This is my blog on Livejournal, which I have been running since the spring of 2003. Since late 2003, I've also been using it as a record of (almost) every book that I have read; I read a lot (in non-plague times, I have a long commute) and wanted to keep a good note of what I read. At 200-300 books a year, that's over 5000 books that I have written up here.

As the twentieth anniversary of my bookblogging comes closer, I've also been revisiting each month of reviews every six days or so, so you'll see some less recent reviews mentioned.

As well as books, I have been going through the films that won the Oscar for Best Picture in sequence and the films that won the Hugo or Nebula for Best Dramatic Presentation or equivalent.

And during the COVID-19 pandemic, I've been trying to keep discipline and write something about it every ten days.

Also used for occasional commentary on other stuff, but you'll find my Facebook and Twitter are more live.

And I'm in the middle of a run of marking daily Doctor Who anniversaries, from 1 July 2020 to 30 June 2021.

I am sticking with Livejournal for now out of inertia. Dreamwidth is similar (and I'm mirroring this there) but it lacks some of the key features I like here (post-dating posts, decent image management). Some day I will bite the bullet and go with Wordpress.

Comments welcome, though sometimes quicker to email me at nicholas dot whyte at gmail dot com.

Second paragraph of third chapter:

He walks home from school toward an apartment situated above a shop strewn with crystal balls and tarot cards, incense and statues of animal-headed deities and dried sage. (The scent of sage permeates everything, from his bedsheets to his shoelaces.)

Another rather good liminal fantasy, about a quest for stories and truth originating from a mysterious library book. Kept me absorbed, and I'd look for more from this author. You can get it here.

• Mon, 13:14: We had our own family Burns Night on Saturday, with very yummy haggis bought well in advance from @STONEMANOR28 ! https://t.co/G9Dx8arqjQ
• Mon, 15:28: RT @apcoworldwide: We are delighted to welcome #PublicAffairs veteran and #DEandI leader @docantolicy to APCO as managing director of our W…
• Mon, 16:16: Irish Tales of Terror, edited by Jim McGarry The only bit actually worth reading is a Sean O'Casey story, "The Raid", which didn't seem to me to have any supernatural element at all. #nwbooks https://t.co/TsOtjgpd1v https://t.co/IF0MzmlQlB https://t.co/rfpJrHR48h
• Mon, 16:30: Absalom, Absalom!, by William Faulkner Too opaque for my commuting brain; murder, long-lost siblings, racism, slavery etc, some interesting characterisation, but very dense and none of the characters very attractive. #nwbooks https://t.co/pEYDdvDgjz https://t.co/gGFMKbljYn https://t.co/TZcRSmMMq8
• Mon, 17:01: Touch, by Claire North Narrator can take over someone else's body through skin contact. Set in our contemporary world, such "ghosts" are both accommodated and hunted. Well sketched, good sense of location and culture. #nwbooks https://t.co/wYkPxXU2A5 https://t.co/9HlTAJdeFC https://t.co/skzs8gAKmp
• Mon, 17:30: Tales from Moominvalley, by Tove Jansson These are really superb little chunks of Moominland, not at all whimsical, but dark and thoughtful pieces that speak to adults trying to make sense of an imperfect world. #nwbooks https://t.co/YnQt5C1rJM https://t.co/Ml51RV7FSf https://t.co/w9Pvq4OBKX
• Mon, 18:00: Demon in Leuven, by Guido Eekhaut In Leuven an occult police detective with a newly acquired sidekick investigates the demonic deaths of a couple of senior university officials on top of the university library. #nwbooks https://t.co/RMdggAFjdt https://t.co/yuZ9QBmo5K https://t.co/p5DmgdCBXu
• Mon, 18:50: https://t.co/2V5NrdRZJd
• Mon, 18:57: The Home and the World, by Rabindranath Tagore https://t.co/M5ItAafq6l
• Mon, 20:16: RT @SkyHiFreeFlyGuy: @alexstubb As much as I try to avoid sterotypes, if Finns are missing human contact the world really is in a bad way 😉.

( Read more...Collapse )

i) births and deaths

26 January 1919: birth of Roy Purcell who played Chief Prison Officer Powers in The Mind of Evil (Third Doctor, 1971) and the President of the Council of the Time Lords in The Three Doctors (Third Doctor, 1972-3).
26 January 1957: birth of Mal Young, who was one of the Executive Producers for Series 1 of New Who in 2005.

ii) broadcast anniversaries

26 January 1973: broadcast of third episode of Invasion of the Dinosaurs. The Doctor is playing with his Tyrannosaurus; Sarah is captured by Charles Grover and wakes up on a space ship three months out of Earth.
26 January 1982: broadcast of fourth episode of Four to Doomsday. This is the one with the rebounding cricket ball getting the Doctor back into the Tardis. Monarch is killed by his own virus, and Nyssa faints.
26 January 1983: broadcast of fourth episode of Snakedance. The Mara is revived; but the Doctor smashes the Great Crystal and destroys it.
26 January 1984: broadcast of first episode of Frontios. The Tardis materialises at the End of Time, where Norma has a very 1984 haircut and the ground swallows people and things up - including the Tardis.
26 January 1985: broadcast of second episode of Vengeance on Varos. The Doctor evades several nasty deaths and joins forces with the Governor and the other humans to overthrow Sil.
26 January 2020: broadcast of Fugitive of the Judoon, with not one but two brilliantly executed twists.

Second paragraph of third chapter:

একদিন আমার সামনেই আমার মেজো জা হাসতে হাসতে আমার স্বামীকে বললেন, ভাই ঠাকুরপো, তোমাদের এ বাড়িতে এতদিন বরাবর মেয়েরাই কেঁদে এসেছে, এইবার পুরুষদের পালা এল, এখন থেকে আমরাই কাঁদাব। কী বল ভাই ছোটোরানী? রণবেশ তো পরেছ, রণরঙ্গিণী, এবার পুরুষের বুকে কষে হানো শেল।

One day my sister-in-law remarked to my husband: “Up to now the women of this house have been kept weeping. Here comes the men’s turn. We must see that they do not miss it,” she continued, turning to me. “I see you are out for the fray, Chota Rani! Hurl your shafts straight at their hearts.”

With my Bengali family connections, I've always been consious that I ought to get to grips with Tagore, the first non-European to win the Novel Prize for Literature (17 years before the first American), and the man who returned his knighthood after the Amritsar Massacre (the first but not the last person to do so). Rightly or wrongly, I felt it might be easier to start with his prose rather than the poetry for which he is better known.

This is a really short, very readable novel, about a love triangle that is also political: Bimala has married Nikhil, a nobleman, but becomes attracted to his friend, the political activist Sandip. There's a bit of Nikhil/Sandip bromance as well. Bimala's feelings for both Nikhil and Sandip are put to the test, in a context of revolutionary violence. The English are mere scenery; it's a novel about Bengal. Very interesting and very digestible. You can get it here.

This was my top unread non-genre book, believe it or not. Next on that list is Sugar and Other Stories, by A.S. Byatt.

• Sun, 12:25: RT @archivetvmus71: George and the Dragon (3rd February 1968). Tom Baker certainly makes the most of his brief screen time. https://t.co/9f…
• Sun, 12:33: RT @RokNezic: A winter wonderland @ArmaghPlanet this morning! 😊❄️ 5cm of snow (I know, not much for some places, but a lot for Northern Ir…
• Sun, 12:52: RT @SamuelMarcLowe: To make things even more difficult, despite the economic case against independence remaining very strong, the current g…
• Sun, 12:56: RT @astroehlein: The UK government that brought us brexit is now telling UK businesses to move to the EU because of brexit... It’s almos…
• Sun, 14:48: RT @physicsJ: This is real imagery of the lunar far side with Earth in background via NASA's Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR). The s…
• Sun, 14:59: Farmer in the Sky, by Robert A. Heinlein Our narrator and his family leave Earth to build a new colony on Ganymede. We encounter nice guys and nasty guys, and even a few women, though they don't get to speak much. #nwbooks https://t.co/4CnDbooYAl https://t.co/Pn389BVukt https://t.co/HH1tQaPPej
• Sun, 15:25: Fortunata and Jacinta, by Benito P�rez Gald�s Rather good. Most of the book is about Fortunata's ups and downs as she bounces from man to man, and Jacinta vaguely and uneasily aware of her rival. #nwbooks https://t.co/PQanWl4lVx https://t.co/nnGt9CgGvF https://t.co/JvaxjdGVk6
• Sun, 15:51: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, by Douglas Adams I more or less knew this book by heart when I was twelve, and the Adams genius still works for me; sometimes the magic survives, three decades on. #nwbooks https://t.co/8mjAMZU20p https://t.co/MWlwiEbZ9K https://t.co/GziuTSRYh7
• Sun, 16:05: RT @GarthGilmour: @nwbrux Re-read the series, and what struck me was Adams technical foresight. As a techie in embryo I remember being scor…
• Sun, 16:24: The new Northern Ireland parliamentary constituencies - once again https://t.co/XUh7xLLfBT #boundarycommission

( Read more...Collapse )

i) births and deaths

25 January 1943: birth of Ian Collier, who played Stuart Hyde in The Time Monster (Third Doctor, 1972) and Omega in Arc of Infinity (Fifth Doctor, 1983), and reprised the role of Omega in Big Finish Productions' excellent Fifth Doctor audio Omega (2003).
25 January 1950: birth of Christopher Ryan, who played Lord Kiv in Mindwarp (1986), General Staal in The Sontaran Stratagem / The Poison Sky (2007) and Commander Stark in The Pandorica Opens (2010). Also played Mike Thecoolperson in the Young Ones.
25 January 1962: birth of Emma Freud, script editor for Vincent and the Doctor (Eleventh Doctor, 2010).

25 January 2017: three days after his 77th birthday, death of Sir John Hurt, who played the War Doctor (The Day of the Doctor, 2013).

ii) broadcast anniversaries

25 January 1964: broadcast of "The Ordeal", sixth episode of the story we now call The Daleks. The Doctor and Susan sabotage the Dalek machines but are captured; Ian is endangered in a very literal cliff-hanger.
25 January 1969: broadcast of first episode of The Seeds of Death. The Ice Warriors take over the Moonbase which controls the T-Mat transport system; meanwhile the Doctor, Jamie and Zoe land in a museum of spaceships.
25 January 1975: broadcast of first episode of The Ark in Space. The Tardis lands on a deserted space station to find booby traps, dead giant insects, and frozen people. (A particularly excellent one this, with nobody other than the new Tardis crew visible and speaking.)
25 January 1982: broadcast of third episode of Four to Doomsday. Monarch's mad scheme to destroy the Earth and make himself God is revealed, and the Doctor is threatened with decapitation.
25 January 1983: broadcast of third episode of Snakedance. Nyssa releases the Doctor, but meanwhile Lon and Tegan have ensured that the Great Crystal will be reinstalled; and the Doctor and Nyssa are captured again. And yes, that is a very young Martin Clunes.

• Sat, 12:56: Slavery statues in City of London to be removed https://t.co/kMOEXXmjpI Good.
• Sat, 14:48: A Remarkable Resemblance: Germany From 1900 to 1945 and China Today. Time for a NATO for Trade? | ITIF https://t.co/3qLqaYysUn Very interesting from @RobAtkinsonITIF (flagged up to me by my colleague @jamesLmcgregor).
• Sat, 15:00: The Twelve Caesars, by Suetonius What do you do if you're the Emperor Hadrian's secretary and have a certain amount of spare time? You write a racy popular account of the lives of his predecessors as emperor of Rome. #nwbooks https://t.co/5G2AvWm14G https://t.co/4jARkjYGty https://t.co/euo9zkVL2y
• Sat, 15:20: The Uplift War, by David Brin Not one I can recommend. Partly it is that the humans (and their allies) rarely lose a battle or an argument. But more seriously, the novel's take on race issues is na�ve and complacent. #nwbooks https://t.co/6qR1VFbvrZ https://t.co/XKNzaumtEJ https://t.co/vss0g3VysK
• Sat, 15:33: Platoon https://t.co/B6g44Dtuqa
• Sat, 15:40: The Book Thief, by Markus Zusak A gripping narrative of a girl growing up in Munich before and during the second world war, told in the first person by Death, who gets plenty of clients in the course of the book. #nwbooks https://t.co/sRRz6v4aYL https://t.co/TWd0GhEVn3 https://t.co/9O89HlpY2d
• Sat, 16:00: The Secret Life of Trees, by Colin Tudge I was frankly disappointed. I would really have liked a lot more about the single most startling thing I learned: that plants have evolved tree structures over and over again. #nwbooks https://t.co/XKZl28pl2H https://t.co/wtukyzrHoo https://t.co/NwxMrtaiSK
• Sat, 16:05: How “Peanuts” Created a Space for Thinking https://t.co/9OqDkXMGQS “At its core, the comic parses existential angst, strip by strip—not Cold War anxiety... but the garden-variety anxieties found in everyday life.”
• Sat, 16:20: Packing for Mars, by Mary Roach This is a great book about the human side of space travel. The chapter on sex in zero gravity was a bit disappointing, but there is a lot about poo. #nwbooks https://t.co/6wpTpALOQs https://t.co/qGEB6kYf3f https://t.co/aAlqqBuzoL
• Sat, 16:25: RT @PaulKayeEUlangs: @nwbrux Long time since I saw it but I remember enjoying it. Oliver Stone is an interesting character - there’s good…

( Read more...Collapse )

i) births and deaths

24 January 1930: birth of Terence Bayler, who played Yendom, a doomed human slave, in The Ark (First Doctor, 1966) and mesmerised soldier Major Barrington in The War Games (Second Doctor, 1969).

24 January 1942: birth of Robert Sidaway, who played Avon (no relation) in The Savages (First Doctor, 1966) and Captain Turner in The Invasion (Second Doctor, 1968).
24 January 1987: birth of Ruth Bradley, who played the only Irish regular Who character in any medium, Molly O'Sullivan in Big Finish's Eight Doctor Dark Eyes audios.

ii) broadcast anniversaries

24 January 1970: broadcast of fourth episode of Spearhead from Space. The Doctor and Liz defeat and expel the Nestene Consciousness, and the Doctor accepts the Brigadier's proposal that he become UNIT's Scientific Adviser.
24 January 1976: broadcast of fourth episode of The Brain of Morbius. Morbius arises; the Doctor defeats him in a mind-bending contest; and the Sisterhood force the Morbius monster over a cliff, but restore the Doctor's life.
24 January 1981: broadcast of fourth episode of Warrior's Gate, last appearance of Romana II and of K9 Mark II on TV. Rorvik blows up his own ship, inadvertently freeing the Tharils and allowing the Doctor and Adric back into N-Space; but Romana and K9 stay behind. (Three years and five days after Lalla Ward's first appearance.)
(Compare and contrast these three stories, each of four episodes, broadcast on exactly the same dates in three different years.)

Platoon won the Oscar for Best Picture of 1986, and also three others, Best Director (Oliver Stone), Best Film Editing and Best Sound. Stone lost for Best Original Screenplay and two of the actors lost for Best Supporting Actor to Michael Caine in Hannah and Her Sisters; it was also unsuccessfully nominated for Best Cinematography. That year’s Hugo winner, Aliens, got seven Oscar nominations (one fewer than Platoon) and won two (Best Sound Effects Editing and Best Visual Effects).
That year's other Best Picture nominees were Children of a Lesser God, which I have not seen, and Hannah and Her Sisters, The Mission and A Room with a View, which I have. I liked all three of them more than Platoon. IMDB users are more forgiving, putting it 2nd on one ranking (after Aliens) and 8th on the other.

I have seen no less than fifteen films from 1986, a record so far, no doubt reflecting the fact that it was the year I started university and had a steady girlfriend. In rough IMDB order, they are: Aliens, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Platoon itself, Highlander (there should have been only one!!!), Blue Velvet, The Name of the Rose, Crocodile Dundee, Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, Little Shop of Horrors, Hannah and her Sisters, The Mission, Betty Blue, Jean de Florette, Manon des Sources (I had not realised that those two came out almost simultaneously), SpaceCamp and Clockwise. I would rate Platoon below all the others; I did not like it at all. Here is a trailer.
I'm not going to waste much time on this. There are no returning actors from previous Oscar-winners or Hugo/Nebula-winners, and no crossovers with Doctor Who. I found the entire film depressingly violent, depicting the horrific abuses by and of the American soldiers in Vietnam while barely scratching the important questions of why they were there in the first place and what the local population felt about the rape and destruction that they brought. I felt no empathy with any of the protagonists at any stage. There is no named female character, and although the soldiers are not all white, I was reminded of a scene from Not Another Teen Movie:
And Barber's bloody Adagio for Strings, all the bloody time - bludgeoning the viewer's ears with what they are supposed to be feeling, and not even used all that well.

Mostly it looks quite good, and the scenery is used effectively; I certainly can't tell the Philippines from Vietnam. But that isn't going to stop me putting Platoon right at the bottom of my list, below even The Great Ziegfeld, which at least had one interesting character (not Ziegfeld).

There are a lot of war films in the list of Oscar winners, and I actually do like some of them - All Quiet on the Western Front and The Bridge on the River Kwai, for instance. This somehow ticked very few of my boxes.

Next up is The Last Emperor, but I'll do The Princess Bride first.

1920s: Wings (1927-28) | The Broadway Melody (1928-29)
1930s: All Quiet on the Western Front (1929-30) | Cimarron (1930-31) | Grand Hotel (1931-32) | Cavalcade (1932-33) | It Happened One Night (1934) | Mutiny on the Bounty (1935, and books) | The Great Ziegfeld (1936) | The Life of Emile Zola (1937) | You Can't Take It with You (1938) | Gone with the Wind (1939, and book)
1940s: Rebecca (1940) | How Green Was My Valley (1941) | Mrs. Miniver (1942) | Casablanca (1943) | Going My Way (1944) | The Lost Weekend (1945) | The Best Years of Our Lives (1946) | Gentleman's Agreement (1947) | Hamlet (1948) | All the King's Men (1949)
1950s: All About Eve (1950) | An American in Paris (1951) | The Greatest Show on Earth (1952) | From Here to Eternity (1953) | On The Waterfront (1954, and book) | Marty (1955) | Around the World in Eighty Days (1956) | The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957) | Gigi (1958) | Ben-Hur (1959)
1960s: The Apartment (1960) | West Side Story (1961) | Lawrence of Arabia (1962) | Tom Jones (1963) | My Fair Lady (1964) | The Sound of Music (1965) | A Man for All Seasons (1966) | In the Heat of the Night (1967) | Oliver! (1968) | Midnight Cowboy (1969)
1970s: Patton (1970) | The French Connection (1971) | The Godfather (1972) | The Sting (1973) | The Godfather, Part II (1974) | One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975) | Rocky (1976) | Annie Hall (1977) | The Deer Hunter (1978) | Kramer vs. Kramer (1979)
1980s: Ordinary People (1980) | Chariots of Fire (1981) | Gandhi (1982) | Terms of Endearment (1983) | Amadeus (1984) | Out of Africa (1985) | Platoon (1986)
21st century: The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)

• Fri, 12:38: Great thread explaining high points of today's excellent @FT article on Brexit. https://t.co/tUtaAdCcBw
• Fri, 12:56: What Mars sounds like, and the rover's welcome party https://t.co/vXvkJ9O92S Wow.
• Fri, 16:05: TOVE film worldwide: Tove Jansson's first biopic TOVE heading to US https://t.co/J5YBxiJRfW Hooray!
• Fri, 16:30: Tyrone's Rebellion, by Hiram Morgan I found some very interesting parallels with some of the contemporary conflicts I have dealt with. I was also fascinated by the accounts of information flow. #nwbooks https://t.co/gSwQQQt0CI https://t.co/RSvpUCE6Wj https://t.co/fyKue2cEvS
• Fri, 17:11: RT @Popehat: Remember VoxDay? Imagine my surprise learning he’s a huge Q freak now banning people from his blog if they suggest Biden is…
• Fri, 18:12: Friday reading https://t.co/Opbp4QtBIA
• Fri, 18:31: November 2009 books https://t.co/8rfztSWINC
• Fri, 18:39: Just had a power cut for a bit over an hour. Reminded me of the old joke from an Eastern country (won't say which): What did we use for lighting before we had candles? Electricity.
• Fri, 19:08: RT @bunguri: @nwbrux There is a better one from #Albania: You know why they are the happiest people in the world? Anytime electricity comes…
• Fri, 20:48: RT @eurorealist: BREXIT: WHY IT ALL WENT WRONG AND WHY NO-ONE COULD DO ANYTHING ABOUT IT The inside track on the IN campaign, why you could…

( Read more...Collapse )

i) births and deaths

23 January 2015: death of Barrie Ingham, who played Alydon in the Cushing!Doctor film Dr Who and the Daleks and Paris in the story we now call The Myth Makers (First Doctor, 1965).
ii) broadcast anniversaries

23 January 1965: broadcast of "All Roads Lead to Rome", second episode of the story we now call The Romans. The Doctor and Vicki meet Nero, the Doctor pretending to be the murdered musician Petullian. Barbara is sold as a handmaiden to the Empress, Ian is shipwrecked.
23 January 1971: broadcast of fourth episode of Terror of the Autons. The Doctor persuades the Master that the Nestenes will go for him too, and together they repel the invasion. The Master escapes.
23 January 2008: broadcast of Sleeper (Torchwood), the one with homicidal aliens disguised as humans. (That doesn't help you remember which one it is? Really?)

This is the latest post in a series I started in late 2019, anticipating the twentieth anniversary of my bookblogging which will fall in 2023. Every six-ish days I've been revisiting a month from my recent past, noting work and family developments as well as the books I read in that month. I've found it a pleasantly cathartic process, especially in recent circumstances. If you want to look back at previous entries, they are all tagged under bookblog nostalgia.

November 2009 was an extraordinary month of travel for me. As previously noted, I woke up on the morning of 1 November in Juba, Southern Sudan (now South Sudan), my first morning in Africa; wandered down to the riverside terrace for breakfast and noted fuzzily that there was a ripe mango under one of the chairs. I wondered who might have thrown it or dropped it there; and then looked up and realised that no human agency was involved.
Here's me by the Nile on my first morning.
My two travelling companions, Gérard Prunier and Sigurd Illing, were both Africa experts, but it was my first time on the continent.
I flew from Juba to New York via Nairobi and Istanbul, three continents in almost exactly 24 hours (some like to pointlessly argue about which continent Istanbul is in, but it's certainly not the same continent as Juba/Nairobi or New York), sitting beside Gérard while reading his book.

I stayed in New York for most of a week on work business, but then went to a fantastic conference on Elizabeth I and Ireland held in Connecticut, before returning home. I wish I had had more time to devote to this subject in the last ten years. (But I guess Worldcons have absorbed a lot of my time.)

This was also the month that the BBC in Belfast got in touch to invite me as a TV pundit for the next election, at that point scheduled for the spring of 2010. There were a couple of hoops to jump through, but I accepted.

I read 24 books in November 2009, mainly while sitting around in Juba waiting for meetings to happen.

Non-fiction 6 (YTD 90)
The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius
Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Survive, by Jared Diamond
From Genocide to Continental War, by Gérard Prunier
King Leopold's Ghost, by Adam Hochschild
A History of the Middle East, by Peter Mansfield (second edition, revised and updated by Nicholas Pelham)
Islam: A Short History, by Karen Armstrong

Non-genre 5 (YTD 56)
Song of Solomon, by Toni Morrison
The Black Book, by Ian Rankin
Notre Dame de Paris, by Victor Hugo
Nature Girl, by Carl Hiaasen
As I Lay Dying, by William Faulkner

Scripts 1 (YTD 21)
Medea, by Euripides

SF 5 (YTD 76)
Queen City Jazz, by Kathleen Ann Goonan
Invisible Cities, by Italo Calvino
The Pollinators of Eden, by John Boyd
Where Late The Sweet Birds Sang, by Kate Wilhelm
The Swoop, or How Clarence Saved England, by P.G. Wodehouse

Doctor Who 6 (YTD 66)
Border Princes, by Dan Abnett
Beyond The Sun, by Matthew Jones
Time Of Your Life, by Steve Lyons
Millennial Rites, by Craig Hinton
Spiral Scratch, by Gary Russell
Farewell Great Macedon, by Moris Farhi

Comics 1 (YTD 26)
Summer Blonde, by Adrian Tomine


The best of these were Hiaasen's Nature Girl, which you can get here, and Diamond's Collapse, which you can get here. The worst was John Boyd's woeful sf tale The Pollinators of Eden, which you can get here.

Current
Gormenghast, by Mervyn Peake
T.K. Whitaker, by Anne Chambers
Watling Street, by John Higgs
Greybeard, by Brian Aldiss

Last books finished
The Lowest Heaven, eds Anne C. Perry and Jared Shurin
Endgames: Political Cartoons and Other Stuff, 2015-2020, by Martyn Turner
The Food of the Gods: And How It Came to Earth, by H. G. Wells

Next books
Koko Takes a Holiday, by Kieran Shea
The Kappa Child, by Hiromi Goto

• Thu, 12:20: RT @lukeharding1968: Breaking: the European Court of Human Rights has found Russia guilty of ethnic cleansing of #Georgian civilians during…
• Thu, 12:56: A Brexit lesson: EU’s benefits, largely invisible, hurt to lose https://t.co/7hEbD0CY0w #takingbackcontrol #nothingbutaconsiderableupside
• Thu, 15:02: Nebula Award Stories Number Three, ed. Roger Zelazny Zelazny seems to have taken the job of editing this collection seriously, and his introductions include lengthy quotes from Antoine de Saint-Exupéry and Czesław Miłosz. #nwbooks https://t.co/rUBj6H64BL https://t.co/5kqPkxrCzg https://t.co/zSw1tONDyv
• Thu, 15:24: Caricature, by Daniel Clowes I love the way Clowes takes us into his characters' worlds, and at the same time using the graphic medium, we can get an idea of how other people are reacting to them. #nwbooks https://t.co/T6RTob4P5M https://t.co/VOt1eDApJU https://t.co/9Z4Gc6Or7P
• Thu, 15:46: The Rising of the Moon, by Flynn Connolly There's a lot for the Irish reader to nit-pick, (eg the crowd gathering in the *park* *opposite* *Belfast City Hall*), but it was a better read than I expected. #nwbooks https://t.co/WW7FjsI75u https://t.co/zE1JwR2dbg https://t.co/02SW2oWZya
• Thu, 16:05: RT @eurorealist: WHY DAVID CAMERON MESSED UP So, we revealed yesterday that the horrible #brexit truth was that Britain was strong but its…
• Thu, 16:08: Twelfth Night, by William Shakespeare It's pretty good. Not as intrinsically good as the similar Midsummer Night's Dream and Comedy of Errors, but close. #nwbooks https://t.co/lHDOAppEMB https://t.co/anGncToiEw https://t.co/ZXbzigFjTn
• Thu, 16:30: The Treason and Trial of Sir John Perrot, by Roger Turvey A brief book, the high point perhaps being the fatal moment when Perrot was confronted with evidence that he had called the Queen a "bastard piskitchen woman". #nwbooks https://t.co/lOkCe5hSH0 https://t.co/lFAATcUMCD https://t.co/7aVs1DTbyU
• Thu, 16:52: Why Can't Elephants Jump?, ed. Mick O'Hare Another great collection of New Scientist columns with readers asking questions and other readers answering them. Lots of interesting trivia. #nwbooks https://t.co/AYWKjkDOV9 https://t.co/SvJ1pA012i https://t.co/4TlpfrxICK
• Thu, 17:11: RT @DanielLambert29: Over the past 15 days I have not only been running my company as normal but I have been faced with largest threat to i…

( Read more...Collapse )

i) births and deaths

22 January 1940: birth of Sir John Hurt, who played the War Doctor (The Day of the Doctor, 2013).
22 January 1950: birth of Pamela Salem, who played Toos in The Robots of Death (Fourth Doctor, 1977) and Rachel Jensen in Remembrance of the Daleks (Seventh Doctor, 1988).
22 January 1993: birth of Tommy Knight, who played Sarah Jane Smith's adopted son Luke in the Sarah Jane Adventures.
22 January 2008: death of Kevin Stoney, who played Mavic Chen in the story we now call The Daleks' Master Plan (First Doctor, 1965-66), Tobias Vaughn in The Invasion (Second Doctor, 1968), and Tyrum in Revenge of the Cybermen (Fourth Doctor, 1975).

ii) broadcast anniversaries

22 January 1966: broadcast of "The Abandoned Planet", eleventh episode of the story we now call The Daleks' Master Plan. The Doctor, Sara and Steven arrive on Kembel and release the Daleks' prisoners; but Mavic Chen takes them captive. The episode is lost; this is the front page of Rick Lundeen's glorious comics adaptation.
22 January 1971: broadcast of fourth episode of Day of the Daleks. The Controller lets the Doctor and Jo return to the twentieth century, and Shura blows up Styles' house with the Daleks in it.
22 January 1977: broadcast of fourth episode of The Face of Evil. Xoanon becomes sane and the Tesh and Sevateem agree to live in peace; Leela leaves with the Doctor.

The numbers today are not a lot better than ten days ago - 1937 (down from 1955) in hospital, 336 (down from 371) in ICU and a daily average fatality rate of 48.6 for 11-17 January (down from 53.4 for 1-7 January). But several things are combining to put me in a better mood. The first is that the numbers are not worse - there was a serious risk of wobble over the last week or so, as people who had travelled over the new year returned (the Belgian press has been full of one particular ill-fated ski trip). But we seem to be back on the downward trend again. Also worth noting that our municipality currently has the ninth lowest incidence rate of any in Belgium (4 in the last 14 days, converting to 36 per 100,000).

The second is just that the weather and daylight are improving. I think it was easier to keep spirits up in the spring and summer, as the nights got shorter and the days got warmer. Getting through winter, without the usual seasonal comforts of good company and group celebration, was pretty tough. Now we're through the (literally) darkest period, there's a sense that things are on the mend. (Little comfort to those farther south of course.)

And the third, which really does make a huge difference overall, is the end of the Trump era and the inauguration of President Biden. I was not actually wowed by the ceremony - in particular I thought Biden's own speech was rather fluffy and cliched - but it's such a huge improvement on what came before that I am not complaining much. There's a new normal coming to US politics and also international politics, and not before time.

Feeling in a better mood, I've returned to the scene of my first video from last year with an update.See you next time.

• Wed, 12:56: Pigs Heads Are Rotting In Rotterdam As Brexit Delays Hit The British Meat Industry https://t.co/ZOjiXkh2pN #takingbackcontrol #nothingbutaconsiderableupside
• Wed, 15:00: Who on Earth is Tom Baker? Happy birthday to the one and only! The audio abridgement of his autobiography balances humour and morbidity; I was laughing out loud, to the dismay of fellow passengers on the train. #nwbooks https://t.co/d0w75zaMJB https://t.co/P1y2C2HNvp https://t.co/J4B2vlvfn8
• Wed, 15:30: Variable Star, by Robert A. Heinlein and Spider Robinson Late in 1955, Robert A. Heinlein put the notes for this book away, and never took them out again. Perhaps he had the right idea. #nwbooks https://t.co/IunMRlAZLD https://t.co/sSWEgQen0m https://t.co/2H0d5VgfPa
• Wed, 16:00: Endgame in Ireland, by Eamonn Mallie and David McKittrick It's well-written and thorough but has now been overtaken by events. #nwbooks https://t.co/Kl8D03rBEh https://t.co/VvJUiTtDyj https://t.co/0GsJe6Yolc
• Wed, 16:30: Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen Catherine is a rather silly kid who snags a husband despite her immaturity. End of story. #nwbooks https://t.co/V6NPmvoNsh https://t.co/vc12fKykIk https://t.co/DgcC5yNlps
• Wed, 17:00: The Palace of Dreams, by Ismail Kadare This was the novel that got Albania's greatest writer, Ismail Kadare, into trouble with the Communist authorities when it was written and sneakily published in 1980 and 1981. #nwbooks https://t.co/PsKdSEZMDh https://t.co/VNC7xkLNRd https://t.co/0yfzwaTD1X
• Wed, 17:11: History Will Crush Trump https://t.co/IXEk7CkfXy A conservative assessment. A very hostile conservative assessment.
• Wed, 17:23: RT @davidallengreen: Now calling it for Biden.
• Wed, 17:30: You Can't Take It with You, by Moss Hart & George S. Kaufman The guts of the original play are the same as the film; it won a Pulitzer as an uplifting tonic in depressing times. It's a bit more misogynistic and racist. #nwbooks https://t.co/HRQ5oZXzEo https://t.co/Kg02Keu51P https://t.co/ZKKQ6VxkD1
• Wed, 18:00: Exhalation, by Ted Chiang Chiang has published very few short stories, but they are all good and most of them have won awards. This is a collection of his more recent work. All tremendously good stuff. #nwbooks https://t.co/8cfnzRrpym https://t.co/rLztftIJYi https://t.co/51FCeTiHee

( Read more...Collapse )

i) births and deaths

21 January 1978: death of Geoffrey Orme, who wrote The Underwater Menace (Second Doctor, 1967).

21 January 1980: birth of Sarah Dollard, who wrote Face the Raven (Twelfth Doctor, 2015) and Thin Ice (Twelfth Doctor, 2017).

21 January 1993: death of David Blake Kelly, who played the captain of the Mary Celeste in The Chase (First Doctor, 1965) and innkeeper Jacob Kewper in The Smugglers (First Doctor, 1966).
ii) broadcast anniversaries

21 January 1967: broadcast of second episode of The Underwater Menace. The Doctor causes a power cut and Ara rescues Polly. Zaroff explains that he intends to destroy the Earth.
21 January 1978: broadcast of third episode of Underworld. The Trogs rebel against the Guardians; the Doctor and Leela prepare to infiltrate the Citadel.
(Two particularly duff episodes today, in my opinion.)

iii) date specified in canon

21 January 1941: the Doctor and Rose trace a mauve alert to London and meet Captain Jack Harkness, as seen in The Empty Child (2005). Meanwhile the real Captain Jack Harkness is killed in combat. (Torchwood, Captain Jack Harkness, 2007)

Second paragraph of third chapter:

He lay quietly for a while and listened to the rain. It was a good sound, clean and substantial: above suspicion. The weather was (save himself) the only thing he could trust.

This was the first book I finished in 2021 (I've already written up two others, because they fitted with other projects). It's one of three original spinoff novels from everyone's favourite enigmatic TV show; I've read one of the others and must look out for the third. (There are a few other later ones as well.)

Perhaps I am easily pleased, but I rather enjoyed this. The Prisoner is made a prisoner even within the confined circumstances of The Village; he flirts with Number 7, plays chess with the Admiral, assassinates a few people in London and life goes back to normal. The level of mind-bending is about average for one of the TV episodes. I would find it difficult to describe anything that actually happened in the story, but I enjoyed reading it. You can get it here.

This was the first book that I finished reading in 2021 (I have already blogged a couple that I finished after I had read this). It was also the shortest unread book that I had acquired in 2014. Next on that list is The Autumn Land, by Clifford D. Simak.

• Tue, 12:56: Can Joe Biden restore exceptional global leadership? https://t.co/Y6fkDp4Y8F Thought-provoking from @IdoAharoni in @Jerusalem_Post.
• Tue, 15:00: The Secret River, by Kate Grenville A heartfelt novel about early convict settlers in New South Wales: the intense drama of eking out a precarious existence and brutal conflict with the indigenous Australians. #nwbooks https://t.co/wQebDJRhUV https://t.co/f3Buu3xFqf https://t.co/kzd58UIrjo
• Tue, 16:00: The Illustrated Man, by Ray Bradbury A lot of the stories are allegories on mid-century America, dressed up as SF tropes, and perhaps a little odd in the pulps where most of them were first published. #nwbooks https://t.co/X3u67XzlRO https://t.co/Z9R2BOYe3x https://t.co/Xju2b6cyK0
• Tue, 16:05: RT @eurorealist: Since it's been a while, you’ll be the first to read my inside take on our secret polling that could have changed the refe…
• Tue, 17:00: “Gonna Roll the Bones” by Fritz Leiber The point that jumped out at me much more on this reading is the sheer misogyny of the story. "Joe ... tweaked her left nipple for luck. She playfully snapped her teeth toward his fingers." I bet she did. #nwbooks https://t.co/8vN3IgKWOE https://t.co/LGzKRMKvYf
• Tue, 17:30: RT @BBCBreaking: Further 1,610 people have died in the UK within 28 days of a positive Covid-19 test - the biggest figure reported in a sin…
• Tue, 18:00: From Here To Eternity, by James Jones Better than the film: more substantial, more frank about sex and emotions; several good extra subplots. An old-fashioned book - it's all about the men - but gripping all the same. #nwbooks https://t.co/HpQ5KMYCHq https://t.co/K2BZkGZ4IF https://t.co/0wIWZQgVyl
• Tue, 18:31: Tales of Terror (Doctor Who anthology) https://t.co/lvXU4b7jjb
• Tue, 22:03: @bwalsh You have mail.
• Tue, 22:03: @AngieMcKeown You have mail.

( Read more...Collapse )

i) births and deaths

20 January 1934: They don't come much bigger than this - birth of Tom Baker, who played the Fourth Doctor from 1974 to 1981 and has reprised the role on occasion since. For me he remains the definitive Doctor. Happy birthday, Tom!
20 January 1936: birth of Ralph Watson, who played an unnamed generator scientist in The Underwater Menace (Second Doctor, 1967), Captain Knight in The Web of Fear (Second Doctor, 1968), the miners' leader Ettis in The Monster of Peladon (Third Doctor, 1974) and principal lighthouse keeper Travers in Horror of Fang Rock (Fourth Doctor, 1977).
20 January 1978: birth of Jami Reid-Quarrell, who played Davros' servant Colony Sarff in The Magician's Apprentice (Twelfth Doctor, 2015), the faceless Veil in Heaven Sent (also Twelfth Doctor, 2015), the Cloister Wraiths in Hell Bent (also Twelfth Doctor, 2015) and the Robot Inspector in The Coach with the Dragon Tattoo (Class, 2016).
20 January 1990: death of John Maxim/John Wills, who played the Frankenstein monster in The Chase (1965) and a Cyberman in The Moonbase (1967). I was friendly with his son, the year below me at Clare College.
ii) broadcast anniversaries

20 January 1968: broadcast of fifth episode of The Enemy of the World. Bruce has switched sides and starts to help the opposition to salamander. Meanwhile the scientists trapped underground are getting restive.
20 January 1973: broadcast of fourth episode of The Three Doctors. The Second and Third Doctors persuade Omega to return the others to Earth, and then destroy him with the Second Doctor's recorder. The Three Doctors are restored to their own timestreams.
20 January 1978: broadcast of first episode of The Armageddon Factor; first appearance of Lalla Ward (though as Princess Astra, not Romana). Atrios and Zeos are locked in war. The Doctor and Romana are captured by the Marshal but escape; Princess Astra is captured by a bloke in a cloak.
20 January 1984: broadcast of second episode of The Awakening. The Malus attempts to manifest by draining energy from the villagers and the Tardis, but the Doctor defeats it.
20 January 1996: broadcast of first episode of The Ghosts of N-Space on BBC radio. The Brigadier is visiting his Sicilian uncle whose castle is under threat from modern mobsters and ancient ghosts. Er, yeah.
iii) dates specified in canon

20 January 1920: birth of Toshiko Sato's grandfather in Japan. (She mentions at the start of the 2007 Torchwood story, Captain Jack Harkness, that she is on her way to his 88th birthday party.)

20 January 1941: Toshiko Sato and Jack meet the real Captain Jack Harkness (also in the 2007 Torchwood story, Captain Jack Harkness).

Second paragraph of third story ("The Monster in the Woods", by Paul Magrs):

Ange was upstairs in her bedroom painting her younger brother's face for Hallowe'en. Terry was ten and amazingly patient as she finished off his David Bowie lightning flash.

This is a set of twelve Doctor Who short stories for YA readers, themed around Halloween, each of them featuring a different Doctor, usually with an old enemy (the Celestial Toymaker appears twice). The six authors are all well established - Jacqueline Rayner, Mike Tucker, Paul Magrs, Richard Dungworth, Scott Handcock and Craig Donaghy (was not sure of the last, but he has a long track record scripting comics for DWM). Rayner's Sixth Story, "Trick or Treat", is the standout of the collection, though Magrs' Third Doctor story, "The Monster in the Woods", is good too and none of them is actively bad. If it's still available next Halloween (or the one after) you could get it for a young Who fan. You can get it here.

This was the last book I finished in 2020, and the last I will write up - I missed some, when they were Hugo finalists and I was on the Hugo team. I had expected not to have that problem in 2021, but there you go.

• Mon, 12:56: RT @claytonhickman: New #DoctorWho colourisation - as best I can manage, given the state of the original photo 😅 William Hartnell watches…
• Mon, 15:00: The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien Enjoyed it just as much as I ever did; the ending becomes ever more powerful as I get older. #nwbooks https://t.co/4Ds4ire8J8 https://t.co/FkrOkrIajy https://t.co/ggz5Rvxaxc
• Mon, 15:20: How To Read Shakespeare, by Nicholas Royle Takes 7 short dialogues from 7 Shakespeare plays, hangs a short essay on each, explaining what Shakespeare is doing in the dialogue, in the play, and more broadly in his work #nwbooks https://t.co/F8VDq7s1kr https://t.co/PVMPVYvIQI https://t.co/JgTabkdRHE
• Mon, 15:24: RT @KissyFacedBrute: @nwbrux Iris Murdoch disagrees https://t.co/n4JWR50qgp
• Mon, 15:40: 32 Stories, by Adrian Tomine I did enjoy these 32 short vignettes of life, mainly in San Francisco, mainly with first-person narrative from Tomine himself or Amy, his fictional proxy character. #nwbooks https://t.co/BHYpOoxOxy https://t.co/shmiLK8ihM https://t.co/Eo02Z898Uu
• Mon, 16:00: The Wandering Fire & The Darkest Road, by Guy Gavriel Kay Kay is prepared to kill off key characters; who will live and who will die? And climax: final battle, self-sacrifice, decent resolution. #nwbooks https://t.co/tzTxI8ephW https://t.co/KNUYia6q1o https://t.co/b1vtf1Vhss https://t.co/5HoIPhydvZ
• Mon, 16:05: RT @balgailani: Some thoughts on the moves to regulate #tech in the USA, EU and UK from me and @apcoworldwide colleagues https://t.co/wQFbC…
• Mon, 16:20: Making Ireland British 1580-1650, by Nicholas Canny Canny argues persuasively that the intellectual agenda for colonisation/plantation was set out by Spenser and became inevitable after the Flight of the Earls #nwbooks https://t.co/tOwiArwwSB https://t.co/7GruSGDJR4 https://t.co/YxfhTdHxg0
• Mon, 16:40: Slow River, by Nicola Griffith Good. 3 different strands, heroine's childhood & 2 different phases of her recovery from a kidnap ordeal, with some very sensuous descriptions of setting (Hull, of all places). #nwbooks https://t.co/6n5q07ukD6 https://t.co/4TnFnOJQAV https://t.co/FIgUH1dOLZ
• Mon, 16:44: RT @irishwol: @nwbrux That woman's pre-dinner speech once stood between me and a truly mouth watering buffet. Only her extreme talent made…

( Read more...Collapse )

i) births and deaths

19 January 1957: birth of Roger Ashton-Griffiths, who played Mr Garret, Eugene's teacher, in Random Shoes (Torchwood, 2006) and Master Quayle in Robot of Sherwood (Twelfth Doctor, 2014)
ii) broadcast anniversaries

19 January 1974: broadcast of second episode of Invasion of the Dinosaurs. The Doctor and Sarah coordinate with the Brigadier, not realising that Mike Yates is part of the conspiracy. Once again the Doctor is threatened by a Tyrannosaurus Rex.
19 January 1982: broadcast of second episode of Four to Doomsday. The Tardis crew discover more about the plans of Monarch and the Urbankans; the humans they have met turn out to be androids.
19 January 1983: broadcast of second episode of Snakedance. The Doctor and Nyssa find more clues to the Mara in the caves; meanwhile Tegan and Lon are under its power.
19 January 1984: broadcast of first episode of The Awakening. The Doctor and Turlough, bringing Tegan to meet her grandfather, are surprised to find his village infested with Civil War soldiers and a monster in the church wall.
19 January 1985: broadcast of first episode of Vengeance on Varos. The sinister Sil persecutes the Governor, and the Doctor and Peri rescue Jondar from torture, live on television.
19 January 2020: broadcast of Nikola Tesla's Night of Terror. Tesla's grand ideas for revolutionising electricity and communication are proving to be a hard sell to the public. His business rival, Thomas Edison, may not want him to succeed, but surely even he cannot be behind the sudden appearance of hostile alien scavengers?

Second paragraph of third chapter:

As we finally drove away, Alison, looking back at Jeff waving Page's little hand from the front door, had tears in her eyes. 'He looks so sad,' she said.

One of Bateman's mystery novels, set in Belfast, the protagonist being the proprietor of the No Alibis bookshop on Botanic Avenue, investigating the murder of a well-known gangster in the course of which he spends some time in Purdysburn, Belfast's mental hospital. I really enjoyed the sense of place; I think I could locate almost every scene on the map. I also enjoyed the effective way Bateman captures the black humour of Belfast. But the actual plot was too convoluted to be credible, and the ending (which apparently closes off the prospect of any more books in this four-book series) felt ungraceful and out of harmony with what had come before. I'm told that the earlier books in the series are better; I got this one signed by the author at a book fair in Brussels some years ago. You can get it here.

This was the non-genre book that had been on my unread shelf for longest. Next in that pile is Gallimaufry, a collection of short stories by Colin "Sixth Doctor" Baker.

• Sun, 14:02: RT @joannalayton: Meet the Prime Minister of Finland and her Ministers of Education, Finance and the Interior. https://t.co/QkrnHwJzmn
• Sun, 15:00: Machiavelli in Brussels: The Art of Lobbying the EU, by Rinus van Schendelen This book is written in appalling English. I do not say this lightly. The sentences are tortuously and often ungrammatically constructed. #nwbooks https://t.co/24PJdvDqMT https://t.co/irBBwad8fj https://t.co/UdGAWKGptR
• Sun, 15:40: RT @CoraBuhlert: @nwbrux Sounds like the hydraulic and electrical system checklist I translated yesterday, which contained such howlers as…
• Sun, 15:45: Again, Dangerous Visions, edited by Harlan Ellison Striking how unmemorable and self-indulgent most of the stories are (also Ellison's long-winded prefaces). 4 memorable stories out of 41 is a very poor strike rate. #nwbooks https://t.co/fo6BMjtON5 https://t.co/ThNWoFG4NI https://t.co/P1s4EyN3PG
• Sun, 16:30: The Story of Ireland, by Brendan O'Brien A lovely illustrated short history of Ireland for younger readers. Hits most of the highlights that you would expect in less than 100 pages. #nwbooks https://t.co/G0CBQ3bgCH https://t.co/I0hgy6APMy https://t.co/yv5jtMwoXf
• Sun, 17:15: Jeremiah: Een Geweer in het Water/Rifle in the Water, by Hermann I have to say I wasn't hugely impressed. Lots of shooting and conspiring, but it didn't hugely engage me. #nwbooks https://t.co/6FTosrLyQn https://t.co/JzEI54Xw5U https://t.co/rzeTOrgH94
• Sun, 17:56: DisCon III @Worldcon2021, the Hugos and me https://t.co/rYPvZUY020 #hugos2021
• Sun, 18:00: Nine Gates: Entering the Mind of Poetry, by Jane Hirshfield I'm not hugely into poetry, but I certainly don't dislike it either, and this is a good approachable set of essays looking at what poetry is and what poets do. #nwbooks https://t.co/tJ8W5JjQVV https://t.co/ikMZM1krlh https://t.co/kjjff9KSds
• Sun, 19:37: The BSFA Best Novel long-list: Goodreads/LibraryThing rankings https://t.co/NMd4ur8Ji6
• Sun, 20:49: RT @ursulakleguin: We are delighted to announce that the 33rd stamp in the US Postal Service Literary Arts series honors Ursula. Stamp rele…

( Read more...Collapse )

i) births and deaths

18 January 1941: birth of Christopher H. Bidmead, script editor for Season 18 (the last Fourth Doctor season) and writer of Logopolis (Fourth Doctor, 1981), Castrovalva (Fifth Doctor, 1982) and Terminus (Fifth Doctor, 1984) and the novelisations Happy 80th birthday, sir!

ii) broadcast anniversaries

18 January 1964: broadcast of "The Expedition", fifth episode of the story we now call The Daleks. The Thals agree to attack the Dalek city. Ian and Barbara accompany one group through the jungle and the Lake of Mutations.
18 January 1969: broadcast of fourth episode of The Krotons. The Doctor makes up some sulphuric acid; Zoe uses it to poison off the Krotons, and Jamie uses it to destroy the Dynotrope.
18 January 1975: broadcast of fourth episode of Robot, which is the first I remember watching all the way through. The robot starts disintegrating people, but the Doctor manages to destroy it with metal-eating virus.
18 January 1982: broadcast of first episode of Four to Doomsday (the first Fifth Doctor story filmed, as opposed to shown). Rather than Heathrow, the Tardis lands on a spaceship controlled by Monarch and inhabited by humans from four different eras of history.
18 January 1983: broadcast of first episode of Snakedance. Rather than Earth, the Tardis lands on Manussa, home of the Mara; Tegan is possessed by it and gets away from the Doctor and Nyssa.

The BSFA Long List is out. Here are the 56 (!) Best Novel nominees, ranked by the product of their number of owners on Goodreads and LibraryThing.

	Goodreads		LibraryThing
	reviewers	av rating	owners	av rating
Piranesi by Susanna Clarke	27,961	4.34	1,033	4.26
The City We Became by N. K. Jemisin	24,512	4.01	990	4.08
Network Effect by Martha Wells	22,649	4.43	729	4.42
The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones	15,259	3.8	486	4.06
Harrow the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir	13,520	4.3	465	4.21
To Sleep in a Sea of Stars by Christopher Paolini	10,990	3.9	411	4.26
Utopia Avenue by David Mitchell	9,187	4.04	464	4.08
The Empire of Gold by S.A. Chakraborty	13,803	4.53	279	4.32
The Once and Future Witches by Alix E. Harrow	9,894	4.15	374	4.16
Axiom’s End by Lindsay Ellis	9,418	3.89	271	3.6
Little Eyes by Samanta Schweblin	7,136	3.65	189	3.56
The New Wilderness by Diane Cook	5,260	3.8	171	3.81
Burn by Patrick Ness	4,401	3.82	196	3.98
The Book of Koli by M.R. Carey	3,744	4.11	207	4.03
Earthlings by Sayaka Murata	4,323	3.62	166	3.63
The Silence by Don DeLillo	3,824	2.8	184	2.86
The Relentless Moon by Mary Robinette Kowal	3,075	4.45	187	4.49
The Vanished Birds by Simon Jimenez	2,626	4.11	172	3.94
The Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson	1,725	4.02	211	4.02
Afterland by Lauren Beukes	2,208	3.31	142	3.47
The God Game by Danny Tobey	2,758	3.74	113	3.68
Picard: The Last Best Hope by Una McCormack	2,236	4.07	93	3.93
Saints of Salvation by Peter F Hamilton	2,509	4.46	63	4.32
The Last Human by Zack Jordan	1,473	3.71	99	3.54
The Doors of Eden by Adrian Tchaikovsky	1,581	3.92	82	4.39
Unconquerable Sun by Kate Elliott	932	4.03	116	4.08
88 Names by Matt Ruff	1,046	3.44	66	3.21
Attack Surface by Cory Doctorow	736	4.11	73	4.13
Vagabonds by Hao Jingfang	574	3.43	83	3.5
Light of Impossible Stars by Gareth L. Powell	847	3.95	56	3.65
Beneath The Rising by Premee Mohamed	437	3.68	60	3.67
The Sunken Land Begins to Rise Again by M. John Harrison	308	3.75	57	3.56
Mordew by Alex Pheby	220	3.92	54	3.4
Master of Poisons by Andrea Hairston	183	3.75	58	3.5
Bridge 108 by Anne Charnock	274	3.58	27	3.44
Nophek Gloss by Essa Hansen	245	3.85	29	3.17
War of the Maps by Paul McAuley	194	3.8	35	3.5
Space Station Down by Ben Bova & Doug Beason	270	3.39	18	3.33
Ghost Species by James Bradley	330	3.84	11	3.75
Comet Weather by Liz Williams	81	4.46	38	4.25
Noumenon Ultra by Marina J. Lostetter	164	3.94	11	-
Chosen Spirits by Samit Basu	143	3.73	5	4.25
Saving Lucia by Anna Vaught	87	4.01	8	-
Liquid Crystal Nightingale by Eeleen Lee	39	3.56	17	4.25
The Breach by M.T. Hill	86	3.52	7	3.25
People of the Canyons by Kathleen O’Neal Gear and W. Michael Gear	71	4.13	8	-
The Evidence by Christopher Priest	49	3.37	11	5
Threading the Labyrinth by Tiffani Angus	47	4.04	10	5
Fearless by Allen Stroud	51	4.04	7	4.25
Dark Angels Rising by Ian Whates	35	3.86	9	4.33
King of the Rising by Kacen Callender	75	3.59	3	-
Greensmith by Aliya Whiteley	23	4.13	6	3.5
Analogue/Virtual by Lavanya Lakshminarayan	13	4.31	7	-
Water Must Fall by Nick Wood	8	4.25	8	1.75
Ivory’s Story by Eugen Bacon	7	4.29	6	4.67
Club Ded by Nikhil Singh	3	4.67	2	-

This is of limited predictive value, but does give a sense of how far these books have penetrated the wider market.

Three books are in the upper quartile of all four metrics - Piranesi, Network Effect and The Empire of Gold. Striking how poorly The Silence seems to have landed with readers.

Last year's winner was 5th out of 46 in the equivalent table, which is rather better than 16th out of 45 on the corresponding ranking of the 2018 long list; 27th out of 48 in 2017, and 26th out of 34 in 2016, So this table is of limited predictive value.