New Who in Conversation: Blink (S03E10)

David is coming to New Who for the first time, having loved Classic Who as a kid. Tehani is a recent convert, and ploughed through Seasons 1 to 6 (so far) in just a few weeks after becoming addicted thanks to Matt Smith – she’s rewatching to keep up with David! Tansy is the expert in the team, with a history in Doctor Who fandom that goes WAY back, and a passion for Doctor Who that inspires us all. We’re also joined today by guest viewer Joanne Anderton, who is also discovering New Who for the first time! We’re working our way through New Who, using season openers and closers, and Hugo shortlisted episodes, as our blogging points. Just for fun!

We would like to thank everyone who nominated our “New Who in Conversation” series for the William Atheling Jr Award – it’s a great honour to be on the ballot! Voting for the annual Ditmar Awards (which the Atheling is included in) is open to all members of Swancon 36 (2011 Natcon – Perth) and Craftinomicon (2012 Natcon – Melbourne), and can be done online.

“Blink” – Season three, episode ten

Sally Sparrow – Carey Mulligan

The Doctor – David Tennant

Martha Jones – Freema Agyeman

TEHANI:

We move straight from the excellence that is “Human Nature / The Family of Blood” into the completely different, but equally amazing, “Blink”. And I want to say it straight up – Sally Sparrow ROCKS. Carey Mulligan, who plays Sparrow, absolutely owns this episode – it’s pretty amazing, for a one off appearance.

She shares very little screen time with the Doctor, as this is a “Doctor-lite” episode, and I wonder if this lets us really embrace her – she IS the focus of the episode. While the Doctor is there, making things happen, he’s not THERE, onscreen, with his dazzling charisma – it’s all about Sally – ordinary Sally thrown into the strangest of events – who really gets the job done. I LOVE her!

Favourite line: “I’m clever, and I’m listening. And don’t patronise me, because people have died and I’m not happy.” Go Sally – Doctor smackdown!

And two episodes in a row we have a gorgeous, strong woman finding the Doctor, and passing him up. Poor Matron Redfern in the preceding episodes really had a hard job of it, but Sally did it splendidly – she recognised the Doctor for who and what he is, and it made her choice easy.

TANSY:

I think Sally Sparrow is the character most requested to return as a companion – and as Carey Mulligan’s star rises in Hollywood it becomes less and less likely. She is playing Daisy in the new Great Gatsby movie opposite Leo DiCaprio!

TEHANI:

Even more than Sophia Myles?? Wow, impressive!

New Who in Conversation: Human Nature/The Family of Blood (S03E08/09)

David is coming to New Who for the first time, having loved Classic Who as a kid. Tehani is a recent convert, and ploughed through Seasons 1 to 6 (so far) in just a few weeks after becoming addicted thanks to Matt Smith – she’s rewatching to keep up with David! Tansy is the expert in the team, with a history in Doctor Who fandom that goes WAY back, and a passion for Doctor Who that inspires us all. We’re going to work our way through New Who, using season openers and closers, and Hugo shortlisted episodes, as our blogging points. Just for fun!

We would like to thank everyone who nominated our “New Who in Conversation” series for the William Atheling Jr Award – it’s a great honour to be on the ballot! Voting for the annual Ditmar Awards (which the Atheling is included in) is open to all members of Swancon 36 (2011 Natcon – Perth) and Craftinomicon (2012 Natcon – Melbourne), and can be done online.

“Human Nature/The Family of Blood” – Season three, episodes eight & nine

The Doctor – David Tennant

Martha Jones – Freema Agyeman

TEHANI:
Before we wriggle on to some of the best eps yet, a quick look at those we’ve skipped…
“Daleks in Manhattan / Evolution of the Daleks” – over the top, quite offensively horrible in some places, and really not at all engaging. Oh, and another “last Daleks eva” storyline, with the Cult of Skaro back again. I pretty much skimmed this on the rewatch and didn’t feel I’d missed anything at all. In fact, I wish I hadn’t bothered at all and never reminded myself of the horrible pig-men. And I REALLY wish this hadn’t been dragged out to two episodes – perhaps in one it would have been a bit better. I think I know what it was aiming to say, but for me, it was definitely a low of New Who.

DAVID:
Wow, you really didn’t like it! I actually quite enjoyed it, and my inner romantic was very happy that Laszlo and Tallulah ended up together at the end. My only real issue, and I am afraid that it really did bug me, was the way that the human hybrid version of Dalek Sec talked, it was atrocious.

TANSY:
I think this is one of my long-term least favourite, and nothing much has changed! The concept of the Daleks in 1930s New York is brilliant, and I liked the idea that they are the only reason the Empire State Building got built, but there isn’t much for me to love here.

TEHANI:
“The Lazarus Experiment” – oh, much better than the last two, although I found the actor playing the scientist (Mark Gatiss) odd. Almost like he didn’t know what to do with the role and over-hammed it. Maybe not quite the right person for the part there. It was good to see some more of Martha’s family, with some heavy foreshadowing for later episodes sneaking in!

Mini-Reviews #20

I feel like I’m not reading as much as usual at the moment. I’ve been doing a lot of proofing and slushing, and work/committee related things, so that might be a reason. Ah, Christmas is coming, so hopefully can ramp up again then!

Bullet, Laurel K Hamilton - *sigh* Totally a porn book. There’s actually quite a lot of story here, but it’s info dumped and completely second fiddle to the (admittedly quite hot) sex sections.

Red Hood’s Revenge, Jim C Hines - Enjoyed this but felt the character of Roudette was underused, and the switching POV was distracting. Look forward to the final book in this series though, as they are still great reads.

Cyroburn, Lois McMaster Bujold – I love Lois. SO delighted to see a new instalment in the Vorkosigan saga, although it has to be said this isn’t my favourite ever book of the series. There are two main reasons for this – one is that I love seeing Miles in his relationships with family and close friends, and there wasn’t a lot of that here. The second, and biggest, problem for me was the point of view – flipping as it did between Jin, Roic and Miles (although not nearly enough of Miles as I wanted) it got a bit fuzzy who was narrating at times. And as I think Tansy said, there just wasn’t enough purpose or difference in the voices to justify the multiple POV. Having said that, the plot was excellent and I have a love/hate relationship with the ending!

Masques, Patricia Briggs - Fascinating book, rewritten from the original although the author says still not the book she would write now. Liked it a lot though – great characters and I enjoyed the plot.

Wild Seed, Octavia E. Butler - Turns out this is a prequel, but it’s very engaging and powerful. Some amazing exploration of race, gender, fear and love, among other things. I’m definitely reading more.

Indulgence in Death, JD Robb - Once again, a new In Death interrupts all other reading. I liked this, as usual, although I prefer the ones where we don’t know the criminal/s so early on. Some nice quiet time in this one, as well as some action. I like seeing the secondary character development.

Wolfsbane, Patricia Briggs - More polished than Masques, and a totally fun fantasy romp.

Rosemary and Rue, Seanan McGuire - Really enjoyed this fascinating fairy-oriented urban fantasy. Was an interesting read as the plot wasn’t really the main part of the book – there was a lot of establishing backstory and exploring world building, but the plot itself was fairly borderline. However, I anticipate that now all this is established, the following books will be more action packed! Not that this lacked action, exactly, but it wasn’t the main focus, for my mind.

Hunger, Jackie Morse Kessler - Great quick YA urban fantasy read, very cleverly written with some solid and crunchy themes.

Blue Diablo and Hell Fire, Ann Aguirre Urban Fantasy 3.5 Really enjoyed these – got very sucked in and enjoyed premise, characters and storylines. Best UF I’ve read for ages, on a par with Patricia Briggs.

Feed, Mira Grant - A little slow to start but totally compelling after only a few chapters. Thought provoking and fascinating, loved the characters and story both!

Racing the Dark: Book 1 of the Spirit Binders, Alaya Dawn Johnson - Highly readable, although suffering from some quite random POV changes and an over-explained plot at times. Enjoyed this.

JUDGING BOOKS, presented with no comment:

Legends of Australian Fantasy, Jack Dann & Jonathan Strahan (eds)
The Library of Forgotten Books, Rjurik Davidson
Sprawl, Alisa Krasnostein (ed)

FableCroft roundup

It’s been a busy week or so at FableCroft, so I’m rounding up the week with links!

1. Reminder about the pre-order special for Worlds Next Door – pay only $17.95 instead of RRP $19.95 by ordering before the end of May!  

2. The FableCroft website is now live and to celebrate, I’m giving away a copy of Justine Larbalestier’s awesome novel Liar – enter the competition here, and have a look around while you’re at it, if you like!

3. Also on the FableCroft website, I post about the new FableCroft ReviewCast, which I’ve just launched – basically it’s me chatting about books I’ve reviewed! I had a lot of fun making it, so it will no doubt become a regular thing. Will hopefully be on iTunes soon too. You can subscribe to the RSS for the podcast itself on the podcast site, or subscribe to the FableCroft RSS for updates

4. And now to the Worlds Next Door website! WND gets its own site because it will host all the teaching materials to accompany the book, and I didn’t want to clutter up the FC website with all of that. You’re welcome to check it out though, and if any teachers out there would like to send in material, email me and we’ll chat!

5. I started on the main reading of reprints for Australis Imaginarium this week as well – sent off a couple of acceptances and quite a few thanks but not quite right emails, but still have lots to get through, so don’t worry if you haven’t heard from me. I’m working on it

Enjoy!

Week 9 – surely that can’t be right!

Bub seems to have grown up about a million percent in the past week – we’re getting lots of smiles now (particularly just after a feed when he’s feeling very content!), and he’s cooing and making lovely noises at us. He enjoys his big brother and sister chatting with him too. He had his eight week needles on Monday, and was pretty clingy for a couple of days, but he’s settling again now.

Hubby is home this week, which is so good! Not having to dash out for school drop offs and pickups is great. He goes back again next week for about ten days, but then we’re back on the 8/6 roster, which we’re REALLY looking forward to! Master Seven heads off on his Queensland adventure next Saturday. Miss Four is jealous, but looking forward to her Granna visiting the week after that.

She’s still being difficult about going to school/daycare, but once I’m gone, she’s fine. This clingyness in the mornings is extremely frustrating, as she used to be fine with all this – partly blame arrival of bub, but partly lack of routine – she used to go five days a week to daycare, now only two days of "school" (and one day of care, because I was going nuts, but we’re cutting that out after the holidays). She’s doing it at ballet too, which is really odd, because she loves it. *sigh* I guess she’ll get over it. Eventually. 

I’m proud as punch mum with M7, because his reading is leaping ahead amazingly – he’s reading the Captain Underpants books (devouring would perhaps be a better term!) at a rate of one per day. I’m trying desperately to find him something else that will equally engross him – he’s pooh poohed the Zac Power Test Drive books, but I think he’ll go through the pile of Simpsons comics I bought home from the library. Looking for proper book recommendations for him though!

This week I missed out on a book blogger role I applied for – apparently I got to the shortlist stage, but they went with someone else for the same type of blog I put in for, a Canberra person. A bit disappointed actually, but them’s the breaks! I’ve been working on some TPP stuff in my non-baby cuddling times, and of course on my own books and associated tasks to do with that. I also wrote a profile for my school website, based on my role with the ASLA committee. Oh, AND received in the mail this week copies of Magpies (with my first two reviews for them in it) and Fiction Focus, which has not only a bunch of my reviews, but also a four page feature article I wrote! I’ll reprint that here at some point

In other news, illustrator Kathleen Jennings has posted some sketches of her pictures for my forthcoming anthology Worlds Next Door! The anthology is going great guns – I’m only waiting on one story to come back from edits, all the rest are laid out and have had my very awesome proofer go over them, and they are about to go out, with contracts, to the authors. Woot!