Erik Cheats and Picks Downtime

As the headline makes clear, I (Erik here) have made a slight cheat in my selection for September. Oh, but before we get too far into that, here's where you can download our August episode on Trevor Baxendale's Fear of the Dark. Also, here's a complete list  of all the novels being reprinted as part of the 50th Anniversary Collection. Who knows? If they sell well enough, maybe more of these books will be brought back into print. Stranger things have happened, like that time I was in a completely black room and I thought I saw...

Where was I? Oh, yes--the cheat! Well, it's not really a cheat, I suppose, but we do tend to try to rotate through the various Doctors when we select our books for both the PDA and the VMA ranges. While we've done an equal number of books starring all of the previous classic Doctors (1-6), and I was technically free to pick a book featuring any of them, it's been a year since we've done a book featuring the Second Doctor, and I was leaning in that direction, until I got a mischievous twinkle in my eye and decided, instead, to pick Downtime. And I'm sure the silver control ball I found the other day in no way influenced my decision.

If you're unfamiliar with its history, Downtime was a direct-to-video, independently produced, Doctor Who spin-off made by some long-time fans that featured both actors from the series--Elizabeth Sladen, Nicholas Courtney, and Deborah Watling, among others--and behind-the-scenes people with experience of working on Who: director Christopher Barry and writer Marc Platt, plus Ian Levine, about whom, the less said, perhaps the better. It was not officially licensed by the BBC, however, and therefore couldn't feature the character of the Doctor or the TARDIS, which Platt worked around by focusing the story on other characters to which they could secure the rights. When the time came to novelize his script for the Virgin Missing Adventure range, Platt seemingly saw no reason to insert the Doctor, and so it is the only book in that range not to focus around any incarnation of the Doctor, though several apparently make cameo appearances.

From the back cover:

Across the room, in a high-backed leather chair, Victoria saw the old man from the reading room. His face was curiously young for someone so long dead.

In 1966 the Doctor defeated the Great Intelligence, but he knew it wasn’t a final victory. And his companion Victoria, whose mind had once hosted the evil entity, might still fall prey to its power.

Now it seems that his fears are justified. In a Tibetan monastery, the monks display unearthly powers - UNIT are investigating. A new university has opened in London with a secret agenda that may threaten the whole country. Victoria, abandoned in an age very different from her own, and haunted by visions of a father she refuses to believe is dead, is slipping into despair and madness. But are the visions which plague her really hallucinations? Or has the Great Intelligence once again made Earth its target for invasion?

So, join is for that discussion in September! Happy reading!

In the meantime, you can email us at dwbcpodcast@gmail.com & follow us on Twitter: the podcast--@DWBCpodcast, Erik--@sjcAustenite, and Sean--@tardistavern.

The Well-Mannered War

Our review of Terrance Dicks' World Game has been available and can be downloaded here.

This month we bring you our discussion of the Virgin Missing Adventure The Well-Mannered War by Gareth Roberts, author of two other Missing Adventures, The Romance of Crime  and The English Way of Death, as well as the screenwriter for the television episodes “The Shakespeare Code”, “The Unicorn and the Wasp”, “The Lodger”, and “Closing Time”.  From the back cover:

‘Destroy them!  Destroy them all – now!”

Barclow – an Earth-type planet on the fringes of space at an inestimably distant point in the future.  Two factions have laid claim to it: humans from the nearby colony world of Metralubit, and a small group of Chelonian troopers.  But in nearly two hundred years of conflict not one shot has been fired in anger, there are regular socials in the trenches, and the military commanders are the best of friends.

The Doctor, Romana, and K-9, arriving in the midst of these bizarre hostilities, find there’s real trouble to come.  A crucial election on Metralubit is looming, and K-9 is forced to begin a new career as a politician.  Meanwhile, Romana meets an old friend and the Doctor discovers that a sinister hidden force may be attempting to alter the war’s friendly nature.

What are the plans of Galatea, leader of the beautiful but robotic Femdroids?  Who is killing soldiers on both sides of the battle lines?  And will K-9’s oratory save the day?

Just what is going on?

The “old friend” mentioned above happens to be Menlove Stokes, who previously appeared in Roberts’ The Romance of Crime.  The Well-Mannered War is notable because it is the last of the Virgin Missing Adventures, published in 1997 as the BBC was preparing to publish its own series of novels featuring past Doctors and an entirely new series with the Eighth Doctor to replace Virgin’s New Adventures.

Special thanks go to Laura of The Ood Cast for doing this month's reading!

Pour yourself a tankard of Chelonian grog and sit back and relax as we discuss The Well-Mannered War!

Next month, keep a ear out for our review of the Virgin New Adventure The Pit, by Neil Penswick.

Fun links:

The Well-Mannered War at the Doctor Who Reference Guide.  (Spoilers, sweetie!)

The Well-Mannered War on Amazon.  (Yikes, it's expensive!)

Gareth Roberts' entry on Wikipedia.

Check us out on Facebook, follow us on Twitter via @dwbcpodcast, and email us at dwbcpodcast@gmail.com.  Plus, be sure to follow Erik on Twitter via @sjcaustenite and Sean via @tardistavern.

Winter in April: Cold Fusion

Our review of Gary Russell's Business Unusual is now available here.  Special thanks to our friend Charlie Paulson for providing last month's reading.

April brings us snowstorms, Adric, Nyssa, Tegan, the Fifth Doctor, and the Seventh Doctor in Lance Parkin's Cold Fusion, one of the later installments in Virgin's Missing Adventures series.  From the back cover:

'The entire universe is at stake and I'm locked in here with another incarnation of myself, and not even one of the good ones.'

More than one TARDIS lands on a barren ice world.  The fifth Doctor, Adric, Nyssa and Tegan find a once ordered society on the verge of collapse, as rebels wage a dirty war with Scientifica, the ruling elite.  All that stands between order and anarchy is the massed presence of an Adjudicator peacekeeping force.

But is peace the only reason for the Adjudicator garrison?  What exactly has been discovered deep beneath the planet's surface?  Who are the mysterious Ferutu?  And why is telling a ghost story a criminal offense?

The fifth Doctor sides with the cause of justice and fairness as always.  But, as a threat to the universe unfolds, he finds himself in conflict with his past...and his future.

For continuity buffs, this story takes place between the television stories "Castrovalva" and "Four to Doomsday" and between the New Adventures Return of the Living Dad and The Death of Art.  The back cover text seems to skirt around the fact that the Seventh Doctor and his friends are present in this story, but anything that is blatantly obvious by glancing at the front cover shouldn't be considered a spoiler.

We previously reviewed a Lance Parkin's The Infinity Doctors back in Episode 8.  It can't be argued that Parkin is an ambitious author, and hopefully Cold Fusion will not disappoint.  So sit back and enjoy!

Fun Links:

"Cold Fusion" on Amazon  (Wow, that's rich!)

Lance Parkin's Official Website

Lance Parkin's Wikipedia Page

"Cold Fusion" on the Doctor Who Reference Guide  (Spoilers, sweetie!)

For January: A Device of Death

Episode 12, in which we review Atom Bomb Blues by Andrew Cartmel is now available here.  As the new year breezes in, we go back in time to savor something a little more vintage from the Virgin Missing Adventures line.

Assuming you haven't notice the image planted to the left of this text, our next review will be A Device of Death by Christopher Bulis.  From the back cover:

'As a member of an inferior race, you either work to serve the cause of Averon, or die.'

Sarah is marooned on a slave world where the only escape is death.  Harry is caught in the middle of an interplanetary invasion, and has to combine medicine with a desperate mission.  And the Doctor lands on a world so secret it does not even have a name.

Why have the TARDIS crew been scattered across the stars?  What terrible accident could have wiped the Doctor's memory?  And what could interest the Time Lords in this war-torn sector of space?

At the heart of a star-spanning conspiracy lies an ancient quest: people have been making weapons since the dawn of time -- but perhaps someone has finally discovered the ultimate device of death.

A Device of Death is slotted nicely in between the television stories "Genesis of the Daleks" and "Revenge of the Cybermen," so presumably something goes haywire with the time ring provided to the Doctor and his friends.  (Fun fact: this is Erik's favorite period of the show, so he is particularly looking forward to this one.)

This episode will be the first in which we have a "repeat author"; we previously read Christopher Bulis' The Sorcerer's Apprentice for our first episode back in January of 2011, so in a way we've come full circle (yes, we've been doing this for a year, and we can hardly believe it ourselves).  Although The Sorcerer's Apprentice is perhaps Bulis' best-known work, he also penned four other Virgin Missing Adventures, one for BBC's Eighth Doctor range, and five for BBC's past Doctors range.

Thank you to those of you that have dedicated a year to listening to us, and we are looking forward to providing you with many more reviews in the year(s) to come.  In the meantime, grab a cup of tea, sit back in your easy chair, and immerse yourself in A Device of Death.

Fun links:

Christopher Bulis' TARDIS Wiki Page

"A Device of Death" from the Doctor Who Reference Guide -- WARNING!  SPOILERS!

"A Device of Death" on Amazon  (Yes, it's expensive!)

Please "like" us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter via @dwbcpodcast, Erik via @sjcaustenite, and Sean via @tardistavern.  Happy reading and Happy New Year!