Monthly Archives: January 2010

Wild Life by Molly GlossDoctor Who: Ten Little Aliens by Steve ColeTriumph of a Time Lord: Regenerating Doctor Who in the Twenty-first Century by Matt HillsJuba Arabic – English Dictionary, by Ian Smith and Morris T. AmaMoon Stallion by Brian … Continue reading →

Non-fiction: 8 Fiction (non-sf): 7 SF (non-Who): 10 Doctor Who: 5 5/30 by women (Rendell, Austen, Orman, Blackman, Le Guin)4/30 by PoC (Blackman, anonymous Confucian sages, Ama, Alier)12/30 owned for more than a year (The Uplift War [reread], Ta Hsüeh … Continue reading →

I was deeply irritated to discover that a draft I had written of this post mysteriously got deleted after I had rewatched (and written up) 23 episodes of the 26 covered here. But sometimes that is the way the cookie … Continue reading →

I got home to find this waiting for me (would have been nice if it had arrived before I went to Juba) and skimmed through it to get the most important points. Juba Arabic is used as a lingua franca … Continue reading →

This is the Penguin edition of two of the Four Books of Confucian learning, their titles respectively translated as The Highest Order of Cultivation and On the Practice of the Mean. It is a bit of a shame that Penguin … Continue reading →

Gosh, it’s over a year since I read The Moving Toyshop

Sorry to read of the death of Keiko Tobe, author of the With the Light series whose first volume I greatly enjoyed and whose second and third volumes are waiting on the shelf for me when I get home. (I … Continue reading →

This book has been strongly recommended to me for years, and I am glad I finally obtained it and read it. It is a collection of Le Guin’s writings about sf and fantasy, almost all from 1973 to 1978 (one … Continue reading →

In an agony of indecision before Christmas when Big Finish announced that they would stop not only publishing but even selling their Short Trips anthologies, I bought half a dozen of them (based on a combination of reported scarcity and … Continue reading →

Another good one from Rankin, where three bizarre suicides unlock a festering mess of corruption and evil within the Edinburgh political scene. I was not quite convinced that as smart a guy as Inpector Rebus should have so little knowledge … Continue reading →

As a fan of Beckett’s stories back when I still read Interzone (must pick that up again) and a booster of his first novel, The Holy Machine, I was delighted to hear that this collection had won a major prize, … Continue reading →

Stop demanding that you get screwed The only hope you have of ever seeing another pay raise is if Congress passes health care reform. Without health care reform, the increasing cost of your health insurance will swallow this year’s raise. … Continue reading →

A decent story of the Tenth Doctor and Martha Jones landing on an apparently deserted spaceship which suddenly acquires a woodland complete with frightened natives (disappearing children and ‘orrible monsters). Lots of familiar elements (and a reference to Beowulf, though … Continue reading →

Sent to me by the author after a chance meeting a couple of years ago, and now rather out of date as it was written in 2002 (slightly revised in 2003). The two eponymous faces are fanaticism and moderation; the … Continue reading →

Sorry for the mass posting of reviews, but I have been on a really uncomfortable intercontinental flight (usual issues of cramped seats combined with takeoff two hours late and a very large passenger next to me who overlapped unavoidably into … Continue reading →

A grim young adult novel set in a world where the racism of our society is reversed and white “noughts” (or “blankers”, to be rude) are oppressed by the ruling Crosses. The two young protagonists are from politically active families … Continue reading →

This has been lingering on my shelves for years, and it took an intercontinental plane flight to finally work through the fairly modest 158 pages of the book. It is a rather peculiar collection of short stories and extracts from … Continue reading →

My inflight entertainment this evening was the 94-minute VHS edition of this utterly brilliant 1978 BBC children’s series, starring 16-year-old Sarah Sutton, several years before she became Nyssa of Traken, as the blind Diana who finds herself at the focus … Continue reading →

After my recent struggles with Belgacom I was rather comforted to remind myself of Arthur Dent’s problems with bureaucracy, many years ago. I more or less knew this book by heart when I was twelve, and the Adams genius still … Continue reading →

A gripping narrative of a girl growing up in Munich before and during the second world war; she steals books from the Mayor’s house, her foster parents hide a Jew in the basement and everything is distorted by Nazism and … Continue reading →

One of Brin’s novels of the future universe where humanity has become part of a galactic culture of species Uplifting each other from pre-sapience to civilisation, homo sapiens being unique in that we achieved that status without external intervention. The … Continue reading →

I am going to read through the Eighth Doctor Adventures, though it will take me several years at a rate of one a month or so. Since I have already read Terrance Dicks’ The Eight Doctors, Vampire Science is the … Continue reading →

I don’t want to keep writing whiny entries about Belgacom, but while they keep failing to provide the promised service I need to vent somewhere. The latest is that on Monday they cut the office phone and internet without warning … Continue reading →

Catherine is a rather silly kid who snags a husband despite her immaturity. End of story. Top LibraryThing Unsuggetion: Brothers, We Are Not Professionals: A Plea to Pastors for Radical Ministry by John Piper

We know how we got this far Strength and courage in a wonderbra Facing a rather gruelling trip combined with grinding toothache and not enough sleep last night, I discovered to my delight that I could watch Spice World, the … Continue reading →

Having finished the Fionavar Tapestry trilogy, I decided I didn’t need to keep them and listed them on BookMooch. Where they were immediately requested by someone who works in the same corridor as me. I’ll bring them in tomorrow, Aoife.

Having read The Summer Tree a few months back, and noting the result of my 2010 reading poll, I thought I would tackle the other two books of the Fionavar Tapestry trilogy together. As I’ve said before, I am a … Continue reading →

I have decided to work through the Virgin New Doctor Who Adventures, and since I had already read the four Timewyrm novels, that meant starting with this, the first of the Cat’s Cradle trilogy. It’s actually rather fascinating, just after … Continue reading →

http://cavalorn.livejournal.com/553650.html (Hat-tip )

Ignore this if you have already seen on . Dutifully filling in my Doctor Who Monthly annual poll, I realised that I didn’t have a convenient list of which Who stories are not yet available on DVD. So here are … Continue reading →