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Post by Philip Ayres on May 27, 2019 22:14:17 GMT
Seeing this thread bounced, and reshelving my novels, has reminded me there are Target reprints here for Burns.
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Post by Philip Ayres on Jul 13, 2019 21:44:50 GMT
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Post by The Doctor on Jul 13, 2019 22:01:38 GMT
Dalek month??
-Ralph
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Post by Pinwig on Jul 13, 2019 22:18:03 GMT
Err... What?
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Post by Philip Ayres on Jul 17, 2019 10:28:41 GMT
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Post by The Doctor on Jul 17, 2019 17:05:02 GMT
Burns does not read prose in digital formats but approves that these are available at low cost for those who read that way.
-Ralph
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Post by The Doctor on Jul 23, 2019 19:03:59 GMT
I am reading AND THE ABOMINABLE SNOWMAN, which I don't remember reading at all back in the day. Even Uncle Tewwance is struggling to save this turd of a story. It always amazed me how utterly supreme THE WEB OF FEAR IS (in any form) when the original Yeti story is such poo.
-Ralph
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Post by Pinwig on Jul 23, 2019 19:05:38 GMT
Wrong.
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Post by Philip Ayres on Jul 23, 2019 19:07:36 GMT
VERY Wrong!
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Post by The Doctor on Jul 23, 2019 19:16:21 GMT
It's true though.
In book, telesnap, audio soundtrack and surviving episode forms THE WEB OF DEAR is astounding. It is peerless. Beyond estimation.
There was also a rubbish prequel with some mucking about up a mountain.
-Ralph
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Post by Pinwig on Jul 23, 2019 19:36:56 GMT
No. Just. No.
I hope this story surfaces some day because it will do an Enemy of the World on everyone. It's a great story. Not Web good, but excellent in its own right. The Loose Cannon recon puts it all together very nicely and hints at what it really was.
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Post by The Doctor on Jul 23, 2019 19:51:21 GMT
But the surviving episode isn't good. I don't think we have a lost classic here.
-Ralph
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Post by Philip Ayres on Jul 23, 2019 19:53:47 GMT
It's true though. In book, telesnap, audio soundtrack and surviving episode forms THE WEB OF DEAR is astounding. It is peerless. Beyond estimation. There was also a rubbish prequel with some mucking about up a mountain. -Ralph Stop talking b0!!ocks, Abominable Snowmen is brilliant and I've always said so. The sooner the copy that should have been in Jos turns up, the better.
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Post by Philip Ayres on Jul 23, 2019 19:56:01 GMT
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Post by The Doctor on Jul 23, 2019 20:52:24 GMT
It's not THE WEB OF FEAR though, is it.
-Ralph
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Post by Pinwig on Jul 23, 2019 20:56:11 GMT
Well no. It'd be called THE WEB OF FEAR if it was.
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Post by Philip Ayres on Jul 23, 2019 20:57:48 GMT
It's not THE WEB OF FEAR though, is it. -Ralph Web is better .... at the moment. This may change when Abominable Snowmen is found
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Post by Pinwig on Jul 23, 2019 21:41:44 GMT
My own ramblings from when I last watched it:
The Abominable Snowmen - 9
This story often seems criticised for having too slow a pace, but I don’t see it as any different to the slow build up that worked for The Faceless Ones. Doctor Who at this point is shifting from four to six parters as a standard, rather than being saved for the ‘big’ stories of the seasons, and when you look at this with the suspense in the first four episodes followed by the battle in episode five and the dénouement in episode six, it works better than the escapade with Chameleon Tours because it has a pay off at the end that was largely missing with The Faceless Ones. It’s a master stroke to put all the excitement of the Yeti assault into episode five, because it leaves the viewer wondering what’s left for the real climax.
In addition, it does that without going down the route of the ‘four parter with an extra two parter bolted on the end’ approach. Speaking of which, I spent a lot of time musing over how lots of Hartnell stories showed signs of what was to come in the Troughton era - this story to me has all the hallmarks of what is to come in the 70s stories. There are bits of Azal here, Peledon’s throne room and Aggedor, the multitude of disembodied alien intelligences of Tom Baker’s era; I even see the latter stages of Pyramids of Mars echoing Padmasambhava’s chamber.
When you put it next to Tomb it also comes across as a sophisticated, well thought out story, and from the audio the slow build works extremely well. Whether that would be let down by the visuals is questionable - how well the Yeti are realised would be a big factor, but the control spheres moving by themselves is certainly disturbing.
I think though this can only be a classic Troughton Who story. It’s firmly embedded in the monster era, it’s a base under siege story done in such a way that you don’t really notice that’s what it boils down to, and the Great Intelligence is an interesting and other-worldly adversary that is a step up in imagination from giant crabs, body snatchers and the already overused Cybermen. Would the Macra Terror have been even better if the Great Intelligence had been the adversary? The mind control stuff would certainly have been spookier.
My only gripe with this story, and it is a minor one, is of how the robot Yeti came into being. If the Great Intelligence is an entity floating through the astral plane looking for a way to embody itself on Earth (through foam? what?), then how did it manage to get the Yeti down first? Say it didn’t, say it mind controlled enough monks to build them, but then from what? Where’s the technology in a 1930s Tibetan Monastery to build sophisticated robots? And did they catch real Yeti to use the skins to cover the frames?
It’s a minor point though given the plot holes in most of this era’s approach to science fiction. I really want to see this story. I think potentially it could be a 10, but I’m giving it a 9 now on the grounds it may be a little too slow through episodes two to four. It does everything right though. I’m going to ignore the fact the whole thing is started by the Doctor finding the bell in that bloody fancy dress box, but it does at least score points here for providing Victoria with some sensible clothes.
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Post by Pinwig on Aug 2, 2019 22:35:42 GMT
I have decided I must now locate secondhand bookshops this summer. I will not rest until I have bought a Target novel I don't own in a shop. Where have they all gone? Mission parameters set! Two large second hand bookshops explored in Derbyshire. Not a single Doctor Who book of any sort.
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Post by The Doctor on Aug 2, 2019 22:40:39 GMT
Destroy them. Destroy them. At. Once.
-Ralph
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Post by manmiles on Aug 7, 2019 20:13:00 GMT
So. Resurrection of the Daleks, a novelisation of a story I hate is for the most part, a pretty good book. How much of that is up to Terry Molloy, I'll probably have to say 'most of it.' The bleakness and violence doesn't feel as overwhelming on the printed page as it does on screen and Saward is a serviceable writer with a fairly middling grasp of the main characters (Tegan will mention she's Australian every few lines of dialogue with Turlough probably faring the worst here as every thought and opinion he has is related to how horrible the school he went to is, his nature as an alien either forgotten or not mentioned) The Doctor is the Fifth Doctor.
But where TV Saward seems to want to be Peckinpah, Book Saward really wants to be Douglas Adams and this is where the book really falls down. It has a habit of going on very long, Adams-esque asides which don't fit in with the story being told and thus seems less whimsical and more flippant in a story where death, slaughter and grimness are the order of the day. There's a perplexing moment where a cat tells the Doctor that he wishes he had a cat-sized flak jacket and even the Doctor is left wondering if that really happened.
If you need a small drinking game, take a drink every time the book brings up the Terreleptils. It happens a lot. I feel sorry for Saward here, he seems to believe that people care about them as much as he does. So yeah, it's probably a better book than it would have gotten as a Target back in the day.
It's probably a better book than the story deserves in my opinion. But, it's always great to hear Molloy break out his Davros voice yet again and if you have a free Audible credit... why not?
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Post by Pinwig on Aug 8, 2019 14:09:15 GMT
Target special acquired from Smiths.
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Post by Philip Ayres on Aug 10, 2019 20:00:10 GMT
Enjoying this a lot.
Has made me wonder how many Target books were published before they started numbering the spines.....
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Post by Pinwig on Aug 10, 2019 20:16:27 GMT
Ooh. I recall working that out when I did a big spreadsheet to record my books when I started my mission to find one in a second hand book shop. I think Time Flight was the first new book with a number. Such a shame they ordered the previous ones alphabetically and not in publication order.
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Post by Philip Ayres on Aug 10, 2019 20:21:02 GMT
Can you recall what it was or find out for me?
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Post by Pinwig on Aug 10, 2019 20:27:08 GMT
Zarbi is book 73 and Time Flight is 74, published April 83.
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Post by Philip Ayres on Aug 10, 2019 20:35:18 GMT
Thank you, I think you can see why I needed to know
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Post by Pinwig on Aug 10, 2019 20:39:34 GMT
Yes. I do. I thought that was a question you would know the answer to anyway... why is he asking that? I thought, and then, oh there it was...
Still, made me realise I haven't updated my Target spreadsheet for new audio releases since February.
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Post by Philip Ayres on Aug 10, 2019 20:47:23 GMT
When I realised I thought the coincidence should be brought into the public light
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Post by Pinwig on Aug 10, 2019 20:49:47 GMT
Of course you did...
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