Sunday 25 September 2011

Doctor Who: Peace of Mind - now online

For those who haven't had their fill of Doctor Who tonight, the award-winning fanfiction series The Doctor Who Project has just begun its series of specials. First up is my very own story, Peace of Mind. Just click on the link to be taken to the free downloadable PDF! Please let me know if you enjoy it, or even if you don't.

Friday 16 September 2011

Quickie reviews: Doctor Who and Torchwood

Some short reviews for the latest episodes. Trying to stay concise for once.

If people like these, I might do some for the summer's movies.


Monday 12 September 2011

Trek Review: Indistinguishable from Magic by David A. McIntee

David McIntee is best known for his Doctor Who novels, which include such excellent works as Sanctuary, Bullet Time, The Face of the Enemy and The Eleventh Tiger (and those are just his best ones). This year, after a couple of short stories, he finally got the chance to write a Star Trek novel. I don’t follow the Trek line regularly, preferring to pick up the occasional book that takes my fancy. To be honest, the description of Indistinguishable from Magic didn’t fill me with excitement - a Geordi focussed novel about starship engineering didn’t sound particularly thrilling to me. However, as a big fan of McIntee’s work, I sought it out, and was justly rewarded. Indistinguishable from Magic is a cracker of a Trek book.

Tuesday 6 September 2011

Space: 1971

OK, so that doesn't have quite the same ring to it as Space: 1999 (or even Space: 1969, for Matt Smith fans), but still. I thought this was cool: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-14783135

It's like a glimpse at a world that could have been; one that had a hint of The British Rocket Group or the near-future of the UNIT years of Doctor Who. Britain would have launched revolutionary British-made spacecraft, pioneering space technology in the 20th century. Instead, the project was curtailed before the first satellite even got launched. I guess it's not too surprising; space exploration is an incredibly expensive endeavour, and a government always has a host of expensive, worthy projects to finance. But there's a hint of British bloodymindedness there; the project was cancelled, but they went ahead and launched it anyway. Wonderfully, Prospero is still up there, happily orbiting the Earth, waiting to be contacted.

Does anyone else think it looks like a Mechanoid? We should get a few more up there, they could be a valuable line of defence in the event of a Dalek invasion...