Friendly Places

The front of this book has a mini essay on pronunciation and several pages listing all the names of characters.
I needed this.
I spent so much time referring back to this.

The names being so unfamiliar to me added to the effect of being dropped in to a strange culture or two at the deep end, so that's nice, that's part of what the character has going on, that's a thing one could reasonably desire to induce the reader to feel.
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I think I only slightly like this pretty well written book.

But I put that next to my tendency to read franchise stuff forever - all things are Doctor Who all my life, and most things are Pathfinder for years now - and I think this effect of being landed in a world and having to figure it out amidst great confusion is exactly my least favourite thing about reading new stuff.

I think people who want a world plunked on them from a height and to have to figure it all out from clues are going to like this a lot better than I do.

I have been finishing things and then going on to the next thing without writing them up, which today bothered me enough to go fetch the stack back here and write about them.

Doctor Who: Origin Stories
Difficult to give a rating. I think I decided on 3.5/5 stars in the end. The stories vary a lot.
The one about Vastra was very good indeed and I would give it a 5 as a short stand alone.
Same for the one about Kate and her mother and relationship with her father. Covered a lot of significant stuff for the page count.
The rest suffer rather from having to tidy up before they go. ( Read more... )

Glad I read it, not sure I'm happy how much shelf space it will take vs how many pages of it I actually liked.



Doctor Who: The Legends of River Song
I gave this one 5/5. It was going to be 4.5 but when I asked myself what more I would want from River Song published fiction I didn't think of much so I gave it a 5.
It's five shorter stories in one book, and among the Doctor Who running around saving things it manages to hit some strong emotional bits. River and children, or River and predestination paradox. A character that believes they've got a hard deadline. More than one character not recognised as a person by others, just shaped to someone else's design. And where the last story leaves her is also mean, but in a way that underlines canon and how rough it was on her.
I love stories with River, she's such an interesting character, and this set were great.


Big Finish Audio: The Diary of River Song: The Orphan Quartet
Another 5/5
Having said I love River, I am a bit behind on listening to her Big Finish stories. I think to start with I didn't want to run out, and this is the last under this series name. But there's more now with a different name so still some to listen.
These stories had a lot about love and loss and being left behind, not just by the Doctor, but by family, mothers and their children, trying to balance letting go and feeling lost.
I'd have more detail to say if I'd written this right after I listened.
I don't remember much about the Excise Men. I feel like it did a clever plot about forgetting so this might be thematic on my part. It hit me in the feels the least, but it was good plot.
Harvest of the Krotons really worked. I remember loving everything with Jackie and River together. A friendship I would not have thought of but they work, and River has a perspective that's helpful for empty nest Jackie Tyler.
oh hey, free excerpt on Big Finish is this ep https://www.bigfinish.com/releases/v/the-diary-of-river-song-harvest-of-the-krotons-excerpt-2925
It seemed to strike a balance between having fun with gossip magazine characters and valuing Jackie's perspective. She's so distinctive for DW she goes great with a lot of characters now I think about it.
Dead Man Talking was powerful stuff, made more so because I didn't guess when it was set until it told me, and then a lot of things clicked like cold water. Strong story.
The Wife of River Song is an excellent story. I particularly liked ( Read more... ) The story covered a lot of strong emotional ground, leaving and being left, not leaving and being called in like River calls the Doctor, lots of echoes and issues and feelings. I do recommend it. Trigger warning though, ( Read more... ).



UNIT Incursions
I listened to this one for the story The Power of River Song. There was not as much River Song in it as I was in the mood for, and I didn't feel like I knew the UNIT characters well enough to get any layers of meaning going.
Picking up the 8th box set in a series as your first listen will do that though.
I gave it 3.5 stars at the time, but it has some good ideas and I'd probably like it better if I was here for the main characters.


The last one I was going to review I can't right now remember if I reviewed it before, and the journal search isn't working for me at the minute. Also I don't think the bit where I fell asleep in the middle was the story's fault. So I'll leave it be. It's more fun telling about the good ones.

Many good ones exist and here are several.

This was a *very* good one. I wanted to go back to the beginning and watch it over again at once, but I had to eat a food and my vitamins and so I've sat down with my computer and am writing this.
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I liked that story very a lot but I guess I don't have much to say about it.

See it unspoiled if you can, it's a good one.

https://www.tumblr.com/dduane/783067867808776192/peter-morwood?source=share

Peter Morwood died today. The post announcing it above is from his wife Diane Duane. I follow them both on tumblr and this is very unexpected and very sad.

Tumblr being tumblr though, he's posted since then.
I imagine the queue function is just doing what it do.



If I stopped posting today my queue would run for about a year. I put all the annual events back in as soon as they happen. I try to push spoilery posts forwards about a week. I have a few posts I keep circulating three to six months out. August is pretty full. December has all the trees all set. So, yeah, about a year.

I am just now realising how disconcerting that could get.

Kind of nice but kind of sad too.

Today's news: Arcanist Oracle Mystic Theurge gets up to 10th level spells with 40 levels to play with,
Enlightened Philosopher seems better within Wrath's extremely limited spell set, plus you can't beat immortality for final revelations,
and getting a +5 inherent bonus to Intelligence makes the Arcanist side happy.

... I sat down to eat lunch before I did laundry and that did not work out so great for the laundry.

These books didn't click with me. I like Murderbot but the fantasy worlds are doing different things. Things with gender complexities and queer people and a baseline assumption brown people exist, but, they did not click with me.

Also one of the ways they're the same is something I've read a lot of in a row lately: figure out who the bad guys are by, like, surviving them. Just the basic Captain America with his shield out detection method. Although usually there's more than one set of people trying to kill the protagonist, which keeps it lively.

I finished City of Bones against my better judgement, because the thing I thought was probably going to suck all the way through indeed did. And it is an older book, but. There's this guy they meet. And the protag takes one look in their eyes. One. And 'sees' they are 'mad'.

I kept waiting the whole rest of the book for someone to interrogate what mad even flipping means in the context, but they do not. There are magic users that can go mad. Oh look a mad one. That's... not great.
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So, not really tempted to reread this one.

It has other stuff going on, world building, non human characters, things forgotten or lost in translation with Consequences, interesting bits.
And if it's trying to say some characters stop listening when the label mad is applied, A+ achieved.
I just felt like I'd tripped over a giant stone in the middle of the story and it never picked it up.


Witch King was a bit more interesting. In a magic system literally powered by pain and death the main character decides the moral line is not using other people's pain. ( Read more... )

It has a lot of interesting, uses of magic where the show not tell on why we're not doing that is working pretty well, flashbacks to context that is only just out of most people's living memory yet fading fast, and the interaction between history and myth making is interesting.
But when I stopped reading it I stopped thinking about it until I was writing this just now.

Just didn't click for me.



I think part of the problem is whenever I like I can go back to listening new Doctor Who with the same characters I've been listening since... my whole life, come to think. It doesn't have to be a particularly deep individual story to still feel richer and more engaging with that all going on.

So take my reviews of not Doctor Who with a pinch of salt.