Tag Archives: scifi

Review : Doctor Who : ‘Silence in the Library’/’Forest of the Dead’

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From the beginning of the first new season I have always loved the episodes written by Steven Moffat, from ‘The Empty Child’/’The Doctor Dances’ over ‘The Girl in the Fireplace’ and the brilliant ‘Blink’ to this double episode. I am looking forward to see what he will bring to the series as show runner.

Like the other stories (when they were written) this story stands a bit by itself in the Doctor Who time line.

We find The Doctor and Donna arriving (in the 51th century) at a planet full of books. In essence it is a library of all known books, known just as The Library. Something is very wrong, since the library seems completely empty. Well, there are the books, but no people at all, just a cryptic computerized warning message ‘Count the Shadows !’ .

Another party arrives, with among others, a certain professor River Song who appears to have a past with The Doctor, in his future. It turns out she even knows the name of The Doctor, something unheard of in the series until now, of course not counting The Doctor posing as John Smith, clearly an alias.

The “monster” of this story is the invisible, but very deadly Vashta Nerada, residing in the shadows and being a kind of “piranhas of darkness”.

In the story we learn enough to know why the Vashta Nerada act like they do, and of course The Doctor, aided by professor Song saves the vast majority of the people trapped on the planet.

The Little girl, living an imaginary life, does raise the questions of “what is reality” when Doctor Moon tells her that the life she thinks of as her own is not real .

For me the story has the best of the elements creating a good Who adventure, a good “monster”, a mystery or two, some good characters accompanying the Doctor, etc.

This was my first choice in the category for the Hugo Awards 2009. ‘Dr Horrible’ won that one, and that is fine.

‘Spoilers !!’ (River Song)

9/10 on the Lurker’s scale

Review : Doctor Who : ‘Turn Left’

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Hugo Nominee 2009 Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form.

This is Russell T. Davies’ writing at its best, aided by Graeme Harper’s directing. With all due respect for his team reviving Doctor Who Davies’ writing has not always been the best during the new Who era – probably due to the pressure of being the show runner.

While we have seen indications of inner strength in Donne Noble, this episode pulls all that to the fore. She has a little help from a friend she did not know she had : Rose. This is, for now, the culmination of the small glimpses we have had of Rose since the beginning of the season

The story finds Donna tricked into living a version of history where she did not meet the Doctor, and it is not a pretty picture. Guided by Rose from a different reality she finds her inner strength to change history back to what we know from the third season of the 10th Doctor.

The story has a good deal of fine drama, some fine character development of Donna, and a stunning conclusion, as a prelude to the two final episodes.

I consider this episode better than the two final ones, although I find those quite good as well.

This is certainly one of my favourites of the season, mainly rivaled by the double episode ‘Silence in the Library’/’Forest of the Dead’

9/10 on the lurker’s scale.

Update, and visit to DK

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Just back from holidays in DK

Got the blog software updated to the latest version.

I went to the small Danish convention “Fantasticon” (organised by the Danish Scifi association Fantastik)

Nice little con with about 150 people, Guests of Honour were British authors Charles Stross and Gwyneth Jones. Thinking of going to the Easetercon in London next year, and possibly the Eurocon in Stockholm 2011.

Long time no see

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It has been a while since I last had an entry here, things have been a bit hectic.

I became a supporting membert of the Anticipation Worldcon 2009, and with that came the right to vote on the Hugo Awards.

So for a month I was – among other things – busy reading 4 of the nominated novels, listening to the short stories, and a few other things.

Also, I have been more active building some radio equipment, and have had a successful attempt of receiving the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter.

I went to see the new Star Trek movie with a friend in Denmark, and finally I have been active learning more Tai Chi and Qigong.

Some of those activities will result in some new entries in the near future. Right now I am taking it a bit easy – and watching the new “Torchwood” series : “Children of Earth”. The first episode looks very promising, so let us hope that carries through the whole story.

Looking at Hugo Awards nominees 2009

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This year I decided to become a supporting member of the Worldcon/Anticipation that takes place in August in Montreal, Canada.

With a (supporting) membership of the Worldcon comes the right to vote on the Hugo Awards, the science fiction fans’ own awards.

Not just that, this year a big part of the nominee’s works are made available to the voters, so last week I downloaded the “Hugo Voter’s package 2009”, a zipped file of about 180 MB.

The file contains 4 novels, several novellas, short stories , a graphic novel (as far as I can see, have not opened that file yet), and other contributions, in order to facilitate an enlighttened voting process.

Now I am very happy that I got myself an eBook reader – it would be far too tiring reading that much on the iPod Touch. Still I am not tied to the computer screen, but can read anywhere I want – the Sofa or lazy chair is a good place.

I started reading “Saturn’s Children” by Charles Stross, partly because I expect to see him at a small local con (Fantasticon) in Copenhagen this year.

With 4 novels and all the other material I have a quite sufficient amount of reading to do before the Worldcon, even if I am not going to Montreal. I would like to go to a Worldcon once, especially if it takes place somewhere in (Northern) Europe.

A Somewhat SciFi-ish holiday

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I am now well back from my holidays, having celebrated Christmas and New Year with family and friends.

Apart from getting to see the people “back home” I and a needed restful day or two, I also got to see my oldest friend one I have known since 1969 – so this year will see our 40th anniversary of friendship. I spent some days there watching a fair amount of Scifi:

Jekyll :
A modern continuation, set in the present day, of the classic story by Robert Louis Stephenson. I liked it already, and the renewed viewing even improved on my impression. Link to a review from the earlier viewing.

Dr Who Season 4 :
A lovely season with rather good episodes, only “The Doctor’s Daughter” is a little weak, but not really bad. Reviews of single episodes will follow later.

Dr Who S1 The Beginning :
I recently got the box “The beginning” with the first Doctor, played by William Hartnell. We watched the first two stories of the series, “An unearthly Child” and the very first “Dalek” story. I am surprised how well written the stories are, nicely acted, the early Doctor Who has more of the “mystery sense” than the modern ones, even if the special effects are not up to modern standards. The story becomes more important than “big explosions” etc. More detailed reviews later.

Babylon 5 :
We remembered Majel Barrett Roddenberry by watching the episode “Point of No Return” where she plays Lady Morella, third wife of the late Emperor Turhan, and a seer. Wonderful performance from the “First Lady of Star Trek”.

Having seen that a few more of Season 3 episodes was what we wanted, so we ‘watches some selected ones finishing with “Z’Ha’Dum”. It is always good to rewatch Babylon 5, so a worthy way of finishing the visit (sort of a “2 person mini convention”)

Finally I found some time to be alone and read Kevin J. Anderson’s “Last Days of Krypton”. It is a good read, the disparate elements of the legend have been weaved well into a single story, linking The Phantom Zone, Jor-El’s science -experiments, the Jor-El and Lara story, General Zod and his companions, the folly of the Council, the fate of Kandor, and finally the fate of the planet Krypton itself. There is a nice surprise in what finally causes the destruction of Krypton.

Now for some more reading : I am a member of the Live Journal group hp_in_depth (Harry Potter), and we just started reading, two chapters per week, “The Goblet of Fire”, so I will be busy reading some evenings of the week.

Podcast : SciFi Talk

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“SciFi Talk”, as far as I understand it, is Tony Tellado’s continuation of a radio show. It comes in a slightly irregular scheme (if any), but often I see two or three episodes in the same week.

Interviews, round table discussions etc about all things SciFi, Fantasy, Horror etc is the stuff of “SciFi Talk”. He generally appears enthusiastic and knowledgeable about the people he talks to, to a degree that I occasionally find too much.

Also, I am not much int the Horror genre, so I will skip many of the interviews.

This podcast is still in my iTunes feed, but if there are 2 or 3 downloads I do not always feel the need to get them all.

I think it will stay on my list for a while yet, but it is one of the podcasts under consideration for cancelling.

Link :

SciFi Talk

H.G. Wells, Orson Welles : “War of the Worlds” radio play

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On 30th October 1938 a radio play caused mass panic in the U.S. I am, of course “talking” about the famous play “War of the Worlds” by Orson Welles based on H.G. Wells’ equally famous story.

Well, well, 70 years since that happened.

I have listened to the play a few times, and I find it fascinating story telling. OK – this is not a character piece, but the radio play is so well organised, as if a normal musical entertainment program is interrupted by news flashes, telling the story.

Some may ask, why the panic ? In order to understand that we must remember that at that time there was no mobile phones, no internet, no hundreds of tv (or radio channels) – even fixed telephones were not that common. What *was* available ? I should think one – maybe two radio programs. It was just not possible – like it is today – to go and check on the net, or CNN/BBC/whatever news channel you wanted. Information was just not there to find.

True, a radio play made in a similar way today simply could not have this effect. It is too easy to check news items for that.