I'm Back

[quipxotic]

I've only had intermittent access to the internet for roughly a week and a half. Before that I was deep in drabble-writing-land, but I'm back now. Prepare yourself for bullet point updates!

Reading

• I listened to Big Finish's The Martian Invasion of Earth featuring Richard Armitage and Lucy Briggs-Owen and it was truly frightening. I can see why it won Best Audio Drama for 2018. Armitage plays a fictionalized version of H.G. Wells in an alternate 1890s where the only thing that's changed is that aliens invade Earth. Definitely one that's worth picking up if it ever goes on sale.


• I bought the novelization of the Second Doctor serial "The Mind Robber" primarily because it was read by the fabulous Derek Jacobi. The TV version is one of the more surreal 1960s Doctor Who stories and isn't one of my favorites, but I was pleasantly surprised by the book version. Not only does Jacobi shine, but the story is so much better in book form where the special effects all take place in your head. Author Peter Ling also beefed up the rather weak plot and made it into an engaging story.


• I listened to the War Doctor novel Engines of War by George Mann. In general, it was quite good and I enjoyed the character of Cinder. The War Doctor has always been a tricky prospect: how do you write a version of the Doctor who does things the Doctor wouldn't and yet is still the Doctor? The general solution (and something that Big Finish does a lot the War Doctor audios) is to make him a toothless, shouty Doctor who keeps telling people how bad he is without...actually...doing anything bad...ever. The book gives him some teeth, at least early on; you can believe this is someone who has done and seen horrible things. By the middle he's back to being very Doctorish, but there's an in-story explanation for that, so it didn't bother me as much. Your mileage may vary. I wrote oodles of drabbles for it, if you're interested.

Which segues me into...

Writing

• I've finally broken through my brain block on the "Hill House Eight" chapter I've been working on for what feels like forever. I should a have a draft of that ready sometime this weekend.


• I've written a lot of Time War stuff recently. In addition to the War Doctor drabbles, I've finished writing for the Eighth Doctor Time War vol. 1.


• I'm about done writing for the Second Doctor Companion Chronicles vol. 1, I just need to finish up writing for "The Integral." The other stories include "The Mouthless Dead" and "The Story of Extinction," which both have new drabbles, and "The Edge," which I wrote for years ago.