Independence Day (No, Not the Movie!)

Our review of Paul Magrs' The Scarlet Empress can be downloaded here.  We were tickled pink to hear that Mr. Magrs actually listened to our podcast and described us as "camp".  That's an in-joke that you may or may not get, but we'll just leave it at that.

For April of 2013 we go back to a traditional Seventh Doctor and Ace story (as opposed to the grumpy manipulative Doctor and the angst-ridden Ace we know from the Virgin New Adventures).  It's the BBC Past Doctor Adventure Independence Day by Peter Darvill-Evans.  From the back cover:

'Danger is my middle name,' Ace said, 'or it would be if I had more than one.  I can look after myself these days, you know.'

Freedom.  Liberty.  Free will.  Independence.  Choice.  Everyone wants to be free.  But at what point does freedom become irresponsibility?  What happens when one person's choice causes another's oppression?

The Doctor's on a simple mission to return a communications device he borrowed years previously.  Being a Time Lord, he can return it before anyone misses it.

But events in the Mendeb system have moved more quickly than the Doctor estimated, and he lands in the ruins of a civilisation devastated by mysterious invaders.

Darvill-Evans is arguably the single most important person in the history of Doctor Who novels.  In 1989, he oversaw the Target novelizations of the televised stories, and then went on to work for Virgin, where he created launched the New Adventures (he even wrote one himself, Deceit).  Aside from that book and Independence Day, he also wrote the BBC Past Doctors Adventure Asylum, featuring the Fourth Doctor and Nyssa.

Asylum, published in 2001, was the last thing Darvill-Evans published.  However, you can catch him on the DVD extra, "Doctor Forever! -- Love and War" on the recently-released special edition of "The Ark of Space".

Fun links:

"Independence Day" on the Doctor Who Ratings Guide

Peter Darvill-Evans' Wikipedia Entry

"Independence Day" on Amazon  (Hey, it's affordable!)

"Independence Day" at the Doctor Who Reference Guide  (Spoilers, sweetie)

Email us and tell us how much you love Erik's laugh at dwbcpodcast@gmail.com, look for us on Facebook, and follow us on Twitter via @dwbcpodcast.  You can also follow Erik via @sjcaustenite and Sean via @tardistavern.

Obligatory Post: Yes, We're Keeping This Blog Up!

The past few months have been filled with stuff like real life and other issues, so yours truly (that would be Sean), hasn't been the most loyal blogger on the planet for the last few episodes.  But never fear, dear readers, I'm here to update you on the last three months, plus a preview of what's coming later this month.

In December we read Simon Guerrier's BBC Past Doctor novel The Time Travellers, featuring the First Doctor, Susan, Barbara, and Ian.  This was the penultimate BBC Past Doctor book (the final being Atom Bomb Blues, although I'm told it depends on whom you ask).  From the back cover:

'Have you ever thought what it's like to be wanderers in the fourth dimension, to be exiles?'

24 June, 2006.  The TARDIS has landed in London.  Ian and Barbara are almost back home.  But this isn't the city they knew.  This London is a ruin, torn apart by war.  A war that the British are losing.

With his friends mistaken for vagrants and sentenced to death, the Doctor is press-ganged into helping perfect a weapon that might just turn the tables in the war.  The British Army has discovered time travel.  And the consequences are already devastating.

What has happened to the world that Ian and Barbara once knew?  How much of the experiment do the Doctor and Susan really understand?

And, despite all the Doctor has said to the contrary, is it actually possible to change history?

For the New Year, we turned our sights back to the Virgin Missing Adventures.  January featured a discussion of The Ghosts of N-Space by Barry Letts, best known for being the series show runner during the Pertwee era.  This selection (as the cover blatantly suggests) features the Third Doctor, Sarah Jane, and the Brigadier.  From the back cover:

'When the barrier gives way this planet will be flooded by all the evil in N-Space.  And, at the moment, I have no idea how to stop it.'

Sarah Jane Smith, on holiday with her chum Jeremy and a bad case of writer's block, is amazed to find the Brigadier in the same part of Italy.  He is there to help a distant relative whose tiny island home has been threatened by American mobster Max Vilmio.

When the ghosts that haunt the island's crumbling castle are joined by less benign spectres, the Brigadier summons the Doctor -- who discovers that the whole of mankind is threatened by the plans of the ruthless Vilmio and his mysterious, hooded henchman.

Moving right along, in February we attended Gallifrey One in Los Angeles.  According to tradition, we were joined by a third reviewer, namely Michele of The Doctor Who Podcast.  The three of us huddled around a microphone in a quiet hotel room and reviewed White Darkness, the first novel by David A. McIntee.  From the back cover:

'We believe that death should always be a part of life.'

The Doctor's last three visits to the scattered human colonies of the third millennium have not been entirely successful.  And now that Ace has rejoined him and Bernice, life on board the TARDIS is getting pretty stressful.  The Doctor yearns for a simpler time and place: Earth, the tropics, the early twentieth century.

The TARDIS lands in Haiti in the early years of the First World War.  And the Doctor, Bernice and Ace land in a murderous plot involving voodoo, violent death, Zombies and German spies.  And perhaps something else -- something far, far worse.

But what of the present?  As of this writing, we are mere days away from March's release, Paul Magrs' The Scarlet Empress, a BBC Eighth Doctor Adventure that marks the first appearance of Iris Wildthyme.  From the back cover:

Arriving on the almost impossibly ancient planet of Hyspero, a world where magic and danger walk hand in hand, the Doctor and Sam are caught up in a bizarre struggle for survival.

Hyspero has been ruled for thousands of years by the Scarlet Empresses, creatures of dangerous powers -- powers that a member of the Doctor's own race is keen to possess herself: the eccentric time traveller and philanderer known as Iris Wildthyme.

As the real reasons for Iris's obsession become clear, the Doctor and Sam must embark on a perilous journey across deserts, mountains, forests and oceans.  Both friends and foes are found among spirits, djinns, alligator men and golden bears -- but in a land where the magical is possible, is anything really as it seems?

Grab a copy of our latest selection, mix yourself a gin and tonic, and sit back and relax!

Feel free to email us at dwbcpodcast@gmail.com, look for us on Facebook, and follow us on Twitter via @dwbcpodcast.  Also follow Erik via @sjcaustenite and Sean via @tardistavern.

 

The City of the Dead

You can download and listen to our latest discussion right here.  The penultimate month of 2012 (because we love any chance to use the word “penultimate”) brings us City of the Dead by Lloyd Rose, an Eighth Doctor BBC Books novel.  This was Rose’s first novel, before which she wrote for Homicide: Life on the Street.  After the success of City of the Dead, she was asked to return for the Eighth Doctor series with Camera Obscura and for the Algebra of Ice, featuring the Seventh Doctor, Ace, and the Brigadier.

From the back cover:

‘Nothing can get into the TARDIS,’ the Doctor whispered.  Then he realized that Nothing had.

New Orleans, the early 21^st century.  A dealer in morbid artefacts has been murdered.  A charm carved from human bone is missing.  An old plantation, miles from any water, has been destroyed by a tidal wave.

Anji goes dancing.  Fitz goes grave-robbing.  The Doctor attracts the interest of a homicide detective and the enmity of a would-be magician.  He wants to find out the secret of the redneck thief and his blind wife.  He’d like to help the crippled curator of a museum of magic.  He’s trying to refuse politely the request of a crazy young artist that he pose naked with the man’s wife.

Most of all, he needs to figure out what all of them have to do with the Void that is hunting him down.

Before it catches him.

Voodoo, hoodoo, and mystery abound in this month’s selection, which is bound to go down a lot easier than last month’s.  Be sure to grab a (cheap) copy and sit back and relax as we discuss The City of the Dead.

Please don’t forget to check us out on Facebook, email us at dwbcpodcast@gmail.com, and follow us on Twitter via @dwbcpodcast.  Also, feel free to follow Erik via @sjcaustenite and Sean via @tardistavern.

Fun links:

The City of the Dead on Amazon.  (You can afford it!)

Reviews on the Doctor Who Ratings Guide.

Synopsis on The Doctor Who Reference Guide.  (Spoilers, sweetie!)

Lloyd Rose's Wikipedia page.

The Pit

To celebrate Halloween, 2012, we discuss the mind-blowing and arguably frightening Virgin New Adventure, The Pit by Neil Penswick.  From the back cover:

For two weeks now it has been the same message again and again, and it’s getting stranger; death and destruction, the end of all things, ARMAGEDDON.

In an attempt to lift the Doctor out of his irritable and erratic mood, Bernice suggests he investigates the mystery of the Seven Planets – an entire planetary system that disappeared without trace several decades before Bernice was born.

One of the Seven Planets is a nameless giant, quarantined against all intruders.  But when the TARDIS materializes, it becomes clear that the planet has other visitors: a hit-squad of killer androids; a trespassing scientist and his wife; and two shape-changing criminals with their team of slaves.

As riot and anarchy spread on the system’s colonized worlds, the Doctor is flung into another universe while Bernice closes in on the horror that is about to be unleashed – a horror that comes from a terrible secret in the Time Lords’ past.

If you’re wondering who Neil Penswick is, then you’re not alone; this novel was his single contribution to Doctor Who canon.  It was only after a little hunting that we were able to track down an interview with him (see the link on our blog page).  To the best of our knowledge, he’s currently working in an office, so when it all comes down to it he has one up on me, as I’ve never even tried to publish a novel.

Fun links:

"The Pit" on Amazon.  (Yep, it's cheap!)

A detailed synopsis at The Doctor Reference Guide.  (Spoilers, sweetie!)

The Doctor Who Ratings Guide regarding "The Pit".

An interview with Neil Penswick.  (Source unknown.)

Email us at dwbcpodcast@gmail.com, join us on Facebook, and follow us on Twitter via @dwbcpodcast.  You can also follow Erik via @sjcaustenite and Sean via @tardistavern.

 

The Well-Mannered War

Our review of Terrance Dicks' World Game has been available and can be downloaded here.

This month we bring you our discussion of the Virgin Missing Adventure The Well-Mannered War by Gareth Roberts, author of two other Missing Adventures, The Romance of Crime  and The English Way of Death, as well as the screenwriter for the television episodes “The Shakespeare Code”, “The Unicorn and the Wasp”, “The Lodger”, and “Closing Time”.  From the back cover:

‘Destroy them!  Destroy them all – now!”

Barclow – an Earth-type planet on the fringes of space at an inestimably distant point in the future.  Two factions have laid claim to it: humans from the nearby colony world of Metralubit, and a small group of Chelonian troopers.  But in nearly two hundred years of conflict not one shot has been fired in anger, there are regular socials in the trenches, and the military commanders are the best of friends.

The Doctor, Romana, and K-9, arriving in the midst of these bizarre hostilities, find there’s real trouble to come.  A crucial election on Metralubit is looming, and K-9 is forced to begin a new career as a politician.  Meanwhile, Romana meets an old friend and the Doctor discovers that a sinister hidden force may be attempting to alter the war’s friendly nature.

What are the plans of Galatea, leader of the beautiful but robotic Femdroids?  Who is killing soldiers on both sides of the battle lines?  And will K-9’s oratory save the day?

Just what is going on?

The “old friend” mentioned above happens to be Menlove Stokes, who previously appeared in Roberts’ The Romance of Crime.  The Well-Mannered War is notable because it is the last of the Virgin Missing Adventures, published in 1997 as the BBC was preparing to publish its own series of novels featuring past Doctors and an entirely new series with the Eighth Doctor to replace Virgin’s New Adventures.

Special thanks go to Laura of The Ood Cast for doing this month's reading!

Pour yourself a tankard of Chelonian grog and sit back and relax as we discuss The Well-Mannered War!

Next month, keep a ear out for our review of the Virgin New Adventure The Pit, by Neil Penswick.

Fun links:

The Well-Mannered War at the Doctor Who Reference Guide.  (Spoilers, sweetie!)

The Well-Mannered War on Amazon.  (Yikes, it's expensive!)

Gareth Roberts' entry on Wikipedia.

Check us out on Facebook, follow us on Twitter via @dwbcpodcast, and email us at dwbcpodcast@gmail.com.  Plus, be sure to follow Erik on Twitter via @sjcaustenite and Sean via @tardistavern.

The War Games, Part 2?

You can listen to our discussion of John Peel's War of the Daleks by downloading it here.  If your looking for the tasty-goodness of a BBC Past Adventure, then you needn't wait much longer, as our next selection is World Game, a Second Doctor adventure by Terrance Dicks.  From the back cover:

The Doctor has been captured and put on trial by his own people -- accused of their greatest crime: interfering with the affairs of other peoples and planets.  He is sentenced to exile on Earth.  That much is history.  But now the truth can be told -- the Doctor did not go straight into exile.  First the Time Lords have a task for him.

From the trenches of the Great War to the terrors of the French Revolution, the Doctor finds himself on a mission he does not want with a companion he does not like, his life threatened at every turn.  Will the Doctor survive to serve his sentence?  Or will this adventure prove to be his Waterloo?

Regardless of what you think of Terrance Dicks' talent as a writer (listen to our review of his The Eight Doctors here), you have to admit that this one sounds pretty compelling.  World Game is slotted nicely between "The War Games" and "Spearhead from Space", a moment in Doctor Who history some fans refer to as "Season 6B", a period created from the fallout over debates about exactly when "The Two Doctors" took place.  (Jamie never travels alone with the Doctor, yet they do in "The Two Doctors"...so when in the name of canon did that story take place?)

Grab a copy of World Game and join us near the end of August!

Fun links:

"World Game" on the Doctor Who Ratings Guide

"World Game" on the Doctor Who Reference Guide  (Spoilers, sweetie!)

Purchase it on Amazon.com 

Terrance Dicks' Wikipedia Entry 

Revisitation of the Daleks

As usual, our latest episode -- that being a review of Lance Parkin's The Dying Days -- can now be found here for those of you that haven't downloaded it yet.

Keep a beady ear peeled for late July when we revisit the Daleks with John Peel's War of the Daleks.  From the back cover:

[Warning:  The back cover pretty much reveals the entire plot about halfway through the book.  We're including it here just because we don't want to break precedent.  However, we recommend that if you wish to remain spoiler-free, jump past the italicized text below.]

The Doctor is repairing the TARDIS systems once again when it is swept up by a garbage ship roving through space, the Quetzel.

When another ship approaches and takes the Quetzel by force, the Doctor discovers that he and Sam are not the only unwitting travellers on board -- there is a strangely familiar survival pod in the hold.  Delani, the captain of the second ship, orders the pod to be opened.  The Doctor is powerless to intervene as Davros is awakened once again.

But this is no out-and-out rescue of Davros.  Delani and his crew are Thals, the sworn enemies of the Daleks.  They intend to use Davros as a means to wipe out the Daleks, finally ridding the universe of the most aggressive, deadly race ever to exist.  But the Doctor is still worried.  For there is a signal beacon inside the pod, and even now a Dalek ship is closing in...

You may remember when we reviewed John Peel's second Dalek novel, Legacy of the Daleks, back in Episode 7.  If your memory doesn't cheat, you probably know that we don't have very high expectations of this month's entry, but it's important in that it's (1) the first original Dalek novel to be published since the television series was canceled in 1989 and (2) assuming you believe the novels are canon, it's a gigantic game-changer for the history of the Daleks (listen to our upcoming podcast for more details).  Legacy of the Daleks followed it, and the BBC never again published a Dalek story for either the Eighth Doctor or Past Adventures ranges.  (Some Dalek stories have been published in the New Series Adventures, such as Prisoner of the Daleks and I am a Dalek.)

Fun links:

"War of the Daleks" on Amazon

John Peel's Website

"War of the Daleks" on the Doctor Who Reference Guide Website (Spoilers, sweetie!)

"War of the Daleks" on the Doctor Who Ratings Guide Website