The Star Beast.

"Knock,Knock." "Whos There" "Its Me." "Me Who?" "You Know Who." And by jingo, we do. A New Doctor with a familiar face. A lovely familiar old face. And hes not alone. Some old friends have reappeared to join him, to help him, and him to help them. The heroes journey begins once more. Well, you know how it goes. There is even a new Rose. Whos also got a lovely face and a heroic journey of her own to go on. And The Star Beast gets the on screen outing it already seemed to have in the theatre of my mind. Thats how powerful the old Doctor Who Weekly stories were. They may have been told in a different medium, a sister medium, so to speak, but their power persists after decades. Blooming well hats off to Pat Mills, John Wagner and Dave Gibbons. Absolute Genius, each one. And thanks to Russel T Davis millions got to discover this too. As before The Doctor and Doctor charisma leapt off the television screen. How on Earth do they manage to go from making you laugh to making you cry in just moments? Its some power certain actors possess. Its unearthly. An unearthly charm? Dark Saturday nights with Doctor Who. What a beautiful thing.

Radio Times.

In Time Honoured( Er, should that be Timey -Whimey..?)tradition the Radio Times forewarns us that it is not just some wishfullfilment by Doctor Who fans hungry for new Who, it is on its way onto television once more, beamed directly into your home. Back where it belongs on a Saturday night. Its real, its happening, and it is almost here. I read my issue of the Radio Times this morning and as excited as I am by all the new stuff, it is the interview with Tom Baker which really surprised and engaged me. Eighty Nine years of age and he still surprises, amuses and baffles. It was the most incredible alchemy which came together to give Tom Baker and the role he is most readily identified with. Although his best role is actually being Tom Baker himself: The Philosopher's Funny Bone.

Fishing For Friends.

While checking the latest Doctor Who news I came across this lovely old pic of Colin Baker which I found quite touching. For all his bombast and bravado he looks like a lonely wee boy in his best clothes, which nobody ever compliments him for, fishing from an impressive stoneworked bridging. Fishing above a dirty stream with no fish but filled with tyres, shopping trolleys and the tossed away detritus of a society that does not appreciate how good its got it. Yet only Perry and Mel gave him a chance to demonstrate something other than misjudged brusqueness.It was Big Finish which really gave Colin Baker the chance to shine, which he did, brightly.Paired with the loveable Maggie Stables as Evelyn the two chums proved themselves one of the very best Tardis teams. Honestly, give them a listen. Sweet is not a word I use an awful lot. I have heard it misapplied so many times I think I subconciously avoid using it. Yet I would apply it with regard to the above picture. Sweet, loud,brave and colourful and desperately wanting to find a friend. Silly Doctor. Look about you.

Revenge Of The Cybermen Vinyl.

Oh my word, look at this. The Tardis dream team in a date with destiny. As The Cybermen come looking for revenge; on everyone. Although it has been pointed out to me that The Cybermen would never act out a sense of 2revenge." Being emotionless killing machines, or rather intent on aborbing life forms to be like them. The original assimilators, so to speak. Well, it was the seventies and it had been a few years since they last appeared to wreck havok. Its a fantastically atmospheric story and was helped to be so by this very soundtrack by Carey Blyton. In space no one can hear you Boop Doop.

Once Upon A Timelord.

It seemed such a long time ago when I first saw this advertised as coming soon from Titan Books and by Jingo they got there in the end. So much good stuff beginning to pour in from the Whoniverse in this very special anniversary year.

Doctor Who Warriors Gate

Warrior's Gate was a four part Doctor Who story originally transmitted on the BBC in 1981. In the decades that have passed since it remains a story that is much misunderstood and often dismissed, I believe, for that very reason.Yet it remains a joy to rediscover, reading this re-ssued novelization by its original writer. Strangely, or maybe not so strangely, the story remains as elusive as before. Given the differences between what we read in this book and what we watch on video, DVD or Blueray. It remains a mystery play, an inverted rossetta stone that does not explain but swarthily describes. A conundrum wrapped up in a BBC budjet. It is the third story in a loose trilogy that is remembered as The E-Space Trilogy. Three stories set in a pocket universe, each one with its own weird tone. This last season with the great man himself in the title role has a melancholy tone that permeates all its episodes. One not seen again in the show for many years. Although I feel Peter Capaldi's last three stories come close with a sense of an ending prolonged. Sad and melancholy as our ancient traveler approaches change and transition. Anyway, in this story the current Tardis team find themselves in a strange location where space appears to be contracting upon itself. "Ugh/" I hear you grunt. This is a half hour children's programme transmitted on a Saturday early evening, mostly following an afternoon of sport and proceeding a family oriented light entertainment show. Yet this season we were treated to solid holographic tech, , charged vacumn emboitments and block transfer computation. Televisual science based adventuring. I shall take an easier path and not so much talk about what Warrior's gate is about but rather how watching Warrior's Gate affected me. Presenting the notion that it is less of a memory and more of a recreated series of impressions, imitating what I think a memory is.

Dont be put off, bear with me,please.I remember being confused by the story, not understanding the weird science of it all, until I reasoned (If that is the right word to use in these circumstances) that if I can accept a space ship that is bigger on the inside why cant i accept a journey to and from an place can get shorter as you make it. Plus, if The Doctor and Romanna had a grip on what was going on then why should I not just relax into the exciting shennanigans involving a race of time traveling lion people being persecuted as slaves when in their own past they were as bad, if not even worse,than the people who misused them. It was all such a long time ago I thought I misremembered how confusing it was at the time, until I watched it again recently while also rereading Stephen Gallagher's novelization of his own original script. First time around he used the psueudonym John Lydecker, for some business reason or other. Probaly his agent suggesting Doctor Who was percieved as down market. Not recognising the genius thing it was.Doctor Who being the very definition of genius. Probably. There are two further treats, two short stories expanding on the events within State Of Decay, another novelization to begin with, a story called The Kairos Ring. Adapted from a story that was performed by Lalla Ward for BBC Audio. Followed by an eighth Doctor story that plays foot loose and fancy free with continuity but what's new about that. It's all gravy, yum,yum. class="separator" style="clear: both;">

Haunted Dixie.

Now this is what I call Southern Gothic.And not the kind you find in Castleblayney, Monaghan.Haunted Dixie is what it promises on the cover and Haunted Dixie is exactly what it delivers.Fourteen stories, fouteen slices of American Gothic, whittled from the social and historical fabric of the different states and what a tattered ghostly flag it is that snaps in a supernatural breeze. The scent of magnolia dances in that breeze and what strange fruit is borne. From North Carolina to southern Carolina, from Florida to Tennessee , bend in the wind and allow yourself to be carried along.gifts from writers who may be familiar to you and others who may be obscure, perhaps not known at all.I am too thinly read to offer an estimate on presumed familiarity. The tone of the tales vary, uncomfortable back roads of narrative take us along moss strewn lost pathways to troubled times and troubled people. There is a casuality to an inverted social brutality that almost overwhelms proceedings. Prepare to have modern sensebilities rattled. Some of the stories are steeped in a troubling fog of lived perceptions and words are used that have all but disapeared from use in this day and age. Yet their ghosts,the shades of their use, haunt some of the tales, way beyond the intended stories intentions to unsettle, to scare. The undoubted prejudices of distant erasw a part of southern American history and have the power to still frighten in a way supernatural beings or events simply cannot. The Southern soil these stories spring from is rich and fertile in storytelling terms. Lots of Goblin roots best left unpulled. Some of these stories have been waiting years to be rediscovered and read again. Yet there is a warning for the curious and a suggestion to leave things as you find them, warts n'all. You surely will recognise some of the contributors in this well ordered anthology, the custodians of this Southern archive have done their job well and made choices which insure a shudder before bedtime; Orson Scoot Card, Alan Dean Foster, Robert Bloch and Ambrose Bierce among the more familiar names. With Elizabeth Spencer, Manly Wade wellman, Eugene K Jones and others perhaps being authors you may be less familiar with. But the old plantation has been dusted and well lit and all are welcome.There is enough in here to satisfy even the most jaded tastes. You have only to push open the creaking gate on the book cover to enter the splendour of a Souther Gothic Ball of a type they just do not have anymore. Allow yourself to drift dreaming into a world of haunted bayous, the crumbling elegance of old plantation mansions, tasting the heady wine of bygone days, through a skewed perspective of a lost era of American social history. Soak it up, breath in its musky aura, then move along, let it fade away, as ghosts do when real life reminds us of our imperatives. Poor Haunted Dixie, we hardly knew ye.

Planet Of The Ood.

It was supposed to be a treat for Donna, the Doctor taking her to her first alien planet, unfortunately the experience almost caused her to regret ever leaving merrie olde terra firma. And it really was a very dark story, drenched in a melancholy tone that in no way prepares the travelers for the horror story at the heart of the bountiful human expansion to the stars. The origins of The Ood's relationship with the human race, a story weighed down with its revelations of monstrous cruelty and exploitation of a vulnerable species. When the truth is revealed it is little wonder Donna is horrified and ashamed of the human race. When I was growing up and reading the novelizations of classic era stories I was aware they covered four, and sometimes six, episodes. A story that mostly took a month to unfold whereas modern era stories are generally one episode long. So the stories sometimes require a little beefing up. Not padding, the modern generation of writers are smarter than that, just a bit of extra material for the reader to get there teeth into. Although the story whisks along at a fast pace the tragedy of The Ood is laid bare and the guilty are exposed. It took a while though. Two hundred years, sadly. The Chris Achelious inspired cover is a real treat. One that relects the Doctor/Donna era, a season of exploration, not only of space and time but one that explores the limits of friendship and sacrifice. The whole series, behind and in front of the camera, was on a creative high. One can't help suspect, and hope, that it's all about to happen again. Creative high that is. The Doctir and Donna are such a lively pairinging,bringing the best out in each other.There was a real sense if the pair discovering each other, learning as friends what a wide weird world we all live in. Hope it's all about to get a whole lot wilder and weirder.

The Opium General and Other Stories.

The inner sleeve of this nicely formed hard cover collection describes the contents as "a collection of Michael moorcock's most ambitious recent fiction" which might have been an honest declaration of the publisher's intentions in 1984, the year it first hit the shelves, thats almost forty years past.Yet the work feels as forward thinking, as genuinely progressive as it did back then. Although we know the actual historical outcomes of some of the situations Michael Moorcock's prose was taking us tumbling into. Even he did not forsee the pathologies endgames, overtaken as most were in criminal barbarity of every hue. The potency of this collection of prose and essays remains vital if at times fractured, seen through a lens distorted by time and its many resolutions. Things may not always work out the way we hope but is that cause for not hoping? Certainly not. It kicks off with a story I read not so long ago. The Alchemist's question which was heralded on the cover as; "including the final Jerry Corneilius adventure." which turned out not to be entirely accurate, as it was not the final word on Jerry, in much the same way as return Of The Jedi turned out not to be the last word on StarWars. Even if I am not entirely sure what I mean by that. And I am someone who watched that movie on Betamex, which makes me a survivor in much the same way as...well, you get the picture. Hopefully.

An Unearthly Child.

Can it really be sixty years since the first episodes of Doctor Who were transmitted? Oh yes, absolutely. It will be sixty years and counting for all of us mere mortals walking the slow path. Look at the character studies of the main characters produced for that pilot episode. Even after all these years they have the power to inspire a sense of the uncanny.We were not on Earth for very long before taking off on that long journey througyh space and time.With the vast amount of water under the bridge and the accumulated weight of decades of continuity it is all too easy to forget how alien and otherworldly The Doctor and Susan were.Their names did not ground them, not with the whole of time and space beckoning to them. And to think we went along for the ride.. Which continues and still manages to take us to new places..

Blood Merridian.

Oh sweet Jesus and all the saints, what a book. Blood Merridianm not a Wine Dark Merridian or a Purple Merridian but a Blood Merridian.There is something of a bloody sunset to it all, a sense of an ending off sorts, but ike all sunsets it will come again, Provided someone is around to witness it, Not that I am suggesting that unrecorded events may not have existed may not have happened at all. They did, millions and millions of them and after we are gone millions more will take place. I wonder what Judge Holden would make of that? God willing we never find out. There is so much to say about this book, territories to explore, terrible and beautiful, with a powerful sense of a fall from grace. Need to think some more about it.

Hogarth; Gin Lane (1751)

Another fine piece of art I very much admire, this one by Hogarth, although aspects of it are the stuff of bad dreams. Much as life for the poor was in Georgian Englande. Mother's Ruin, indeed.

Saint Malachy Predictions.

The sands of time are running out, Dear People. According to the predictions of my patron saint. Not to be an alarmisst but his other predictions for what was to come, especially the numbers of passing Popes, was pretty much on the money, so to speak. Actually, I take that back. It is quite alarming.

Horror Of Fang Rock.

Picked this amazing vinyl up, an partially narrated adaption of the original story from 1977, with lovely linking narration from the lovelier Louise Jameson. Its an atmospheric tale, one of the very best in Tom Baker's run, bookended by two stories I am equally fond off, even though they were a season apart. Mining gold they were in those far off days and boy had they struck a rich vein.I remember running down the dark street, Etna Drive, to meet my mate Fergie to discuss "What the hell was crawling about the light house on Fang Rock killing people?" We had to wait a couple of weeks as the story played out, long dark weeks, but that was the lot of Doctor Wh fans in those days. We were all on the slow path through time.

The Ice Schooner.

Really enjoyed this ice bound world fantasy by Michael Moorcock. Found it in just the right mood for a trip to another world and time that felt a bit like ours but with just enough of a distance to feel "thank God I dont live there!" It felt pulpy and girthy, with enough meat on the bones to wolf down. "Across the frozen wastes of Earth lay the mantle of the new ice age. a mantle cut by the knife edged runners of the mighty Ice Schooners majestic relics of a dying epoc.."Is what it says on the inner dust jacket and that should be more than enough to draw in anyone in search of adventure. Think Mad Max on ice, think of a refridgerated Damnation Alley, and then think about your warmest clothing and a matching set of furry gloves and boots, then you will be just about ready.The Ice Schooner was first published by Sphere Books in 1969 but had actually been serialised much earlier, in SF Impulse magazine.And it has the energy of a serialised pulpy yarn whilst retaining a frission of modernity, like so much of Michael Moorcock's speculative adventures.You knew where they came from, you knew where they are and you know where they are going, thanks to the prose offerred. Theres a nice Doctor Who and The Ice Warriors/Moby Dick vibe to proceedings. With the great white ghost of a whale becoming the great lost city of New York. The influence of Melville scuds across the face of the narrative, much like the great ice schooners over the frozen plains of a sleeping Earth. Life above the ice is full of hard work and suffering, with a total abscence of luxury beliefs that come with pampered societies. Life is hard and fast and death comes quickly to the weak. Geographically and atmospherically the Ice Schooner draws the reader along at a cracking pace, its even grimmer up north when the whole world is north. Konrad Arflane, what a great name, is a grizzled salty ice dog of a man in search of a ship to call his own. Circumstances lead him to just such an eventuality in the shape of the mighty vessel; The Ice Spirit. In order to gain this position he, and his crew, must complete a quest for a mythical city, which no man had seen and returned from, until now. Take the King's shilling. All aboard, New York here we come. Sort of...

Celestial Toymaker.

What a strange story this was. One of those mythic lost stories I used to think about as a boy, trying to make something out of the grainy photograpghs I used to come across in books or magazines. No internet when I was a boy, you see. The whole world was made of wood. I thought it had a nightmarish quality to it. Like a fevered episode of The Avengers. Tonally it looked like a yarn told in a haunted Edwardian nusery. Perhaps it was. imagine this being beamed into your house one dark Saturday evening. And now the Toymaker is back for a rematch. Oh my giddy aunt. The words never felt more appropriate.

The Lamplighters.

I was quite drawn to this dark tale set in and around a lighthouse in Cornwall in 1972. Three men working there in their duty as keepers, disapear from it despite it being locked from within. Inside are found set places for a last meal, a diiner for three, but no clue as to why it did not take place nor where the would be diners went. For the next couple of decades which follow their surviving partners, their wives and childrten, lead fractured broken lives. the original event becomes a media sensation but no answers are found. Into that the ownersw of the lighthouse and employers of the missing men construct an explanation which blackens the name of the youngest member of the trio, scapegoating him because of his prison record and also because it is the easiest option. Buying the silence of the mens widows by the payment of a conditional pension. The lamplighters is a well written novel with complex but believable characters. With the isolated lamphouse proving a great location for the mysterious goings on. I have felt drawn to lighthouses and their stark presence against a watery horizon. I think it probably stems from a Doctor Who story; The Horror Of Fang Rock. Way back in 1977 as The Doctor and Leela are trapped by a deadly alien presence on a fog bound islet. It is an absolute classic, with many Whovian tropes. Most especially the remote base under siege scenario. In an equally strange way the surviving families of the missing men find themselves isolated and under siege. By socila expectancy and constrained by the need of a controling elite to keep control of a narrative which better suits their purpose. A strangely familar scenario for so many of us in these strange days. It is only when these women and their families push back against this narrative that they begin to find some piece. A quantum of solace, so to speak. Past relationships are discovered not to be as first surmissed. As first suggested by a bought and paid for media establishment. Answers do not come easy. it takes courage to face those truths.I could see this book having a borad appeal as written by Emma Stonex. Her story set in a lighthouse proving illuminating.