I bought this graphic novel knowing nothing about it other than that the front cover looked cool. Based on that piece of art, I thought it was about Rose Tyler becoming corrupted by the power of the Bad Wolf and then the Doctors having to team up to stop her. That wasn’t the case at all, and in fact, I was slightly disappointed because the warlord version of Rose seen here comes from a previous Doctor Who comic, and her origins aren’t really explored in much detail. I recommend reading the comic Alternating Current (also by Jody Houser) first, so that you can go in properly informed (unlike me).
Anyway, that niggle aside (which I suppose is on me for not doing enough research), this was a delightful comic adventure which was very satisfying to me as a fan for various reasons. First of all, this has the Eighth Doctor meeting Rose Tyler. I love the Eighth Doctor, but his existence seems so far removed from Rose, so it’s cool to see these two strands of the Doctor Who universe come together – of course, he won’t remember it afterwards, but it’s technically the first meeting between the Doctor and Rose. On the flip side, it also shows the Eleventh Doctor meeting Rose, which is (for now) the last time the Doctor ever sees her, which is nicely bittersweet, and I enjoyed the dynamic between them. Last of all, though it’s only small, it also shows us the Meta-Crisis Doctor living with Rose in the parallel world
I think this type of Doctor Who story, which is based around bringing characters who had never met together, can go one of two ways – it can either come across as “Oh look, it’s that character you remember and that other character you remember too” or it can be a fannish treat that also does something significant with the character’s emotional journey (like Twice Upon a Time). This is definitely in the second category, and while you might want to read some of the other comics first, this is a lot of fun even if you don’t.
The story essentially has two versions of Rose becoming displaced across the multiverse and then needing to figure out how to get back to their proper place. Nothing too complex, but it sets up a fantastic character piece (and also has Sontarans, which is a nice bonus). It’s exactly the kind of story I like Doctor Who comics to tell. (Also, I never know how to insert this into reviews, but Roberta Ingranata did a great job on the art too).
As I mentioned recently, last month I went on my first trip overseas and visited Portugal for five days. It was a delightful time, full of new experiences. My friend Neus (who was responsible for me going altogether, for which I am very grateful) suggested that I make a list of my top ten new experiences on the trip, so I am now going to do exactly that.
10. Flying over the sea – the very act of flying over the ocean itself was pretty exciting for me – I didn’t actually have a window seat, but the whole flight experience puts every other type of public transport to shame… well, except one of course.
9. Riding on a ferry – technically, I’ve been on a ferry before, but I was just a child and I barely remember it, and that was a giant ferry with cars in it. This was a little ferry and I got to ride in a seat by the waves as they splashed against me. One particular ferry ride was the basis of my last blog post about the trip and probably the absolutely best moment of the whole thing.
8. Having a walk, but instead of walking on land, walking on sea – not Jesus-style, of course, but walking in a large body of warm(ish), clean, still open water is one of the nicest things I got to do while I was there. Gosh, that was a relaxing experience.
7. Putting rubbing alcohol on a cut – I was having such a good time, that even the less pleasant memories are fond ones. The sensation is rubbing alcohol on a cut is quite an interesting one, I couldn’t help but laugh at the pain – and of course, the concern shown for me by my friends Rory and Malena was very touching too.
6. Eating dinner on a roof – normally I eat dinner inside buildings, not on top of them, so that was exciting. It was especially nice because it was late at night, and everybody was there. The food was extra delicious too. Thanks, Isabelle.
5. Wearing shorts as an adult – I thought they’d be uncomfortable, but they were okay actually. I can see myself wearing them again in a hot country. Stylish, comfortable, breezy.
4. Swimming in the sea as an adult – gosh, that was amazing – doing handstands like I’m a physically fit person, enjoying the salty tingle in my eyes, getting thrown around by the waves, losing my glasses, I loved it all. One of the highlights for sure.
3. Cunnilingus – that’s what I call eating fresh and delicious watermelon on a hot night. You can call me Starry Hyles.
2. Pasteis de Nata – have you ever heard of a religious experience? Well, this was a delicious experience, which is better, because instead of a revelation about life and the nature of the universe, I had a revelation about how delicious bakery fresh cakes can be, and that’s so much more valuable to me.
1. New friends – this wasn’t my first time making friends, of course, but it was my first time making these friends, I don’t think anything will ever be more valuable to me than the consolidation of a new friendship.
Of course, there are probably countless other things I could list, but those are ten of the absolute best things. Really, I think I’m quite lucky to have made my first international trip at age 30, because I was old enough to truly take it all in and be very excited by everything that happened, whereas if I were a child, I’d probably have taken it for granted a bit more.
This is probably one of the best known Shakespeare plays, with most people thinking of it as “the one where a man has a donkey’s head” and, to be honest, other than knowing that it was one of the more fantastical plays in general, that was about the extent of my knowledge before reading too.
Of all the Shakespeare I’ve read, I think this has definitely been the most light-hearted and whimsical one so far. I quite liked that, as it made for a refreshing change from the usual, more edgy stuff that you get from him. Here you’ve got nonsense like people mixing up love potions so that the wrong people fall in love with each other and hilarity ensues.
The main story is about a wedding between Theseus and Hippolyta – but while humans are getting involved in there usual squabbles, there are also a bunch of goings on with the fairy folk. In the midst of it all, you’ve got a group of performers who are trying to put on a play to mark the occasion of the wedding, which adds an entertaining meta-layer to everything.
Something I appreciated about A Midsummer’s Night Dream was the addition of all the fairy people – most notably, Titania the queen of the fairies, and her mischievous underling, Puck. Although both of these characters were created by Shakespeare himself, they’ve left such an impact that they’ve kind of been retroactively absorbed into the folklore. They’re both fun characters, and it’s great to see their origins here.
Though there are still quite a few that I haven’t read, this is definitely my favourite of the Shakespeare comedies, and if you’re looking for one to try, I would definitely recommend this as one of the ones you won’t want to miss.
This is the fourth book in The Wheel of Time series, and also the longest one so far for me (and according to Wikipedia, overall). Unfortunately, I felt that the series started to lose a bit of steam here too – overall, it was still a book that I enjoyed, but it felt like it dragged at times.
One of the things that kind of annoyed me about this book, and which was much less of a problem in the earlier ones, was that Robert Jordan seems to find any excuse he can to have the female characters get naked. There’s no gratuitous descriptions or anything (he’s not George R. R. Martin), but it just starts to feel quite infantile. It happens so often, and the men almost never get naked, so it seems like there’s only one reason he’s doing it… which is disappointing because I originally thought that he was pretty good at writing female characters.
On the other hand, this novel also gives you a little more backstory on the history of the world and the people within it. In particular, it gives a few chapters which details the history of the Aiel. This was genuinely interesting to me, though I also felt that it was much longer than necessary. The actual revelations in these chapters are pretty cool, but they’re also pretty lengthy and don’t feature any of the characters I care about.
One last criticism to get out before I get to the good stuff: the budding romance between Perrin and Faile gets a lot of attention here and, gosh, did it make my eyes roll. So much of “Oh, the reason they are awful to each other is because they love each other!” but why do they love each other when they’re always awful to one another? It’s such a rubbish relationship, and it was very hard to feel anything for them, when they were both always so mean. I’ve read a lot of books over the years, and so have read through a lot of literary romances, and though they are not the absolute worst (Christian Grey and Anastasia Steele), they’re definitely one of the worst. You know the saying “Still a better love story than Twilight?” Well, this isn’t.
Still, now that I’ve gotten all the bad stuff out of the way, there is still a lot to be admired about this book. First of all, I enjoyed getting to see Matt and Rand interact a little more this time, after being apart a lot in the previous books. There’s quite a contrast between the characters, with Rand now fully embracing his role as The Dragon Reborn, and Matt mostly just trying to lead a regular (if sleazy) life – and yet they still care about each other, so that’s cool. Speaking of Matt, he also gets to meet some creepy, alien-like being in a sequence which I imagine gets explained in more detail later on, but either way, I liked it a lot here.
This was also the novel where I really started to like Siuan Sanche, the Amyriln Seat (leader of the Aes Sedai) – while she’s not a direct focus of a lot of chapters, she is involved in some of the most interesting developments in the book. Speaking of Aes Sedai, once again, hats off to Moiraine for being the best character in the series (even if she does have to be naked loads of times, but she does it in a cool, completely un-phased kind of way). Aviendha really comes into her own as a character too (she’s becoming one of my favourites) and outside of his awful romance story, I really liked Perrin’s storyline too.
So as much as this was the weakest book in the series so far, it’s at the point where I am quite invested in the characters and the setting, so it’s easy enough to keep going. Even in a boring chapter, the character carry it for me – but I certainly hope it will get a little better in the next one.
The twelfth novel in the Virgin New Adventures series of Doctor Who books sees the Doctor and Bernice landing in a planetary system which was known to have mysteriously disappeared. As you might imagine, this is a premise which leads to disaster for them.
The story jumps between several different threads that are all taking place within the same planetary system. One small niggle that I have comes from the fact that the Doctor and Bernice become separated near the start and spend most of the novel having separate but connected adventures. This is something Doctor Who stories do a lot for some reason, but I think it’s a bit disappointing, because I always love to see the interactions between the Doctors and their various companions.
Having said that, my disappointment about the separation was relatively short-lived, because the Doctor spends most of the novel teamed up with the historic poet and artist, William Blake. In fact, that’s him on the front cover. I never would have seen that coming, but I thought it was a pretty cool pairing. Together they travel through a monster-filled wasteland, and even nineteenth century London.
Bernice, meanwhile, is teamed up with an android named Spike, who is technically trying to hunt her down because he thinks she is a shapeshifting fugitive, and the two have to survive navigating a vast jungle together. Though I liked William Blake more, I did think that Spike was a really cool standalone character too. Later a bunch of space criminals show up too, and they were pretty interesting.
What was most interesting to me about this one is that it was very different from your typical Doctor Who adventure (or most of them, anyway). The Doctor and his companion aren’t here to beat an enemy and save the day, rather they’re getting caught up in a series of horrible events and just doing their best to stay alive. In the end, I thought it was definitely one of the bleaker Doctor Who novels that I’d read, but not in a really horrible way.
So while this is a pretty edgy Doctor Who book, it’s also not too on-the-nose about it. I wish the Doctor and Benny got to interact more (they’re great when they’re together), but their solo adventures were pretty great too. Most importantly, it was paced well and made me want to keep reading throughout (some Doctor Who novels drag a bit), so it’s definitely one of the better New Adventures and I think it’s well worth reading (it even has some ancient Time Lord secrets!)
I recently returned from my very first trip abroad. Needless to say, it was an absolutely wonderful experience – so much so, that there’s no way I could do it justice in just a single blog post. I’ll no doubt write others after this, but first I thought I’d write about the absolute best moment – which is surprisingly easy to narrow down.
Let me start with a bit of context on the trip. I was invited to join a group of seven people on a five day holiday in Olhão, Portugal. This was a holiday to mark the birthday of my friend Neus – the partner of Rory, one of my oldest, closest, and very best friends. When I initially received the invitation, the thought of staying with so many people that I didn’t know was a little bit daunting, but on the other hand, it is impossible for me to conceive of having a bad time when doing anything with Rory, because I don’t think I’ve ever had a bad time with him in the fifteen years that we’ve known one another. I thought that, as much as there would be other people there, I would be mostly spending time with Rory, and that would be fun and okay.
As it turns out, I was completely wrong (in a good way). During my time there, it was very easy to become friends with all the people there, who, in addition to Rory and Neus, were Malena (who I had met twice before and was fond of, but didn’t know well), Victoria, Lorena, Lorette, and Isabella (these last four I’d never met before). Looking back, Rory is probably in third place when it comes to the people I did the most with, behind Victoria and Malena – but every single person there was an absolute delight, and are all people that it is a pleasure to spend time with.
On one of the nights, when we visited one of the many delicious restaurants that we ate at during our time there, I remember saying to Malena that eating one food followed by another meant that the initial flavour created an ambience in my mouth and that eating the second food was even more delicious, because it was blending with the background flavour of the first. Strangely, looking back now, I can’t actually remember what the foods we were talking about were – but don’t worry, this is just a bit of added context, not the overall highlight of the trip that I’m talking about.
The actual highlight came after a wonderful trip to Culatra Island. The trip itself was truly fantastic, and we got to swim in the ocean and walk through a beautiful little village that was on the island. As great as that was, the absolute peak of my enjoyment didn’t come until the ferry ride home. It had been a fairly warm day, and then as we were riding home, the sun was setting, the waves were gentle, and the breeze was keeping us cool. Malena, Victoria and I were sitting on the bottom floor of the ferry at the time, looking out at the water.
At the ferry rode along, Malena and I were having a conversation about the ways in which we communicate our experience of emotion. Just as we don’t really know that everyone sees colour in the same way, we don’t really know that everybody experiences emotions in the same way either – when one person says “happy” maybe they mean a simple feeling of contentment, and when another person says it, perhaps they mean an overwhelming feeling of excitement that’s twinged with anxiety, while another might be feeling an uncontainable enthusiasm. The human spectrum of emotions is infinite, we were saying, and the framework of language that we use to express our feelings actually limits us enormously. The human experience is far greater than anything that can be expressed in any language, and in a different world, with a different culture, and different language, they’d probably talk about emotions which seem completely alien to us.
The conversation was one that was actually very thematically appropriate. Something that always gives me a very warm and happy feeling inside is the realisation that I are solidifying a new friendship. Looking back, I clearly remember feeling absolutely delighted back in 2008 when making friends with Rory for the first time, or when befriending my old friend Stacey in 2011, or my dear friend George in 1999, my housefriend Eilidh in 2013, or my friends Sarah and Edward in 2016. There are countless examples and I could go on, but the point is that the birth of a new friendship is what life is all about for me.
Now, imagine “new friendship” to be the food for my soul in the restaurant of life – gosh, that’s delicious, but imagine the tasty ambience that’s going to make in my soul’s mouth. Then imagine tucking in to a big mouthful of new experiences – having fun in the ocean with friends, exploring a foreign country, eating new foods, riding a ferry over the ocean, watching the sunset, and doing so much else. Well, the two things merged together to create the most amazing emotional sensation, and sitting there on that boat, it came to a head.
“We’re so lucky,” said Malena. “We’re sitting here looking at this beautiful sunset from a ferry – this is our lives.” She put it perfectly. While the entire trip comprises a string of memories that I will treasure forever, I think it was in that particular moment that I felt the happiest. Everything merged together, and it’s possible that I’ve never felt better in my entire life (which is saying something, because I have some pretty darn great memories). I was looking back on how everything had lead up to that moment, thinking about how it’s lucky I didn’t die in 2020 (thanks again for driving me to the hospital, Sarah), or in 2021 (blimmin’ COVID) because that would have prevented me from having such an emotionally powerful experience and how I never would have guessed such nice times weren’t far away at all – and isn’t that nicest thought of all; that an experience like that could be around the corner at any time?
So, a special thank you to Neus for inviting me to come on the trip – I will forever be grateful to you for enabling me to have such a wonderful time. It was absolutely amazing while it lasted, and I look forward to reliving it through my memories for many years to come.
I recently thought to myself, “Why are there so many songs that seem to be about delicious food, but are actually just about sex, but none that are the other way around?” Then I thought that if I wanted that to exist, I may as well write it myself. Here are the lyrics to a song I like to call Maximum Pleasure.
Wanna know what makes me really hard? I’m talking about the vegetable, chard, It’s good for my bones with lots of Vitamin C, What else did you think it was goin’ to be? Speakin’ of which, you know what gets me aroused? It’s when I’ve got ice cream in my house Slurp, slurp, slurp, it’s runnin’ down my face Slurp, slurp, slurp, I know no better taste
CHORUS:
You think this song is about genitals, But actually it’s about vegetables, You think this song is gonna be lude, But it’s just about eatin’ fruit, You think this song is about masturbation, But it’s actually about mastication, Chomp, chomp, chomp, Count every bite, Chomp, chomp, chomp, Oh, yeah, you’re doin’ right
You know me, I like ’em six inches long With a lenghthy banana, you can’t go wrong Stick it in your mouth and you’ll start to smile, Livin’ the high magnesium lifestyle. And you wanna know what makes me come? Nando’s of course, could there be another one? It has delicious food and it’s always lots of fun, If a restaurant is bad, I stay at home. I won’t come.
[CHORUS]
You know what’s round and I like to squeeze? A supermarket packet of Halloumi cheese. Speaking of which, guess my favourite hole. Yeah, that’s right, I eat Swiss cheese whole. Watermelon sugar: can’t get enough of that. Cunnilingus? What the heck is that? Why did you think I was talking ’bout sex? I’m just payin’ tribute to some talented chefs.
[CHORUS]
Now let’s talk about the greatest pleasure of all, Take of your clothes and leave them on the floor, When I get started, I’ll make you scream, This is so much better than your wildest dream, This is pure passion and it’s gonna ignite, When you eat a nice bowl of Angel Delight, But it’s a bit sloppy and you might make a splash, Isn’t it lucky you got no clothes on your back? Nothin’ wrong with eating in the nude, Just keep your clothes clean, you know it, dude.
You think this song is about genitals, But actually it’s about vegetables, You think this song is gonna be lude, But it’s just about eatin’ fruit, You think this song is about masturbation, But it’s actually about mastication, Chomp, chomp, chomp, Count every bite, Chomp, chomp, chomp, Oh, yeah, you’re doin’ right Chomp, chomp, chomp Know what I wanna convey? Chomp, chomp, chomp Get your five-a-day.
This, one of Charles Dickens most iconic novel, provides a human-level perspective of the French Revolution. The story spans the two cities in the title (London and Paris) and shows how the impacts of the revolution were far reaching enough that people living in England could have felt their ripples.
As Dickens always does, he goes to great lengths to highlight the struggles of poor people. He’ll show people living in the absolutely worst levels of poverty, then contrast it against overly decedent affluent people, and illustrate how ignorant, or even downright unsympathetic they are of the people around them.
Of course, he shows us the poor people struggling in France before the revolution, but he also shows the struggles of the poor in England too. He doesn’t shy away from the terrible realities of the revolution, and how a lot of the worst off people ended up in equally horrible situations afterwards. He does a good job of illustrating the parallels with English life, and how the country can hardly be said to be any better.
I have come to associate Dickens with satire. A lot of what I’ve read by him before has shone a light onto social injustices, but with a smidgen of comedy. While I appreciate that style, A Tale of Two Cities is much grittier, and there’s significantly less humour that I expect from him. He is indignant about awful situations, and rightfully indignant too. It was different, but in no way worse off for it.
The main story is about a man named Dr. Manette who, after being imprisoned for years in France, is freed to live with his daughter in England, who then marries a man named Charles Darney. The circumstances of their birth, and their family history, all end up causing them significant problems. As changes begin to happen on the world’s stage, it’s ordinary people who are left to suffer. There are several other people in their life too, who all get a pretty decent amount of time in the spotlight, but it’s their story that everything else is built around.
I became invested in the whole cast, and as it built to its climax, I was genuinely anxious for the wellbeing of all of them. What actually happens at the end (which I won’t spoil) is one of the most emotionally powerful things I’ve ever read. I won’t deny that certain parts of the story were a little on the dry side, but it’s well worth sticking with for the profound human drama and the fascinating history lesson.
This children’s novel tells the story of the author meeting an alien prince after crash landing in the Sahara desert, and it’s one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever read. Often I read children’s literature and I enjoy it, but I find it to be missing a certain level of emotional depth that I need as an adult, and The Little Prince is the perfect example of how children’s literature doesn’t have to be that way. It’s extremely deep and meaningful.
On his way to the Earth, the Prince encounters various characters who inhabit their own little worlds – these include a king who rules over nothing, and a businessman who wants to own all the stars, among many others. Each of them represents one of the less pleasant aspects of humanity, and the Prince, as an outsider, highlights how ridiculous all of these things are. He has a childlike innocence to him, and his perspectives are untainted by the less wholesome values of many ‘adult’ eyes.
The Prince’s visits to all the tiny little planets are rather strange when put in the context of the much more grounded element of meeting the author crashed in the desert. In a way though, this works well too. It helps make the Prince’s existence feel more removed from our own, and underlines that his reality is one where love and childlike logic rule, rather than adult rationality.
As the author worries about what’s going to happen if he can’t get his plane working and leave the desert, The Prince is more worried about the rose that he loves at home. A lot of the time, children are told that the things they think and feel are not important, and that the interests of adults are what really matter – this book turns that on its head, but making The Prince’s perspective the one that’s really important.
The Little Prince is ultimately a book that’s about loving people, and appreciating them (and the world around you) and I love this little alien character for embodying such beautiful ideals. I don’t want to spoil the ending, but it was really moving. The whole book is so wonderfully written, and a reminder of what really matters in this life. (This is based on the translation by Ros and Chloe Schwarz).
Something about finding progressive values in really old pieces of work always puts a smile on my face. It can be a reminder that what may be considered new and radical today, has probably actually been around for hundreds, if not thousands of years. Utopia is a great book for this kind of thing, though it does have its fair share of dodgy beliefs thrown in too.
The book is written as if it were a piece of non-fiction. Writing as himself, Thomas More describes the circumstances in which he came into contact with a man named Raphael Hythlodaeus. At first they discuss many of the ills of their society (for example, talking about how severe punishments for thieves won’t stop the crime, when it’s largely caused by poverty, which is just as relevant now as ever), before getting to the really interesting bit: Raphael’s home region of Utopia.
One of the most interesting features of Utopia is that it is a communist society. Though the country has money for use in its international relationships, it has none for its citizens, who have all their needs provided for, and can access any additional materials from public storage buildings that anybody can access. I was particularly fascinated by the argument made by Raphael that the concept of money and ownership is inconsistent with the teachings of Jesus.
It also has a comical aspect to it, talking about how gold and jewels are given to people as punishments and considered shameful things, to discourage people from coveting them. That then leads to wealthy people from other countries to come and visit and be considered a laughing stock for looking so ridiculous (in the eyes of the Utopians) in their splendour. I liked that there was a sense of humour too it. The dialogues near the start can be quite witty as well, and there are jokes about not remembering where Raphael said Utopia was.
Another aspect that I liked was the notion of religious tolerance – something that was definitely not a mainstream view at the time. In Utopia, all religions are seen as different paths to an overall God – another belief which, even today, a lot of people would do well to adopt. Unfortunately, the religious tolerance does not extend towards those who do not have religious beliefs, and the atheists in Utopian society are second class citizens.
Speaking of the negative aspects of this society, it also places huge restrictions on the citizens’ sex lives, with pre-marital sex forbidden, and enforced life-long celibacy used as the punishment. Meanwhile, if you commit adultery, you’re forced to become a slave. And while this society does have slavery, which isn’t great, at very least, in Utopia, it’s a temporary state of being (usually a punishment) and people have the opportunity to gain their freedom again afterwards.
Citizens also need to have permission from the government if they are going to go anywhere, though he says that they all like it so much, they never want to go anywhere anyway – but would that ever really happen? Then there’s also the fact that people of certain jobs all have to dress in the same way. Women are allowed to have all the same jobs as men, yet are still expected to take care of all the housework. Of course, same sex relationships aren’t acknowledged at all. There’s no denying that Utopia has its list of flaws.
The whole book is a strange mixture of really cool, progressive ideas, and really awful ideas that sound like they’d make people miserable. For me, the progressive ideas shine so brightly, and are so impressive for their time, that it makes me like the book a lot overall – though, of course, you may find yourself less willing to focus on the positives. I reckon everyone should give it a go, and it’s written in quite a nice style (or at least, the Paul Turner translation is, anyway).
