vivdunstan

Crikey I so wanted to type 2024 there haha!

I've got off to a flying start this year, partly with 2 books that were hang overs from before, but also a quick read for my book club. But then I also quickly read 3 other books that had been hanging around for too long, and I wanted to pass on to charity shops. I'd previously started reading a couple of them.

An Academy for Liars by Alexis Henderson
Don't Touch My Hair by Emma Dabiri
Days at the Morisaki Bookshop by Satoshi Yagisawa
Egyptian Myths: Meet the Gods, Goddesses, and Pharaohs of Ancient Egypt by Jean Menzies
Tutankhamun: The Treasures of the Tomb by Zahi Hawass
ABBA: The Treasures by Ingmarie Halling and Carl Magnus Palm

An Academy for Liars is a dark academia book, with rather a lot of violence and gore added to the mix. It was ok, but I had to push to keep reading it to the end. 3/5 stars.

Don't Touch My Hair by Emma Dabiri was an incredible insight into the experience and history of black hair. A strong 4/5 stars.

Days at the Morisaki Bookshop was another 3/5 star read for me. Ok, mostly, but a rather odd writing style, and an unexpected and lengthy shift away from the cosy bookshop setting mid way through. 3/5 stars.

Egyptian Myths by classical historian and YouTuber Jean Menzies was an entertaining and informative text, full of striking large format illustrations from Katie Ponder. I did find the order and structure a little confusing in places, but I learned a lot. 4/5 stars.

Tutankhamun: The Treasures of the Tomb is a large format coffee table book, filled with huge photographs and details of many hundreds of items from Tutankhamun's tomb. The items chosen are a selection carefully curated by Zahi Hawass, and it's not exhaustive. But for what you did get it was jaw dropping, including multi-page folding out large photographs. Both Martin and I were stunned by parts. 5/5 stars.

ABBA: The Treasures is a large format squidgy book telling much of the story of ABBA in photographs, reminiscences, and reproductions of paper ephemera connected with them, tucked into folders inside that you open up and work through the contents of. It's a nice book, but a rather narrow perspective on their life, focusing mainly on some of their 1970s international tours, which one of the authors accompanied them on. I did feel that I was missing out on the wider story. But the folders of paper ephemera were a delight. I was particularly amused by the customs list, for the Australian tour I think, including a "piano accordion". 4/5 stars.

Another in this slow going series from me, and this time I'm going for the easiest fandom of all for me to tackle!

I first started watching Doctor Who in 1978, aged 5, very shortly to be 6, with "The Ribos Operation" and the Key to Time 16th series with Tom Baker's Fourth Doctor paired with the glorious Mary Tamm as the first Romana. I was vaguely aware of Doctor Who before, but don't think I'd ever properly watched it. Certainly when I got my first Doctor Who annual, which featured Louise Jameson's Leela, I was utterly baffled. Though happy to go with the flow.

From that moment on Doctor Who was a fixed viewing point in our house, with Dad and me both hugely enjoying it. I loved the first version of Romana, but was shocked by the second - my first experience of Time Lord regeneration. And then we got to Logopolis, and yes, that was a shock too. Though I recognised Peter Davison from All Creatures Great and Small, and quickly took to his version of the Doctor with no problems.

I continued as a fan throughout the 1980s. Dad was often exasperated by some of the 1980s Doctors, especially Sylvester McCoy, but I remained a fan throughout. Loved the often bonkers storytelling. It did feel very much of its time. I continued to get a Doctor Who annual most years, but never joined fan organisations then like DWAS. Though I was generally reading Doctor Who Magazine every month throughout the 1980s.

I do remember trying to see a Doctor Who exhibition at Burntisland. My parents and I travelled the long distance up from the Scottish Borders by car, then got a train near Edinburgh to go over to Fife for the day. And there was supposed to be a Doctor Who exhibition there. But it wasn't there when we got there. I was disappointed. Though I do remember enjoying a helter skelter!

And then we got to 1989, and the end of TV Who. And I fell away. I remember joining a Doctor Who fan club at St Andrews University in 1990, but had a really unpleasant experience as a female fan and immediately left. It's just possible that it was a more generic scifi fan club, though if so I think it was still heavily Who leaning. I never knew about the Virgin New Adventures novels at the time, and completely stopped reading Doctor Who Magazine.

Then, somehow, and I still don't know how it happened, I completely missed that there was going to be a new Doctor Who TV Movie in 1996. I didn't even know it was on. Martin also failed to notice that - he would have mentioned it if he'd seen it. So we completely missed it. I also had no idea for many years that Paul McGann had played the part.

And that was how things remained, until 26th September 2003, and the news that Doctor Who was going to return with a new series. I saw that news on Ceefax, and it was like a total bolt out of the blue. And prompted me to return to the series, check out some books that had come out, start reading Doctor Who Magazine regularly again, and try my first Big Finish audio: The Chimes of Midnight, with Paul McGann as the Eighth Doctor I'd never heard or seen before. Listened to on my own in our new home in 2004. Magic.

Continuing my (oh so nearly finished) Matt Smith era rewatch, and it's on to this spooky thriller.

( spoilers )

I'm lining up some Tolkien animated films for us to watch. I have seen the 1978 animated Lord of the Rings before. Long, long ago in the 1980s. And I can't remember much of it. I have never seen the 1977 Hobbit, or the 1980 Return of the King. Martin has never seen any of them.

Frustratingly of these only the 1978 LOTR is available for streaming in the UK. I've previously nabbed that for us in iTunes, so we can watch that easily.

However I'd like to watch The Hobbit film first. Which isn't streamable in the UK. But I'm now nabbing a Spanish-released DVD. Which includes the original English language audio.

As for sourcing animated Return of the King, well that remains elusive, at least without a region-free player.

But yup. Animated Hobbit and LOTR coming up soon for us. This may be *interesting*.

Cover of the Spanish DVD release of "El Hobbit" 1977 animated film

I thought I'd write up some brief thoughts on these, ranging over the TV series, Big Finish audios (which are now newly rereleased), the annual book and Look-In comic strips. Note there will be slight spoilers below, so beware. As a reminder Sapphire & Steel was a British spooky/scifi TV series, airing on ITV between 1979 and 1982. Lots more information is available on its Wikipedia page

From the original TV series, which had six stories, two of them are strongest for me. The second story, set in an abandoned railway station, and the fourth story, the one with the man without a face. Both unnerved me far more than anything else in the TV series, and leave thoughts of lingering horror long after! This is a good thing though. The series achieved its aims. But it is also terrifying. The railway station is one of the stories with some of the darkest plot elements in it. And the images in the other story, especially for a young child as I was when first watching, are almost primal in their horror.

From the Big Finish audio series there are a number of stories that stand out for me. The first is the opening one, The Passenger, where we newly meet the recast Sapphire & Steel on a train journey. In many ways it's a best of, with lots of familiar elements from the TV series reused well. But it also acts effectively as a great introduction to the new series. And nicely introduces an ongoing fellow element, Gold, played by Mark Gatiss.

Another highlight story early on in the audio series for me was All Fall Down. This was set in a historical archive, where objects are potential triggers for the past. Obviously this appealed to a historian like me. But it's also a really good storytelling idea for Sapphire & Steel, giving a tight location combined with atmospheric triggers leading to the past. Nicely we also encounter Silver, another element from the TV series, again played by David Collings.

My two favourite stories from the second Big Finish audio series are The Surest Poison and Water Like A Stone. The first revolves around the history of a valuable old watch, and again includes shifts through time. The other story is set in an abandoned theatre, and introduces yet another element, Ruby, played by Big Finish stalwart Lisa Bowerman. Who recurs in stories after this one.

The third season of the audio series was more of a mixed batch, though I did like the experimentation of opening story Second Sight. But for me the strongest stories were definitely in the earlier years. And I would highly recommend any of the audio series to TV series S&S fans.

I reviewed the 1981 Sapphire & Steel annual for a fan publication, so have detailed notes on that too. It is - like Doctor Who annuals from the same era - plagued with some seriously dodgy artwork and non likenesses. Like them it was a World publications book! However there were some nice text stories. And I'd like to especially mention the fourth story set in an astronomical observatory, but again with historic elements. This was the strongest story for me in the book, and very atmospheric.

There was also an ongoing series of Sapphire & Steel comic strips in Look-In children's TV magazine. I loved these, but haven't seen them for many years. There used to a (dodgy) digitised version online, but I think that vanished long ago. Fingers crossed for a reprint, perhaps from Chinbeard Books who have reprinted the Robin of Sherwood Look-In comic strips. I have an especially vivid memory of one of the Sapphire & Steel comic strips involving a ship in a bottle, and Sapphire and Steel somehow getting trapped on the ship. But I'm not sure how reliable that memory is. It was a great series of strips though.

In a brief awake spell managed to play another IFComp game (my 21st so far this year), a horror/thriller set in 1970s Venice. Enjoyed a lot about it, but the implementation wasn't thorough enough. Too many instances of fight the parser, including during tight timing sections. I wrote a detailed review of it on the intfiction forum, including helpful notes for the author. But hey, Venice in the 1970s, based around a film too. It felt like revisiting Don't Look Now ...

Just arrived, newly published today, the “45 years of fear” essential collection of British cult horror comic for girls, Misty. I never read this as a youngster, despite around that time watching Hammer and Amicus horror films from a young age! Oh and many Roger Corman Vincent Price ones with my dad. I really missed out re Misty!