This season’s Doctor Who novels are a set of three linked narratives featuring the Twelfth Doctor and Clara, pursuing an alien intelligence called the Glamour through space and time (hence the series title, The Glamour Chronicles). I can’t recall a linked sequence of novels with the current Doctor and companion coming out during the season before – there was a series of ten Tenth Doctor novels in 2009 for younger readers, but with no TV companion, and the New Adventures started with seven novels in two loosely linked series with the Seventh Doctor and Ace, but by then Old Who had ended. It may be a coincidence that this is the year that Who on TV has returned to the idea of having multi-part stories.

Anyway, it’s a decent start, with some homage to Alien, the Doctor and Clara joining a mixed crew taking their ship to solve a historical mystery, and discovering that the problem they face is much worse than they imagined; there is a good who’s-the-real-monster subtheme. The first couple of chapters feel a bit self-consciously written for younger readers, but then it settles down. Clara doesn’t get to do much other than sass the Doctor; the Doctor however is in good form, and this reflects the new confidence the TV show seems to have found of late.

Technically eligible for next year’s Hugos, but I don’t think it is accessible enough to a wider audience to have a realistic chance, and I’ll almost certainly invest my nominations elsewhere than the Who books no matter how much I like them.

• Ranking the Writing Debuts of the Capaldi Era
  
  Makes the fair point that they have all been strong.
  (tags: doctorwho )

Non-fiction: 2 (YTD 45)
The Battle for Gaul, by Julius Caesar
Bits of Me are Falling Apart, by William Leith

Fiction (non-sf): 8 (YTD 40)
Too Much Happiness, by Alice Munro
Kai Lung Beneath the Mulberry Tree, by Ernest Bramah
The Summer Before the Dark, by Doris Lessing
Sleepyhead, by Mark Billingham
The Invention of Happiness, by Brian W. Aldiss
Dodger, by Terry Pratchett
Babes in a Darkling Wood, by H.G. Wells
Waiting for Elizabeth, by Joan Rosier-Jones

SF (non-Who): 16 (YTD 112)
The Ultimate Egoist, by Theodore Sturgeon (1940 stories only)
Isaac Asimov Presents The Great SF Stories vol 2, eds. Isaac Asimov and Martin H. Greenberg
Axis, by Robert Charles Wilson
The Clock Strikes Twelve And Other Stories, by H. Russell Wakefield
The Past Through Tomorrow, by Robert A. Heinlein (1940 stories only)
Kallocain, by Karin Boye
The Invention of Morel, by Adolfo Bioy Casares
The Ill-Made Knight, by T.H. White
Somewhere! / هُناك , by Ibraheem Abbas
A Million Years to Conquer, by Henry Kuttner
Monkey Planet, by Pierre Boulle
Twice in Time, by Manly Wade Wellman
North Wind, by Gwyneth Jones
Short Fiction Eligible for the 1941 Retro-Hugos Vol 1, ed. von Dimpleheimer
Short Fiction Eligible for the 1941 Retro-Hugos Vol 2, ed. von Dimpleheimer
The Wonder City of Oz, by John R. Neill

Doctor Who, etc: 4 (YTD 39)
The Quantum Archangel, by Craig Hinton
To the Slaughter, by Steve Cole
Oblivion, by Dave Stone
[Doctor Who: The Glamour Chronicles] Deep Time, by Trevor Baxendale

Comics : 3 (YTD 16)
The Sculptor, by Scott McCloud
Saga Volume 4, by Brian K Vaughan and Fiona Staples
De Tweede Kus, by Conz

~8,600 pages (YTD 72,600)
6/33 by women (YTD 76/261) – Munro, Lessing, Rosier-Jones, Boye, Jones, Staples
2/33 by PoC (YTD 17/261) – Abbas, Staples

Reread: 4/33 (The Battle for Gaul, The Past Through Tomorrow, The Ill-Made Knight, Monkey Planet), YTD 19/261

Reading now:
Keeping it Real, by Justina Robson
When I Was a Child I Read Books, by Marilynne Robinson
Short Fiction Eligible for the 1941 Retro-Hugos Vol 3, ed. von Dimpleheimer
Between the Acts, by Virginia Woolf

Coming soon (perhaps):
The Oxford Book of Christmas Stories, ed. Dennis Pepper
Moon Over Soho, by Ben Aaronovitch
Helliconia, by Brian Aldiss
Selected Stories, by Alice Munro
A Princess of Roumania, by Paul Park
Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, by James Joyce
New Europe, by Michael Palin
The Folding Star, by Alan Hollinghurst
Master Pip, by Lloyd Jones
The Unwritten Vol. 6: Tommy Taylor and the War of Words, by Mike Carey
Bitter Seeds, by Ian Tregillis
Streetlethal, by Steven Barnes
The Magic Cup, by Andrew M. Greeley
The Story of Ireland, by Brendan O'Brien
A People's Peace for Cyprus, by Alexandros Lordos et al
Earthlight, by Arthur C Clarke
The Collected Stories Of Arthur C. Clarke
Walking on Glass, by Iain Banks
Legacy: A Collection of Personal Testimonies from People Affected by the Troubles in Northern Ireland, by BBC Northern Ireland
Naamah's Curse, by Jacqueline Carey
The Love of a Good Woman, by Alice Munro
Instruments of Darkness, by Gary Russell
The Gallifrey Chronicles, by Lance Parkin
The Medusa Effect, by Justin Richards

• What really happened on Thanksgiving
  
  Fascinating, and not what kids are taught!
  (tags: uspolitics history )
• Spam has fallen to a 10-year low and is unlikely to make a comeback
  
  Hooray!
  (tags: spam )
• Supreme Court judge could rule a ‘cuckoo in the nest’ topples ancient lineage
  
  Science vs privilege.
  (tags: genealogy biology )
• 300 Kate Bush impersonators perform Wuthering Heights
  
  The most bonkers thing you’ll see all day.
  (tags: music )

At last, another novel that I feel I can nominate for the Retro Hugos alongside The Ill-Made Knight and Kallocain. It’s a short book about a time-traveller who goes back to Renaissance Italy and finds that he cannot return to his own time due to a combination of local politics, equipment constraints and fuzzy memory. Any reader who is actually awake will spot the eventual punchline by the end of the second chapter, but Wellman has fun taking us there and unashamedly invokes various cliches of the time-hopping subgenre. A shame that this isn’t better known, and I’m nominating it for the Retro Hugos to try and fix that.

• Paris attacks: Is bashing Belgium justified?
  
  Not entirely, says the BBC.
  (tags: belgium waronterror )
• One fifth of Stormont Assembly members are ‘unelected’ or appointed by parties
  
  I am quoted.
  (tags: northernireland elections )
• The true cost of becoming British
  
  A first-person account.
  (tags: ukpolitics migration )
• The future of Chinese science fiction
  
  Interview with Cixin Liu 刘慈欣.
  (tags: sf sadpuppies China )
• The Recent Gilbertese Settlement of the Line Islands
  
  It’s Christmas! (Or Kiritimati)
  (tags: migration kiribati )
• Marvel’s Jessica Jones and Gamergate
  
  Spoilers!
  (tags: sf )

I confess that I haven't seen any of the films based on this book, but this is still a very interesting read (or rather reread; I had first bought it around thirty years ago). Of course, the reversal of human and ape is meant to make the reader reflect satirically on what it means to be human, and on how we treat other species; some of those points are well-aimed. But at the same time, for a French writer of 1963 fresh from the national traumas of Algeria and Indochina, it’s pretty obvious what is meant and feared by the concept of the apes taking over; and it’s noticeable that all the “humans” in the book seem to be pale-skinned. It’s uneasy reading in places, but fascinating all the same.

• Trump’s tirade mocking journalist with disability
  
  @steveddaunt reacts.
  (tags: uspolitics disability )
• An EU-wide constituency: Be careful what you wish for!
  
  Who really won the 2014 European Parliament election?
  (tags: eu elections )
• Seven Condoms Don’t Equal 21 Orgasms, German Court Rules
  
  Good to know.
  (tags: sexandgenderandsexuality germany )
• Benefit cap discriminated against disabled people, court rules
  
  UK Govt’s war on the disabled hits a snag.
  (tags: ukpolitics disability )

Current
Waiting for Elizabeth, by Joan Rosier-Jones
Babes in a Darkling Wood, by H.G. Wells
Keeping it Real, by Justina Robson

Last books finished
Short Fiction Eligible for the 1941 Retro-Hugos Vol 1, ed. von Dimpleheimer
The Battle for Gaul, by Julius Caesar
The Invention of Happiness, by Brian W. Aldiss
Short Fiction Eligible for the 1941 Retro-Hugos Vol 2, ed. von Dimpleheimer
Dodger, by Terry Pratchett
The Wonder City of Oz, by John R. Neill
Bits of Me are Falling Apart, by William Leith

Next books
When I Was a Child I Read Books, by Marilynne Robinson
Moon Over Soho, by Ben Aaronovitch

Books acquired in last week
The Reign of Wizardry, by Jack Williamson
The Wonder City of Oz, by John R. Neill
Babes in a Darkling Wood, by H.G. Wells
Short Fiction Eligible for the 1941 Retro-Hugos Vol 3, ed. von Dimpleheimer

• Sorting Out What Russia and Turkey Say Happened in the Sky
  
  (tags: war russia turkey )
• The Serial Swatter
  
  Harassment online, again.
  (tags: internet )
• An Alarming New Escalation in the Syria War
  
  *gulp*
  (tags: russia turkey syria )
• Satellite launch accident provides unexpected test of Einstein’s theory
  
  Timewarps, for real.
  (tags: science space )

One of the less obscure novels of 1940, this concerns a survivor of a dying extraterrestrial race who comes to Earth and superintends the development of human civilzation over the millennia. There's a nice flashback technique between the world of today and the historical set-up, but it's a truly pulpy set of concepts, mishmashed together a bit chaotically. Those who are fans of Kuttner's work in general may be a bit more sympathetic to it than I am. 

• The Unbearable Lightness of European Defense
  
  Not a rosy picture.
  (tags: eu waronterror )
• Peter Capaldi, Mark Gatiss and Steven Moffat came third in a Doctor Who pub quiz and were mortified
  
  (tags: doctorwho )
• What people in 1900 thought the year 2000 would look like
  
  Where’s my whale bus?
  (tags: sf )

A Bernice Summerfield novel, reuniting her with her ex-husband Jason and her New Adventures friends Chris and (from a younger part of her timeline) Roz, and the rather excellent shapeshifter Sgloomi Po. Apart from this last, however, not much of interest is done with this promising cast and the potentially interesting scenario of reality splintering into many possible futures. Appropriately enough, given the title, I find it quite difficult to remember anything that happened. 

• Britain needs to start doing favours to win EU friends
  
  Excellent analysis by Paul Taylor @ReutersAyataylo.
  (tags: ukpolitics eu )
• Doctor Who: Steven Moffat finally reveals the truth about the 50th anniversary
  
  Some of it, anyway.
  (tags: doctorwho )
• Brussels Lockdown: X-Ray of the Belgian Security Apparatus
  
  What’s keeping us safe (or not).
  (tags: waronterror belgium )

I’m very grateful to all of you who have expressed concern about us in the last few days. In fact we live far enough outside Brussels that the situation had almost no impact on us, except that my visiting mother-in-law found it much easier than usual to make her train connections on Saturday night due to the lack of crowds. Our village is far from any place of current interest; yesterday I took B and her grandmother to the Chapel of the Holy Cross in Neerwinden, where we meditated on past conflicts and the origin of the poppy as their symbol.

I was luckier than a friend from England, who had chosen Saturday for a day trip to Europe’s capital. He reported that it was “Quiet, but not OK. The closure of the metro didn’t bother me – it’s a compact place and I know my way around on foot. But what hasn’t been as well publicised on the news is that all the museums and an awful lot of the shops were shut. Which was made worse by the rain, and then the snow and the near freezing temperatures. So not many places to shelter, not even City2 which they shuttered down at midday. Ho hum.”

Today, I had little difficulty getting into Brussels; trains were delayed, but that is normal enough on the first cold day of winter. But I arrived to find the office two-thirds empty; those with children at school in Brussels, or dependent on cancelled public transport, or just not wanting to make the trip, were sensibly encouraged by our management to stay at home. The rest of us went out for a morale-boosting lunch, and afterwards I walked into the city centre for an errand. There was a more visible police presence around the Central Station, but more striking was the comparative absence of other people; it was like a wet Sunday in February. In the evening I counted myself lucky to get home smoothly – trains are now being cancelled due to staff staying home for whatever reason. Having grown up in Belfast in darker days, this is all tedious rather than frightening to me.

All non-essential meetings in the Brussels bubble have been cancelled for the next few days. The police who would normally show up to look like they were doing something now actually are doing something. Last Thursday I unexpectedly bumped into an old friend, the foreign minister of [redacted], on the street. I don’t think we’ll be seeing foreign ministers wandering around Brussels so casually for a while. Meanwhile we understand that the security forces are continuing their operations, though they have successfully persuaded social media users not to give blow-by-blow accounts of police movements but post cat pictures instead. I do hope that this turns out to be something more than security theatre to steady the nerves.

One of the winners of the current situation is the news website POLITICO.eu, who have run a series of incisive and insightful pieces starting (with eerie prescience) two days before the Paris attacks by interviewing the Belgian interior minister, excusing his inability to keep our country and our neighbours safe (it’s well worth reading most of POLITICO’s recent output). Well, maybe it will occur to voters in the next elections that if you support politicians who are intent on underfunding and undermining the institutions of the Belgian state (outlined in detail in this excellent piece by the excellent Kristof Clerix), there are associated costs to that support. Once the current security crisis is over, I hope that there will be a reckoning.

An sf novel by Saudi writer Ibraheem Abbas, which the author signed for me at Loncon last year. It’s short and digestible, about a young man who finds himself in a Somewhere which could be a dream world, could be a virtual reality, could be time travel; it is rooted in contemporary online and gaming culture, yet also brings in certain important historical personalities (some European, one East Asian), all told in a breathless contemporary voice, full of exclamation marks. (Could have done with a little more editing for correct English.) I look forward to reading the other book I have by the same writer.

• Cyprus: Where Does The Solution Lie?
  
  Esra Aygin @esraaygin explains to her neighbours.
  (tags: cyprus )
• Niall Ferguson slammed for saying the West is in danger of falling like the Roman Empire
  
  Poorly thought-out nonsense.
  (tags: history waronterror )
• The Threat Is Already Inside
  
  @Brooks_Rosa brings some perspective.
  (tags: waronterror )
• Georgia and the Rose Revolution
  
  First person account by then US ambassador Dick Miles.
  (tags: georgia )
• Facebook: I want out
  
  @VioletBlue explains how Facebook endangers lives.
  (tags: facebook )

The Sword In The Stone won a convincing victory in the Best Novel category for last year’s 1939 Retro Hugos. The Ill-Made Knight, which is the third part of The Once And Future King, will have it tougher this year – despite being in large part the basis for the musical Camelot, I think it’s less well-known than the first part, and faces strong rivals with traditional fan appeal in Slan and Gray Lensman. It will, however, get one of my nominations and probably my vote. Years before The Mists of Avalon, White grappled with the Arthur/Guinevere/Lancelot triangle and came up with his own solution, of real people trying on the whole to do the decent thing in a time of bitter conflict, to a certain extent making it up as they go along; drawing on Malory and Spenser and Tennyson, but also making the story his own. I think I first read it when I was thirteen, and had maybe reread it once in the subsequent 35 years, but I was pleased at how much of it seemed both familiar and fresh. Well worth your consideration.

A relative found this poem written inside the back cover of her copy of George Bernard Shaw’s The Adventures of the Black Girl in Her Search for God (and Some Lesser Tales), and wondered if anyone can identify its origin? There is no other inscription on or in the book.

Strangers all……
But to me
Must fall
Odd romances
Of words
and passions
and strange 
Confessions……
“Tis not all”
The Devil
Laughs
“But more?”
I pray not……
To lose all
ALWAYS
Till end of Tyme?

I picked this up via BookMooch after it was picked for World Book Night four years ago, despite one disrecommendation, and have finally got around to reading it. It’s a very gruesome crime novel, of a serial killer who is obsessed with our police detective hero and who attacks women to prove a point. It’s well constructed – the love lives of the main characters become intertwined with the plot, and there is an elegantly constructed red herring. The murderer’s modus operandi is very memorably horrible. Not wowed enough to seek out other Billingham novels but I won’t ignore them if they fall in my path.

• Non-standard English on the Islands of the South Atlantic
  
  Falklands, St Helena, Tristan da Cunha
  (tags: linguistics english )
• Sir Ian McKellen’s Monologue: Shakespeare’s Sir Thomas More speech
  
  Chilling.
  (tags: sexandgenderandsexuality migration ukpolitics shakespeare )
• Syrian Refugees Don’t Pose a Serious Security Threat
  
  From the right-wing Cato Institute.
  (tags: syria. migration waronterror uspolitics )
• How globalization and emerging markets are transforming communications
  
  @bradstaples describes our working environment.
  (tags: communications )

Penultimate book in the Eight Doctor Adventures range of novels, written (as the author explains in an afterword) to explain away a minor continuity error in Revenge of the Cybermen, but actually quite successful in its own terms as a story of grand redesign of parts of the Solar System for ostensibly aesthetic purposes that gets hijacked by several different groups with their own agendas, and a vehicle for the somewhat obscure companion Trix McMillan. Although the tone of the book is comedic for most of the story, Cole does manage to make the chaos and carnage wrought on the worlds he has created come across as really mattering – TV Who (both Old and New) sometimes seems to have a reset button after every alien invasion of Earth; it reminded me that he is one of the better Who writers – he hasn’t done a Who novel since Sting of the Zygons in 2007, but has done several rather good Big Finish plays (as well as other work, of course).

• The Failures of Belgium
  
  Tim King casts a cold eye.
  (tags: waronterror belgium )
• US gives Russian newspaper grammar lesson over ‘fake letter’
  
  Funny, also awful.
  (tags: russia )
• Anne Frank Was a Refugee
  
  In case you had forgotten.
  (tags: wwii uspolitics migration )
• It’s OK to be upset by the news
  
  Sage advice from the BBC.
  (tags: psychology )
• Behind the Headlines on Violent Radicalisation in Belgium
  
  @tanjatania takes a look.
  (tags: belgium waronterror )
• Hear the Very First Adaptation of George Orwell’s 1984 in a Radio Play Starring David Niven (1949)
  
  Wow.
  (tags: sf audio )

Current
Dodger, by Terry Pratchett
Short Fiction Eligible for the 1941 Retro-Hugos Vol 1, ed. von Dimpleheimer
The Battle for Gaul, by Julius Caesar

Last books finished
Sleepyhead, by Mark Billingham
The Ill-Made Knight, by T.H. White
Somewhere! / هُناك , by Ibraheem Abbas
Oblivion, by Dave Stone
A Million Years to Conquer, by Henry Kuttner
Monkey Planet, by Pierre Boulle
Twice in Time, by Manly Wade Wellman
[Doctor Who: The Glamour Chronicles] Deep Time, by Trevor Baxendale
North Wind, by Gwyneth Jones

Next books
The Invention of Happiness, by Brian W. Aldiss
Bits of Me are Falling Apart, by William Leith

Books acquired in last week
Twice in Time, by Manly Wade Wellman
Short Fiction Eligible for the 1941 Retro-Hugos Vol 1, ed. von Dimpleheimer
Short Fiction Eligible for the 1941 Retro-Hugos Vol 2, ed. von Dimpleheimer

• Why are terrorists drawn to Belgium?
  
  Sober assessment from @KristofClerix.
  (tags: waronterror belgium )
• Second Volume of Free Stories Eligible for 1941 Retro Hugos
  
  Hurray!
  (tags: sf )
• Are Referenda Blocking the EU’s Progress?
  
  Good question.
  (tags: eu nothinglikedemocracy )
• Falling for our own propaganda (PDF)
  
  Sir Nick Harvey looks back on the party’s internal polling.
  (tags: libdems )
• This Tool Lets You See Exactly Who’s Tracking What You’re Reading Online
  
  Interesting. Horrifying.
  (tags: internet )
• The Earliest Known Abecedary
  
  Cool.
  (tags: linguistics alphabets archaeology )
• The Suicide Clusters at Palo Alto High Schools
  
  Horrifying, with a hint of redemption.
  (tags: death psychology )
• My white neighbor thought I was breaking into my own apartment. Nineteen cops showed up.
  
  (tags: race uspolitics )
• This is the group that’s surprisingly prone to violent extremism
  
  @HenryFarrell explains.
  (tags: waronterror )
• Police Find Paris Attackers Coordinated Via Unencrypted SMS
  
  Sometimes it *is* that simple.
  (tags: waronterror )
• How the Baseless ‘Terrorists Communicating Over Playstation 4’ Rumor Got Started
  
  Reality.
  (tags: waronterror )

Another of the books that I identified as potential Retro Hugo material, originally published in Spanish in 1940, by a protégé of Jorge Luis Borges (who contributed a foreword). I’m pretty sure that this is a novella. The English translation has 350-400 words per page, and of the 100 pages, several are taken up by Jorge Luis Borges’ introduction and several more by Norah Borges’ illustrations (see her map of the book’s setting). So it’s unlikely to be be over 40,000 words, and the same probably goes for the original Spanish text.

It’s worth chasing down, as an example of surrealism meeting magical realism. The unnamed protagonist finds himself on a possibly deserted island, and becomes increasingly obsessed and frustrated by its inhabitants, who he can see perfectly well but is unable to interact with. The sinister scientist Morel appears to be behind it all. Like Kallocain, the story reflects on the surveillance society, though in a different and perhaps more modern way, tying in also fairly explicitly with the then-recent invention of television.

As with Kallocain, the (male) narrator’s attempt to conduct a relationship with a woman under the new conditions is the emotional hook of the story – somewhat creepy rather than desperate here, which reduces one’s sympathy for the central character. But the story itself kept my attention and will probably get one of my nominations for Best Novella.

• Congratulations! First same-sex marriage takes place in Ireland
  
  Hooray!
  (tags: sexandgenderandsexuality ireland )
• Northern Ireland power sharing saved
  
  Hooray!
  (tags: northernireland )
• The Rennard debacle: better to rock the boat than have the tail wag the dog
  
  @jamesgraham nails it.
  (tags: libdems ukpolitics )

I did not get on well with the only other Doris Lessing book I have read, The Grass is Singing, but I thought this was excellent – a short novel about a woman in her mid-40s who suddenly gets an opportunity to break away from her family and friends, and grabs it with both hands. I found the geographical and character descriptions excellent, and Kate's journey to freedom rather exhilarating. Recommended.

(Yes, I know that icon is Agatha Christie. Sorry.)

• Belgium’s Terrorism Problem
  
  The interior minister explains.
  (tags: belgium waronterror )
• Why is English so weirdly different from other languages
  
  McWhorter on form as usual!
  (tags: linguistics english )
• Teach peace
  
  How to fight terror, by @IrinaBokova.
  (tags: waronterror education )
• Free Collection of Stories Eligible for #RetroHugos1941
  
  Hooray! First volume of (hopefully) three.
  (tags: sf )

This is a short Swedish novel published in 1940, set in a near-future totalitarian state, where the narrator, Leo Kall, invents a drug that compels people to tell nothing but the truth. Naïvely committed to the regime, he observes its use to enforce thought control rather passively, but it all gets real when he starts to consider the drug's potential impact on his relationship with his wife.

It's an original theme, intensely and eloquently described, at reasonably short length (220 pages). I'm really surprised that I had not heard of it before I started my research into the sf of 1940 for next year's Retro Hugos. It seems to me to stand firmly in the tradition of Zamyatin's We, Huxley's Brave New World and Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four. Presumably the twin effects of it being in Swedish and by a woman meant that it was overlooked. The 2002 film Equilibrium picked up some of its ideas, as of course did Zelazny's Today We Choose Faces and the first episode of Blake's 7.

The whole thing can be read online here. I do hope that voters will give a nod to a Scandinavian writer in advance of Helsinki.