Doctor Who 60th anniversary (REUPLOAD)

We have just passed the 60th anniversary of Dr Who. I found this upload by @Wearerofthecheese, which uses the 'Soon I'll be 60 years old' song. It made me cry so, you can probably label me a fan of Dr. Who. I'll own it.

I have a deep fondness for this show that started when I was a child, and have many happy memories of watching it on TV. It's hard to describe the impact of Dr Who and or the Daleks when it first appeared on TV.

So, when people dump on the show I tend to bristle.

Edited highlights. Link to full comments.

So. I’ve been watching Doctor Who lately…

And despite its popularity and acclaim. The writing is kind of atrocious?

The show is constantly changing its own established rules.

The Doctor can’t change fixed points in time until he can.

He can’t visit a point in time twice until he can.

The level of technobabble is off the fucking charts.

Speaking of the doctor talking. God does he fucking love to talk and the bad guys just let him do it.

Speaking of the villains. The show clearly wants us to take them seriously. But also makes them really silly at the same time.

The Doctor himself is such an uninteresting protagonist.

Not saying the show is not creative.

What do you guys think?

My Reply

Arguably, one can make a case that a show with time travel, and the nature of the Doctor (an entity that can feel time), can remake the rules just because every-time he gets out of the TARDIS he's in a new time-line.

Some time-lines have fixed points, some do not. Some you can visit the same point twice, or arguably the second time you visit is not actually the same place, because it's a different time-line.

As for the Doctor's non-stop talking, words have power. It's the equivalent of knowing the secret name trope in stories with magic.

As for the scariness of any monster, the point is that Doctor Who shows us that overcoming fear is the way you beat monsters.

The show is all metaphors.

I got a lot of positive feedback for the post, so again sharing just because I can, and because I like Dr Who.

NB: Had to re-upload this, because YouTube was playing stupid buggers with the original poster.

And as this looses the comments, I've posted it below from anonymous:

Or... just show to em THIS FLIC ;-P

Rowan Atkinson is Doctor Who | Comic Relief - YouTube

And if they STILL wouldn't get it -- throw em out of TARDIS. ;-P 

Doctor Who 60th anniversary

We have just passed the 60th anniversary of Dr Who. I found this upload by @Wearerofthecheese, which uses the 'Soon I'll be 60 years old' song. It made me cry so, you can probably label me a fan of Dr. Who. I'll own it.

I have a deep fondness for this show that started when I was a child, and have many happy memories of watching it on TV. It's hard to describe the impact of Dr Who and or the Daleks when it first appeared on TV.

So, when people dump on the show I tend to bristle.

Edited highlights. Link to full comments.

So. I’ve been watching Doctor Who lately…

And despite its popularity and acclaim. The writing is kind of atrocious?

The show is constantly changing its own established rules.

The Doctor can’t change fixed points in time until he can.

He can’t visit a point in time twice until he can.

The level of technobabble is off the fucking charts.

Speaking of the doctor talking. God does he fucking love to talk and the bad guys just let him do it.

Speaking of the villains. The show clearly wants us to take them seriously. But also makes them really silly at the same time.

The Doctor himself is such an uninteresting protagonist.

Not saying the show is not creative.

What do you guys think?

My Reply

Arguably, one can make a case that a show with time travel, and the nature of the Doctor (an entity that can feel time), can remake the rules just because every-time he gets out of the TARDIS he's in a new time-line.

Some time-lines have fixed points, some do not. Some you can visit the same point twice, or arguably the second time you visit is not actually the same place, because it's a different time-line.

As for the Doctor's non-stop talking, words have power. It's the equivalent of knowing the secret name trope in stories with magic.

As for the scariness of any monster, the point is that Doctor Who shows us that overcoming fear is the way you beat monsters.

The show is all metaphors.

I got a lot of positive feedback for the post, so again sharing just because I can, and because I like Dr Who.

Slow Horses: Strange Game - Mick Jagger

I've read the first six books, and I'm now looking forward to the opportunity to watch the TV series. Of course, that means signing up for Apple TV, but they also have a couple of other shows we'd both like to watch, so it will happen some time soon.

For soon that is defined as in the near future.

Worth watching just for the Mick Jagger theme song. The humour is very British, but that's a good thing, and then there's Gary Oldman, and he's well worth watching too.

The Power of The Doctor

Excuse me, an old woman getting all emotional over what started as a children's show, which I watched as a child. A part of my life, and like most things in life, there were good and bad moments in it. And what a cast list:

Jodie Whittaker, Mandip Gill, John Bishop, Sacha Dhawan, Bradley Walsh, Sophie Aldred, Janet Fielding, Jemma Redgrave David Bradley, Peter Davison, Colin Baker, Sylvester McCoy, Paul McGann Katy Manning, Bonnie Langford, William Russell, and David Tennant.

Let me get one grump out of the way, Jodie was IMO the 14th Doctor.

Though through the power of retconning she could be the 15th. Or, any other number since there exists an unknown number of previous Doctors. It's all good really.

I also thought that Capaldi had, at time, been poorly served by the writers, but this was doubly so with Whittaker. However, for this finale, the writer pulled out all the stops, and made me quite emotional (British shorthand for tears and all). 

So much to say, and about this episode. The writers made me care. Companions, there were a few. I must admit, I wanted to be Jo Grant (as in be her, with the Doctor having adventures in space and time).

And that group chat, so lovely (I'm not crying, you're crying). And of course, the Doctor cameos.

McCoy's line, "...there's always one." When questioned about why all of them except for McGann was wearing Time Lord robes.

And, Graham and Ace working together, yet another tug at the heartstrings. Ace, because that was the first time Dr. Who broke my heart, when it was canceled by the BBC. And Graham, because I'm now of an age that can relate to an older person becoming a companion as an old person.

Then there was that scene in the video at the top of this post. So gloriously over the top, yet so perfect.

So, The Power of the Doctor. My rating 10/10 Missed the opportunity for a lesbian kiss, but did what any good story should do, made me want to watch more (it's all in the feels, all the feels).

Not everyone's cup of tea, but mine, and what a ride. 

What I've Watched

To say I've been incredibly under active, and incredibly feeling down over the last two years would be rather obvious. I've found myself rather affected by the deaths of some acquaintances, who in most cases died far too young. But, the whole world has been turned upside down, so it's not just about me.

Needless to say we have watched an incredible amount of shows on Netflix and Amazon.

Here's two that we found incredibly entertaining.

First the fun happy one. Queens Gambit, which I wasn't at first all that keen on watching. Probably down to the way it was 'sold' by Netflix with the blurb, "Orphaned at the tender age of nine, prodigious introvert Beth Harmon discovers and masters the game of chess in 1960s USA. But child stardom comes at a price."

Yeah.

Other reviews used big words like intersectionalism. Ignore them. Yes the show used the trope of drug and alcohol dependency, but it is so much more than that. It's about the passion for chess that the lead character is obsessed with, and how she overcomes problems. I like shows where characters grow by overcoming problems.

The other show that knocked my little cotton socks offs was Dark. Another Netflix show, not only made in Germany, but also in German. We watched it with subtitles, there is the option of an English dub. But, Susan has a fair grasp of German, and I soak up tone and accents from listening to foreign languages. It was how I learnt a lot of Japanese.

But that's a digression.

Dark has three seasons for a total of 26 episodes. It's a complete story, and tightly plotted. Think "By His Bootstraps' by R. A. Heinlein. I described it to a friend as a cross between The 12 Monkeys TV show, with the technical obsession of the movie Primer.

Also, the music is outstanding, both diegetic and non-diegetic (music heard by the characters and music for atmosphere and soundtrack. I loved it. Susan found it difficult to keep track of the the familial relationships, which is complicated. Not helped I imagine by the different time periods and the aging of characters by using different actors.

Regardless. Compelling viewing if you like time travel paradoxes, mysteries, and psychological dread.

Now Watching

Now that The Bureau is with my Alpha reader, so after a long break I'm in the process of reacquainting myself with my Bad Dog universe. I've started writing Two Moons, and I've got 14,856 words knocked into shape.

Two Moons is a side-story or spin-off from the main story and so it doesn't focus on combat armour suit action. The plot is basically a mystery, so this is very much a new challenge for me.

In the meantime, we've been rewatching an old favourite, Babylon 5. Hard to credit that the original pilot was shown in 1993 and that the series ended in 1998. However you count the years, it's a lot.

There's even been mention of Babylon 5 on Geek dot com. I'm not sure that I agree with the assessment of it being an intimidating show, or the need for a must watch episode list, but whatever floats people's boat – if it gets them into the show.

While the CGI is lacking by today's standards, the story remains compelling. We're pretty much mainlining three episodes each night and are currently halfway through season four. Got to love the Shadow ships, which remain one of the most interesting bad guy ships ever seen on screen.

I'd forgotten how good the story was/is. It's also recharging my creative juices, as in giving me a lot to think about in terms of where I want my story to go. My motto now being, think bigger! Think evil!

Watching TV Series

12 Monkeys Season 3. Just finished watching this, and wow, just wow. The story kept twisting and turning. The acting was compelling, and the writers took full advantage of the time travel MacGuffin to drive the plot forward.

So if you haven't caught it I can recommend checking it out.

 

Star Trek Discovery. The much talked about revamp of the Star Trek franchise. Personally, I enjoyed this and couldn't see what all the trash-talk was about? We also watched The Orville.

 

Again we enjoyed this. It was a loving homage that combined the best of the original series and Star Trek: The Next Generation. I understand Seth MacFarland isn't everybodies cup-of-tea, but The Orville didn't offend us.

Finally, we caught up The Agents of Shield season 5. This was a bit of a roller coaster ride.

 

Any recommendations from my readers. Don't do cable or subscription, but I'm always up for a good series to buy and binge on.

Childhood's End

I've also been reading Jack Bickham's Scene & Structure book, the person who Deborah Chester was taught by, and there's definitely a fashion to provide a structure for the reader to understand the story.

Having recently watched the mini-series of Childhood's End I went back and re-read the story.  It's one of my favourite SF novels, as in when I had to downsize my collection it was one that I kept because I felt I would want to re-read it.

Clearly the reader demographic has changed over the last 60 plus years since Childhood's End was written, which is a thing, because to maximize sales (readers) one has to appeal to as wide an audience as possible, and classic SF really doesn't do this. This may be a factor in why written SF is a small market.

For example, Childhood's End.  

Who is the protagonist?  

Who is the antagonist?  

Where is the character development?  

It's arguably one of the classic novels, yet today it would be a hard sell.

NB: Just to be clear, love Childhood's End, and Arthur C. Clarke remains one of my all time favourite writers.

The Expanse

We've managed to watch season one of The Expanse, and enjoyed it very much.  Certain caveats: it starts slow with the TV equivalent of an info dump/world-building that shakes itself out by the end of the second episode.  After that it's pretty much high-octane story telling.  The news is that it has been renewed for season three, but that numbers the viewing numbers are not what the network hoped for.  Knowing my luck it will be cancelled, but you never know.

If you haven't checked it out I suggest you do.  It has certainly piqued my interest in writing a novel set in our solar system: I fancy doing a pretty hard SF take, which is problematical because it will affect what stories can be told and how one tells them.

Still, what's life without a challenge.  I may be some time.

Easter & Stuff

I missed posting last week because we were away in Cambridge with friends and partying, and I felt rather unwell all weekend and most of this last week.  Not quite coming down with something but fighting off whatever ailed me: coughing and stuff, including feeling really cold.  Today the sun is shining and I feel a lot better.

This week there was the horrible event in Belgium, a place that has wonderful people, nice restaurants and great museums.  I missed most of the reaction because I was at work and I don't have time during my clinics to be browsing the news.  All I can say I will not let this action make me fearful, because fear leads to hate and anger, and these are strong emotions that should not be unleashed otherwise one is pulled along rather than being in control of how you behave.

So another week has passed by in a flash, and I have writing to do, including an article for a new editor who asked me if I'd like to write a non-fiction article for him, which I will tell you about closer to the time.

In the evenings we've been chilling by re-watching Elementary, the American Sherlock Holmes series with Lucy Liu, which we've really enjoyed.  We've just received season three, hence the re-watch as it has been quite some time since we saw the series.  Paul Cornell talked about working for the show but his episode is in season four, so it's going to be a while before we get around to seeing his episode.

We've also re-watched some old movies.

Dante's Peak, a favourite of mine because it has James Bond and Sarah Conner in it; sorry I mean Pierce Brosnan and Linda Hamilton but more importantly, as far as Hollywood films goes, the science behind the story is not the usual egregious nonsense one has come to expect.

We then watched The Omen, mostly because I had fond memories of David Warner using a Nikon F2 with a photonic head and Patrick Troughton, the second Dr. Who, and still one of my favourite actors who played the role over the history of the show.  The film has not aged well or perhaps I should say I've aged and my expectations of a movie are different now than when I first saw it back in the cinema circa 1976.

I also bought Contact, the Jodie Foster movie based on Carl Sagan's book as we both enjoyed it the last time we watched it.  It has aged remarkably well considering what they could do with CGI.

Finally, we watched a new movie, The Last Witch Hunter starring Riddick, Ygritte and Frodo with someone called Michael Caine who may or may not be Alfred the butler or whoever.  Vin Diesel played himself as did Michael Caine, so they were well matched.  Rose Leslie held her own, and Elijah Wood proved again he could really act by playing a part against type.  Though having seen him do that twice now in movies perhaps this is his new type?  I have to say that though the film was a confection of fantasy tropes, Vin Diesel with a beard, waving a flaming sword, and slaying witches worked for me.

This weekend is going to be chock-a-block with archery, eating chocolate, drinking wine, and rewriting the article I mentioned, just to reassure the editor who I knows reads this blog that I am working on his commission.  Have a good one whatever you choose to do.  Catch you all again next week.

Nail Your Novel 1

I bought a copy of Nail Your Novel by Roz Morris to read because of the promise on the cover to discuss why writers abandon books and how you can draft, fix and finish with confidence.  This book does what it says, and not only that but it's a concise short read.  I finished it in about two hours and was driven to go and put the advice on writing synopses into practice.  As a result, I spent the rest of my Sunday working and ended up writing for about eight hours in fact.

Then Monday I rewrote my covering letter, tailoring it for another submission and then sent my novel off.  So, highly recommended.

Other than the above my week has been taken up with my job, which I'm enjoying but the work demands quite a lot from me emotionally.  Besides that it has been my birthday and my beloved bought me a new camera.  I'm very excited with my new swish bit of kit.  I'm so excited by getting it I plan to do a piece on photography for this blog too.

We watched season three of Defiance, its last, and again it managed to be better than it had any right to be.  The show runners seem to have taken a leaf out of GRRMs book and the season started with the excess characters being killed off so they could concentrate on finishing the stories of the main protagonists.  I even ended up liking Nolan who up to this point I felt a bit so, so about.

We also saw The Martian.  I mentioned reading the book here.  The film is very good, but the book has more details, which is usually the case and not meant as a criticism.  It also breaks the Hollywood superstition that films with Mars in the title bomb at the box office; they seem incapable of realizing that films bomb because don't appeal for any number of different reasons, but titles are only one of them.

We've just started watching True Detective and I will comment more when I've finished.  I will say it's intense, like watching The Wire or Generation Kill.  Off to PicoCon tomorrow and I plan on taking my new camera with me to test out.

An Ancient Peace

This is the latest book in The Confederation Series by Tanya Huff, and I'm going to be cruel and post a link to the series TV Tropes page.  Be warned you can lose days clicking on links, I know I did.

An Ancient Peace is the sixth book in the series but I would say that you can start here as easily as anywhere.  

Yes, you'll have missed the backstory, but there's enough call-backs to tide you over and allow one to be immersed in the Confederation universe.  Arguably the first book in the series is the weakest, but I should qualify that by saying this is only because the battle is a call back to Rorke's Drift, which bugged me a bit, but may not be an issue for those who are not into military history.

It should go without saying that this book is one I would recommend if you like military SF in a reasonably hard SF setting – not super hard as there's FTL – but otherwise nothing egregious.  The main character is engaging and the supporting characters are well drawn with some interesting character quirks for the aliens. 

Again, arguably, the series has gone from hard Mil-SF to mildy-military as the main character leaves the Marines in book five for very realistic reasons.

Besides reading we've also been watching Hell On Wheels, which is a TV Western series about building the first transcontinental railroad across America.  It's a bit like Deadwood, but with a lot less swearing.  Every time we hear the theme music it makes us think of Firefly.  Be warned there's a lot of violence, which shouldn't be that surprising given the historical setting.

Writing wise I managed to do a first pass edit of five more chapters for a total of 16,538 words worth of work this week.  I'm just about to move into act five, which means I have 13,757 words to go.  So hopefully this week will see me finish the first pass edit.  Then I want to do an out loud read through to complete the third draft of Ghost Dog.  

After that I'll let it rest while revising Strike Dog in light of the Beta reader feedback.

Still no word back about Bad Dog, which means that's it for another week.  Catch you all later.

Just Another Week Blah Blah

The blah, blah, being where the heck has it gone.  I'm sure it was only yesterday that I posted last weeks blog only to find that was ten days ago.  Still no news from the agent, but I don't expect to hear from him for another week or so.

In the meantime, Susan and I have been re-watching Dark Angel the James Cameron TV series from 2000.  Season one is really good, every episode working for a living with little or no padding of note.  The second season is still good but reverts to standard TV show tropes of having a Halloween show that really doesn't add much.  Saying that the second half of season becomes tighter and overall I'd say if you haven't caught this show it's well worth watching.

Writing wise I've been plugging away on the second draft of Ghost Dog.  Over the last ten days I've sorted through and revised 23,500 words, which isn't bad, and this takes me up to 63,848 out of the running total of 95,317 words.  So the end is in sight.  My plan, after finishing, is to let it rest while working through the Beta reader comments on Strike Dog.  So I have plenty of work on my plate.

I've also finished my Elementary Introduction to Archery course and was given a Certificate of Merit, which means when I go next week I will be standing on the grown-ups shooting line.  I've been really enjoying learning how to shoot a bow and the bug has really bitten i.e: thinking about how to improve my form and, more to the point, wanting to go shoot some more arrows.

And yes, one day, in a yet to be written story, there will be shooting of arrows (actually as my Beta readers will attest there's already been a scene referring to the shooting of arrows already) so I will now be able to write a convincing description of shooting arrows when the time comes.

As always, thank you for reading and catch you all later.

Busy Bee

Before and after loosing – fly free arrow and wiggle your feathers at me.

And the week has just flown by with us going to two Xmas parties, a barbecue, and a friend coming around for dinner which is my excuse for posting this so late.  However, to my surprise, I managed to edit 8,938 words in between all the fun activities which includes my archery beginners course.

This week I was shooting at 30 yards and not hitting the target reliably.  I therefore failed to score the required 200 points in 36 arrows to progress to 40 yards which is a relief.  I'm doing this primarily for fun but the club obviously wants people to shoot at events and is therefore quite competitive.  I have neither the inclination (will/strength of mind) nor the competitive spirit (winning is not important to me) to take my archery seriously enough to enter matches.

Still, as a learning experience it's great.

Also, it will encourage to work on my fitness (mostly flexibility and posture) and, arguably it's research for when I need to include archery in story, because it gives me a much more realistic understanding of the reality of loosing arrows and the kind of distances that one can realistically shoot at given the lead one needs to hit a moving target.

Since the last blog we've watched Terminator Genisys which I thought was probably the best sequel to the first two movies so far.  However, it's not quite as good as the Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles.   As usual, I'm perplexed by the inability of reviewers to cope with SF ideas like time travel which seems to confuse them (I speak of the mainstream news website in general).

After that we watched The Clone Wars: The Lost Missions.  A series, along with the John Williams scores that I enjoy listening to, which in my mind largely redeems the prequel movies.  Then we watched season one of Star Wars Rebels, I guess you're sensing a theme here (the force is strong with you) and last night Star Wars: A New Hope.  I'm sure you can guess what we're watching this evening and tomorrow night.

Wednesday we're going to go and see Star Wars: The Force Awakens and have booked our tickets at our local Vue Cinema, so we're all set.

Finally, I finished reading the third of the Diana Rowland White Trash Zombie books – White Trash Zombie Apocalypse.  While this series may not be hardcore zombie fare, I found the central protagonist engaging and the developments and themes within the story satisfying with good pacing and exciting plot reversals and try/fail cycles.  In short well crafted stories.

So that's it for another week.  I'll be posting a Xmas blog on Thursday, see you on the bounce.

Fractured Time and the Dichotomous Mind

Been dreaming about Archery all week because I've started a beginners course.

This week has been a tad chaotic, having flown by so quick I wonder what happened during the time I was awake.

Monday and Tuesday were fine, as in I was finishing off the out loud read through of Bad Dog and applying salve in the form of missing particles (a, an, of etc.) and the occasional additional comma or deletion depending on how the words sounded prior to sending it off.  Then, my partner had some sad news to deal with.  Her half-sister emailed her that their father had died after a heart attack.  So that was a bit of a downer.

Next I had to deal with the NHS.  Not as a patient this time but as a potential employee enrolled for bank work – the NHS equivalent of a zero hour contract.

So a lot of my time this week was spent filling in forms, online questionnaires, getting references, background checks, and occupation health clearance too.  This also involved me having to travel across London on Wednesday to visit the Trusts HR department where I had to fill in more forms, because the electronic copy I sent them had to be be printed out by me (don't ask me why they couldn't have printed it out, I'm sure there's a reasonable answer somewhere but not one that I'm privy too).

Of course this doesn't mean I've started work or anything, only that I might work at some future time as yet unspecified.  Not something I imagined I would be doing, but working one or two days a week would get me out the flat, and be good for me.

Anyway, we'd finished watching Agents of SHIELD season two which we both really enjoyed and need something else to watch that wasn't too hard and would be a distraction from the bad news.  Susan had bought Outlander by Diana Gabaldon and we sat down and, much to my surprise, we were sucked in.  So we've been mainlining the first season and hear that there's a second in the making.

Anyway by Friday I was shattered and didn't get anything done and I'm writing this blog entry late.  Still, I did restart work on Ghost Dog, but only managed to read through and revise 15,895 words, after having to go back and start from the beginning again because I'd lost track of the story.

Finished the week by having a quiet weekend by ourselves.

Snow Gone in a Flash

We slept in late this morning having stayed up way past our usual bedtime watching the film Spy.  So we missed the snow in London this morning.  However, I can attest to how cold it is outside because we've just got back from shopping and I wish I'd worn a scarf.

During the last couple of weeks we've watched a bunch of  TV shows.  First Flash and then Grimm, followed by catching up with the last series of Warehouse 13.

Flash is by the same company that produces Arrow but if Arrow is a hamburger then Flash is Candy Floss.  That's not a condemnation, as Arrow's last season was over the top melodrama and Flash was a refreshing change of pace.  There's a very nice call back to the 90s Flash with Mark Hamil reprising his role as the Trickster that made us laugh out loud.  Also, I must mention Cisco, the team science/engineering genius/geek, who gets to be the genre savvy character on the show.  However, the standout performance comes from the actor playing Dr. Harrison Wells, Barry Allan's mentor and the series protagonist.  He is a magnificent bastard and he makes the show more than just the sum of its parts.
Grimm remains a police procedural that rolls out the Wessen (monster) of the week and yet manages to remain eminently watchable because of its characters.  In particular Monroe and Rosalie who are the supporting couple.  Season four also mixes the format's formula and brings in some big changes, including, at last, adding Sergeant Wu to Team Grimm.

Warehouse 13 is a lightweight, don't think about what's going on too closely, magical artifact of the week formula melodrama.  It makes the Flash look grimdark by comparison.  But the characters are engaging and we're addicted to it like some people are addicted to crack cocaine.  Season five is a super short six episode mini-series that ties off most of the hanging plot-lines from the previous seasons.  It feels a bit rushed but it made me cry at the end.  I wish there could have been more.

Anyway, back to Spy.  The film had a lot of good press and stars Melissa McCarthy a CIA 'agent' who supports field operatives.  Like the Austin Powers series by Mike Myer's ' movies it sends up the James Bond spy genre but from a female perspective.  It has an interesting cast and a good story.  But there's a s lot of swearing, and in the extended cut nudity, so not for those who find swearing or sexual content offensive.  It made us laugh even though the plot is implausible to say the least because Fridge logic rules;  everything is in service of the gag.

Reading wise, I'm still working through Steven Pinker's The Sense of Style which is messing with my head.  I shall come back to this and review it in full later.

I've started on the first revision of Ghost Dog.  The first step in the process of turning shit into gold or maybe shit into manure which can fertilize crops.  I've managed to do 22,043 words this week and have about 73,000 more words to wade through.

I've just gotten back the first of my three Beta readers feedback who made me realize that when I cut 6,000 words of stuff not directly related to the main story arc that I also managed to remove some exposition that explained stuff important to the plot.  Not withstanding the fact that said explanations are repeated later the information was needed earlier in the story.  Sigh!

London Falling & Severed Streets

When I was preparing to write this piece I was going to say and see my review of London Falling, only to find that said review exists only in my imagination.  Well this post is going to transfer my thoughts about reading London Falling and its sequel Severed Streets from the interior of my mind into something that can be read on the internet.  Such is the power of the blog!

A disclaimer.  I vaguely know Paul Cornell, but there again I'm acquainted with a lot of authors, but only because we tend to hang out at the same places; conventions and parties.  It's not some secret members only club or anything like that.  I met Paul at a SF convention.  I saw him on a couple of Dr Who panels, and threw a few questions at him about the Time Lords and the Daleks, which garnered a reply of, "Have you been spying on our writing meetings?"  We've also talked in passing, as well as being on a panel together.  In short he's a likable person.

I've said before that urban fantasy is not my core interest, but I will read books that have interesting premises written in the urban fantasy genre.  We heard Paul read an extract from London Falling at the Olympus 2012 British SF EasterCon, which led us to go and buy a copy.

London Falling is promoted as the first book in the Shadow Police series, and introduces a grimdark London where all is not what it seems.  It's effectively a realistic present day police procedural novel set in an urban fantasy setting.  Overall I quite enjoyed the story, but there were times when the tone of the novel went places that were not very entertaining.  Or to paraphrase my friend Roger said in his review (warning spoilers), the story is full of unpleasant people doing unpleasant things to other unpleasant people.

However, I enjoyed the first well enough to want to read the sequel.

Severed Streets starts well enough, delivers a shocking development, and then the middle wallows around until the highly telegraphed plot twist, where it all picks up again, and comes to a reasonably satisfying conclusion.  But Paul Cornell's tendency to fall into describing the nostalgie de la boue does at times overwhelm the joy of reading the story.  My main gripe is that the novel does not deliver what it promised at the end of the London Falling.  Namely what happened to the old guard?  My friend Roger has a review with spoilers here.

On a lighter note, much lighter, we are burning through the last series of Xena: Warrior Princess.  Season five was very good and this one is managing to maintain the quality of the stories.

Writing wise I've been working through Alix's, one of my Beta readers, line edits.  I managed to do just over the first hundred pages before going on holiday to Provence, but only managed to restart work this week, because I became distracted by the controversy surrounding this years Hugo awards.  Looking in my diary tells me that I've edited 40,437 words this week.

So on that note I'm going to finish as I want to finish the edits for Bad Dog today so that I can start working on my Alpha readers feed back of the second draft of Strike Dog.

NB: Edited to include another link so that one can compare and contrast reviews.  Roger reads and reviews a lot of books and is well worth book marking his site.

Also, added as a reflection, this review is way too critical of a good writer. My apologies.

Fool Moon

I finished reading Fool Moon, the second book in the Dresden Files, a series that I have gotten into recently.  I started reading it last weekend, and while I was enjoying it I put it down and only finished it this week.  I think that the first half of the book sets out a lot of stuff that rounds out the world of the Dresden Files, but was mostly exposition, and while stuff got interesting the first half of the book didn't grab me.  However, the second half of the story the shit starts to get serious, and things go down hill for our hero and his friends.  What Butcher was then able to do was ramp the action up to eleven.  From that point on the book became unputdownable.

So yes I finished it, and yes I plan to go out soon and get the next one in the series.  I was really impressed with the writing.  The first book is good, but this is even better.  At this rate I'll be hooked, and a fully paid up member of the Jim Butcher fan club.  If I were a member of this years Worldcon I'd seriously be thinking about voting for his Hugo nominated book Skin Game.  And I tell you why.  I'm a fairly hardcore hard SF fan who likes a bit of Space Opera, and Cthulhu, but urban fantasy has to be really good for me to want to read it.  The fact that I want to go out and buy more books in this series is evidence that Jim Butcher can write interesting and engrossing stories that are outside of my usual taste.  For me that says volumes about him as a writer.

We also rewatched Mad Max 2 aka The Road Warrior, and Jurassic Park this week.  I bought Blu-ray copies cheap off Amazon.  I thought with the new sequels/reboots we ought to watch the originals first.  Both films stood up remarkably well.  Mad Max is thirty-four years old and still sets the benchmark for post apocalypse car mayhem.  Some of the CGI is a little dated in Jurassic Park, but ickle pooh dinosaurs FTW.  Then sharp teeth and claw action from less cute velociraptors, and of course the star – Tyrannosaurus Rex saving the day.

We have just finished watching season four of Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman.  At times the stories crossed the line from silly into cringe inducingly bad, but somehow the show managed to stay true to its core values, which were the relationship between Lois and Clark.  After a considerable break we have also restarted watching Xena Warrior Princess.  Season three and the first three episode of season four were what I'd call hard work.  However, as we move more into season four the stories have gone back to the basics that make the show work; the relationship and adventures of Xena and Gabrielle.

A lesson to be learnt.  Stories are all about the characters.

Writing last week went well.  I managed to edit 9,803 words of Strike Dog, which is five chapters further along to my goal of finishing it.  At the same time I worked on radio call signs and other stuff, to make sure I'd used military phonetic shorthand correctly.  So all-in-all not a bad week.

Science For Fiction 2015

This week has been one with two halves.  The first part of the week spent editing, and the second half spent at the Science in Fiction conference listening to a series of talks organized by Dr. Dave Clements at Imperial College all topped off with a barbecue at my friends Kate & Malcolm's place.  

Sunday we were both a little wrecked from having so much fun on the Saturday.  So I've had a very busy week

I went over to Imperial College on Wednesday and met my fellow Science in Fiction attendees, most of whom were writers, and we all boiled in the room during the hottest day in Londons this year.

The first talk was by Roberto Trotta called Heart of Darkness – Dark Matter in the Galactic Centre?  This was a presentation on why he and his colleagues are looking for dark matter, and how they hope to do so.  

The theory that underpin modern physics are founded on Einstein's theory of Special Relativity and General Relativity, which predicts that the universe must have more matter than we can account for.  These particles are called WIMPs: Weakly Interactive Massives Particles that must have a neutral charge like neutrinos.  Detecting said particles is a bit of a head scratcher for the physicists since the particles go through everything, so it requires a cunning experiment to try and find the evidence that hey do exist.

Robert made us all think up haiku during the session, my poor attempt was:

Dark Matter matters

Quantum gravity is maths

WIMPs are aether or

After all the head scratching it was time for a refreshing cup of tea to keep us going on what turned out to be the hottest day in London this year 37 degrees centigrade 98.6 Fahrenheit.

Then Andrew Jaffe came and gave his talk called The Random Universe, which was the study of space and the cosmic background radiation.  This was an excellent presentation showing how astrophysicists have been able to tease out and refine the data they've acquired from looking at the universe through radio telescopes using some very clever mathematical tools to refine the data.  

By the end of this talk we were all rather wilting from the heat.

Then we went to the Student Union bar for a drink to hydrate, and a have chat before heading off to have an Indian curry at a local restaurant.  I rescued Susan from her basement workshop so she joined us, and we were also able to celebrate seventeen years together, so it was a nice end to the first day.

Thursday morning I cycled with Susan  to Imperial College, which was a first of sorts.  I've cycled there once before by myself, but could pootle along at my own speed.  Susan was nice, and didn't cycle too fast, so I was able to keep up with her, as she's much fitter than me nowadays.  

This didn't use to be the case, but after being hit by a Mercedes Benz back in 2009 I had a period where cycling wasn't possible, and latter not convenient.  So I'm out of shape, and when we arrived I was glowing.

The first talk of the day was really special as we had Marina Galand presenting her talk called  Catching a Comet, which was about the Rosetta mission to comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko, and Philae - the little lander that could.  She wasn't allowed to talk about everything she knew, because the information is embargoed until publication, but promised there was interesting news to come from the team.  

Anyway, it was an awesome talk, and for me the highlight of the Science in Fiction event.

After suitable refreshments the next talk was called Climate Change and the system transition to a sustainable future by Christoph Mazur.  This looked at the evidence for climate change, and the technologies that can be used to mitigate the worst of the effects.  He discussed the various ways of reducing carbon dioxide emissions, and the risks arising from if we release trapped methane into the Earth's atmosphere as the temperature rises.  

Very level headed, and without any attempt to fear monger.

Then we had a most excellent lunch and chatted together about writing, or at least what I remember is taking the time to talk to the other people there with me all of whom were writers to talk about writing.

The next talk was by Helen Pennington who had been sitting with us as part of the conference, and she gave a talk called How do we work out what proteins do? A genetics and proteins approach.  I found this most informative talk, which I think scared the bejesus out of a couple of my fellow attendees.  

The one thing I took away from this presentation was to  accept that banning something doesn't allow one to regulate and control it.  Otherwise one ends up with people in other countries with less ethical practices to set the pace in the development of GM food.

The final talk of the conference was by Faye Dowker called What is Time?   

For me this didn't quite hit the spot, because she didn't have any research data to present, so it was rather a generalized open talk about what we understand time to be, and how that fits what the theories tell us.  In short biologic time stands opposite to time as understood by the theories underpinning physics.

So as you may guess my progress last week was impacted by having two days at the conference, and taking the day after to catch up with emails and shopping.  However, I manged to edit 4,509 words, adding another 825 words to Strike Dog, which means it's running at 101,472 words, so not too shabby.

Other than that we've been continuing to watch season three of Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman.

I also re-read Isaac Asimov's The God's Themselves, which is apropos of my recent posts won the Hugo.  It's been a long time since I first read this book, and I found myself becoming bored with the description of the aliens and their ecology.  

However, while Asimov may not be the worlds finest writer for deep characters, what he does do extremely well is describe the complex science behind the ideas and the plot rather succinctly.  He also nails the emotional world of the academic rather well too.  I understand that he considered this to be his best novel, but I still prefer his The End of Eternity, which I think is a more satisfying read.

So that's it for this week, catch you all on the bounce.

Work in Progress: 27th June 2015

Due to last week's marathon reflections on the Hugos I'm behind in my weekly blog post about what I've been doing: writing, reading and watching stuff that I've enjoyed.

Last week wasn't only hectic for all the writing I did, here on the blog, and the editing of my second novel, but also for attending an afternoon's workshop called Ultra-Wearable Physiological Sensing held at Imperial College.  It was five talks on the use of sensors in gathering medical information using new technologies and access routes, for example the ear canal.  The talks were: Challenges in MOD-related wearable sensing by Brigadier Professor Tim Hodgetts, Ultra-wearable sensing: Ear EEG and collocated sensors by Dr. Valentin Goverdovsky, The pulse of performance: Investigating the psychophysiology of performance under stress by Professor Aaron Williamson, Ultrawearable sensing meets complexity science: Stress and consciousness applications by Professor Danilo Mandic, and The role of sleep and the impact of sleep loss by Professor Mary Morrell.

I got to ask a couple of questions, which surprised me, as I hadn't expected to be able to ask anything sensible.  I was also quite surprised that one of the research teams work was effectively re-inventing the wheel from first principles.  This is not a condemnation of their work, because it was rather lovely to see them validate research in my specialist area without any of the political infighting that has beset psychological therapies.

After this most stimulating set of afternoon talks we rushed over to hear the inaugural lecture of Professor Arttu Rajantie called Playing the quantum field, which you can watch by clicking the link, explaining the standard model, and his work into magnetic monopoles.  Fortunately, because I've been reading Our Mathematical Universe by Max Tegmark, I was able keep up with most of the talk, except for the squiggly mathematics stuff, but one can't be good at everything.  Then to cap a wonderful day off we went for the post lecture supper, which had a very nice cold buffet selection, and a rather yummy apple pie dessert.

This week we've finished watching season two and started on season three of Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman.  It's light and fluffy, and we like it despite the silliness of the stories, because it keeps true to the emotional stuff.

Writing wise I've written 4,651 words for the blog, added 471 words to the current draft of my second novel, while managing to edit 7,754 words last week, and 9,778 words this week.  I'm now writing a new scene for chapter fifteen before moving onto act three.  So this has been a productive week for me.  Next week I'm attending Science in Science Fiction at Imperial College run by Dr. David Clements who also write science fiction.

Catch you all on the bounce.