:06
  like a sort of Cray brothers try type figure.
• 1:14:10
  He just shoots him in the head because he's like taped a gun
• 1:14:12
  under the desk. That's quite fun.
• 1:14:14
  And then helicopter attack and then he, yeah, brings down a
• 1:14:18
  helicopter with an Uzi. Like, yeah, it's just, it's a
• 1:14:23
  big action movie, fun, evil. Like sort of what's the like Die
• 1:14:30
  Hard version of the Master? Which is sort of, you got a
• 1:14:34
  glimpse of that mind of evil, didn't you?
• 1:14:35
  You know, where he's taking over prisons and things like that.
• 1:14:37
  He's walking. Around, yeah, I didn't shoot
• 1:14:38
  anyone in the kneecaps. Though oh I love that when he
• 1:14:41
  can't hypnotize the man he smacks him around the air
• 1:14:44
  together and shoots him twice. It's.
• 1:14:45
  Crazy. The master of this book and I
• 1:14:48
  guess in that era at times felt like the earth was his
• 1:14:52
  playground and it doesn't matter whether he's incarcerated.
• 1:14:57
  Yeah, in air quotes because that's how he feels about it
• 1:15:00
  every time or anything like that.
• 1:15:02
  He just thinks this place is his playground, like money means
• 1:15:06
  nothing to him because it's only, it's only valuable on this
• 1:15:10
  one stupid planet. But it's useful to get all
• 1:15:13
  these. Yeah, but it's, it's useful to
• 1:15:17
  get all these idiot, idiot eight people to do whatever the
• 1:15:20
  fucking wants. But he knows how to use
• 1:15:25
  psychology to manipulate people. You know, he uses Ian's grief to
• 1:15:29
  absolutely get or gets the get where he needs to be.
• 1:15:32
  It's very clever. And if it was the Doctor, the
• 1:15:35
  Doctor would do the exact same thing, but in the opposite way.
• 1:15:39
  He'd like lift Ian up in order to get the best out of him
• 1:15:43
  instead of the Master comes out at the yeah, the different it's.
• 1:15:48
  Don't you love the bit where he goes?
• 1:15:50
  Ask yourself, have I ever denied anything I've done?
• 1:15:53
  Have I ever lied about anything? No.
• 1:15:56
  I'm proud of my so-called crimes, Brigadier.
• 1:15:58
  I think you might find in many ways I'm the most honest man
• 1:16:01
  you've ever met. It's true.
• 1:16:07
  He's he's just incredible in this.
• 1:16:11
  He's yeah, he's the best part. And he gets the he's the, he's
• 1:16:16
  the one character I think that interacts with almost every
• 1:16:19
  other character in the novel as well.
• 1:16:22
  Maybe not so much Boucher, but almost every other character.
• 1:16:25
  Like, oh, by the way, when I hear Marianne Kyle, I'm in the
• 1:16:29
  way she dresses and stuff. I'm like, I'm like, she's either
• 1:16:31
  she's Selena Kyle, Catwoman, Marianne Faithful, sort of, and
• 1:16:35
  also on a Blackman Avengers sort of style of dress.
• 1:16:40
  That's how I imagine this character.
• 1:16:42
  Like you're fancy to see Laura. Thank you very much.
• 1:16:44
  All right, sorry. I can keep it now.
• 1:16:46
  All right, I'll stop, but don't. Get the horses in.
• 1:16:52
  There's a parallel universe and there's no fucking hot in it,
• 1:16:55
  no. And I forgot them all.
• 1:17:01
  Who's sticking out of the arm? They tried standing on the men,
• 1:17:05
  on the backs of the men. Oh, that's grizzly.
• 1:17:10
  Oh my God. So yeah, I like, I like how he
• 1:17:13
  fits into this gangster kind of realm as well, because he just
• 1:17:16
  uses it to pursue his aims. And why does he bother doing it
• 1:17:20
  at all? Because he likes power.
• 1:17:21
  And since he's on earth anyway, any form of power that he can
• 1:17:25
  grab, he's going to take it. And even if it's just being some
• 1:17:28
  simple gang Lord and and things like that, it's it's wonderful.
• 1:17:33
  And what what do we think of, because this has got ties to I
• 1:17:39
  don't, I think we've all read the Dark Path.
• 1:17:41
  I think we've all read it. Does that.
• 1:17:43
  Would that be correct? Yeah, This is it's not
• 1:17:46
  necessarily a sequel to that because it's it's a different
• 1:17:49
  publisher and it's in part the parts that tie in with it are
• 1:17:53
  kind of set in the Inferno world.
• 1:17:54
  But what do we think of the master kind of meeting the
• 1:17:58
  master? Oh.
• 1:17:59
  I love those scenes, they're so freaky.
• 1:18:03
  Aren't they just him beating that tortured, beaten up kind of
• 1:18:07
  husk of himself? The guy he was it again, I think
• 1:18:11
  this that is so thematically beautifully done as well.
• 1:18:18
  He acts towards himself exactly as you think he'd act towards
• 1:18:23
  himself, and indeed does in The Doctor Falls.
• 1:18:28
  Yeah. He's kind of unmoved, isn't he,
• 1:18:30
  when he sees himself hooked up to that thing, sort of tortured
• 1:18:34
  and half dead, and then it sort of decides, look, he deserves
• 1:18:38
  his chance, the other may, to wreak his revenge, so let's.
• 1:18:42
  And then it's only when. How do you say his name?
• 1:18:45
  Koshy. Koshy or koshy?
• 1:18:47
  That's one of those. Coaches names that's
• 1:18:49
  deliberately there to trip you up when you say it.
• 1:18:52
  It's only when he says, no, please kill me, look at me.
• 1:18:54
  I mean, what good am I 21 that he actually, you know, he sort
• 1:18:59
  of nods, doesn't he says, yeah, let him go.
• 1:19:00
  But yeah, I mean, I think we like the dark path.
• 1:19:04
  So I I found the reasons why, but the Master and the Doctor
• 1:19:09
  fell out to be really underwhelming.
• 1:19:12
  But I do understand why he tied this into that because they're
• 1:19:15
  both written by him and he's doing his master continuity.
• 1:19:18
  So yeah, John, you look apport. No, I'm absolutely with you.
• 1:19:22
  I I couldn't stand the dog path. I think it's one of those it
• 1:19:26
  just got. That's popular.
• 1:19:28
  Because it's yeah, it is. And I just, there's a lot of
• 1:19:31
  books towards the end of the range, which are particularly
• 1:19:33
  the the miscarriages, which are just terrible, which are just,
• 1:19:38
  we need to fill the schedules. And that it was just, I know
• 1:19:42
  it's a passion project, but the only good thing about it is that
• 1:19:45
  you can tell McKinsey really like writing the master again.
• 1:19:50
  Same with First Frontier. I don't think either of them are
• 1:19:53
  good books, but I love they come to life when he's actually
• 1:19:58
  getting to the Master as he wants to write to him.
• 1:20:01
  What he's done here is he's planted the Master in the middle
• 1:20:04
  of a story and a genre where he just thrives, you know?
• 1:20:08
  So the Master enhances the story around him as well as being shit
• 1:20:12
  call as well. Yeah, I mean, it's it's like
• 1:20:14
  Michael Caine get Carson. Come on.
• 1:20:18
  I'm taking all you bastards out for revenge.
• 1:20:22
  Yeah. Oh, oh, my goodness.
• 1:20:26
  Yes. All right.
• 1:20:28
  So what was I going to say with the master?
• 1:20:32
  I can't remember. I lost it.
• 1:20:34
  So, Andrew, what do you think? Oh, yeah.
• 1:20:37
  So what I was going to say is right.
• 1:20:39
  We've got the master. Sorry, Andrew, Get out of here.
• 1:20:41
  You're fine. No, it's.
• 1:20:43
  Malfunctioned. Have you not had your coffee
• 1:20:45
  there? I've finished my car for the
• 1:20:48
  other way. Your mother-in-law to make your
• 1:20:50
  bro pronto. She's in the shower.
• 1:20:54
  I think she's had one too many espresses, Andrew.
• 1:20:58
  So I always heard this fan theory.
• 1:21:01
  I don't know. I don't even know if it's a fan
• 1:21:03
  theory or if one in the books or something that the doctor in the
• 1:21:06
  Inferno world was the kind of president, Prime Minister dude
• 1:21:11
  you see in the photos in the background of Inferno.
• 1:21:14
  The, you know, the other guy. I mean, I think he's got a
• 1:21:16
  mustache. Or whatever, Yeah.
• 1:21:18
  Yeah, yeah. So did I miss it?
• 1:21:23
  Did they just totally gloss over that there was there's no Doctor
• 1:21:25
  on this alternate world at all? In fact, they just found the
• 1:21:28
  Master and that's it. Or Koshi or something like that.
• 1:21:32
  That's they only found the Master.
• 1:21:34
  They there's no trace of this universe's version of the Doctor
• 1:21:39
  at all? No.
• 1:21:41
  Or, or, or was he just love it? Or did he just fuck off in the
• 1:21:44
  TARDIS? I think he, yeah, either he's
• 1:21:46
  just love it or yeah, he's just off somewhere else.
• 1:21:50
  I think you've only got to listen to the Big Finish Doctor
• 1:21:53
  of War to realise just how tedious and alternative doctor
• 1:21:56
  can. Actually be.
• 1:21:57
  And maybe we dodged the bullet. David Warner was a pretty good
• 1:22:01
  one, so. Yeah.
• 1:22:02
  Oh, the unbounds, Yeah. I mean, they're hit and miss as
• 1:22:04
  well. Arabella, where you are
• 1:22:06
  fabulous. But oh, that's great.
• 1:22:13
  Andrew, what did you did you like the dark part of the no?
• 1:22:17
  Yeah, I think I agree with these guys.
• 1:22:19
  I think it's just like one of those.
• 1:22:21
  I'm not always that into like, origin stories and I always find
• 1:22:24
  them quite disappointing when it's trying to like, I think
• 1:22:28
  it's usually the thing of like, what's in your head is better
• 1:22:31
  than like having it really. And again, like with that book,
• 1:22:36
  like starting with the master as a good guy and then by the end
• 1:22:38
  of it, he's the master. It's just not particularly
• 1:22:41
  convincing. And it's like, that's not how
• 1:22:43
  human beings work. So yeah, I wasn't really into
• 1:22:48
  it. And I, I think I could have, I
• 1:22:51
  don't really like, like, why is it called Koshi?
• 1:22:53
  Like it doesn't like, doesn't make any sense.
• 1:22:56
  And like that reference to his companion from the dark path, it
• 1:23:00
  was like, oh, I don't really need that.
• 1:23:01
  It could just be like, this is the master.
• 1:23:04
  It we, we don't really. I didn't feel like it needed
• 1:23:07
  that link to the dark path. But then I didn't write the
• 1:23:09
  book, so I can understand why. And the Kinsey wanted to kind of
• 1:23:13
  have that through line from his own his own work.
• 1:23:16
  So you know I. Think it would have been more
• 1:23:18
  satisfying even for but for the Masters perspective just to have
• 1:23:25
  it be the alternative Doctor, because how satisfying would it
• 1:23:30
  be for the Master to kill the Doctor?
• 1:23:33
  All right, it's not our Doctor, but he got to kill the Doctor
• 1:23:37
  and that's a good day at work for the Master, right.
• 1:23:39
  So that's that's probably the big change I would have made
• 1:23:44
  before and I totally forgot. But yeah, I would have, I would
• 1:23:47
  have replaced all that stuff and just put the alternate doctor
• 1:23:50
  in. And then and you know, and it
• 1:23:53
  fits in with Inferno where we got to see all of our heroes
• 1:23:55
  kind of perish in a version of them perish in Inferno anyway.
• 1:24:00
  And it would have kind of made it a bit full circle to see like
• 1:24:03
  the Doctor perish in in in that environment as well.
• 1:24:06
  I mean what I would suggest is if you do want a multi master
• 1:24:12
  story, read The Harvest of Time by Alastair Reynolds because I
• 1:24:17
  won't spoil it too much, but that is a fucking excellent
• 1:24:20
  multi master story in a way you will not expect.
• 1:24:27
  Koshi, by the way, is Russian folklore.
• 1:24:30
  He's an immortal character. Of course.
• 1:24:32
  He hides his death. Urging and nestled.
• 1:24:36
  They love, they love law and mythology, don't they?
• 1:24:39
  The virgin. I think there's another reason
• 1:24:41
  why I struggle a bit with. Blade mythology, isn't it?
• 1:24:45
  Rather than give it resonance, which is what you want mythology
• 1:24:48
  to do. I just like a little taster of
• 1:24:51
  like, you know, something happened and then we can just
• 1:24:54
  sort of try and guess what happened.
• 1:24:56
  When you have it all spelled out, you're like, oh, how
• 1:24:58
  Monday? By your imagination, isn't it?
• 1:25:01
  I mean, it's not no better than him looking in that hole in the
• 1:25:05
  sound of drums, the untempered schism, and then a drum beat in
• 1:25:09
  his head for the next however many years.
• 1:25:12
  Yeah, I think Master is the one that works better.
• 1:25:15
  I mean, I don't really like what they do with the Doctor Master
• 1:25:17
  relationship and that, but they do it in a more of a sort of
• 1:25:20
  like fairy tale way where it kind of leaves it more open to
• 1:25:24
  interpretation. Whereas like just having a
• 1:25:26
  spelled out story of like this is how the Master went bad is
• 1:25:30
  not as interesting to me. God, there's more origin stories
• 1:25:34
  from the Master than there is versions of Sharder, isn't
• 1:25:36
  there? Jesus Christ, take your pick.
• 1:25:42
  And divided loyalties in there as well.
• 1:25:45
  Oh God. Please Andrew, can we do divided
• 1:25:47
  lawrences one day please? I would have, yes.
• 1:25:51
  Hey. We could do a we'll do a
• 1:25:54
  crossover with the Mar and Chess.
• 1:25:56
  Club, yeah, all right. Oh my.
• 1:25:59
  God, I got to cover it somehow. So, yeah, No, that's that's
• 1:26:04
  good. All right.
• 1:26:05
  No, I'm, I'm, I'm definitely into that.
• 1:26:08
  Yeah. A book that I remember loving
• 1:26:10
  when I was a teenager when I read it.
• 1:26:12
  And then, yeah. And yeah, I'm I wasn't always
• 1:26:16
  smart back then. No, you were smart.
• 1:26:20
  But that book is ghastly. Oh boy.
• 1:26:26
  No, I fancy the Ronnie, not you. Oh boy.
• 1:26:32
  So does anyone else have anything in their their notes
• 1:26:35
  that they'd like to bring up in regards to Face of the enemy?
• 1:26:39
  What can I talk about War monger very quickly.
• 1:26:42
  Yeah. Because I think face of the
• 1:26:46
  enemy is like the anti war monger, right?
• 1:26:49
  Yeah, like terrorist sticks in war monger.
• 1:26:52
  Oh, what if, what if, you know, the 5th Doctor was a Great War
• 1:26:56
  criminal and put this army together and Perry was a
• 1:27:00
  resistance fighter and it's just chock a block full of really
• 1:27:04
  shit ideas that nobody ever wanted to see in a book.
• 1:27:06
  Yeah, and Face of the Enemy is the other way round.
• 1:27:09
  It's fan wank city, but it's so cool.
• 1:27:12
  What if Ian and Barbara and the Master were working for UNIT in
• 1:27:16
  a sequel to Inferno featuring a duplicate master?
• 1:27:20
  That's so exciting. I don't know.
• 1:27:23
  It's it is wanky. It's ridiculously wanky.
• 1:27:26
  But all of those ideas are. Yeah, I want to read that.
• 1:27:29
  Whichever way it goes, I really want to read that.
• 1:27:32
  So I think, I just think this is the Mckinty book where all the
• 1:27:37
  ideas sing and have exciting possibilities.
• 1:27:41
  And I think for maybe for me, 90% of this book, it all just
• 1:27:47
  comes together in a really exciting, really entertaining
• 1:27:53
  read with, like I said, with some moments of heart as well.
• 1:27:58
  I think I think this might be his best book.
• 1:28:05
  The one thing I'll say? He hits his workout and he just
• 1:28:11
  stops because this book just starts at the end.
• 1:28:15
  I was going to talk about the end.
• 1:28:18
  God, yeah. We're on the sub read.
• 1:28:20
  We're all having fun. Big tent standoff.
• 1:28:24
  Yeah, you, you bugger off. It's fine, Master.
• 1:28:26
  Yeah, I'll just go back to jail because I was having a bit of
• 1:28:28
  fun there. It's fine.
• 1:28:29
  It was cosy. It could put the slippers on.
• 1:28:32
  Now he's the continuity king. He needs him there for the Sea
• 1:28:34
  Devils. Exactly.
• 1:28:36
  I know, but it's still God. You could find a kind of more
• 1:28:38
  testing way to get him back in, sure.
• 1:28:41
  Yeah, and we don't. A DVD set of the Clangers also.
• 1:28:46
  What a carrot, What a carrot. Yeah, he pays 282 and he's out
• 1:28:52
  of there. Sorry, Andrew.
• 1:28:55
  I was just like Ian and Barbara just sort of like Peter out.
• 1:28:57
  We don't really get like a a nice final moment with them.
• 1:29:01
  And it also, I don't know if he was trying to leave it open to a
• 1:29:03
  sequel, but it it's not entirely satisfying the way it ends
• 1:29:08
  because Kyle gets away. And also the inferno universe is
• 1:29:12
  still there. Like it's they've cut they've
• 1:29:15
  cut it off by the master taking his he takes like the important
• 1:29:20
  components of the TARDIS console that they've been using out, but
• 1:29:24
  they've still got all that shit back in inferno world.
• 1:29:29
  And it would have been nice if the Master had just done
• 1:29:31
  something completely evil and like set up that TARDIS console
• 1:29:35
  to destroy the entire universe or something in a very master
• 1:29:38
  like burn all your bridges type way.
• 1:29:42
  But yeah, I get the sense that maybe he was thinking, oh, I'll
• 1:29:45
  do like a Ainley Master back in the inferno universe or
• 1:29:50
  something a bit further down the line.
• 1:29:52
  And PDAs because it it especially feels odd that Kyle
• 1:29:55
  kind of escapes and goes unpunished and.
• 1:29:58
  Yeah, that was odd. But yeah, but overall, I really
• 1:30:03
  enjoyed this book. It's a.
• 1:30:04
  It's a very fun read. Although, you know, and I know
• 1:30:07
  this is a book so you can't really make this excuse, but I'm
• 1:30:10
  going to, it does feel very like a Pertwee adventure, the way it
• 1:30:13
  just stops. Remember Day of the Daleks?
• 1:30:15
  House blows up. Oh well, we've learned our
• 1:30:17
  lesson. Credits gone you.
• 1:30:20
  Know yeah we've hit code 7 you guys saw it out I'm off he.
• 1:30:26
  Literally just walks away, don't he?
• 1:30:32
  I, I like the, I think my last notes were I like the just the
• 1:30:37
  idea of the, the survivors not only dealing with the fact that
• 1:30:41
  the world's been wiped out in inferno world, but now they've
• 1:30:44
  got to deal with like roving bands of infected primords and
• 1:30:49
  things like that. So it didn't just turn into an
• 1:30:51
  end of the world movie. It turned into some form of
• 1:30:53
  fucking zombie apocalypse at the same time.
• 1:30:57
  So, so there's a story in there I could, you could get a whole
• 1:31:02
  story out of, I don't know, isolated place.
• 1:31:07
  When will we going to do a Doctor Who story where a
• 1:31:10
  freaking volcano doesn't even have to be Earth.
• 1:31:12
  The volcano goes off and maybe it there's some, some green goo
• 1:31:17
  that comes out of the volcano as well.
• 1:31:19
  And now you've got like people dealing with a volcano and
• 1:31:23
  people turn into primord monsters and stuff.
• 1:31:25
  Give me that story. I want it.
• 1:31:26
  Yeah. And the child we're available.
• 1:31:30
  Yes, right. Primal Yeah.
• 1:31:34
  I mean, I think for me, the last kind of thing I want is that,
• 1:31:39
  yeah, Joe, sorry, it is absolutely a complete fan wank.
• 1:31:44
  But I think the reason it works is because, you know, most fan
• 1:31:47
  wankers, they just want to do Doctor Who.
• 1:31:50
  This works because it's explicitly not doctor.
• 1:31:53
  It's explicitly in that Houston films professional Sweeney kind
• 1:31:58
  of room. It does something different.
• 1:32:00
  It puts a completely different tone.
• 1:32:01
  It's not cosy. It's it's one of these cosy
• 1:32:05
  books. I think there is there because.
• 1:32:07
  What? Yes, I'm trying to put that warm
• 1:32:08
  fuzzy unit blanket on you. Is it?
• 1:32:10
  No. Yeah, it's used that warm fuzzy
• 1:32:12
  thing and it's snatching away and I think that really gives
• 1:32:15
  the book an interesting, it's a really fascinating edge to that
• 1:32:18
  kind of the old characters and the cosiness of it all.
• 1:32:23
  It's something you might have expected that man from unit spin
• 1:32:26
  off that they keep talking about that that was pushed in the 70s.
• 1:32:31
  I don't expect huge steps from McKinsey, but I was surprised by
• 1:32:36
  the characterisation of Ian, Barbara, the Master and the
• 1:32:39
  Brigadier. I thought he just aced all of
• 1:32:41
  them and sort of taught me new things about them as well.
• 1:32:46
  Yeah, no, it, it's a it's a, it's a great book.
• 1:32:50
  It's it's one of his best. I still think it's sanctuary for
• 1:32:53
  me. Just I'm thinking of the final
• 1:32:56
  visuals of Gydokanak and all that kind of stuff and gets me a
• 1:32:59
  lot warm and fuzzies every time and just.
• 1:33:03
  It's a perfect ending, isn't it, that?
• 1:33:05
  I'm scared though, I'm going to learn about all the battles and
• 1:33:08
  that that he's done all his history research in that one.
• 1:33:11
  I don't remember it being quite like that, but there is detail
• 1:33:16
  in it for sure. No, absolutely.
• 1:33:18
  All right, That's a. Palate cleanser after warmonger,
• 1:33:22
  right? Very refreshing.
• 1:33:27
  I read this in no time like Warmonger, even though when I
• 1:33:32
  sat down to read Warmonger the pages would fly by.
• 1:33:36
  I would fly by 20-30 pages and then put it down for days
• 1:33:40
  because like. But you know, they flew by every
• 1:33:43
  time I picked this up and oh, it's four O clock in the
• 1:33:48
  afternoon. Where'd the fucking day go?
• 1:33:50
  Wow. I was just enjoying myself
• 1:33:52
  reading. I was absorbed in this book.
• 1:33:55
  I had to put it. I did put it down for a couple
• 1:33:57
  of days with the suicidal end because that just that just
• 1:34:02
  wrecked me for a bit. And then when I picked it back
• 1:34:06
  up, it's done pretty quick. So yeah, fast turn around for
• 1:34:10
  this one. Faster turn around for this
• 1:34:13
  episode recording as well. We all finished it quicker than
• 1:34:18
  he did the last book. I know we.
• 1:34:20
  And Andrew didn't read it last. It was me.
• 1:34:23
  I finished. It today, that's right.
• 1:34:26
  I mean, I think, yeah. And you blame Mark for it as
• 1:34:29
  well? Come on.
• 1:34:30
  Absolutely, I'll say. Yeah, I must.
• 1:34:32
  Tidying your books away. Oh no, I know.
• 1:34:35
  I left it at work. It was me.
• 1:34:39
  All right, so, so Mark's innocent.
• 1:34:41
  Oh. Not blamed on him for all night.
• 1:34:44
  Oh God. Then I went into work.
• 1:34:48
  The next day I went, Oh God, Oh no.
• 1:34:52
  But he doesn't know that I put, I brought it back home and then
• 1:34:54
  put it on the shelf and went, well, look, you must have put it
• 1:34:57
  there. Oh.
• 1:34:58
  God, it's a good job he doesn't listen to this.
• 1:34:59
  Yeah, he don't listen to this shelf.
• 1:35:05
  He might make an exception for this one, although you know very
• 1:35:07
  quickly about Warmonger. Yeah, I was listen back to the
• 1:35:10
  episodes just in case. I said a bit needs to be clipped
• 1:35:12
  out. You know, it's like anything
• 1:35:13
  controversial that's said they might get us all cancelled.
• 1:35:16
  Oh God, the levels of hysteria between us discussing that book.
• 1:35:21
  I mean, that is going to top the ghost event space.
• 1:35:23
  But listen, so I'm telling you now, the shit ones are always
• 1:35:27
  the best ones to talk about. Get the boots on.
• 1:35:33
  It's. The.
• 1:35:36
  Other people are going to read it with me.
• 1:35:40
  It's a long cry. Andrew he's.
• 1:35:46
  Not playing. Oh, my goodness.
• 1:35:53
  All right, so let's let's do our our our top threes.
• 1:35:57
  We've got our top three unit books.
• 1:36:02
  I thought this was going to be hard, but in the top of my head,
• 1:36:06
  I got two. Yeah, right away.
• 1:36:08
  And I and if someone's taken those two, I don't care.
• 1:36:12
  I'm still going to say them. So there is that do.
• 1:36:15
  You think they were all going to be 3rd Doctor books?
• 1:36:17
  And then he was like, oh, actually none of them are.
• 1:36:21
  No two of them are for their Doctor books, so they're all set
• 1:36:24
  in the same era. You'll sense a theme coming, but
• 1:36:28
  all right, now let's start with Andrew.
• 1:36:31
  Well, I think all of my choices are a bit weird, so I'll be
• 1:36:34
  surprised if anyone's picked the same ones as me.
• 1:36:38
  But yeah, my first one. Having said at the beginning of
• 1:36:40
  this chat that I don't give a shit about UNIT dating, I'm
• 1:36:43
  going to completely contradict myself and say that one of my
• 1:36:45
  favourite UNIT books is A history of the universe.
• 1:36:50
  The Lance Parkin chronology, specifically the Virgin edition
• 1:36:54
  of it with the blue cover, which has a whole.
• 1:36:57
  It's a timeline of the entire Doctor Who universe in
• 1:37:01
  chronological order. And yeah, if you're a Doctor Who
• 1:37:05
  nerd who wants to know how everything connects, like it's
• 1:37:07
  oh, good. And it has the best part of it
• 1:37:11
  is the footnotes, which explain why he's made certain choices
• 1:37:14
  about things. And yeah, the UNIT era is really
• 1:37:17
  good because it it interweaves like all of the early like war,
• 1:37:22
  gay war machines and linking it up with like, remember to the
• 1:37:28
  Daleks and stuff and then gives you a timeline of what happens
• 1:37:31
  and how it interconnects with all the new adventures
• 1:37:33
  characters. So yeah, if you're like an
• 1:37:36
  absolute super nerd like I am, that sort of stuff is really
• 1:37:40
  satisfying. And I think particularly if
• 1:37:42
  you're like a teenager who like is obsessed with the world
• 1:37:45
  building and how everything could possibly connect and like
• 1:37:50
  be a real world, like this is the book for you.
• 1:37:54
  And it's just like a really good, like dipping into book.
• 1:37:56
  And yeah, just what he does with Unit is is really fun and
• 1:38:00
  creative in that book. And just see you like with a
• 1:38:03
  blanket of your head and a torch.
• 1:38:06
  Age 14 or whatever. Just looking at the footnotes at
• 1:38:09
  like 2:00 in the morning, my God.
• 1:38:12
  History of the Universe. And I remember, what are you
• 1:38:13
  doing? I'm looking at the.
• 1:38:19
  What you got under that sheet, it's a.
• 1:38:20
  Doctor O Book. I mean it's.
• 1:38:23
  Tragically very accurate. Oh God, fan wanking again.
• 1:38:30
  That's right. Appropriate for this episode.
• 1:38:35
  What were you, John? OK, I'm going to go for
• 1:38:38
  something really kind of traditional, because I think
• 1:38:41
  there's always room for that. I'm going to say the perfect
• 1:38:45
  kind of evocation of the unit era as it was on screen is
• 1:38:50
  probably going to be Mark Gates's last The Gathering.
• 1:38:53
  I don't think it's a particularly innovative book.
• 1:38:55
  It won't change your life, but it won't do anything.
• 1:38:58
  But my God, it's it's like a lost perfect story.
• 1:39:02
  It is perfect. It has, you know, the Brigadier
• 1:39:05
  having old friends. The the enemies are just so
• 1:39:09
  sinister. It's Gates.
• 1:39:11
  It's a really simple tricky uses just with the the little grin
• 1:39:15
  that those enemies have. Oh, it it's yeah.
• 1:39:18
  It's just a kind of this gorgeous evocation of an it's a
• 1:39:24
  love letter to the era. And I think, you know, in an era
• 1:39:28
  which did tend towards the grim dark and kind of finding ways to
• 1:39:33
  undermine or change concepts, there's always room for that
• 1:39:37
  kind of little comfort read. So yeah, that's the gathering.
• 1:39:42
  I haven't read that one. I haven't, Joe.
• 1:39:46
  I'm going to go in the other direction then, and I think the
• 1:39:48
  funniest. Take on UNIT is Paul Mars's VER
• 1:39:53
  degree. Oh sorry, true.
• 1:39:57
  Where? You know the the big master plan
• 1:40:00
  here is to try and convince Joe Grant that the Doctor is our
• 1:40:04
  evil mastermind that invented UNIT, it never existed in the
• 1:40:08
  1st place, and that he's been faking alien invasions ever
• 1:40:12
  since he was on Earth. And it just does really funny
• 1:40:16
  things like puts the Brigadier and Benton and Yates in a
• 1:40:18
  supermarket in the exact same like hierarchical situation.
• 1:40:24
  It's just wonderful things about the characters of IE.
• 1:40:28
  Mike Yates is literally turned 2 dimensional.
• 1:40:34
  It's Paul Walks. Love the era, he loves it.
• 1:40:37
  But he's very, very happy to remind us that a lot of it is
• 1:40:42
  pretty shit, but in a very affectionate way.
• 1:40:46
  I'm sorry, Andrew. I'm so sorry.
• 1:40:48
  That's all right. Yeah.
• 1:40:50
  I had all the same things to say about about their degree.
• 1:40:53
  And yeah, just the the scene in the in the supermarket towards
• 1:40:56
  the end of the which also has Liz Shaw on checkouts is yeah,
• 1:41:02
  wonderful. Sexiest checkout girl ever in
• 1:41:06
  her house, Yeah. The visor I'm just, I'm going
• 1:41:13
  for nice and easy here. The devil goblins from Neptune.
• 1:41:17
  It's been a long time since I've read it, so I'm due for a reread
• 1:41:20
  I guess. So I can't say too much about
• 1:41:23
  it. But it does set up a villain
• 1:41:26
  that will turn up occasionally in Doctor Who novels, usually
• 1:41:30
  ones written by either Keith Topping and Martin Day or Lance
• 1:41:35
  Parkin of all people. And this film is called Control.
• 1:41:40
  Control will turn up I think in a 5th Doctor Keith Topping
• 1:41:46
  novel. I can't remember what that one's
• 1:41:50
  called King of Terror. Yeah, he'll turn up in trading
• 1:41:54
  futures as well and all that kind of stuff.
• 1:41:58
  So I think they've that that villains first appearance is in
• 1:42:02
  the Devil Goblins and Neptune. So yeah, it's the first PDA as
• 1:42:06
  well. PDA number one first in the
• 1:42:09
  range, and I'm glad it exists. I'm glad someone was willing to
• 1:42:15
  give Martin Day another turn because he deserved one.
• 1:42:19
  Not everyone deserves to be completely forgotten about after
• 1:42:23
  one stink of the Menagerie is not that bad, is it?
• 1:42:26
  Is it that bad? Should we read the Menagerie?
• 1:42:28
  It is. It is.
• 1:42:30
  Oh, OK. Weird though, by the time he
• 1:42:31
  writes bunker soldiers, he's on fire.
• 1:42:34
  Yeah, right. Sleep sleeper soldiers.
• 1:42:36
  Just. Read Sleeper Reason.
• 1:42:38
  Yeah, fabulous. So he gets good and I like all
• 1:42:41
  the books he does with Keith Topping as as well.
• 1:42:45
  Is that what is it three or two? Hollow Man.
• 1:42:49
  Yeah, Hollow Man is is a great reader.
• 1:42:52
  Yeah. So you know, he does what, 5 BBC
• 1:42:57
  books? And I think they're all kind of
• 1:43:00
  good to great and all that kind of stuff.
• 1:43:02
  So yeah, it it it's kicks off AI guess a mini arc or at least a
• 1:43:07
  recurring villain for the for the Doctor Who BBC books range.
• 1:43:11
  And it's it's it's season 7, So it's right up my alley.
• 1:43:15
  I loved I love that one. Yeah.
• 1:43:17
  All right, John, what about your your next one?
• 1:43:21
  I presume it's going to be on somewhere else this, but it it's
• 1:43:23
  possibly the most of its time book in the entire range, but
• 1:43:27
  it's who killed Kennedy because it puts I.
• 1:43:32
  Forgot about that one. It puts Doctor Who into that
• 1:43:36
  kind of conspiracy mice before, you know, conspiracies took over
• 1:43:40
  the world. And it it really ties it in
• 1:43:44
  because I thought, you know, the tie into Kennedy association was
• 1:43:48
  going to be completely wanky. It's going to be whatever that
• 1:43:50
  quantity episode, the Red Dwarf episode, it's going to be that
• 1:43:55
  awful kind of thing where you shouldn't have gone there.
• 1:43:59
  But it's really interesting. It sets up those kind of
• 1:44:04
  interesting concepts that it thinks of the world beyond
• 1:44:07
  Doctor Who are the consequences of the UNIT stories.
• 1:44:10
  And obviously it lets Dodo have some fun one way or the other,
• 1:44:15
  shall we say. And yeah, and and I really the
• 1:44:22
  obviously that it's just got that grim kind of paradox ending
• 1:44:26
  as well, which is just yeah, which work doesn't work quite as
• 1:44:32
  well as Shadow in the Glass, but I think it's on that level.
• 1:44:34
  So yeah, who kill candy? Because it's just an interesting
• 1:44:38
  take of the time on that 3X files as well, if I'm thinking.
• 1:44:45
  Yeah, All right, Andrew, what about you?
• 1:44:49
  What's your, I guess #1 or #2 pick?
• 1:44:52
  I know Vertigo is one of them. But well, yeah, ver degree.
• 1:44:56
  So I feel like we've already covered that.
• 1:44:57
  So yeah. And I can't, I can't think of
• 1:45:01
  another one. So let's just go to book #3.
• 1:45:06
  All right. Have you done your second?
• 1:45:10
  Me. No, I haven't.
• 1:45:11
  Neither is Jay. We'll go.
• 1:45:12
  All right. We'll go to Jay then.
• 1:45:14
  What's your second one mate? An absolute banger of a book to
• 1:45:18
  end the Virgin New Adventures, The Dying Days, which is a
• 1:45:23
  wonderful unit. But was that your last one,
• 1:45:26
  John? Sorry.
• 1:45:27
  No, no, I just, I, I didn't do it because you, someone else
• 1:45:30
  would pick it. I was hoping something.
• 1:45:32
  Else it's it's just the the best alien invasion book we ever had.
• 1:45:38
  And you genuinely get to see UNIT as a proper military force
• 1:45:42
  with a fully fleshed out Brigadier at the heart of it
• 1:45:48
  taking control. It's it's a world under siege
• 1:45:50
  and that's when UNIT are at their best.
• 1:45:52
  So yeah, it's fabulous. Well, I'm going to take this
• 1:45:57
  book because if it's not on one of your list, I'm I'm, I'm
• 1:46:00
  angry, but then we're going to have a fight.
• 1:46:02
  But now it's my favorite. It's in my top ten.
• 1:46:07
  It is the scales of Injustice by Gary Russell.
• 1:46:10
  It's it kind of ties up a lot of season 7 stuff.
• 1:46:13
  I know Devil Goblins kind of does a lot of that too.
• 1:46:16
  I don't care. I love that both of them exist.
• 1:46:18
  Really. It is.
• 1:46:21
  There's only 7 chapters, which is 7 episodes.
• 1:46:24
  And it's a sequel to the Silurians as well, which is a
• 1:46:28
  story I love. So yeah, it's it's awesome.
• 1:46:32
  I need to reread this, read this book quick, smart things.
• 1:46:36
  Reread both of them. I've never read them
• 1:46:37
  back-to-back. Maybe that's what I need to do
• 1:46:40
  at some point. So yeah, I I skipped ahead and
• 1:46:44
  because and used to someone else might say it.
• 1:46:46
  So yeah, scales and injustice, John, See.
• 1:46:53
  I don't know if I can go, but I'm going to go with the 1991
• 1:46:57
  DWM Winter Special because that's written as a kind of,
• 1:47:01
  that's written as Unit exposed. So it's this newspaper expose on
• 1:47:05
  Unit and that was the first Yeah, I was going through my,
• 1:47:09
  you know, kind of teenage. Certainly he was complete
• 1:47:12
  bollocks phase. You know, it it's that cosy cuff
• 1:47:15
  lever isn't kind of right for you then.
• 1:47:18
  But I I read this and I think it's Gary probably Gary Russell
• 1:47:22
  said I think it's really early in his reign and it is just but
• 1:47:26
  it it's you know, it makes the reason that everyone forgets in
• 1:47:31
  Beijing dinosaurs absolutely ridiculous.
• 1:47:33
  I think it's you know, there's something in the drinking water.
• 1:47:36
  It comes it just has fun with the era and remakes and you can
• 1:47:41
  tell it's this it's back there. The gang in charity magazine
• 1:47:46
  love this era and they want to kind of, you know, they want to
• 1:47:51
  put it forward to you how good it is.
• 1:47:53
  And you know, this is the year of when you know, Auckland.
• 1:47:55
  I was writing that takedown of terror of the autumns, which he
• 1:47:57
  since recounted, and this is kind of a counter answer and I
• 1:48:02
  just adore it. And it's it's one of my kind of
• 1:48:04
  favorite little unit mini fictional bits.
• 1:48:08
  So yeah, deed with them. Special Winter 1991.
• 1:48:12
  If anyone else has got that on their list, I.
• 1:48:14
  Would be very surprised. So would I, So.
• 1:48:20
  All right, Andrew. Yeah.
• 1:48:22
  So my last one, I'm going to go back to the story that I was
• 1:48:24
  talking about at the start, which was Degrees of Truth,
• 1:48:29
  which, yeah, similarly to what we were just talking about Who
• 1:48:36
  kills Kennedy does that thing of like, what if unit was real,
• 1:48:41
  then how would it impact on on real people in their lives?
• 1:48:44
  And it's just a yeah, it's a really nice little short story
• 1:48:48
  with a bit of an emotional punch.
• 1:48:49
  And what I also liked about it at the time was it kind of there
• 1:48:55
  was this sort of mini continuity arc thing going on with them, I
• 1:49:01
  think with David A Mckinty. And like those early BBC books
• 1:49:05
  where there was so there was degrees of truth and that also
• 1:49:08
  LinkedIn with the short story freedom, which was by Steve
• 1:49:12
  Lyons also in short trips. And then they both link into
• 1:49:16
  face of the enemy with like which prison the masters in.
• 1:49:19
  And then that leads into like the Sea Devils and then that
• 1:49:23
  leads into like the eight Doctors where the where the
• 1:49:25
  master kind of gets to start us back.
• 1:49:27
  So yeah, there was like this real kind of conscious effort to
• 1:49:31
  be doing something that. And it was also like around the
• 1:49:33
  same time the Mind of Evil came out on video.
• 1:49:35
  So yeah, you could see that kind of like editorial through line
• 1:49:40
  of them just doing something interesting with this era.
• 1:49:45
  Yeah. And again, just like nerdy and
• 1:49:46
  just like pulling together all like these little things.
• 1:49:49
  And I think it was like continuity kind of done right in
• 1:49:53
  that it's about drawing kind of logical conclusions and cause
• 1:49:58
  and effect from each of those different stories of the era and
• 1:50:01
  tying it all together, which a lot of us like in our nerdy
• 1:50:06
  extended universe fixture, just sort of wrapping it all up in a
• 1:50:09
  little bow. Yeah.
• 1:50:14
  I really want to check that out now I know.
• 1:50:16
  I know I've got that. So I'm going to listen to that.
• 1:50:18
  I think I've probably just like, picked it up too much now, but I
• 1:50:21
  had that tape when I was like 10.
• 1:50:23
  So those stories are kind of like, yeah, like Freedom as well
• 1:50:27
  is really good. The Steve Lyons one I remember
• 1:50:30
  like the opening line from that and it's really creepy and
• 1:50:32
  sinister. Oh, what is it?
• 1:50:34
  Somewhere, somewhere the construct exists and it's like
• 1:50:41
  it's yeah, again, that one's read by by Nicholas Courtney.
• 1:50:49
  So yeah, it's kind of like this nice little like little mini era
• 1:50:52
  in the in the 3rd Doctor era. So yeah, check it out.
• 1:50:57
  Sweet Joe. I want to do a very quick
• 1:51:01
  honourable mention for Mark Platt's Battlefield, which I
• 1:51:04
  think is a really great unit book, especially did.
• 1:51:07
  Consider it. Especially how Bambara is
• 1:51:10
  characterized like in the opening chapters of the book.
• 1:51:15
  It's like proper gritty military stuff.
• 1:51:18
  Yeah, I love it. She's on the plane swigging a
• 1:51:20
  bottle of vodka at the start. He's been read by kids.
• 1:51:24
  But my last choice is going to be a book I've read recently.
• 1:51:27
  I've already mentioned today, and that is The Harvest of Time
• 1:51:30
  by Alastair Reynolds, which I cannot bang on enough about
• 1:51:34
  because it starts off and I really feared it was going to be
• 1:51:38
  another last of the gathering, you know, very traditional.
• 1:51:41
  So it starts off with a visit, an oil rig, the doctor and Joe,
• 1:51:44
  because something mysterious has been happening there and a tramp
• 1:51:48
  or somebody gets taken over by an alien on a beach.
• 1:51:51
  And I'm like, OK, OK, we're doing all the cliches.
• 1:51:53
  But then Alison Renner says, no, no, what if it was a unit story
• 1:51:57
  and they have the the budget of a Hollywood movie and it builds
• 1:52:02
  and it grows and it grows. And then the second-half of the
• 1:52:05
  book, it literally grows in scale in such an ambitious way.
• 1:52:08
  And I won't small any surprises, but just the action scenes he
• 1:52:13
  puts in it, these fucking helicopters flying about the
• 1:52:15
  place, the sealed invasion where they're not particularly clever
• 1:52:21
  alien creatures, but they have numbers that keep coming.
• 1:52:25
  So there's hundreds of thousands of millions of them and they
• 1:52:28
  just keep coming. And Unit is utterly overwhelmed.
• 1:52:32
  Yeah, it's a great What if there was a Unit movie in the 70s and
• 1:52:38
  and it's by Alistair Reynolds, so it's got some bloody good
• 1:52:41
  pros in it as well. That sounds good.
• 1:52:45
  All right. I'm sold.
• 1:52:47
  I'll have to track it down, I guess.
• 1:52:49
  My second choice, because you know, Scales was like, yeah, why
• 1:52:54
  don't you guys put me on to this And I absolutely loved it.
• 1:52:57
  It is the Heralds of Creation. It is Paul Cornell and
• 1:53:01
  Christopher Jones. Paul Cornell writes, Christopher
• 1:53:03
  Jones does the artwork. It is like a 5 or 6 page.
• 1:53:08
  It's a 5 page A5 page. Just five issues in one trade
• 1:53:13
  paperback of this. Have you guys all read this?
• 1:53:19
  No, I couldn't get it. I.
• 1:53:20
  Did it? I went Forbidden Planet the day
• 1:53:24
  after Andrew told me about it, and they'd all gone.
• 1:53:27
  All right, well, in that case, I am not going to mention the huge
• 1:53:32
  the fun twist that's in that story then, because there is a
• 1:53:34
  fun twist in there. And if you haven't read it, I'm
• 1:53:37
  not going to be the guy to. I'm not going to I who you and
• 1:53:40
  tell you what happens. Yeah, it's one of those things
• 1:53:44
  where if you pick it up, you shouldn't flick through it,
• 1:53:47
  which I was, because there's big like, visual spoilers in it,
• 1:53:50
  just like going without. Knowing yeah.
• 1:53:53
  So I know it it it's it's Paul Cornell doing a pet wearer
• 1:53:58
  story. The artwork is very good.
• 1:54:02
  It's got this right mix of you can tell all the characters who
• 1:54:07
  who all they are, but it's not it's not photo realistic.
• 1:54:10
  It's wonderful, wonderful artwork.
• 1:54:13
  So it's quite cartoon Indian places as well.
• 1:54:15
  And it's great. All the characters are spot on.
• 1:54:17
  It's Paul Cornell. He knows his stuff and he's
• 1:54:20
  going to make it interesting. And the artwork by Christopher
• 1:54:24
  Jones is fantastic as well. So yeah, Heralds of destruction,
• 1:54:30
  not creation. There you go.
• 1:54:31
  Destruction. Yeah.
• 1:54:33
  People should check that out. It's pretty good.
• 1:54:37
  Yeah. Even more now.
• 1:54:42
  I think all my choices were Perry stories.
• 1:54:43
  There we go. I thought I was going to
• 1:54:45
  struggle with this because I haven't read a lot of the Pertly
• 1:54:48
  books. I've read the two season 7 ones
• 1:54:50
  and the Ghost event Space and that's it.
• 1:54:55
  I've got heaps of them for some reason.
• 1:54:57
  So whenever you guys are ready to make me read some more
• 1:55:02
  Pertly, I'm in. I'm absolutely in.
• 1:55:04
  So it's not a not a chore for me at all.
• 1:55:07
  So I bought them. So I bought them to read them.
• 1:55:09
  So you know, there there is that.
• 1:55:11
  Absolutely. It's the fan gene.
• 1:55:13
  We've all got everything. Dude, yeah, Luke, you don't like
• 1:55:18
  seasons 9 and 10. Yeah, I still have all of the
• 1:55:20
  fucking DVD. I don't have the Blu rays of
• 1:55:22
  them, but I've got the DVDs at least, you know?
• 1:55:24
  So I have re watched them and we watched them.
• 1:55:28
  Yes, we know Luke. We did read out your comments in
• 1:55:31
  the season 10 strictly and we. Were all appalled.
• 1:55:36
  All those stories went in to the next round.
• 1:55:38
  I'm like, get out of here, baby, come on.
• 1:55:41
  And. Then we checked carnal like
• 1:55:44
  first it caused aneurysm and Toby Adam.
• 1:55:50
  Just a tiny side before we talk about what on earth we're doing
• 1:55:54
  next, because I don't actually know what that is.
• 1:55:58
  We may have to decide on the call.
• 1:55:59
  I just want to say, guys, thank you very much.
• 1:56:02
  We've scored scored over 20 episodes now of at the Hamster
• 1:56:06
  book. Club, which means we have
• 1:56:08
  officially lasted longer than some podcasts and you guys have
• 1:56:14
  definitely you are like the the missing past Doctor adventures
• 1:56:18
  kings of the Hamster Book club. I'll need to drag your asses
• 1:56:23
  into the new adventures. A bit more, or maybe you need to
• 1:56:27
  drag my ass in there. I don't know, But it was just a
• 1:56:30
  very quick chance to say thank you very much because it takes a
• 1:56:32
  lot of time to read these. It's great fun talking about.
• 1:56:38
  All this podcast has kept me reading for someone who goes in
• 1:56:43
  spits and spurts with his reading, you know, I'll go for a
• 1:56:46
  phase where I haven't read anything for ages.
• 1:56:49
  This, this doing this has kept me reading something solidly for
• 1:56:53
  however long. We've been doing this for two
• 1:56:55
  years now, so yeah. We may not be getting any useful
• 1:56:59
  life knowledge like reading. Always Doctor Ruberks, we're
• 1:57:02
  having a lot of fun. What are we doing next?
• 1:57:08
  We can do telos. Oh well, someone choose one
• 1:57:12
  then. The only one we can't do is the
• 1:57:15
  Dalek Factor. That's it.
• 1:57:17
  I suggested in the chat that we did a Cabinet of Light, but I
• 1:57:22
  started reading it and I don't really like it.
• 1:57:24
  And Michael Mills has asked to do that one.
• 1:57:28
  So what's a good one then? So who's read all the Teloses?
• 1:57:31
  I've I've read them. Well, now I've got to think of
• 1:57:33
  them. Fallen Gods is obviously.
• 1:57:35
  I've only read Fallen Gods. Andrew, which ones have you got
• 1:57:40
  is the one question I know we had.
• 1:57:42
  Let me find the photo fighting real time content.
• 1:57:49
  With the vessels, we had this prepared.
• 1:57:52
  I listened to Toby Haygoat wrestling with his TV remote.
• 1:57:56
  Other people can listen to this. Right, so I have got Cabinet of
• 1:58:02
  Light, Fallen Gods, Dalek Factor, Wonderland, Riptide,
• 1:58:08
  Riptide that's an Eighth Doctor One, and Night Dreamers, Citadel
• 1:58:14
  of Dreams and Time and Relative any of those screaming out to
• 1:58:20
  people. Pardon and relative is fun
• 1:58:24
  falling. Yeah.
• 1:58:27
  I think you have. Riptide's supposed to be quite.
• 1:58:30
  Is that Louise Cooper? Louise Cooper, 8th Doctor, you
• 1:58:35
  say? I think it's 8th Doctor.
• 1:58:37
  Yeah, it is. I've never heard.
• 1:58:40
  I've not read this one. All right.
• 1:58:41
  Habit. We haven't done any dogs as
• 1:58:44
  crooked bills have, we don't think.
• 1:58:47
  No, we haven't done one for quite some.
• 1:58:49
  Oh, did we do interference before or after?
• 1:58:50
  I can't remember. No, before.
• 1:58:52
  That's Christmas time, isn't it? Oh, I've been some time.
• 1:58:55
  OK. Hang on, do you know what?
• 1:58:58
  We did do. I probably could cut that bit
• 1:59:00
  out just by going, hey Luke, what the hell are we doing next?
• 1:59:05
  Did we say riptide? Is that the one by Louise
• 1:59:12
  Cooper? Oh yeah, yeah, it is.
• 1:59:14
  It's got a forward by Stephen Gallagher.
• 1:59:17
  Andrew, Who's the doctor in that?
• 1:59:18
  I. Believe it's Paul Mcgahn.
• 1:59:21
  Really, we quite like Paul Mcgahn.
• 1:59:23
  Don't. We, I haven't read that one.
• 1:59:25
  Professionals, everyone. We're professionals.
• 1:59:28
  Oh cool, come on, I'm not out in this one.
• 1:59:30
  It's your job. Well, there's only one way we
• 1:59:33
  can finish these, and that is to beat everyone a Jew.
• 1:59:40
  It's a long why? It's a long why?
• 1:59:45
  Like the master Kalashnikov.