Robots, Sisterhoods, and Vampires: A Tribute to Terrance Dicks

The things we see and hear, watch and read in childhood can have a lasting impact on our lives. They influence us, often in imperceptible ways, and help shape us into the people we become as adults. Some have more influence; some have less. Some we’re aware of; some we’re not.

Some of my earliest memories are of Doctor Who, years before I even started watching the programme regularly. My mom watched it though, and I often caught bits and pieces of it. It usually terrified me, so I wouldn’t stick around for entire episodes. Yet, perhaps because of that fear, it imprinted itself on me. The adventures of the fourth Doctor and Sarah Jane Smith became a significant part of my early childhood even if I only partially watched them. I talked about this a little more when I paid tribute to Elisabeth Sladen in my review of The Sarah Jane Adventures episode, “Sky”.

I started watching Doctor Who regularly when I was ten after I saw episode two of “Full Circle”. It hooked me in for good. Just a few weeks later, the story “State of Decay” began and that became one of my favourites at the time. This story of the Great Vampires was written by a certain Terrance Dicks, a name I would soon come to know very well, a name that most fans of 60s through 80s Doctor Who know well.

Aching God

Disclaimer: I received a free copy of this novel from the author in return for an honest review.

Fantasy can be a genre in which it’s difficult to stand out. There’s a lot out there, both good and bad, and a lot of it can be very similar, following the same basic tropes and formulas. Indeed, it’s often expected to follow those tropes and formulas. Aching God is a novel with many of the usual trappings of fantasy, particularly those established in roleplaying games like Dungeons & Dragons and Pathfinder. It involves a quest (perhaps the most iconic trope of fantasy). There is lots of magic, some of which is practised by sorcerers who have different kinds of specialisations. Other magic is used by followers of the various different gods, who grant their priests spells that can heal or protect. While there are many gods, their worshippers tend to follow one solely rather than worship them as a pantheon. The world also has warriors and roguish types, and of course there are monsters and other kinds of threats and challenges for the heroes to face.

I will confess, it took me a little while to get into the book because, at first, there didn’t seem a lot to differentiate it from all the other very similar fantasy out there. However, it wasn’t all that long. After a couple of chapters, the book begins to establish its own identity as we begin to learn a bit more about the world. By around the fourth chapter or so, I was hooked.

All the Birds in the Sky

What is the difference between science fiction and fantasy? The two are often grouped together. Fans of one are usually fans of the other as well, and indeed the two often overlap. Much that is labelled science fiction contains things that are outright fantastical. The Star Wars series is one of the most extreme examples of this. Called science fiction, it follows the formula of epic fantasy, complete with wizards (jedi), monsters, and heroes fighting the forces of evil. It uses the trappings of science fiction (spaceships, faster-than-light travel, lasers), but without any actual science behind them. The reverse happens as well, with many fantasies containing scientifically plausible ideas. So where is the line between the two? Does that line even really exist?

All the Birds in the Sky by Charlie Jane Anders plays around with the separation between science and fantasy. It jumps back and forth from one side to the other of that hard-to-define line, all the while effortlessly deconstructing the idea that there’s even a line in the first place, demonstrating that, in the end, both science fiction and fantasy are just story-telling.

It does this for more than just science fiction and fantasy, too. It tears apart the lines between comedy and serious drama, being both hilarious and deadly serious, fun and emotional. There are moments of action that wouldn’t be out of place in a Transformers movie, while also being a book about normal everyday life, from children dealing with bullies at school to the sex lives of young adults. Indeed, the book defies most attempts to slap a genre of any kind on it, and it is all the more delightful because of it.

It even defies expectations on a meta-textual level. The book is written in third person limited (meaning it focuses on the point of view of one character at a time), alternating chapter-by-chapter between its two protagonists. Except every once in a while, when the two characters are together, the perspective switches back and forth between them from one paragraph to the next. On other occasions, the perspective widens out to other characters. Even though this can be unexpected (third person omniscient is rarely used these days), it’s never jarring. Anders makes it seem completely normal and natural—she makes you think you were expecting it.

June Round-Up Plus Doctor Who Gets a New Composer

It’s been awhile since I’ve done one of these (see here for an explanation of my absence if you haven’t seen it already), and there’s not a whole lot to cover in the past month. But it does feel good to be getting back into the swing of things again.

Much of my recent stuff has involved getting caught up on things I should have done ages ago, so that means finally getting a review up of the Doctor Who Series 10 finale, “The Doctor Falls”, as well as last December’s Christmas special, “Twice Upon a Time”, featuring David Bradley as the first Doctor and introducing Jodie Whittaker as the thirteenth.

I also began catching up on the large number of Pathfinder products I intend to review, beginning with a return to the Giantslayer Adventure Path with the third instalment, Forge of the Giant God, as well as Adventurer’s Guide.

Pathfinder and Doctor Who have tended to make up the bulk of my posts (and there will continue to be lots of those), but I want to expand into covering more of other things as well. In particular, I’m intending to have a few more reviews of novels, and I started this past month with a review of The Savior’s Champion by Jenna Moreci.

Perhaps most exciting for me, however, is my own novel, which I am currently looking for beta-readers for! The Child of the Volgs is an epic fantasy novel that I have been working on for quite some time, and beta-reading is an important stage in the development of any book. It allows the author (in this case, me) to get feedback from a variety of different people, which the author can then use to help in further revisions. For the beta-readers themselves, it presents an opportunity to see and be involved in the process of creating a book. You can help make the book into the best book it can be! I’ve got several beta-readers already, but I could definitely use more. If you’re interested please check out my Beta-Read page for full details.

Looking to the future, I’ve got a review of the Pathfinder Module The House on Hook Street coming up in the next couple days. I’ll also be getting to more Giantslayer this month and hopefully a few other things as well. There will also be another novel review. With Doctor Who not currently on the air, there won’t be any new reviews (unless I finally mange to get back to finishing my Series 8 reviews), but I do hope to do a couple of Doctor Who-related posts, including a look back at the entirety of the Steven Moffat era of the programme. That might not happen in July (it’ll depend on how much time I have), but it is definitely a goal before Series 11 starts around October (no confirmed start date at this point). Of course, I’ll probably cover any major Doctor Who news that comes out.

That said, so far, there’s not been a whole lot of news about what to expect in the new series (which I kind of like—it maintains the surprise), but a few things in the year I was gone that I didn’t cover included the actual announcement of Jodie Whittaker as the thirteenth Doctor and then, later, the reveal of her costume (see picture at top of post), which took a brief time to grow on me, but I now really like. There was also the announcement of who would be playing her companions: Bradley Walsh as Graham, Mandip Gill as Yasmin, and Tosin Cole as Ryan. It’s been a long time since the Doctor has had three companions (the last time was during the fifth Doctor’s time with Tegan, Nyssa, and Adric), so I’m very intrigued to see how the series handles the larger TARDIS crew.

It was also announced some time back that Murray Gold, who has composed the music for Doctor Who since it returned in 2005, would not be returning for Series 11. Just a couple days ago, it was announced that Segun Akinola would be the new composer. I generally liked Murray Gold’s music for the show, but he was there for a long time, and Doctor Who has always thrived on change. With the début of a new Doctor (particularly the first female Doctor), this is as good a time as any to change up the music, and I look forward to hearing what Akinola brings to the series. As far as I’m concerned, there are exciting times ahead for Doctor Who and I look forward to October (or whenever the new series starts).

Anyway, thanks to everyone who reads this blog! Have a great July!

Beta-Readers Needed!

Hey folks! I’m writing a book! In fact, I’ve been writing it for quite a long time now, and it’s finally reaching the stage where I can start thinking about eventual publication. But first, I need some beta-readers to provide me with some feedback to help make the book the best it can possibly be. I’m hoping that maybe a few of my readers on this blog might just be interested. If you are, I’ve set up a special page on this blog with complete details of what the beta-reading process entails and how you can get involved. Click here or on the link at the top of this page to get there.

Thanks!

The Savior's Champion

Reading has always been an important part of my life. I do a lot of reading, but recently, most of that has been either roleplaying books or non-fiction. Last month, I realised that it had been over a year since I’d read a novel. Clearly, that needed rectifying. But first, I needed to choose something to read. I own a huge pile of books that have been waiting to be read for years, but I decided to skip all those and go for something completely new. My attention turned almost immediately to The Savior’s Champion, mainly because I’ve watched a lot of author Jenna Moreci’s YouTube videos and I was aware of its recent release.

I’d read a number of reviews of the book, most of them gushing with praise, so I figured it was a safe bet. However, despite the positive reviews, I didn’t expect to love the book as much, just like it. Too often, I’ve encountered things that don’t turn out to be as good as the hype. Also, I can be very critical of my entertainment, even the things I love (just read my Doctor Who reviews for examples of that).

Well, I was wrong. I absolutely loved this book. It very quickly became one of those books that I just couldn’t put down (except I had to because I had to go to work or do other boring things like that). It may have been over a year since I last read a novel, but it has been even longer since one had me so enthralled beginning to end.

Winter Witch

It’s been quite awhile since I last read a novel based on a game world. Years ago, I voraciously read through the Dragonlance Chronicles when that trilogy was first published. I remember enjoying the books at the time, but when I reread them a few years later, my opinion of them diminished considerably. I went on to read numerous other Dragonlance and Forgotten Realms books and a few books based on other game worlds as well. While I found the odd one to be enjoyable (I remember finding The Black Vessel, a book set in the Mystara setting, to be particularly fun to read), I became increasingly disappointed with them the more I read. I found them poorly written, with cardboard characters and plots that were unoriginal, predictable, and dull. Worst of all, they rarely seemed to have much setting flavour, seeming more like generic Tolkienesque fantasy novels that were simply shoehorned into the given setting. Eventually, a little over ten years or so ago, I gave up reading them altogether.

Fast forward a decade. It occurred to me that, while I continued to be quite critical of game novels, not having read any for so long meant that I had no way of knowing whether they were still as bad as they once were, or if the quality had increased. Perhaps they had never been as poor as I remembered, as no doubt my tastes had changed a bit in the passing decade, or maybe I had just poorly chosen the novels I did read (as I certainly didn’t read every novel available back then, only a small sample really). So when Paizo started releasing their Pathfinder Tales series of novels based on the Golarion setting, I began to ponder whether I should pick one up and read it. Recently, I decided to do just that and bought myself a copy of Winter Witch by Elaine Cunningham*. I had read a short story or two by Cunningham and was impressed by them, so I figured her novel would be a good choice to start with.