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Justin O’Neal art

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Continuing my readthrough of the Doctor Who Virgin New Adventures, I finished reading Damaged Goods the other day. This book was Russel T Davies' first published foray into Who and it was an absolute banger. Many of these novels don't really hold up to much scrutiny as a reader, but this is one of the few that I think really stands out - not just as a Doctor Who novel, but a novel that is worth reading.

The Doctor and companions find themselves on earth, trying to ingratiate themselves with the residents of a working class housing estate - given what RTD would go on to write in the main show, this sort of setting should sound instantly familiar. However, we cannot forget that these are the VNAs and thus there is a level of grit and grime that feel more like they come from Torchwood. This book gets dark. I can handle that, but it's definitely something to be wary of if you're interested in reading the book.

The main enemy of the book was a really fun concept, definitely one that special effects would struggle to keep up with but in prose can really shine. And speaking of the prose the novel is written well - there's some great lines in here. I particularly love The Doctor describing the challenge of ingratiating themselves with the different households on the estate as having to "breach 76 fortresses". That's a wonderfully evocative bit of dialogue.

And I really have to give RTD praise for the characters - they're well drawn and compelling. One of them is a gay man who is roiling in self-loathing, there's a mother desperate to give her children a better life than her, and a teenage girl who saw something many years ago (as well as The Doctor) but wants nothing more than to have nothing to do with it. And that's only naming a few - all of the characters have their internal struggles and these are all well done.

In all, I highly recommend the novel. I will caveat that it is dark and not for the faint of heart - expect a similar level of grimness as Torchwood: Children of Earth had. The book was a great time though, and I will look forward to seeing how So Vile A Sin continues this little arc that's developed over the past few books.

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Continuing my readthrough of the Doctor Who Virgin New Adventures I finished reading The Death of Art by Simon Bucher-Jones the other day. Set in Paris in the late 19th century, the TARDIS crew are trying to avert some catastrophe that is due to happen (which will destroy history, naturally) and The Doctor thinks psychic powers might have something to do with it.

Not going to bury the lede on this one, it was a bit of a confusing mess. By the end it resolved itself into a fairly clear story, but along the way I was constantly unsure what was going on. The experience of reading it was almost dreamlike in a sense; scenes would shift with little to no connection and characters come in and out of prominence with no fanfare. I don't think this was fully intentional however, and it made the book very slow to read.

The concept behind the aliens in this story was cool, however it didn't help with the confusion as there was a lot of jargon introduced very quickly. Again, later on this became more obvious when it was clear what they actually were, but the first few scenes appear so unconnected to the other scenes going on that it's hard to latch on to them. I think that a concept like this could only really be done in a book if executed like it was here - it would definitely be hard to do in a visual medium.

The Doctor and crew were fine here, Chris gets a fun plotline where he has to infiltrate the Parisian police, and ends up needing to pretend to be The Doctor. The Doctor has his fingers in many pies and gets to engage in a bit of scheming. Roz, meanwhile, seems to get the short end of the stick and doesn't get a ton to do. There is some insight on her past though which is interesting. The other supporting characters and villains aren't too interesting overall.

The book does bring back The Shadow Directory from Christmas on a Rational Planet, however they don't seem to do all that much here. The callback does make sense at least seeing as the book is set in Paris.

The next book in the series is Damaged Goods by Russel T Davies, and I'm already halfway through. It's a good one. Expect a review for that one soon.

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It Waits at the Crossroads

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i don't know the artists.

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Honestly shocked it took Araki until Part 7 to get around to doing dinosaurs. You'd think he'd be all over that

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I played Dark Souls 1 for the first time around the same time that I first read Gardens of the Moon and had such a good time with both. I feel like if there's any one author I would want to collaborate with Fromsoft on a new game it would be Steven Erikson. His writing in Malazan evokes such a rich sense of history and he similarly knows that leaving some things mysterious or unsaid is valuable

if your favorite part of fromsoft games is the lore, characters, and storytelling style i am begging you on my hands and god damn knees to read Malazan Book of the Fallen

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Jim Kay

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Midnight Gardener

2022

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Untitled by ABeardedArtist

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Mattis Dovier

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Carlos Dearmas

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Liz Mamont

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Fellowship - Sound Haven by Calder Moore

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Untitled, painting by ABeardedArtist

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two part

ink and watercolour on sketchbook

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