An Eleventh Doctor plus Amy audiobook, read by Matt Smith himself, set in Japan under the Shogunate. A fairly standard story – the Jade Pyramid off the title is an alien artefact with mystic powers in a village temple, and thus an object of desire for the local rulers. But it is written well, and Matt Smith is good at the voices (himself as the Doctor, Amy’s Scottish lilt, and the senior villager) and at telling the story; plus nice music and sound effects in post-production. Worth adding to your collection.
Whoniversaries 10 February
10 February 1928: birth of John Ringham, who played Tlotoxl in The Aztecs (1964), Josiah Blake in The Smugglers (1966), and Robert Ashe in Colony in Space (1971).
10 February 1939: birth of Peter Purves, who played the First Doctor’s companion Steven Taylor in 1965-66 and has done a couple of Big Finish Companion Chronicles since (in 2007 and 2010, and another one due this month).
ii) broadcast anniversaries
10 February 1968: broadcast of second episode of The Web of Fear. Jamie and Victoria meet up with Travers, after many decades, and his daughter Anne; the Yeti close in on the soldiers; the Doctor is still missing.
10 February 1973: broadcast of third episode of Carnival of Monsters. The Drashigs have escaped and are wreaking havoc inside the Miniscope; Kalik and Orum hatch a plan to use them to overthrow their own government.
10 February 1979: broadcast of fourth episode of The Armageddon Factor. The Doctor and Romana create a temporary sixth segment and trap the Marshal in a time loop; Princess Astra is oddly fascinated by the Key to Time.
10 February 1996: broadcast of fourth episode of The Ghosts of N-Space on BBC Radio. In the 16th century, the Doctor and Sarah uncover Vilmio’s plan to take over the world using N-Space; in the 20th century, the Brigadier and Jeremy defend the castle.
Delicious LiveJournal Links for 2-9-2011
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Wow.
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"We have lost three of the new candidates we fielded in the Westminster Elections last May. That means we have retained eight, seven of whom are standing again. Which is the more news worthy? You do the math!" – I dunno, Mike, the fact that the party has lost more than a quarter of its new candidates from what was already its worst election in history does strike me as remarkable!
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Choose your roadsigns carefully!
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Lots and lots of links to the current online debate about piracy.
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"Cameron clearly does not understand that identity politics in the UK are often divisive and politically unrewarding. Such speeches may be grounded in genuine concern about social cohesion and the potential of violent extremism. But they often merely feed bigotry for those who seek to conflate extremist Islam and Islam as a religion…His linking of extremism with immigration potentially re-demonises the Muslim community at a time when tensions were slowly subsiding… his speech was ill-judged, poorly-timed and indicates a lack of political maturity. Moreover, it ultimately contradicted his own thesis that a common Britishness is developmental, organic and should not be manipulated by the state. It will do little more than stimulate inter-community tensions without providing any sustainable solutions to the issues of violent extremism"
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"The Spanish government, and Minister Aguilar in particular, are effectively choosing plunder over principle, and tarnishing the EU’s reputation worldwide. "
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Thoughts on what's up with the EU, from a slightly different set of angles to the usual.
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David Cameron’s Munich speech urges “a clear sense of shared national identity that is open to everyone” (however toxic its undertones, as Stuart Weir has discussed). So why has his government more than halved funding for the Refugee Council’s vital advice services to asylum seekers?
Whoniversaries 9 February
9 February 1918: birth of Morris Barry, who directed The Moonbase (1967), The Tomb of the Cybermen (1967), and The Dominators (1968) and played Tollund in The Creature from the Pit (1979).
9 February 1936: birth of Clive Swift, who played Jobel in Revelation of the Daleks (1985) and Baydon Copper in Voyage of the Damned (2007).
ii) broadcast anniversaries
9 February 1974: broadcast of fifth episode of Invasion of the Dinosaurs. Sarah escapes from the mock spaceship but is recaptured by Finch. The Doctor is menaced by a tyrannosaurus (I’ve been counting and that’s three cliff-hangers out of five in this story in which the Doctor is menaced by a tyrannosaurus).
9 February 1982: broadcast of fourth episode of Kinda. Aris is trapped in a circle of reflective panels; the Mara cannot bear its own reflection, and is expelled and defeated, everyone else returning to normal.
9 February 1983: broadcast of fourth episode of Mawdryn Undead. Just as the Doctor is about to sacrifice himself, the two Brigadiers meet, discharging enough energy to deal with Mawdryn and his friends. Turlough leaves with the Doctor, Nyssa and Tegan.
9 February 1985: broadcast of second episode of Mark of the Rani. The Doctor and Peri defeat the Rani and the Master and trap them in her Tardis with a growing Tyrannosaurus. (Yes, another one.)
Delicious LiveJournal Links for 2-8-2011
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The difference between Cameron and Baroness Warsi on the Muslim question is striking. She knows what she is talking about. He doesn’t.
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"Escalating front-line clashes, a spiralling arms race, vitriolic rhetoric and a virtual breakdown in peace talks increase the chance Armenia and Azerbaijan will go back to war over Nagorno-Karabakh, with devastating regional consequences." -> in my own view this is the conflict whose renewed outbreak is easiest to predict for the next couple of years; I hope the international community will actually do something to try and prevent it.
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"He was *trying* to *flirt* with you!" "Well, he wasn't very good at it!"
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Lesbian couple, married in Iowa, denied driving licences in South Dakota.
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Restaurant sues blogger for bad review. (Japanese restaurant suing Lebanese blogger in Kuwait.)
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Eurabia's fundamentally an ideology of revenge … as well as an ideology of envy. Muslims, imagined by Eurabianists as beings somehow completely resistant to the influences of modernization and post-modernization etc., are imagined as perfect conservatives, retaining the superfecundity of old and maintaining the traditional family. Why them? some ask. Why not us?
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Cinematic analysis of a scene from Time of Angels
Whoniversaries 8 February
8 February 1964: broadcast of “The Edge of Destruction”, first episode of the story we now also call The Edge of Destruction. The Tardis behaves strangely after an explosion; so does Susan who attacks Ian with scissors.
8 February 1969: broadcast of third episode of The Seeds of Death. The Doctor is captured by the Ice Warriors; Jamie and Zoe turn up the heating in the Moonbase.
8 February 1973: broadcast of third episode of The Ark in Space. The Doctor helps the humans to fight back against the Wirrn, but is confronted by the completely transformed Noah.
8 February 1982: broadcast of third episode of Kinda. Todd and the Doctor escape the deluded Hindle and Sanders, and join forces with Panna to try and hold back the Mara.
8 February 1983: broadcast of third episode of Mawdryn Undead. Mawdryn begs the Doctor to give him and his colleagues his remaining regenerations.
8 February 1984: broadcast of first part of Resurrection of the Daleks. The Daleks are attempting to rescue Davros, in a plan involving a time tunnel and the London Docklands.
This is the third of seven dates of the year on which six episodes of Old Who were broadcast (the previous two, which I forgot to note last month, were 5 January and 12 January). Today week, 15 February, is the fourth such date.
Delicious LiveJournal Links for 2-7-2011
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It's official!
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I've always loved isoglosses. But am more used to the standard east-west ones in Germany.
Whoniversaries 7 February
7 February 1970: broadcast of second episode of Doctor Who and the Silurians. A mysterious creature escapes the caves, kills a local farmer and terrorizes Liz.
7 February 1976: broadcast of second episode of The Seeds of Doom. Chase’s men attack the base, but the Doctor manages to destroy the Krynoid by exploding the generator hut.
7 February 1981: broadcast of second episode of The Keeper of Traken. Kassia is under the influence of the Melkur; she orders the arrest of the Doctor, Adric and Tremas.
ii) dates specified in canon
7 February 1894: birth of Tommy Brockless, Toshiko’s annually defrosted boyfriend, as seen in To The Last Man (Torchwood, 2008).
7 February 1987: Kathy Costello Wainright (née Nightingale) writes a letter to her friend Sally Sparrow, requesting her grandson to deliver it (along with a package of photographs) in 2007, as seen in Blink (2007).
Delicious LiveJournal Links for 2-6-2011
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"In the 15-year-old book, Yeskov re-wrote Tolkien’s masterpiece from the point of view of Mordor"
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Not just Prince Charles, but Peter Robinson too!
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I love this sort of thing!
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What the British system is really like. I'm not myself its biggest fan – it seems to me that the Belgian system, which has a minimal charge rather than no charge at all at the point of service, seems to do it better – but the contrast here is with the US system, and there really is no room for debate about which is better.
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Can't wait.
February Books 4) Lightborn, by Tricia Sullivan
I had already read three out of the five novels on the BSFA shortlist, so have duly equipped myself with the other two. This is a story of a near-future cyberdisaster in California, with all the adults’ brains corrupted by a massive software malfunction and two teenagers caught in the peculiar interactions of the badly damaged society. Neuromancer meets Hurricane Katrina, perhaps.
I previously had tried Sullivan’s Maul, which made the shortlist for both BSFA and Arthur C. Clarke awards a few years back, and wasn’t enthused, completely failing to spot the link between the two story lines until I read someone else’s review months later; Lightborn left me a bit like that too, with densely described incident and characters, but also an abrupt ending which I didn’t understand and lots in the middle which I couldn’t keep track of (I lost my place in it yesterday and found it surprisingly difficult to find again where I had stopped reading). No doubt that is a reflection more on me than on the author, but I don’t think this will be getting my top vote.
February Books 3) Irish Tales of Terror, edited by Peter Haining
This anthology should not be confused with a quite different book with exactly the same title, but edited by Jim McGarry, which I read and didn’t much care for just over a year ago. I did like this one. Haining has constructed it as an introduction to fantastic literature for readers interested in Ireland, rather than desperately grabbing anything vaguely genre and Hibernian; this does mean that some entries don’t strictly fit the remit – “The Canterville Ghost”, by Oscar Wilde, has no Irish connection apart from its author, and the final piece by Ray Bradbury (who also supplies an introduction to the volume as a whole) has no fantasy content. But it’s an eclectic and interesting anthology, with pieces from Giraldus Cambrensis and James Joyce (the passage about Hell from Portrait) as well as the more obvious Maturin, Hodgson, Lovecraft, Le Fanu, Yeats, Dunsany, Sinead de Valera, etc. Worth getting hold of.
Doctor Who Rewatch: 17
We’re on to Season 16, and the Quest for the Key to Time!
As it happens I had rewatched the first episode of The Ribos Operation quite recently, giving my eleven-year-old son a taste of each of the Old Who doctors in a sequence that somehow ended up with a lot of Robert Holmes scripts, so I was prepared for the cracking dialogue and scene-setting. It gets off to a cracking start with the White Guardian scene, and the Doctor hiding behind K9 as Romana appears, and then the Holmes trick of paired characters sparking off each other – apart from the Doctor and Romana, also the Graff Vynda-K and Sholakh, and even more so Garron and Unstoffe, with a balancing commentary on science and religion from Binro the Heretic and the unnamed Seeker.
But what really jumped out at me, after the disappointments of the previous season, is that once again Doctor Who actually looks good. And a lot of this is due to the superb costume design of June Hudson – she more than anyone else turns Ribos into an alien Russia, and also reinvents the Doctor and dresses Romana as an ice princess. Other bits work too, but I remember feeling as an eleven-year-old that the spark had returned to the show, and I felt that again this time.
The Pirate Planet is much more interesting now as journeyman work for Douglas Adams, teetering on the brink of his success with The Hitch-Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, than it was at the time; we fans of the Guide can recognise the odd line here or there, the ruler frozen at the point of death, the hollow planet inside which other worlds are reshaped, all elements which recurred in Adams’ most famous work. Unfortunately it really doesn’t make a lot of sense. Why should the citizens care about new mineral wealth, if everyone is getting it? Who is it being traded with? If the captain and Xanxia are so worried about the Mentiads, why didn’t they do something about them earlier? (They resemble the NatSci’s of Dirk Gently, now that I think about it.) Nonsense of course can be a strength, and Baker and Tamm seem to love the technobabble (and Adams does capture a spark between them in a way we don’t really see again). The K9 / Polyphase Avatron fight is a high point as well. But The Pirate Planet is both minor Who and minor Adams.
We are back on firmer ground with The Stones of Blood. This just shows the difference that a decent plot (as opposed to a decent script, which Adams was capable of doing) and good casting and direction can make, though unfortunately we are now slipping into Romana as screamy girl rather than smart aleck, which is a shame, especially as the story has two excellent female leads in Beatrix Lehmann and Susan Engel. (I must also add that the viewing experience on DVD is greatly enhanced by the extras, which include a documentary with Mary Tamm exploring the Rollright Stones where it was filmed.)
It’s a story of two halves, Satanic cults (as previously seen in Image of the Fendahl and The Masque of Mandragora) and then the abandoned prison spaceship with the ruthlessly homicidal justice machines. The story wobbles a bit at times – Beatrix Lehmann, who died a few months after filming, is notably shaky on some of her lines – but stays just the right side of the quality divide. The location filming around the stones is particularly memorable, (including particularly K9 on one of his few field outings) and well blended in with the studio scenes. I am really looking forward to the new novelisation by David Fisher, the author of the original script; the original Terrance Dicks novelisation is workmanlike but not terribly memorable, but Fisher’s two previous novelisations of his own stories – The Creature from the Pit and The Leisure Hive – are particularly good, among the best Fourth Doctor books and certainly better than the TV originals.
The Androids of Tara is one of the most shamelessly derivative Who stories ever, so obviously ripped off from The Prisoner of Zenda that apparently even some of the lines are the same. But it’s done with great style and affection, with particularly the guest cast enthusiastically in it – most especially Peter Jeffrey’s evil Count Grendel, but the others as well (and a special shout-out for Declan Mulholland’s Ulster/Mummerset accent as Till). In a season where every story is a quest for a segment, it’s refreshing to have the segment found in the first ten minutes and then get on with the planetary intrigue. Mary Tamm doesn’t have to do much as Princess Strella, which again is a sign of the times.
The Power of Kroll is certainly the worst story of the season, and one of the worst stories by the great Robert Holmes. It is notable that the previous season’s utter turkey of a story, Underworld, had the same director, Norman Stewart, and perhaps one need look no further for an explanation. But it’s really not one of Holmes’ better scripts either. It is missing his trademarks of humour, banter between minor characters, and making the Other comprehensible. The dullness of the swamp, the dismal failure to do the giant squid effect properly, the fact that Who is often not very good at colonialism, combine with more unexpected problems: despite several of the better recurring actors to appear on Who (John Abineri, Philip Madoc, John Leeson on his own two legs for a change) it simply fails to catch fire at any point. The most dramatically effective moment, tellingly, is when the Doctor and Romana escape the Seventh Ritual of Kroll simply by screaming.
After that, I was surprised to find that four out of the six episodes of The Armageddon Factor are actually rather good, and that if you simply drop parts three and five you end up with quite a decent story, with even K9 displaying interesting depth to his character. The first episode in particular does some briliant scene-setting, with the heroic telecast drama contrasting with the grim life of the command centre and hospital. The fourth episode has the marvellous teaser of Princess Astra clearly (as we realise in restrospect) realising that she herself is the final segment of the Key to Time. The sixth episode has the Doctor making the grand refusal to implement the end of the quest (though one wonders what the real White Guardian was up to in the meantime). The fifth episode, unfortunately, has Drax. But this is an example of how watching an episode at a time can make a story feel rather better than if you allow a single block of 150 minutes of your precious time to be stolen; and perhaps I might feel differently if (as was usual for the weaker stories of this period) the final episode had been weaker rather than stronger.
And Mary Tamm gets written out at the end of this story, to be replaced by Princess Astra Lalla Ward at the start of the next season. Romana is the first overtly brainy companion since Liz Shaw and Zoe; she is the first non-human companion since Susan (not counting K9). It starts off very well, with the first episode of The Ribos Operation in particular having some lovely exchanges which set up the relationship rather beautifully. But she is poorly treated by subsequent scripts; it’s rather telling how little her double, Princess Strella, gets to do in The Androids of Tara. There’s clearly fun going on there, but the second incarnation is the more memorable. Fans of the first Romana, however, should not miss the Gallifrey series of audios by Big Finish, which bring her back both as a memory and as the incarnation of an evil power from beyond the usual dimensions.
While we’re on the subject of Big Finish, they also brought back the White and Black Guardians (the latter played brilliantly by David Troughton) for a series of three Fifth Doctor stories a couple of years ago – also strongly recommended.
It’s a bit rocky in places, but this season feels on a bit more of a sure footing than the previous one. I think the bold strategy of having a single narrative arc, tried here really for the first time (arguably developing in part from the Master sequence of stories in Season 8), did help to give a coherence to the show that had been lacking since the abandonment of UNIT, and the idea that the Doctor is deliberately rather than just accidentally selected for heroism is interesting too. Also the lowest point – The Power of Kroll – is nothing like as bad as the awful stories of the previous season. (Sadly, I believe that there is worse to come.)
By peculiar coincidence, the month in which I was watching the Key to Time season was also the last month of a recently departed Estonian intern’s time in my office (Mary Tamm is Estonian). I lent her The Ribos Operation, partly to explain the Tardis multiple USB port which graces my desk. She was politely enthusiastic about it.
< An Unearthly Child – The Aztecs | The Sensorites – The Romans | The Web Planet – Galaxy 4 | Mission To The Unknown – The Gunfighters | The Savages – The Highlanders | The Underwater Menace – Tomb of the Cybermen | The Abominable Snowmen – The Wheel In Space | The Dominators – The Space Pirates | The War Games – Terror of the Autons | The Mind of Evil – The Curse of Peladon | The Sea Devils – Frontier in Space | Planet of the Daleks – The Monster of Peladon | Planet of the Spiders – Revenge of the Cybermen | Terror of the Zygons – The Seeds of Doom | The Masque of Mandragora – The Talons of Weng-Chiang | Horror of Fang Rock – The Invasion of Time | The Ribos Operation – The Armageddon Factor | Destiny of the Daleks – Shada | The Leisure Hive – The Keeper of Traken | Logopolis – The Visitation | Black Orchid – Mawdryn Undead | Terminus – The Awakening | Frontios – Attack of the Cybermen | Vengeance on Varos – In A Fix With Sontarans | The Mysterious Planet – Paradise Towers | Delta and the Bannermen – The Greatest Show in the Galaxy | Battlefield – The TV Movie >
February Books 2) The Mahābhārata
I’ve been working my way through various works of Asian religion recently (see my takes on The Koran and Ta Hsüeh and Chung Yung from last year). The Mahābhārata is much more accessible than the other two, though also much much longer – the Penguin edition is 800 pages, and that is with two thirds of the text brutally summarized. Of course, it helps that there is a plot as well as profound philosophical, theological and moral discourse; perhaps the fairer comparison is with Homer (where I think the Mahābhārata still wins).
I did sometimes find it difficult to keep the names straight on my head; John D. Smith’s translation and adaptation makes few concessions. I’m not used to Indian nomenclature and wasn’t quite prepared for Kṛṣṇa rather than Krishna. It was rather late in the book before I distinguished Bhīṣma and Bhīma; and I was puzzled by the brother and sister demons Hiḍimbā and Hiḍimba until I looked a bit closer. But this is how one learns.
The epic itself is a grand mythological tale of a battle between two families, the hundred demonic sons of Dhṛtarāṣtra and the five Pāṇḍava brothers (who between them have four fathers and two mothers). The first five books (of 18) are the setup: the genealogy of the two sides, including various miraculous feats of reproduction – pregnancies varying in length from a day to a year, children born from the landscape after passing heroic men ejaculate upon it; I note also that women in the Mahābhārata actually menstruate which is rare in any fiction I have read. There is even a transsexual charioteer, Śikhaṇḍī.
The actual battle, which occupies the next five books, is about as tedious as most fictional epic battles. I was interested though that the world of the Mahābhārata is actually rather high-tech; Indra’s chariot which takes people to another world is distinctly spaceshippy, and the mystical Weapons of This and That which are wielded on the battlefield are definitely technologies of mass destruction, a thought which famously occurred to Robert Oppenheimer. Also of course one has built up a certain sympathy for the characters in the earlier chapters, particularly the Pāṇḍava brothers and their long-suffering joint wife, Draupadī.
The philosophy comes in two large chunks. The more famous passage is actually the shorter of the two: the Bhagavad Gītā is preached by Kṛṣṇa to Arjuna, the most attractive character among the Pāṇḍava brothers, on the eve of the battle, and is an exposition on the theme of dharma, which encompasses duty, legal obligation, and destiny. But I actually found more interesting the longer passage, two entire books (books 12 and 13) of the dying reflections of Bhīṣma (fatally wounded at the start of the battle, seven books earlier). It is a fascinating blend of very profound meditations on the meaning of life and how one should behave to one’s fellow human beings and the natural world, combined with a fairly strong element of supernatural justification for the continued social supremacy of the Brahman class.
Anyway, this is a colossally intense read, and probably it’s worth trying to absorb through some other medium rather than a paperback adaptation (eg the Indian TV series, which in this day and age cannot be too difficult to obtain). But I found it rather rewarding.
Whoniversaries 6 February
6 February 1965: broadcast of “Inferno”, fourth episode of the story we now call The Romans, and nothing to do with the 1970 story of the same name. The Doctor accidentally sets fire to Nero’s plans for Rome, and Nero decides to burn the city down. The time travelers are reunited, the Doctor and Vicki unaware of Ian and Barbara’s adventures.
6 February 1971: broadcast of second episode of The Mind of Evil. The Doctor speaks Chinese, but the Chinese assistant attacks the American delegate to the peace conference.
6 February 2008: broadcast of Meat (Torchwood), the one with the icky alien source of, well, meat.
February Books 1) Peeling the Onion, by Günter Grass
A fascinating autobiography – though in fact it covers only the years from the outbreak of the second world war, in the late 1930s, to Grass’s first marriage 20 years later. I don’t think you can read it without also reading or having read The Tin Drum, which has a lot of autobiographical elements in it, here carefully untangled and explained. Grass of course did not have the option of not growing up; he ended up rapidly inducted into the SS as the Eastern Front crumbled, hints at being interned together with the future Pope Benedict XVI, and was cast adrift in the Rhineland like so many other easterners after the war ended, finding his way to literature through a sculpture career which began with making tombstones. Often horrifying, at times sexy and funny, it’s not quite the book I expected but I think it is a hugely important contribution to understanding how Germany has become the sort of country it is now from the country it once was. The book’s revelation that Grass had been in the SS was apparently news when it came out, though this basically illustrates the whole problem of Vergangenheitsbewältigung. Strongly recommended.
The Crimes of Thomas Brewster
My expectations were low of this month’s Big Finish main sequence release, The Crimes of Thomas Brewster, mainly because I was never impressed by the eponymous character, played by soap heart-throb John Pickard in three Fifth Doctor stories in 2008 and then as one of the Three Companions whose story was released episodically by Big Finish in 2009-10. But actually it was not bad at all: there wasn’t too much Brewster in it, in any case Pickard seems to have raised his game significantly, and the Sixth Doctor / Evelyn Smythe interaction is hugely lifted by the reintroduction of Anna Hope as Mancunian police detective Patricia Menzies, after her appearance in two 2008 Big Finish plays also with Colin Baker but set later in the Sixth Doctor’s continuity; and David Troughton turns up as a wonderfully gravel-voiced East End crime boss. The story is basically a standard alien invasion of contemporary London, with the point being to get Brewster back in the regular cast for the next two stories, but there is some quite clever stuff with working out what people actually know about the Doctor, and who he is. And the cast seem well up for it (Maggie Stables gets to be the voice of an alien intelligence as well as her usual inimitable Evelyn). Reasonably accessible for non-fans, given that the three recurring characters other than the Doctor are from different places in Big Finish continuity and so need the background helpfully explained to them.
Fianna Fáil: headed for a kicking, but how hard?
I’ve been following the grim collapse of the Irish political system with awed fascination over the last few months, thanks to posts by
This is apocalyptic stuff, but probably accurate. I think that FF will find it much more difficult to attract transfers from other parties’ voters in this election than they have previously. I remember the days of polarisation of the early 1980s, when there were pretty tight transfers between all other parties to keep Charlie Haughey out. The elections in 1981 and November 1982 were, incredibly, the last two occasions on which an FF government failed to get back in (all six subsequent elections have delivered an FF-led government, though one of them was replaced halfway through the Dail term). In those days FF were polling in the mid-40s, percentage-wise, rather than the mid-teens as now. In 1981, Charlie Haughey managed only 78 TDs out of 166 with 45.3% of the vote; in November 1982, he got only 75 TDs with 45.2% of the vote. Note that the ‘seat bonus’ which normally goes to the largest party almost disappeared in 1981 and was actually negative in November 1982. Adrian Kavanagh, I think quite correctly, predicts that FF’s percentage of seats is unlikely to match its percentage of the vote in 2011.
Even that may be optimistic. Looking at Kavanagh’s detailed figures, FF are teetering on the edge. There are only six constituencies out of 43 where Kavanagh expects FF candidates to get a full quota, if their national vote is 15-16% (Louth, Cork North West, Cork South Central, Dublin South, Carlow–Kilkenny, Limerick City, and Laois–Offaly – and that last depends on the party retaining the personal vote of outgoing Taoiseach Brian Cowen, who is not standing). But it is notable that the party is running more than one candidate in 23 of the other 37 constituencies, in other words two or three candidates will be scrapping it out for a vote share barely enough to elect one of them. That way lies disaster (look at the SDLP in West Tyrone in 2007).
My sometime co-author Noel Whelan has been saying recently that there is no floor below which Fianna Fáil’s support cannot fall. It’s worth noting that the 16% they are currently looking at in the polls is identical to the vote share gained by the Canadian Conservative government in the 1993 election there, where they won precisely two seats out of 308. Of course the proportional system means that 16% of the votes in Ireland still gets you, ideally, a sixth of the seats. But the threshold for annihilation is not a lot lower than 16% for a party like FF whose support is smeared fairly evenly across the country rather than with strong local pockets of support. (The other side of that coin is that it is more difficult for small parties like Labour and SF, who have depended on strong local pockets of support in previous elections, to break into the territory where their vote share matches their tally of seats, but to be honest I think we are looking at numbers for both parties where this won’t be a problem.)
Anyway, roll on 25 February, and the days of counting and recrimination which will follow.
Whoniversaries 5 February
5 February 1966: broadcast of “War of God”, first episode of the story we now call The Massacre. The Doctor and Steven land in France; the Doctor wanders off looking for an apothecary, and Steven falls in with Huguenots.
5 February 1972: broadcast of second episode of The Curse of Peladon. Jo and the Doctor suspect the Ice Warriors, but they in turn suspect Arcturus; and the Doctor is condemned to death.
5 February 1977: broadcast of second episode of The Robots of Death. Poul suspects Uvanov and relieves him of command; the sandminer’s engines are stopped and it starts to sink…
Whoniversaries 4 February
4 February 1919: birth of Peter Butterworth, who played the Meddling Monk in The Time Meddler (1965) and The Daleks’ Master Plan (1966).
4 February 1980: death of David Whitaker, the first script editor of Doctor Who (from An Unearthly Child to The Dalek Invasion of Earth) and writer of The Rescue (1964), The Crusade (1965), The Power of the Daleks (1966), The Evil of the Daleks (1966-67), The Enemy of the World (1967-68), The Wheel in Space (1968) and The Ambassadors of Death (1970); also of the 1965 stage play, The Curse of the Daleks, and of two of the first three novelisations, Doctor Who in an Exciting Adventure with the Daleks (1964) and Doctor Who and the Crusaders (1965).
ii) broadcast anniversaries
4 February 1967: broadcast of fourth episode of The Underwater Menace. The Doctor and friends prevent Zaroff’s plan but Atlantis is flooded and destroyed.
4 February 1978: broadcast of first episode of The Invasion of Time. The Doctor returns to Gallifrey and has himself inaugurated as President, but collapses on contact with the Matrix.
Delicious LiveJournal Links for 2-3-2011
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Everyone's been linking to this, but it is tremendous news.
Whoniversaries 3 February
3 February 1968: broadcast of first episode of The Web of Fear. The Tardis lands in a deserted London Underground; Jamie and Zoe are captured by the soldiers of an outpost and the Doctor encounters the Yeti.
3 February 1973: broadcast of second episode of Carnival of Monsters. The Doctor and Jo explore further inside the Miniscope, and encounter the Drashigs.
3 February 1978: broadcast of third episode of The Armageddon Factor. The Shadow tries to get the first five segments from the Doctor, who escapes; the Marshal launches his “final attack”.
3 February 1984: broadcast of fourth epsiode of Frontios. The Doctor gets the Gravis to reassemble the Tardis and removes him from Frontios, neutralising the other Tractators.
3 February 1996: broadcast of third episode of The Ghosts of N-Space on BBC Radio. The Doctor discovers that Vilmio is an immortal alchemist, while the Brigadier and Jeremy attempt to retake the castle.
Delicious LiveJournal Links for 2-2-2011
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If you know anyone who actually reads the Daily Mail, get them to read this.
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"They explained that we, as foreigners, are not allowed to speak with the local population. The more we asked about why that is not allowed, the angrier the police got."
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I was rather impressed by the work of both Hamilton and Brackett when I sampled them recently in the Hartwell / Cramer _Space Opera Renaissance_ anthology. Now we have a chance to read the best of Hamilton for free, I shall gladly take it.
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Don't call Angela, and she won't call you.
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Brilliant piece by Levy, who was on Cambridge University Students Union's executive committee with me many years ago.
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"The total literature of Iceland is under 50,000 books, which is easily scannable in 2 years by 12 people". This proposal is being put forward by the wonderfully named Þorsteinn Hallgrímsson. With a capital Þ.
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What happened to Melissa Mia Hall.
BSFA Short Fiction
I was rather pleased to find that I had already read three of the novels on this year’s BSFA Award shortlist, and it seems eminently possible to assess everything on the list; though I would appreciate guidance on Notes from Coode Street – any particularly good episodes to recommend? I doubt I will have time to listen to all of it.
The short fiction category in particular is easily digestible – only four stories on it this year, and all are now available online. I thought they were all very good – even “Arrhythmia”, which I did not find especially adventurous, is at least very well written – and recommend them all. In reverse order, my votes will be for:
4) “Arrhythmia” by Neil Williamson (PDF)
A grim dystopian tale of an industrialized small-minded society, and an illusory spark of youthful rebellion through music. Somehow very English in the way it is told, though the factory environment reminded me most of Zamyatin (who apparently was using contemporary England as his model for We). Very nicely done, though one has a good idea from the start of where it is likely to end up, and it’s really the kind of story Brian Aldiss might have been scornful of fifty years ago.
3) “The Shipmaker” by Aliette de Bodard (PDF)
This is a rather lyrical tale setting in close juxtaposition the creation of a spaceship and the birth of a its future pilot. I wasn’t always quite sure what was going on, and I suspect I missed some of the context by not being familiar with de Bodard’s Xuya sequence of stories in which China discovered America before Columbus, but I loved reading it.
2) “Flying in the Face of God” by Nina Allan (PDF)
Like Williamson’s story, somehow very British in tone: a journalist explores the effects of spaceflight (and interrogates the reality of memory) through both her friend, who is being gradually mutated by a new treatment for astronauts, and her mother, who was killed many years before when her mission was sabotaged on take-off. There is lots of stuff here in such a short story and it is juggled very well. (I wasn’t quite sure about the timing of some of the biographical details of the protagonist’s mother, but I guess good stories are often told about unusual people.)
Interesting to note that both the de Bodard and Allan stories are by women, about women, set in an alternate history where space flight developed differently from our reality, and published in Interzone. Maybe I will start subscribing again.
1) “The Things” by Peter Watts
An excellent atmospheric re-telling of The Thing from the Thing’s point of view. I haven’t seen either the 1951 or the 1982 films, but I have read the original story, Who Goes There? by John W. Campbell jr, sufficiently long ago that I was hazy on the names of the characters (which are from the film here, rather than the original story) but still familiar with the scenario of the shape-shifting alien entity taking over the scientists (and dogs) on an Antarctic base, one by one. I thoroughly enjoyed it; Watts is disturbingly convincing at conveying the alien entity’s disgust with humanity, and its own efforts to work out what is actually going on make an effective counterpoint to the efforts of the humans to defeat it.
With some hesitation, because I liked all the others, particularly Nina Allan’s story (which I note has the support of Williamson and de Bodard!), “The Things” gets my top vote.
And I must say I’m impressed by the tastes of the BSFA selectorate. I haven’t read much short SF in recent years – reading big heavy books has biased my mental gears towards the long form, though I do try and at least what has been shortlisted for the major awards. But unlike last year’s list, where I found three of the six stories awful (including the winner), and unlike the Hugo nomination lists, which occasionally make me despair, I actually get the feeling from this rather short shortlist that I may be missing out by not reading more widely.
Whoniversaries 2 February
2 February 1930: birth of Don Houghton, who wrote Inferno (1970) and The Mind of Evil (1971).
ii) broadcast anniversaries
2 February 1974: broadcast of fourth episode of Invasion of the Dinosaurs. Sarah is indoctrinated by the People; the Doctor is framed as the man behind the appearance of the dinosaurs.
2 February 1982: broadcast of second episode of Kinda. The unhinged Hindle takes over the base; Todd returns, equally out of his mind; Tegan, possessed by the mara, takes over Aris.
2 February 1983: broadcast of second episode of Mawdryn Undead. The Doctor meets the Brigadier and shocks him into remembering his previous incarnations; Tegan and Nyssa meet the younger Brigadier, and then a man with no top to his skull.
2 February 1984: broadcast of third episode of Frontios. Turlough remembers his own world’s lore about the Tractators, who still have Tegan and the Doctor trapped in the tunnels.
2 February 1985: broadcast of first episode of Mark of the Rani, introducing Kate O’Mara as the Rani. In 1820s England, the Rani’s experiments, aided by the Master, are turning locals into violent Luddites.
Delicious LiveJournal Links for 2-1-2011
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Scary Jupiter!
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Copernican or Tychonian?
Whoniversaries 1 February
i) births and deaths
1 February 1948: birth of Elisabeth Sladen, who plays Sarah Jane Smith (companion to Third and Fourth Doctors, 1973-76; various appearances since then culminating in her own series since 2007). Happy Birthday, Lis!
1 February 1964: broadcast of “The Rescue”, seventh episode of the story we now call The Daleks (and nothing to do with the story we now call The Rescue). Ian, Barbara and the Thals destroy the Daleks’ power source, defeating them, and rescue the Doctor and Susan.
1 February 1969: broadcast of second episode of The Seeds of Death. The Doctor, Zoe and Jamie head for the Moon by rocket; Miss Kelly T-Mats to the Moon and repairs the equipment but is captured by the Ice Warriors.
1 February 1975: broadcast of second episode of The Ark in Space. The humans on the Ark start to wake up; but Noah, their leader, has been infected by the Wirrn.
1 February 1982: broadcast of first episode of Kinda. The Doctor and Adric are captured by the Earth expedition on Deva Loka; Tegan’s mind is ensnared by the wind chimes.
1 February 1983: broadcast of first epsiode of Mawdryn Undeadiii) date specified in canon
1 February 1967: birth of Jackie Tyler, née Prentice. (At least of the parallel version from Pete’s World.)
January Books
The Hiſtory of That moſt Eminent Stateſman, Sir John Perrott
Sisters of Sinai, by Janet Soskice
For Noble Purposes, by Richard Porter
Tyrone’s Rebellion, by Hiram Morgan
The Secret Life of Trees, by Colin Tudge
Non-genre fiction: 1
The Undiscovered Chekhov, by Anton Chekhov
SF (non-Who): 3 (4 counting comics)
Titus Groan, by Mervyn Peake
Gormenghast, by Mervyn Peake
Titus Alone, by Mervyn Peake
Who: 6
Heart of TARDIS, by Dave Stone
Doctor Who Annual 1979
AHistory: An Unauthorized History of the Doctor Who Universe, by Lance Parkin
Shadowmind, by Christopher Bulis
The Scarlet Empress, by Paul Magrs
Doctor Who Annual 1980
Comics: 1
Ōoku: The Inner Chambers vol.2, by Fumi Yoshinaga
Page count: 4396 (I know, suspiciously precise).
2/16 books by women (Soskice, Yoshinaga).
1/16 by PoC (Yoshinaga).
Owned for more than a year: 5 (The Undiscovered Chekhov, For Noble Purposes, The Secret Life of Trees, The Scarlet Empress, Shadowmind).
Rereads: 3 (Titus Groan, Gormenghast, Doctor Who Annual 1979).
Best book of the month: Sisters of Sinai
Programmed reads: 12 from 10 lists
d: Undiscovered Chekhov (non-genre books by entry order)
i and j: Gormenghast Trilogy (sf by popularity among LT readers and on LJ poll)
l: Shadowmind (NA’s in sequence)
m: Scarlet Empress (EDA’s in sequence)
n: AHistory (New Who books by popularity, though this has Old Who elements too)
o: Heart of TARDIS (Old Who books by popularity)
r: The Hiſtory of Sir John Perrott and Tyrone’s Rebellion (Tudors and Ireland)
t: For Noble Purposes (unreviewed books acquired by end 2005 in reverse entry order)
u: Secret Life of Trees (unreviewed books acquired from 2006 on in entry order)
Coming next, possibly:
The Mahābhārata (already started)
Peeling the Onion by Günther Grass (already started)
Lightborn by Tricia Sullivan (already started)
Irish Tales of Terror edited by Peter Haining
The Prodigal Troll by Charles Coleman Finlay
How to Suppress Women’s Writing by Joanna Russ
Resurrection Men by Ian Rankin
Book of Lost Tales Pt. 2 by J.R.R. Tolkien
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them by J.K. Rowling
The History of the Peloponnesian War by Thucydides
Elizabeth I by C. Haigh
Short Trips by British Broadcasting Corporation
Chicks Dig Time Lords edited by Lynne M. Thomas and Tara O’Shea
The Penguin Complete Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle
The Fall of the House of Usher, And Other Stories by Edgar Allan Poe
The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson
Birthright by Nigel Robinson
Sophie’s World by Jostein Gaarder
The Janus Conjunction by Trevor Baxendale
The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer
The Onion’s Our Dumb World: 73rd Edition: Atlas of the Planet Earth
In the Heart of the Desert by John Chryssavgis
Whoniversaries 31 January
31 January 1970: broadcast of first episode of Doctor Who and the SiluriansThe Seeds of Doom. A mysterious pod is found in Antarctica; it opens, infecting a nearby scientist. The Doctor and Sarah come to investigate.
31 January 1981: broadcast of first episode of The Keeper of Traken. First appearance of Sarah Sutton as Nyssa, and of Anthony Ainley though not yet as the Master. The dying Keeper invites the Doctor to come to Traken, where social balance is threatened by the evil calcified Melkur.
ii) date specified in canon
31 January 2007: the SS Elysium arrives in Panama after its encounter with Cybermen, as told in David Banks’ 1993 novel Iceberg.
That brings January to an end, much the heaviest month in this project with 107 Old Who anniversaries, five Torchwood, one each of Sarah Jane Adventures and New Who, and various other things to take into account. February and March are also fairly intense; April and May (where many Old Who seasons had finished, and the numbers are not quite balanced out by the start of New Who) less so, and June will be a welcome relief.
January Books 16) Doctor Who Annual 1980
The stories are about average, and the filler material below. However I was interested that the crossword had a number of references to Who continuity (indeed more, apart from Romana, than the whole rest of the annual). Several stories also imply that the Doctor is taking Romana on a regular training mission on behalf of the Time Lords’ Academy, which is amusing considering the role both she and it play in the much later Big Finish Gallifrey stories. As in the TV show, K9 is in some stories but not in others. There is one interesting comment on politics of the late 1970s from the story “Reluctant Warriors” in the middle of the annual:
Alix lowered his voice. “You may remember Leondin from your last visit, when he was campaigning for more leisure and shorter working hours.” The Doctor nodded. “People were fooled by his persuasive talk and he was elected. Of course, some of us tried to block him on the grounds that he was mentally unstable, but we were outnumbered.
“As soon as he could, he threw out all the old senators and replaced them with his pleasure-seeking cronies. Soon the whole city seemed to think of nothing but pleasure, and Leondin provided more and more sophisticated entertainments to keep them happy in their long hours of leisure.”
“Surely there must be some sensible people left,” said Romana.
“There are a few of us,” said Alix, “but we cannot get together because Leondin has us watched. He has forbidden meetings of any kind, and controls all press and television. I suspect that he even has his spies in this building.”
This annual was written and published shortly after the 1978-79 Winter of Discontent and the subsequent Conservative election victory, and it’s difficult to avoid the conclusion that the writer was trying to make some allusion to current affairs.
Gibbon Chapter XL: Justinian, Part I
Despite its flaws, which I discuss in the full post, this chapter is basically a really good introduction to the reign and times of Justinian.In 61 pages, it covers i) the Empress Theodora, ii) the factions at the Circus, iii) the economy of Justinian’s empire, especially relating to silk and taxes, iii) the Hagia Sophia and other famous buildings, including the fortifications, iv) the state of learning in the empire. It is the first of four chapters covering Justinian’s reign, with more about the Persians and the church, and I think that if the level of quality continues then I’ll be recommending this sequence of chapters as a way in to Gibbon as well as Justinian.