[Books] Doctor Who: The Tenth Doctor Adventures - Volume One Audible Review

Audiobooks are fun experiences on their own and are a great way to experience a book in a different way. Not all books make for great audiobooks and vice versa. But beyond audiobooks are the related entertainment form in terms of radio plays and other such recorded dramas.

Big Finish has made a name for itself as a passionate producer of such original audio content with a lot of work invested in the Doctor Who franchise. And it's nice to see that some of their efforts have made their way to Audible and thus I'm now able to use my credits to get my "hands" on some of these excellent Big Finish productions.

And of course I had to star with the Tenth Doctor's stories because I'm pretty predictable as a Doctor Who fan.

[Books] Doctor Who: The Eleventh Doctor Adventures - 11th Doctor Audio Originals Audible Review

Given my enjoyment with the Tenth Doctor Adventures audio book, I suppose it was only natural that I'd eventually check out the similar title for the Eleventh Doctor. I just wasn't quite as prepared for how much longer this book would be given the significantly higher story count this time around.

But this diverse collection is sort of all over the place in terms of Doctor Who stories, as is the nature of any anthology. There's perhaps a little something for everyone, but at the same time I felt like the Tenth Doctor collection had been a little tighter in terms of how it selected stories versus this one.

It's still quite the amazing collection of original Doctor Who adventures and one that is totally worth an Audible credit at the very least.

[Books] Doctor Who: The Tenth Doctor Adventures - 10th Doctor Audio Originals Audible Review

While I've mostly been utilizing Audible to enjoy various autobiographies read by the authors / persons of focus themselves, I've slowly started to venture into trying out various works of fictions. Anthology series seem to work best given how I tend to use Audible during my walks to and from work and thus I got into this particular gem.

Doctor Who: The Tenth Doctor Adventures - 10th Doctor Audio Originals is one such collection of short stories as read by various stars of thes show including David Tennant, the Tenth Doctor himself.

Now these are still treated as more traditional audio books and not full-blown audio dramatizations like what you get from Big Finish. But they're still quite compelling for a variety of reasons.

[Videos] Who Is The First Doctor

This year's Doctor Who Christmas Special, Twice Upon A Time, is one that brings the current Doctor, as portrayed by Peter Capaldi, together with his first incarnation, as portrayed by David Bradley as the original actor, William Hartnell, who had passed away in 1975. Bradley had also portrayed Hartnell in the 50th anniversary documentary An Adventure in Space and Time.

For those not so familiar with the First Doctor and his adventures, the Doctor Who team has put together a quick video with highlights of his career and his time with the TARDIS.


A Guide To The First Doctor - Doctor Who

[TV] Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency: Season 1

Lately it feels like Netflix has been aggressively expanding its original programming line-up including a number of partnership development projects with other groups. This latest show, Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency, is a good example as it's a tie-up between Netflix and BBC America.

To be fair, we know that Netflix has a pretty good relationship with BBC America given the various content deals that have already been executed such as the inclusion of several season of Doctor Who as part of the Netflix content library. So I guess an original production deal was sort of inevitable.

But I never manage to track these projects while they're still in development, so as of late I just get surprised when Netflix notifies me that there's a new show that I may be interested in that has been added to the library. That's how this show came into view and we gave it a shot shortly thereafter. The series was short enough to get through within a few days and I think the experience was pretty worth the time.

[Books] The Legends of River Song

Every year I share my Amazon Kindle Wish List for books during my birth month in case friends and family want to add to my reading queue. I get a few good books this way and I'm forever grateful to everyone who takes the time to donate. As much as it's a curated list of books that I like, naturally not all books are te same.

One of the more interesting titles that I had included was Doctor Who: The Legends of River Song, as both the partner and I are major River Song fans and we do wish she'd return to the show. But at the same time we recognize that for the most part her story arc is done and there's no value in pushing things too hard.

But then you have the world of books and their questionable position in canon - all of which open up new possibilities. Sure, the stories here may not be considered to be "official" and can be dismissed out of hand, but at least we get some fun moments with a beloved character anyway. Such is the power of the expanded options provided by fiction.

[Comics] Chrononauts

Skimming over this year's Eisner Award nominees got me rather curious about a number of titles and a related Image sale on comiXology led to me picking up a number of titles. Award nominations and yet another  $0.99 sale makes for a rather deadly combination for me indeed.

Among them was the Mark Millar creation Chrononauts, which appealed to me since it was (1) a limited series, (2) about time travel, (3) and with a nice retro feel to it. And while I normally like my comic book art involve cleaner lines, there was something about the rough look of the covers that got me a little nostalgic for the comics of my youth.

It's easier explore limited comic book arcs like this it means I don't have to invest too much to get a full comic book story experience. Plus I like tracking how many books I've read in a year via Shelfari  Goodreads and a limited series tends to have a clear definition of beginning and end all nice and neat.

[Books] Time Siege

It was an interesting run reading Wesley Chu's new science fiction venture Time Salvager, which an entirely new story world apart from his Lives of Tao series of books. It was nice to explore new characters and new ideas from his perspective. He had already tackled aliens, so why not time travel right?

Time Siege is the direct sequel to that first novel and is obviously part of a trilogy, as is the way of such things. After the revelations at the end of the first book and the survival of our protagonist (it did get a little dicey), what's next for our heroes? Is there still a chance to save the future by digging into the forgotten knowledge of the past?

This being the middle of a potential trilogy, there will always be a chance that things might feel a little slow or the pace of progress will definitely feel different from the first book. It's a natural time for developing characters, deepening relationships and addressing more internal issues. There are certainly external threats that one must cope with, but that can't be the concern all the time. And so you'll always need books like this to address those character needs.

[Videos] Life-Size LEGO TARDIS

So the folks at BBC Australia worked together with a team of LEGO builders to create a life-size replica of the iconic TARDIS. It took them over 300,000 hours and 75,000 bricks to create the lovely blue box.


This is not to be confused with another life-size LEGO TARDIS created by Bright Bricks also for the BBC but this one taking over 100,000 bricks. They also released a timelapse video of their build last year:

[Books] Time Salvager

So The Lives of Tao was one of my earliest review books for Angry Robot Books and one that I enjoyed a lot. It sort of cemented my commitment to the Angry Robot Army and I haven't turned back ever since. And so it was nice to see author Wesley Chu try his hand at writing a new set of stories outside beyond our dear Quasing friend Tao.

Time Salvager is very different from the Tao books and it took me while to easy into this new universe. But that lends a lot of credit to Chu's world building skills, something we didn't necessarily see in the Tao books since it was largely set on contemporary Earth.

As the title implies, this is a book that involves time travel, and that's a branch of science fiction that is never entirely easy for even seasoned writers. Do you just use it like magic and have characters go back and forth through time at will? Do you set up a thousand rules and restrict its usage to the point of being almost useless? It's not always an easy thing to balance, but I think Chu did a great job of finding his sweet spot.

[TV] 12 Monkeys: Season 1

The 12 Monkeys movie is one of the few Terry Gilliam films that I've seen that I didn't realize at the time was a Terry Gilliam - which is a weird thing to say, admittedly. But hey, that movie came out in 1995 - I was still in grade school and I knew Terry Gilliam more for his Monty Python work rather than movies like Baron Munchausen, which I also love.

I was pretty surprised that SyFy decided to create a TV series based on that very, very strange time travel movie. And we all know time travel movies are inevitably confusing and complicated, but I think this movie is one of the more strange ones. Then again, what else do you expect when you combine a somewhat more modern Brazil aesthetic with time travel?

Thankfully, the show is a lot more coherent than the movie was. At the same time, the show still taps into the inherent craziness of the movie and the nature of time travel as a whole. I enjoyed this way more than I had anticipated.

[Books] Doctor Who: Summer Falls

It's interesting how the folk who handle Doctor Who's expanded marketing have opted to write books based on titles shown or mentioned on the show. It's one thing to directly adapt the events of an episode into a novel. It's an entirely different thing to consider creating a story based on a book cover that was featured in an episode.

Summer Falls is another such novel, similar to the previously released The Angel's Kiss, which was a Melody Malone mystery. I wasn't quite sure what t expect from this book since it doesn't actually feature characters we know directly from the show, given Melody Malone was actually River Song. Instead we just have a story that only exists because the book appeared in the show. That's really not much to go on.

But to be fair, it was a fairly interesting little adventure that naturally has echoes of the show, even though the Doctor does not "officially" appear in the story. And that's well and good enough - it allows the book to try and get along through its own merits for the most part.

[TV] The New Doctor Who: Series 8

The 2013 Doctor Who Christmas special, "The Time of the Doctor" formally introduced us to the latest incarnation of the Doctor. We all know him to be the 12th Doctor (since the War Doctor was something else entirely) and this 8th series of Doctor Who was meant to feature the 12th Doctor at a level that's far more prominent than his eyebrows.

Doctor Who remains to be the longest-running science fiction show on television and it has gotten pretty used to dealing with regenerations and everyone getting used to a new Doctor fulfilling the role. And this was one of those cases when we get an existing Companion in the form of Clara being pretty much the audience guide to this latest incarnation of our favorite Time Lord.

This season featured quite a number of changes in terms of the writing. And while the long-term meta-plot has been a regular feature of the show since the 2005 reboot, this season in particular felt like it had some major themes that it wanted to tackle and it made sure to bring everything together at the very end of things.

[Books] Doctor Who: Sands of Time (Monster Collection Edition)

And here we at, at the end of the Doctor Who Monster Collection series of books. It has certainly been a fun little adventure seeing different aspects of the Doctor Who Universe with the help of various Doctors, Companions and of course aliens, monsters and such. And has been quite the worthwhile literary journey.

Doctor Who: Sands of Time is the last of the re-released book in this series featuring the Osiran mummies featured in the classic episode, "Pyramids of Mars". And while they're not necessarily some of the most prolific Doctor Who antagonists in the history of the show, they certainly have a rather rich back story and some pretty compelling motivations.

Of all the different Monster Collection books that I've read so far, I was most impressed with how this one had been crafted. As much as Doctor Who has a time traveler as its protagonist, it's not common for stories to be all complicated because of so much back and forth time travel moments. Time travel has mostly just been  a way to get to where the adventure might be (whether past, present, or future) and not necessarily integral to the plot itself. But this story was rather different in that regard, and the final execution was pretty impressive.

[Books] Doctor Who: Corpse Marker (Monster Collection Edition)

We're coming up to the last few books in the Doctor Who: Monster Collection and this leaves us with the somewhat less-known monsters, especially for those who us a little late to the Doctor Who dance program. If anything, I figured these books would be a nice bridge for current fans to get into Classic Doctor Who stories in time, provided one has access to them.

Corpse Marker brings us the dreaded robots that had been seen in the episode, "The Robots of Death" together with the Fourth Doctor. Beyond featuring similar robots, this story was actually positioned as a direct sequel to that episode. It was certainly an interesting direction to take (somewhat similar to Scales of Injustice). But beyond just being a sequel story, it actually takes place very shortly after the episode itself.

The book certainly tried to capture the feel of a true Doctor Who television adventure and I could totally see the progression from each act of the story to the other. The final reveal as a whole was a little underwhelming though and things ended somewhat abruptly for me.

[Books] Doctor Who: Sting of the Zygons (Monster Collection Edition)

Admittedly a big part of why I'm so committed to reading more Doctor Who novels as of late has to do with my recent forays into running the Doctor Who: Adventures in Time and Space (DWAITAS) RPG. Reading more and more adventures of the various incarnations of the Doctor is proving to be tremendously useful in terms of inspiring new adventure ideas for future games.

Sting of the Zygons turned out to be a book featuring the Tenth Doctor, as portrayed on TV by David Tennant. In many ways I'll always feel that Tenth is "my" Doctor, in such that he's the one that I developed the strongest affinity for in terms of the Doctors thus far.

I wonder if the author had any idea that the Tenth Doctor might actually have to face the Zygons in a later televised adventure. As much as he never encountered these craft shape-shifting aliens during his television run, the 50th anniversary special The Day of the Doctor actually made this little moment come true. Not bad for a book published in 2007 just as Martha Jones first joined the Doctor as his Companion.

[Books] Doctor Who: Scales of Injustice (Monster Collection Edition)

I've been enjoying my little journey through the various Doctors thanks to the re-releases of key Doctor Who  novels. And while I'm still committed to eventually watching all of the Classic serials prior to the 2005 reboot of the series, I know I have quite a long way to go. The somewhat curated collection of Doctor Who books known as the Monster Collection has been a nice way to jump from Doctor to Doctor as he faces many different iconic foes.

Scales of Injustice has him once again facing the dreaded Silurians, the highly intelligent descendants of the dinosaurs that hid away underground in order to escape the cataclysm that destroyed most life on the surface. And a race of intelligent dinosaur descendants is certainly quite a fascinating idea - it's no wonder the new Who writers made sure to bring them back eventually.

Of course this novel still takes place in the classic era with our dapper, Earth-bound Third Doctor once again trying to find a way to deal with the Earth Reptiles. And he's certainly a very distinct incarnation of the Doctor - one that has a lot of flair and style added into the mix of things. And of course he has a car.

[Books] Doctor Who: Shakedown (Monster Collection Edition)

I didn't realize that the BBC actually allowed folks to create independent productions based on individual characters and such from Doctor Who. In this case, the movie Shakedown: Return of the Sontarans played on this fact by creating a movie that focused only on the Sontarans and not the Doctor.

Shakedown is partly the novelization of that original movie but it's also an expansion of the story to also include our lovable Seventh Doctor. And going from a Doctor-less adventure to a more traditional one and yet still maintaining the original story at its core must have been a pretty interesting writing challenge, but on the whole it was done rather well.

And insights like that are partly why I'm enjoying these re-releases of various Doctor Who titles under the Monster Collection banner. The added introductions from the original writers does add a bit more flavor to things along the lines of a DVD extra or something. And more importantly, they're all pretty good stories that still celebrate the specific alien race (or monster) at the heart of things.

[Books] Slaughterhouse Five

Whether you're working on following the Barnes & Noble 50 Books to Read Before You Die bookmark or Amazon's 100 Books to Read in a Lifetime, we all have our quirky lists of books that you feel you should read even though they were published before were born or something. At least this is generally true among bibliophiles.

Slaughterhouse Five is one of the books that has been on my personal to-read list for some time now. A lot of folks keep referencing or mentioning this book for one reason or another and my curiosity has grown over the years. But of course with so many books in my general reading queue (particularly thanks to the likes of Angry Robot Books and NetGalley), it took me a fair amount of time before I finally diverted back to this particular.

I have to admit that I had no idea what to expect when I came around to reading this book. And given that the only other Vonnegut book that I had read prior to this one was the more recent Hocus Pocus, I really didn't have much to go on.

[Movies] Kate & Leopold (2001)

When you're home with the family for a weekend, you concede the fact that you will have little to no control over the TV. Instead you clutch your tablet or smartphone to you the whole time as you just ride along with what becomes the "official" family program.

Don't get me wrong - I actually enjoyed Kate & Leopold. But I just wanted to provide some context for why I watched this movie again recently. Normally I could blame my partner Tobie's general love for romantic comedies for such movies appearing in my review queue, but this was a special case.

Kate & Leopold always felt like a reverse version of Somewhere in Time, albeit a lot more comedic. It's a natural reaction given the time travel premise that is central to the overall plot of the movie, I suppose. And to be fair, things work rather well in this regard. The movie has a decent touch of scientific nerdiness woven into the rest of the narrative with all the other bits being taken up by Meg Ryan's expressions and Hugh Jackman acting practically like a Disney prince come to life. Good job.