Tag: Bookblog

• Book Review. Moon Blink by Sadie Miller.

  

  ‘Actually,’ Patricia continued. ‘I think it might be easier if I show you.’

  ‘She probably just wants to show us his photograph,’ Bill said logically. ‘I don’t know why you must always think something strange is going on, Anne. I’m sure there is a perfectly reasonable explanation.’

  Patricia stood before them holding a mass of swaddling cloth, a young infant squawking from within the folds.

  Or maybe not.

  You see it coming but you’re still not expecting Patricia, an old friend of Anne’s, to show up on her doorstep having arrived in the UK from America, having kidnapped a baby who is a part of a race called the Terrae, who are inhabitants of the moon, and are being experimented on. We’ve had Cybermen stomping on the Moon, the idea of the Moon being an egg and now we have the Terrae. ‘They were all fair skinned. I imagine it is part of their evolutionary camouflage.’

  I got familiar Delta and the Bannermen vibes.

  

  Naturally, Anne wants to take the baby to the Vault, where she works, to run tests and find out more about the baby. This raises ethical and moral questions with Patricia. Especially as she witnesses in the Vault, a young man is undergoing his own tests, and who the Brigadier has already stumbled on while in Scotland, working on the project that the Brigadier is there to oversee, and under the influence of a substance called Luna Haze, which is something that ties in with the Terrae ‘Still, he could feel the haze working its way into his system, so he didn’t really care. All he knew was that he had to get outside and look up at the Moon.’

  Wannabe Journalist Charlie Redfern, who Anne accurately describes herself as ‘a real Chorley in the making.’ meets Selene, who is also a Terrae and she wants his help. Charlie only wants a story.

  Moon Blink is written very well and set up well too, the ending almost felt a little rushed, but Moon Blink was a solid story overall.

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  March 31, 2022

  blog, Book review, Bookblog, Books, science fiction, WordPress

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• Book Review. Mutually Assured Domination by Nick Walters .

  ‘Project M! Project MAD! Project M- A- D! Mutually Assured Domination!’

  

  The Dominators are back!

  And so is Harold Chorley, the irritating journalist from the television Doctor Who story The Web of Fear. A large part of MAD is narrated by Chorley, as he visits Dominex Industries’ factory to investigate the strange goings on there. ‘He was a narcissist, and he knew it – so what, so be it, there are much worse character defects.’  He goes from irritating to loathsome.

  DOMINEX INDUSTRIES KEEP OUT! TRESPASSERS WILL BE PROSECUTED

  With a sign like that, no wonder so many are trying to get into the factory. Although we are to discover their security is very efficient.

  ‘Chorley watched as the robots marched out of the complex. The two girls, Daisy and Denise, were dancing directly in the path of the advancing robots, laughing and throwing clumps of Earth at them.’

  It was a glorious summer day and Lethbridge-Stewart sat in his office in his shirt-sleeves, wishing he had the chance to get out of the barracks and enjoy the weather. No chance of that – far too much to do.

  ‘I’ve got to warn you, watch out for Smackhead Rock.’ And with that warning, ‘A big lump of black limestone, jutting down from the ceiling’ you just know one of the three men are going to be seeing stars at some point. Ouch.

  The Dominex Industry have connections with the Government, and with the Dominators being behind Dominex with a plan to take over the planet, they need to have the brakes put on being detected and so that filters through to Lethbridge-Stewart having very little authority, which results in his arrest and then going on the run and recruiting ex-military men to aid him in saving the world from the Dominators. The ending is well set up, with some good moments, and is a shame it takes Mutually Assured Domination so long to get to that point.

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  March 24, 2022

  Book review, Bookblog, Books, doctor who, technology

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• Book Review. Beast of Fang Rock by Andy Frankham-Allen.

  

  The island had a reputation for being host to the most haunted lighthouse in the British isles, a reputation earned after the strange events that occurred at the turn of the century, in which three light keepers and several civilians, including a Lord and an MP, were found dead with little or no explanation. There were whispers of strange goings-on, of bright lights in the sky – even one mention of a shooting star.

  This story is perfect if you love Doctor Who’s season 15 story The Horror of Fang Rock. It is one for the fans. The story is set in the late 60’s, after Lethbridge-Stewart meets the Doctor in the Yeti story The Web of Fear for the first time, and he is beginning to believe in the supernatural. It is strange how UNIT here is yet to exist and how adamant the Brig is about not believing in all that. When you consider how many aliens he met with the third Doctor, Jon Pertwee. That was odd. The Beast of Fang Rock is itself set in the early nineteenth century. Beast of Fang Rock jumps around into different points in time, back to the lighthouse that the Doctor and Leela met the Rutans and further back into the eighteenth century.

  There was a time when the notion of past lives, let alone aliens, would have made Lethbridge-Stewart laugh dismissively. More mumbo-jumbo for the new age crazies. But much had changed since February.

  Anne Travers is introduced in the Beast of Fang Rock. She was a character I loved in The Web of Fear, and it’s interesting. How the writer writes her as someone who knows what she is doing, takes charge and, of course, the Brig doesn’t like it when Anne nominates herself to travel back in time. When she visits the Lighthouse of The Horror of Fang Rock in the eighteenth century, I wasn’t expecting it, but the writer actually gives us a Anne is a woman from a man’s perspective, and in that century it was unusual to have a woman in a lighthouse, and the characters in this time period have to adjust to Anne being there. Was that needed? Was it a diversion from the story? Who cares. This was a well woven story, which taught us so much more about Anne, the Brigadier, what did happen after the Yeti invaded London, and the Rutans. Another enthralling story, and the best part? We even had a glimpse of that blue box.

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  March 17, 2022

  Book review, Bookblog, Books

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• Book Review. The Golden Oldies Guesthouse by Dee MacDonald.

  

  ‘And that was how they found Over and Above. It stood there, in splendid isolation, a large Edwardian heap in an overgrown garden, blinds down, empty and forlorn.’

  The Golden Oldies Guesthouse by Dee MacDonald

  Couple Tess and Simon live in London and they are on their belated honeymoon, in Cornwall, when they come upon a house, which they fall in love with. They plan to make it into a guesthouse. The story follows their initial forays into finding tradesmen, who can fix up their new property into somewhere habitable for guests to want to stay. They stumble across problems along the way, such as a sports car tends to be an unsuitable vehicle for tight country lanes and doesn’t offer much room for all the bits and pieces you will need when renovating. Tess and Simon do not seem to be able to communicate very well as a pair and have their differences along the way too. This first part of The Golden Oldies Guesthouse was fine, but it did read like a checklist of fairly standard incidences that happen when you move and are in a new area, trying to get your bearings. The second part I preferred because that is when the guests began to arrive, and we learn more about their characters. The guests are arriving for their own myriad reasons, with one or two keeping those reasons to themselves. Dominic’s arrived in Cornwall to write, and falls in love, which was a tale that was touching. And The Golden Oldies Guesthouse did feel like Dominic’s story at this point. With one of the guests, Celia, making off at the end of the book like Marion in the Hitchcock film Psycho.

  The Golden Oldies Guesthouse was an entertaining and fun read.

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  March 15, 2022

  blog, Book review, Bookblog, Fiction, romance

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• Doctor Who Star Tales Chasing the Dawn by Jenny T. Colgan, That’s All Right Mama by Paul Magrs and Einstein and the Doctor by Jo Cotterill.

  

  Chasing the Dawn by Jenny T. Colgan

  ‘I need…’ Yaz frowned. She’d thought several times about what would be a good way to approach this, and hadn’t come up with anything so far. ‘It’s…well. It’s my time of the month, and …’

  Chasing the Dawn Jenny T. Colgan

  Chasing the Dawn starts with Yaz and her period and the Doctor decides to tell her a story about when she was younger, her eleventh incarnation, and met Amelia Jane Earhart. At first, the Doctor wants to race her and doesn’t seem to grasp the situation is a serious one. With some kind of parasite having eaten Earhart’s navigator, Noonan. This day is taking place on the eve of Earhart’s death. And the story writes like it was her stubbornness that killed her. That the Doctor thinks she didn’t trust them ‘I could have…I could have saved her. But she didn’t trust me.‘

  ‘She put her hands on her hair. ‘Oh I don’t know. She’d fought with her father: with every other flyer. I can’t help but wonder if I’d looked a bit more like this…well. Who knows. She flew all through the night.’’

  Chasing the Dawn Jenny T. Colgan

  Which, in this quote, raises the question about who a person is more likely to trust and, regardless of gender, the way the Doctor was carrying on, I wouldn’t have trusted them. The two didn’t seem to connect. In fact, it turns out one of the parasites had stung Earhart and, after witnessing what they had done to her navigator, doesn’t want that to happen to her. Earhart makes her own choice, to sacrifice herself.

  If you were not aware of Earhart, or her death, you might be confused reading this story. She is a figure of historical significance and in Doctor Who stories they don’t usually go about killing off important people. Presumably then, she does die at some point, flying over the sea and that had to do with aliens and the Doctor. It seemed inappropriate to me. I don’t know why. The Doctor has met Dickens before he died and Agatha Christie went missing because of a giant wasp, apparently. It was an odd, disquieting, end to a story and in this quote.

  ‘Feeling better?’ asked the Doctor as they headed back to the control room. ‘Yeah.’ Said Yaz. ‘Yeah I am, thanks.’

  Chasing the Dawn Jenny T. Colgan

  Why would this story make Yaz feel better? Why would you tell this story?

  That’s All Right Mama by Paul Magrs

  When the Doctor mentioned leaving Elvis Presley with a mobile phone in TV episode Rosa, I wasn’t having it. In That’s All Right Mama Elvis meets Doctor 10,11,12, and 13. At the start of the story, which introduced Elvis’ Mama, and his visit to Sun Records studios, to record something for his Mama, I felt the writer was rattling off the stories about Elvis that are well documented and were not fleshing them out into anything interesting. Then the consequences to the Doctor turning a blind eye to allowing Elvis and his mama to have a mobile phone each in their possession catch up with them, as it is the year 2018 and Elvis is still alive. The story improves.

  Einstein and the Doctor by Jo Cotterill

  The time rotor wheezed to a stop. ‘Here we are!’ announced the Doctor. ‘Bern, Switzerland.’

  Einstein and the Doctor Jo Cotterill

  This was one of the better stories in the collection, with the Doctor and Yaz investigating strange goings on and subsequently saving the day.

  ‘Sorry!’ the Doctor said breathlessly. ‘Got to save Einstein!’ ‘Tell him he’s behind on his rent!’ the woman shouted back.

  Einstein and the Doctor Jo Cotterill

  Unfortunately, the writer tries to make Graham and Ryan useful, with them in the cathedral where parents have gathered with their sick children, and them trying to help the best they can, but they have clearly drawn the short straw. Einstein’s wife, Mileva, is probably one of the best characters in the whole book, as she feels like a real person and well written.

  Mileva smiled at her. ‘Forks can be replaced. Hearts and minds cannot.’

  Einstein and the Doctor Jo Cotterill

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  March 11, 2022

  Book review, Bookblog, doctor who, science fiction, Short Stories, writing

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