Doctor Who – Season 8 Starts Today!

We\’re into the early hours of Saturday morning right now, and the big event that every Doctor Who fan on the planet has been waiting for happens later this evening, when the first episode of Season 8 debuts on BBC1 at 7.50pm.

This first episode is the first of twelve, and is a 75-minute feature-length episode titled Deep Breath. I know absolutely nothing about it, as I\’ve been very stringent about avoiding spoilers on the new season, other than the titles of the episodes, and that the last two episodes of the season are the two-part Season Finale.

The Season 8 Episode Listing is as follows:

  1. Deep Breath
  2. Into the Dalek
  3. Robot of Sherwood
  4. Listen
  5. Time Heist
  6. The Caretaker
  7. Kill the Moon
  8. Mummy on the Orient Express
  9. Flatline
  10. In the Forest of the Night
  11. Dark Water
  12. Death in Heaven

I\’ve been eagerly awaiting the first full appearance of the new Doctor, Peter Capaldi, as he steps into the role he has inherited from the absolutely amazing Matt Smith. Peter Capaldi has some pretty big shoes to fill there, but I reckon he\’ll make a darned good Doctor. He\’s a very experienced actor, who has been around the acting business for many, many years. And the BBC have never failed yet to pick a good one to fill the new Doctor\’s role.

Something which I think bodes well for the show, in my opinion, is that he was also a big fan of the classic series when he was a kid, in particular the first four Doctors, up until the middle of Tom Baker\’s run on the show. All of which pretty much mirrors exactly my own childhood journey with Doctor Who. This love and respect of the classic series might serve him well as he slips into the role of the new Doctor.

Anyway, I\’m actually really looking forward to this new, older, grumpier, darker Doctor, and to seeing how Peter Capaldi works with the current companion, Clara (played by Jenna Coleman). Roll on this evening, 7.50pm!

Doctor Who Back on UK Television!

Like every other Doctor Who fan on the planet, I\’ve been eagerly awaiting the start of the new season, and most of all the first full appearance of the new Doctor, Peter Capaldi. Now at last, Doctor Who returns to UK television tomorrow, Saturday, 23rd August, at 7.50pm, in a 75-minute feature-length episode.

The first episode of twelve in the new Season 8 (or Season 34, if you prefer to include the classic series, as I do), is Deep Breath. Here\’s a list of the twelve episodes of the new season:

  1. Deep Breath
  2. Into the Dalek
  3. Robot of Sherwood
  4. Listen
  5. Time Heist
  6. The Caretaker
  7. Kill the Moon
  8. Mummy on the Orient Express
  9. Flatline
  10. In the Forest of the Night
  11. Dark Water
  12. Death in Heaven

The last two episodes are the two-part Season Finale. I\’ve deliberately avoided giving any spoilers. Indeed, I\’ve actively avoided encountering any spoilers myself, and I know absolutely nothing about the episodes other than their titles. I\’ve become royally fed up, every single year, having each new season ruined by spoilers all over the internet, on TV and in the magazines, so this year it\’s been me dodging any kind of spoilers as nimbly as I can. Fingers crossed I can make it to Saturday, and woe betide anyone who ruins things for me. 🙂

I\’ve always been a huge fan of Matt Smith and his portrayal of the Doctor. Starting off as a relative unknown, he took to the role like a duck to water, and he has been, without a doubt, a huge success as the 11th Doctor. He brought us a zany, eccentric, manic, and often truly alien version of the Doctor that reminded me most of Tom Baker (on speed), which can never be a bad thing as far as I\’m concerned, as TomDoc has always been my favourite Doctor of all.

By adopting some of the best elements of not only Tom Baker, but also other previous Doctors (there\’s a lot of Patrick Troughton in there as well), combined with his own natural hi-energy craziness, Smith created a new persona which really appealed to me in a \”he was born for the role\” kind of way. I absolutely loved him, which came as a big surprise to me as I was really apprehensive back when he first took over from David Tennant. Even in the less notable episodes, he lights up the screen and he makes even the worst stories watchable, even if only to enjoy Smith doing his thing.

So Peter Capaldi has a lot to live up to, although I\’m sure he\’ll be more than up to the job. He\’s an accomplished actor, and has been around for a long, long time. He\’s also a lifetime Doctor Who fan, and has been since he was a young child. Or at least he was an obsessive fan of the classic series (I\’ve no idea what he thinks of the new series), from the beginning with William Hartnell, right on through to the fourth Doctor, Tom Baker. So this bodes well for the show, in my opinion.

I\’m actually looking forward to this older, darker Doctor, and to seeing how he works with the current companion, Clara (Jenna Coleman). Roll on Saturday evening, 7.50pm!

Doctor Who: Galaxy 4

[O]lder Doctor Who fans will instantly recognize Galaxy 4 as the title of a really ancient, dusty old Doctor Who story, which originally aired on the UK television channel BBC1, over a four-week period during the months of September-October 1965. The story itself no longer exists in the BBC archives, as it was wiped during the shamefully short-sighted BBC \”space-saving\” purge of old TV shows back in the early 1970\’s, although a few bits and pieces did survive here and there.

The previously existing audio-visual material, including six minutes of footage from the first episode, \”Four Hundred Dawns\”, was initially included on a 1998 VHS video as part of the documentary The Missing Years, and subsequently re-released on the 2004 DVD release of Lost in Time. Episode Three, \”Air Lock\”, which was recovered back in early 2011, was released on the March 2013 DVD release of The Aztecs: Special Edition as an extra, along with reconstructions of the other 3 episodes, plus the other surviving clips and photographs, all of which had originally been intended for the DVD release of The Time Meddler.

The only way to enjoy the original story in its entirety is in book form, and the complete soundtrack also exists, released in 2002. Actually, there were TWO books, and I have really enjoyed both the Target Books novelization of Galaxy Four, by original writer William Emms, and the Doctor Who: The Scripts edition (Titan Books) of the William Emms Galaxy 4 script. The titles Galaxy Four and Galaxy 4 seem to be interchangeable, and vary from book to book, although Galaxy 4 seems to be considered the correct title. Either of these books will give you the full story, if you manage to get your hands on them. I\’m uncertain if either book is still in print (if not, try Ebay or Amazon).

In this story, the TARDIS lands on an unnamed planet in the aforementioned Galaxy 4, a world which is only days away from exploding. The Doctor (the first Doctor – William Hartnell) and his companions Vicki and Steven encounter the Drahvins, a race of female clone warriors, who have crash-landed on the planet and are unable to take off again. Also on the planet is another crashed spaceship belonging to the frightening, alien Rills and their robot servants, the Chumblies (this rather silly name being given to them by Vicki). The Drahvins tell the Doctor that they were attacked by the Rills and both ships were damaged and had to crash-land.

The Drahvin ship is irreparable, but the Rill ship is almost fully repaired and will escape the death of this world. The Drahvins need to capture it, to get away. They are trying to enlist the Doctor\’s help, but the Doctor realizes that it\’s the Drahvins who are the aggressors and the Rills are peace-loving and civilized. The Doctor helps the Rills finish repairing their ship and escape, and one of the Chumblies stays behind and helps the Doctor, Vicki and Steven escape in the TARDIS, while it and the Drahvins perish when the planet explodes.

By all accounts, the televised story was a fair-to-middling mid-1960\’s Doctor Who adventure, pretty decent, although nothing special, certainly not one of the greatest classics of the series. However Galaxy 4, like a few other old Doctor Who stories, seems to go a little bit further than other sci-fi television shows of that era, with a few more twists and a less predictable plot. Back in those days most TV sci-fi was very simplistic – you always knew who the bad guys were, because they were almost always the ugly, scary ones.

Most of the time, Doctor Who was as guilty as any other show in that respect – the series was, after all, dependent on the monsters and aliens for its kiddie \”scare factor\”. But in Galaxy 4, the writer, William Emms, turned all that completely on its head, making the repulsive, reptilian, warthog-like, ammonia-breathing Rills the intelligent, civilized \”good guys\”, and the beautiful, blonde amazonian Drahvins the villains of the story.

I\’ve also always admired the bravery of the production crew on Doctor Who, for at least making the attempt to create \”alien-looking\” aliens on the show\’s miniscule shoe-string budget, whilst US sci-fi series with much larger budgets (Star Trek, for example) have traditionally served up \”aliens\” who are, ninety-five percent of the time, obviously only humans wearing latex masks or with bumps glued onto their heads and markings painted on them. The effects and make-up on Doctor Who often looked tacky and cheap, but at least they had the guts to try and make the \”aliens\” look a bit \”alien\”.

To the younger viewers of the modern Chris Eccleston/David Tennant/Matt Smith incarnations of the Doctor, most of these old 1960\’s Doctor Who stories must be virtually unwatchable. Compared to the modern, frenetically-paced, slick CGI series, these ancient shows creak along at an unbearably slow pace, with too much jibber-jabbering, not enough action, have rather simplistic stories (they were supposedly aimed at kids, after all, and seen from this perspective, they are pretty good), and terrible or non-existent special effects. But having said that, I wonder just how much of the current version will still look good in fifty years time. Modern sci-fi shows tend to depend far too much on SFX, which date very quickly, and less on strong storytelling, which endures pretty much forever.

Old farts like myself still love those ancient 1960\’s television shows, and we remember them fondly from our childhood (although I have no memories of Galaxy 4, as I was only four years old at the time). Nostalgia is an incredibly addictive drug. It\’s probably also stating the obvious to point out that we must take into account that, FOR ITS TIME, and compared to the rest of the 1960\’s BBC output, Doctor Who was an innovative, exciting, frightening and controversial television show. There was nothing else like it on UK television at the time, and the series has influenced countless other sci-fi shows over the decades since then.

I\’m hoping that it\’ll still be around in another fifty years, long after I\’m gone, entertaining yet another new generation of fans.

Favourite SF Authors – H.G. Wells

This is the first of my Favourite SF Authors postings, and who better than the author who started it all for me, the man dubbed the \”father of science fiction\”, H.G. Wells.

The first time I saw George Pal\’s film adaption of The Time Machine (1960) on television was probably the first event in my life which I can definitely point to and say without a doubt that \”this was when I became a science fiction fan\”. I was only about five, maybe six years old at most, and that one film turned me into a crazy time-travel fanatic. A couple of years later, as a direct result of being a fan of the film, I read the original novel, which was the first time I had ever read a proper SF book. These two events (plus a growing obsession with Doctor Who) changed my life forever, and I\’ve been an obsessive SF fan ever since.

Wells wasn\’t the first SF author by any means. Jules Verne and others had walked that road before him. Nor was he even the most highly-regarded among his contemporaries while he was writing. But he has outlived them all, and has been by far the most enduring and influential upon successive generations of SF writers and readers. Most of the contemporary authors who were once regarded as highly as or more highly than Wells are now no longer so well known, and many of them have faded into obscurity altogether. But Wells has stayed right at the top for all these years.

What was it that made him so important? I\’d argue strongly that Wells was the first to seriously cover so many of the SF themes that we take for granted these days, writing about them as SF, as opposed to fantasy. Sure, maybe Verne had done it to a lesser extent, but his scientific explorations were almost always more concerned with the technological gadgetry (submarines, flying machines, \”rockets\” fired to the moon out of enormous cannons, etc) rather than true exploration of SF themes, and most of his stories were pure fantasies. In contrast, Wells examined a far, far wider range of real SF themes and how they relate to human society, and on a much deeper level.

Time travel? Wells did the first \”proper\” story (using a time machine, not dreams or other fantasy devices), in The Time Machine, which was also a sly but strong criticism of class differences within British society. Interplanetary invasion? War of the Worlds, which doubled as a strong swipe at the British Empire and imperialism in general. Genetic engineering and the morality of biological tinkering on humans? The Island of Doctor Moreau. Invisibility and the corruption of the corruptible who attain and abuse \”absolute power\”? The Invisible Man. Lunar exploration and anti-gravity, with more examination of society and class structure? First Men in the Moon. Accelerated time? \”The New Accelerator\”. The list goes on and on.

The really remarkable thing was that Wells was writing about many of these themes well over a century ago, which is something that I find almost unbelievable. Others had written about travelling to the moon or through time before Wells did. But these previous efforts fell squarely into the \”fantasy\” camp (travelling through time in dreams, going to the moon in balloons, or pulled by birds, etc). Wells was the first to write about them in a way that could be termed even remotely as \”real\” science fiction, both philosophically and in the way he explained them in a \”scientific\” way. And he also wrote about many other SF themes that no writers before him had ever explored. Many of these fundamental SF themes have now been done to death over more recent decades by countless other SF authors. But Wells was the first to imagine most of these themes and write great SF stories around them.

So many of the modern core themes in SF stemmed from the work of this one man, that I don\’t think we can really conceive how differently the genre would\’ve developed if he\’d never existed. I think that it wouldn\’t be an exaggeration to say that he was the single most important figure in science fiction literature\’s history, although there have been any number of other great writers who\’ve challenged him for that position. But, in so many areas, Wells was the first to write about so many things, that I\’d have to grant him \”pole position\”.

The rest, good as they were, followed in his giant shadow.

The Age of Innocence – \”Sensawunda\” and the Older Science Fiction Fan

Older sci-fi/SF fans (or \”fen\”, to give them their correct title), almost all have an incredibly developed Sense of Wonder, more often referred to in the SF world as \”sensawunda\”, that wide-eyed innocence and boundless enthusiasm, that willingness to see beyond the mundane world around us and embrace the infinite potential and possibilities of the universe, of all time and space.

It\’s almost like a special extra sense, an ability to link to our \”inner child\”, something that makes us different from the rest of the mainstream \”mundane\” population, who seem to have lost that link to their childhood once they became adults. Many of those people would look at us and consider us \”big kids\”, adults who have refused to grow up and drop the obsessions and attitudes of childhood (or even something much less flattering). We, on the other hand, look at them and consider them boring, unimaginative old farts, having lost all the childish aspects that made life fun, and growing old long before their time.

Our sensawunda keeps us forever young. Unfortunately, very few of the younger generation these days seem to have it, at least once they grow out of the wide-eyed innocence of their childhood years. We older fen were instilled with a powerful essence of sensawunda from a time before we could even read or write. The kids these days have seen it all a thousand times, and have had everything handed to them since birth. They lose their sensawunda at a very early age, and today\’s teenagers are for the most part very worldly-wise, cynical, and almost impossible to impress.

All of the things we saw on TV and at the cinema, way back when they were new and ground-breaking, are part of background culture for these kids. They don\’t see anything remarkable about these great films and TV series, because they\’ve \”always been there\”, as far as the kids are concerned. They miss out totally on one of the greatest aspects of geekhood, and we older geeks are so, so lucky to have lived through it all.

Back \”when we were young\”, every new sci-fi series, every new sci-fi cinema release, every new book release by Arthur C. Clarke, Isaac Asimov or other top SF writers, every new issue of the Spider-Man Comics Weekly, The Avengers, The Mighty World of Marvel, Countdown and TV Action, Lion and Thunder or any of our favourite comics, any and all of these geek objects were things of wonder, and we all waited on them obsessively, like addicts waiting on their next fix (but in a nice way, of course).

I try to compare cynical modern teens with the wide-eyed innocence and enthusiasm of my teenage self, sitting eagerly in front of the TV every week, waiting for the next episode of Star Trek or Doctor Who. Or sitting in the local cinema, mouth wide open, watching Star Wars for the first time, and listening in awe to the tie fighters roar all around me over the amazing new THX sound system. In the pre-video, pre-internet age, every new sci-fi TV series and sci-fi cinema release was SPECIAL. The newness and uniqueness of it all was overpowering.

In those far-off days, you saw a series episode or film ONCE, and then they were gone, forever. Now, with DVDs, streaming and all the modern recording techniques, you can watch anything, over and over again a hundred times. It may be amazingly convenient, and none of us would be without it, but it has also played a huge part in killing the magic, the sensawunda. It\’s all become as common as muck, so easily accessible and available. There\’s nothing special about any of it any more.

The current generation of kids, at least here in the West, are spoiled rotten. All of this great technology and sci-fi culture has been around since long before they were born, and they\’ve grown up with it as an integral part of their lives. But you know the old saying – \”Familiarity Breeds Contempt\” – they just don\’t appreciate it. It\’s no big deal to them. We older fen, on the other hand, we were there when Star Trek first appeared in the 1960\’s, when Star Wars ushered in the era of blockbuster sci-fi movies in the late-1970\’s. Before that, with only a handful of exceptions, sci-fi movies were cheap B-movies, sneered at by everyone except the hardcore fans.

We were there for the first appearances of Blake\’s 7, Battlestar Galactica, Blade Runner, Alien, and Close Encounters of the Third Kind. We were there when all of these great television shows and films (which are now familiar cultural icons) were new, fresh, and NOBODY had ever seen anything like them before. Some of us were even there for the first appearance of Doctor Who (although I don\’t remember anything about it, as it was two weeks before my third birthday!). And the oldest fans were there for the three original Quatermass TV serials – The Quatermass Experiment (1953), Quatermass II (1955) and Quatermass and the Pit (1958), Captain Video and His Video Rangers, and even the sci-fi \”pulps\”. Well before my time, and I\’m so envious of them.

All of us older fans, we\’re starting to get on a bit (I\’m 53). But the one great thing about being middle-aged or older is that we lived through the truly great eras of nearly EVERYTHING – sci-fi TV and cinema, the growth and explosion into popular culture of SF literature, the great eras of US and UK comics, and the great popular music eras of the 1950\’s, 60\’s, 70\’s and 80\’s. We are SO lucky. We\’re the most fortunate of all, because we lived through the one, true geek generation. We\’ll never see its like again.

The kids these days missed out on all of that, and will NEVER experience anything like it. There are so many bright, shiny new fads these days, massive marketing machines making sure that they happen seemingly one right after another. And each of them lasts all of five minutes until the next one comes along. Nothing is unique or special any more. They\’ve seen it all before.

To be honest, I\’m not overly enthusiastic about the rapidly looming advance of my \”senior years\”. But being a geek is the one area in life where I can honestly say \”It\’s great to be old\”. 🙂

SCIENCE FICTION edited by S. H. Burton

TITLE: SCIENCE FICTION
EDITED BY: S. H. Burton
CATEGORY: Short Fiction
SUB-CATEGORY: Anthology
FORMAT: Hardback, 245 pages
PUBLISHER: Longman, The Heritage of Literature Series, London, 1967.

CONTENTS:

  • Introduction by S. H. Burton
  • \”Requiem\” by Robert A. Heinlein (Astounding Science Fiction, January 1940)
  • \”A Present from Joe\” by Eric Frank Russell (Astounding Science Fiction, February 1949)
  • \”Dark They Were and Golden-Eyed\” by Ray Bradbury (Thrilling Wonder Stories, August 1949, as \”The Naming of Names\”)
  • \”Protected Species\” by H. B. Fyfe (Astounding Science Fiction, March 1951)
  • \”The New Wine\” by John Christopher (Fantastic Story Magazine, Summer 1954)
  • \”Nightfall\” by Isaac Asimov (Astounding Science Fiction, September 1941)
  • \”The Windows of Heaven\” by John Brunner (New Worlds, May 1956, as \”Two by Two\”)
  • \”Youth\” by Isaac Asimov (Space Science Fiction, May 1952)
  • \”The Star\” by Arthur C. Clarke (Infinity Science Fiction, November 1955)

This is an unusual little book, a very small hardcover, only the size of a paperback. It\’s also interesting in that it was published as part of Longmans\’ prestige \”The Heritage of Literature Series\”, rather than as a commercial SF paperback or hardback. This series seems to be more of an academic line, covering not only science fiction, but detective fiction and general short fiction. Very interesting.

It\’s a fairly short anthology, and there are a few classic, well-known stories by big name authors, which have seen publication previously in many anthologies and single-author collections – Heinlein\’s \”Requiem\”, Bradbury\’s \”Dark They Were and Golden-Eyed\”, Asimov\’s \”Nightfall\” and Clarke\’s \”The Star\”. It\’s always nice to re-read these excellent stories, especially if you haven\’t read them for a while.

There are also several stories, by familiar authors, which are not so well known – Asimov\’s \”Youth\”, Russell\’s \”A Present from Joe\”, Brunner\’s \”The Windows of Heaven\” and Christopher\’s \”The New Wine\”. And finally, there is also a story by an author with whom I\’m totally unfamiliar, although I have seen his name in old magazine listings – H. B. Fyfe\’s \”Protected Species\”. I haven\’t read this one (or anything by this author) before.

I\’ve started reading this anthology with the least familiar, so right now I\’m part way through Fyfe\’s \”Protected Species\”, which is quite a good story, at least so far. It\’ll be interesting to see where it leads. After that, I\’ll move onto the other stories that I haven\’t read before, although the author\’s ARE familiar to me – Russell, Brunner and Christopher. And I\’ll finally finish off by re-reading the biggies from Clarke, Asimov, Heinlein and Bradbury.

As this anthology is short, it shouldn\’t take me very long to finish it. I\’m off to read the rest of \”Protected Species\”…

Sci-Fi Film Marathon, Saturday 5th July-Sunday 6th July, 2014

I\’ve said several times before that Sundays at our house have become a favourite of mine for sci-fi on TV and DVD, so much so that I\’ve taken to referring to the day as \”Sci-Fi Sunday\”. Well, this weekend was no different, with the local UK Freeview television channels coming up with the goods yet again, airing some excellent sci-fi films over the weekend. The only unusual exception was Channel 5, which most weekends has at least one sci-fi film on, but not this time around (but lots of Disney stuff on today, for anyone who\’s into that kinda thing).

The additional plus this weekend was that Saturday was almost as good as Sunday, for a change. This week it\’s not just \”Sci-Fi Sunday\”, but an entire \”Sci-Fi Weekend\”, during which Film4 hosted no less than four classic sci-fi films, and Channel 4, ITV2 and BBC Three aired one each. Add to that the two sci-fi DVDs that I watched with my friends on Sunday night, and that amounts to quite a sci-fi marathon over two days.

Unfortunately the BBC channels, particularly the two big ones, BBC One and BBC Two, are very poor when it comes to airing any kind of sci-fi, preferring instead to aim for the lowest common denominator and concentrate on an unrelenting garbage diet of soaps, sport and reality TV. I think the BBC considers Doctor Who to be their absolute limit for sci-fi these days, and tough luck if we want anything else. When there\’s no Doctor Who on the BBC channels, there\’s very rarely any sci-fi at all. If it wasn\’t for the news or documentaries, I wouldn\’t watch BBC One or Two at all. The same for BBC Three. Aside from a couple of episodes of Doctor Who on Friday evenings, it\’s complete crap.

Once again, Film4 was the undisputed champ, with two sci-fi films on Saturday, and two more on Sunday. Saturday afternoon started off well, with Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986). Then we did a bit of channel-hopping over to Channel 4 for Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (2009), and then it was back to Film4 again for some Arnie in Conan the Barbarian (1982). Sunday afternoon saw Film4 picking up where they left off on Saturday night, with The Phantom (1996), running straight into Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (1989). The usual Sunday evening visitors started drifting in by that point, so once the Star Trek V film was over, we switched from TV to DVD, with the first part (of three) of the Sci-Fi Channel\’s excellent Dune mini-series (2000).

Then it was back to the TV for another film. Given what I said earlier about the BBC channels being very bad for sci-fi, I almost died of shock when BBC Three actually aired Tron: Legacy (2010). This was followed soon after on ITV2 by The Matrix Reloaded (2003), the very good second film in the Matrix Trilogy. Finally, and taking us from late Sunday night into early Monday morning, it was another DVD, the much underrated fourth film in the Alien series, Alien: Resurrection (1997). I\’ve heard many people whinge about how bad they think this film is. I disagree with them. I always enjoy it when it is re-run on TV.

I\’m slinking off to bed now at just after 4am, exhausted, but very satisfied after two days of great sci-fi films. Here\’s looking forward to next weekend! 🙂

Doctor Who: 50 Years in Space & Time (Part 12)

Here\’s the final part of my look back at Doctor Who\’s 50th Anniversary, with the final two of my list of favourite dozen best 50th Anniversary items:

  • Doctor Who: Monsters and Villains Weekend
  • Doctor Who: The Doctors Revisited

13. Doctor Who: Monsters and Villains Weekend

The three-part Doctor Who: Monsters and Villains Weekend, which aired on BBC3 over three nights from the Friday-Sunday, 15th-17th November, was a celebration of the various monsters and adversaries that the Doctor has met in the new series. It starts in reverse order, from the Judoon in tenth place, down through the Silurians, the Ood, Clockwork Droids, the Ice Warriors, the Cybermen, the Silence, to the final big 3-2-1 of the Master, the Weeping Angels, and the Daleks. Lots of monsters, and LOTS of fun.

14. Doctor Who: The Doctors Revisited

The Doctors Revisited originally aired as individual episodes between January and November, and was reshown in omnibus format on Watch on Saturday 16th November. It is an 11-part series featuring each of the previous incarnations of the Doctor from the first to the eleventh. Some classic clips featuring the Doctor and his adversaries, and interviews with creators, cast and behind-the-scenes contributors and crew, make this a worthwhile viewing experience for all Doctor Who fans.

All in all, a great 50th Anniversary. Not a bad item on the list, although the first four or five were undoubtedly, for me at least, the best of the bunch.

THE GREAT SF STORIES VOL. 1 (1939) edited by Isaac Asimov and Martin H. Greenberg

TITLE: ISAAC ASIMOV PRESENTS THE GREAT SF STORIES VOL. 1 (1939)
EDITED BY: Isaac Asimov and Martin H. Greenberg
CATEGORY: Anthology
SUB-CATEGORY: Short Fiction
FORMAT: Paperback, 432 pages
PUBLISHER: DAW Books, New York, 1st Printing, March 1979.

Those are the various general details, and here\’s a listing of the contents:

  • Introduction by Isaac Asimov
  • \”I, Robot\” by Eando Binder (Amazing Stories, January 1939)
  • \”The Strange Flight of Richard Clayton\” by Robert Bloch (Amazing Stories, March 1939)
  • \”Trouble with Water\” by H. L. Gold (Unknown, March 1939)
  • \”Cloak of Aesir\” by Don A. Stuart (John W. Campbell, Jr.) (Astounding Science Fiction, March 1939)
  • \”The Day is Done\” by Lester Del Rey (Astounding Science Fiction, May 1939)
  • \”The Ultimate Catalyst\” by John Taine (Thrilling Wonder Stories, June 1939)
  • \”The Gnarly Man\” by L. Sprague De Camp (Unknown, June 1939)
  • \”Black Destroyer\” by A. E. Van Vogt (Astounding Science Fiction, July 1939)
  • \”Greater Than Gods\” by C. L. Moore (Astounding Science Fiction, July 1939)
  • \”Trends\” by Isaac Asimov (Astounding Science Fiction, July 1939)
  • \”The Blue Giraffe\” by L. Sprague De Camp (Astounding Science Fiction, August 1939)
  • \”The Misguided Halo\” by Henry Kuttner (Unknown, August 1939)
  • \”Heavy Planet\” by Milton A. Rothman (Astounding Science Fiction, August 1939)
  • \”Life-Line\” by Robert A. Heinlein (Astounding Science Fiction, August 1939)
  • \”Ether Breather\” by Theodore Sturgeon (Astounding Science Fiction, September 1939)
  • \”Pilgrimage\” by Nelson Bond (Amazing Stories, October 1939)
  • \”Rust\” by Joseph E. Kelleam (Astounding Science Fiction, October 1939)
  • \”The Four-Sided Triangle\” by William F. Temple (Amazing Stories, November 1939)
  • \”Star Bright\” by Jack Williamson (Argosy, November 1939)
  • \”Misfit\” by Robert A. Heinlein (Astounding Science Fiction, November 1939)

This is a real gem of an anthology, and what a year 1939 was! It\’s hard to know where to start with this lot, but it would probably be with the three that really stand out for me, Van Vogt\’s \”Black Destroyer\”, John W. Campbell\’s (under his \”Don A. Stuart\” pseudonym) \”Cloak of Aesir\” and Milton A. Rothman\’s \”Heavy Planet\”, which are all stories that impacted greatly on me when I first started reading short SF way back in my early teens.

But there are also so many other good stories here, in particular C. L. Moore\’s \”Greater Than Gods\”, Jack Williamson\’s \”Star Bright\”, Lester Del Rey\’s \”The Day is Done\”, Eando Binder\’s \”I, Robot\”, Isaac Asimov\’s \”Trends\”, and the two Robert A. Heinlein stories \”Life-Line\” and \”Misfit\”. Most of the others I can\’t really remember, as I read them so long ago, and there are a few that I don\’t think I\’ve actually read before.

I\’m really looking forward to reading (or is that re-reading?) Henry Kuttner\’s \”The Misguided Halo\” (I\’m a big fan of his), Theodore Sturgeon\’s \”Ether Breather\” (likewise a big fan of his), Robert Bloch\’s \”The Strange Flight of Richard Clayton\” and the two L. Sprague De Camp stories \”The Gnarly Man\” and \”The Blue Giraffe\”. All big names that I\’ve enjoyed reading before.

This book was the first in a very long series, and Isaac Asimov Presents the Great SF Stories, Volumes 1-25, was one of the greatest ever series of science fiction anthologies. Published by DAW Books, the twenty-five volumes each covered a single year, and the entire series spanned the years 1939-1964.

The first twelve of these volumes were also later repackaged in a series of hardcovers, Isaac Asimov Presents the Golden Years of Science Fiction. There were six volumes in total of that one, First Series-Sixth Series, each one containing two of the original paperback volumes. For some reason (I\’ve never found out why), this series of hardcovers stopped at the half-way mark, and the remaining thirteen volumes of the paperbacks were never collected in hardback. Pity. Those hardbacks were really nice, and I\’m fortunate enough to have all six of them.

The twenty-five volume paperback set is a different matter. I only started to collect those several months ago, and so far I only have nine of them, although I continue to pick up the odd one here and there, with the intention of collecting the entire series, eventually. The books in this series are also quite expensive and hard to find, and most of the copies that I\’ve seen are from US sellers, so the shipping charges to the UK and Ireland are also very expensive. I\’ve often seen costs totalling up to $50 on Ebay for one of these paperbacks inclusive of shipping, as some of the US sellers charge ridiculously and inexcusably high transatlantic shipping charges. It\’s much better if you can find them on Amazon UK, as they only charge £2.80 shipping from all Amazon sellers, even those in the US.

Anyways, nine down, sixteen to go. Oboy! I guess it\’s time to get the credit card out and start buying a few more of these books…

Panic Moon May 2014

\"Panic

[O]ne of my favourite Doctor Who fanzines is Panic Moon, edited and published by the extra-talented and hard working Oliver Wake. Just hot off the presses (well, last month, so pretty recent) is the newest edition of Panic Moon, dated May 2014.

Now Panic Moon isn\’t just one of those fairly common electronic fanzines. It\’s a genuine, old-fashioned, paper and ink fanzine. But to add to it all, it isn\’t a typical A5 or A4 fanzine. It\’s a sexy, tiny little A6 zine, so cute and cuddly that you can just slip it in your pocket and take it anywhere with you. This may seem to be a pretty strange choice of size, but it works. This is definitely an attractive little zine.

And the quality of the contents are nothing to sneer at, either. As with previous issues of Panic Moon, the standard of the contents is very high, covering both classic Doctor Who and NuWho, and illustrated with some very nice original artwork. We also have articles and other bits \’n\’ pieces on the following:

  • An Unearthly Child
  • Marco Polo
  • The Time Meddler
  • The Savages
  • The Time of the Doctor
  • Doomsday
  • The Girl Who Waited
  • Doctor Who in Germany
  • missing episode animations
  • space opera in Doctor Who
  • the connection between The Daemons and Ghost Light
  • in praise of Carmen Munroe
  • Michael Grade
  • the Raston Warrior Robot
  • Tanya Lernov
  • the TARDIS doors
  • Planet of Giants
  • The Enemy of the World

That\’s quite a lot to squeeze into a tiny little zine like this. But that\’s Panic Moon all over – small and wholesome. For less than the price of a pint of beer (and that includes postage), you get a lovely little fanzine, with oodles of great reading. This is a real bargain, and all self-respecting Doctor Who fans should be supporting fanzines like this. Do yourselves a big favour and grab a copy, while it is still available.

For more information on the May 2014 edition of Panic Moon, head on over to the Panic Moon blog, where you\’ll find pricing and ordering details.