Doctor Who: Fear of the Dark by Trevor Baxendale

Posted on October 16, 2013 by Adam Randall

PictureThis novel is a brand new adventure for the Fifth Doctors and his companions Tegan and Nyssa. When Nyssa begins to struggle with night terrors, they realise that they are being caused by an external influence; an external influence that they intend to find on the moon Akoshemon.

One thing’s for sure, this is a story which could never have been shown as a television episode because it is so dark. There are small things like, some of the characters swear, but the main thing is that the story is very, very creepy. Now, I’m not somebody who’s easily scared; I’ve seen loads of horror films with no effect, but I found much of this to be genuinely creepy and since this is only a book, I consider that a very big achievement! And, as well as spooky ideas, parts of it are downright gruesome…

The Doctor is just fantastic in this too. The Fifth (who is one of my favourites) is known for being one of the most vulnerable Doctors and this book takes his vulnerability really far, I’ve never seen the Doctor shown in such a weak state anywhere else before, and I love it. Plus, this Doctor is always really nice to people, and, the fact that he keeps up his extreme politeness, even though utterly horrific things are happening all around him, makes him very endearing.

But the Doctor’s not the only good character in this. It’s very interesting to see how Tegan and Nyssa respond to the situation too, but there are also some very well developed original characters. Cadwell, Stoker and Bunny are all very different people and you’ll want to find out what happens to all of them.

You’ll notice I haven’t said very much about the storyline, or, indeed, what it is that makes the novel so creepy, but I think it’s best if you go into it without knowing. There are lots of shocks, twists and turns, making the whole thing a thrilling read. I would, in fact, say that this is the scariest novel I’ve ever read! Rating: 9.3/10

Buy it here.

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Every 2D Pokémon Protagonist

Posted on October 14, 2013 by Adam Randall

Last night I was searching on Google for a picture of all the playable characters in the main Pokémon games together, but I couldn’t find it. There’s something about comparison pictures of that kind that I really like. Since it didn’t exist, I decided to make that picture myself, so here is every 2D Pokémon protagonist. Also, the good thing is, with the release of Pokémon X & Y bringing the series into 3D, this image won’t become outdated!

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Childhood Memory

Posted on October 11, 2013 by Adam Randall
I was given a small piece of homework for my Planning and Writing a Novel class, and that was to write up a childhood memory. As such, I thought that this would be the best place to write and post it. Though I must say before I start, that I’m not entirely sure that this ever happened. To clarify, this is a memory of something that I do believe happened, but since what happened is impossible, it must have happened differently in reality.
    When I was about four or five years old, there was somebody I knew, a male about fifteen years older than me, and I didn’t like him at all. I don’t even remember what he’d done wrong, but I certainly didn’t like him. Well, having said that, I don’t even remember disliking him, but I can quite clearly remember a conversation I had where I said that I disliked him and so I’m going by that.
    “Do you want to know who my enemy is?” I asked my Nan.
    “I don’t want to know about enemies!” she replied.
    And that’s all I remember of that conversation. I do have one memory of interacting with him though.
    I was playing with a ball by myself behind the flat that my family used to live in. It was a pretty quiet place and it was mainly used by vans and lorries which would come and make deliveries to the shops beneath the flats. I was by myself at first, but he came after a short while.
    “I bet I can throw that ball higher in the air than you,” he said, and being only a child, I couldn’t resist the challenge.
    I threw the ball up, and it went moderately high and then was pulled back down to the ground by gravity.
    He grabbed the ball and then said “Watch this.”
    He threw it upward and, unlike me, he didn’t seem to be limited to the laws of physics. The ball went up and up while I watched in awe. Before long it had gone so high that it could no longer be seen.
    “Will I ever get it back?” I asked.
    “No,” he said.
    And it turns out he was right. I never did see that ball again.
    Now, I imagine you’ll say ‘Well, of course it must have just been a dream that you mistook for a memory as years went by!’ which is a perfectly valid theory. But on the other hand, I can remember lots of times where I was at school around the same time, where I was trying to throw the ball into the air and get it to never come back. I can see myself mistaking a dream for reality after fifteen years (or however long it’s been) but after such a short period it seems unlikely. Unless, of course, me trying to throw it into the air was all a dream too?
    Also, it’s only now that I’ve come to write this up that I wonder to myself: why did I have a twenty year old enemy when I was five? Where would I even meet a twenty year old at that age? I suppose these are all things that’ll remain mysteries to me, still nice to think about, nonetheless!

(Also, today is Friday so don’t miss today’s Finger Puppet Show)

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Mario & Sonic and The Pressing Social Issue

Posted on October 9, 2013 by Adam Randall

PictureNowadays, whenever there is an Olympic event, video game producers, Nintendo and Sega are sure to release another instalment in the Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games series. This is all well and good until we get to the next one due for release: Mario & Sonic and the Olympic Winter Games Sochi 2014.

Why is this an issue, you ask? Well, the laws in Russia are shockingly anti-LGBT and they’re not afraid to hide it. Many don’t believe it is right for the Olympics to be held there, as it can be seen as a passive form of approval of their discrimination. By extension, people don’t think that Nintendo should promote this game, because  they would also be approving the discrimination by not acting against it.

But, on top of that, having these loveable characters okay with this kind of hatred is completely incompatible with what we already know about them. A good example would be to take one of the most loved Mario characters: Yoshi. Yoshi would be thrown into prison under Russia’s laws due to the fact that he is happily in a relationship with Birdo… Who is a transgender woman. But that’s not all.

Mario himself should feel quite guilty taking part in these games. Sure, Birdo was originally a villainous servant of the evil tyrant Wart, so he may not be too bothered about her going to prison. But what about Mario’s old pal Vivian? Vivian is another transgender female who, actually, was a villain at first as well, but she eventually saw the error of her ways and stood by Mario when nobody else would and basically saved his life. Surely he’d feel at least the tiniest pang of guilt, knowing she’d be arrested if she wanted to join him at the Olympics?

To take the idea of love only being moral between one man and one woman would actually mean that several more of our heroes would also be thrown behind bars. Sonic once shared a romance with a human being, and Bowser and Peach… Well, they get married in one of the games, and I don’t remember it being annulled. It’s Adam and ‘Eve’ not ‘Animal Eve’ after all.

Finally, it just feels so wrong for these heroic characters to stand by and let this evil happen. For many young people just discovering their sexuality, video games could be one of their escapes when things become too stressful. To have Mario and Sonic happily running around and having fun, while innocent people are beaten and murdered on the streets just a few miles away would be a permanent smear on their characters.

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Heart Problems

Posted on October 7, 2013 by Adam Randall
About one year ago, I was staying at a friend’s house. I was sat on the sofa on my laptop browsing the internet and doing all of the usual kind of things that are done on a laptop, and my friend was on the other side of the sofa curled up and very tired. After a few minutes she moved over to my side of the sofa, held onto my arm and rested her head on my chest.
“You don’t mind if I sleep on you, do you?” she asked.
Now, I’m not a particularly big fan of physical contact with others, but it actually felt very nice in this instance. It was a cold November’s evening and we were both keeping each other nice and warm with our body heat. I also quite liked the fact that I was being physically used to make somebody comfortable enough to sleep. I’m not sure I could explain why, it was just a nice feeling.
So I continued on my laptop, probably on The Waltons Forum, while she lay silently on me. After about half an hour I assumed that she must be fast asleep, but I discovered I was wrong when she spoke.
“I can hear your heartbeat,” she said.
“Oh, I see,” I replied. “Well, I’m sorry about that. Hopefully it won’t disturb you too much.”
“You apologised,” she said, laughing. “As if I was so annoyed that I hoped you’d turn it down!”
I smiled. I suppose it was a bit of a silly thing to apologise about.
I looked down at my friend, and it was at that point that I noticed something incredible. Something so amazing that I couldn’t keep it to myself.
“John-Boy Walton has a shirt just like that!” I said excitedly. I’d always thought it looked cool.
“But this is a girl’s shirt,” she said, finding it mildly amusing, and then went silent again.
The sad thing about this little story, though, is that my friendship with the person in it has come to an end. I’ve never parted with anybody on negative terms before and it’s quite a source of sadness and guilt. But the important thing, I think, when something like this happens is not to let negative memories affect positive ones. Sure, things may have later gone badly, but that doesn’t make the old fonder memories any less special.Also, to give a blog update, it is because of this that there will be no more challenge entries.

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Relationship of Command Review

Posted on October 4, 2013 by Adam Randall
Relationship of Command is an album by a band called At the Drive-In. Their music isn’t the kind of thing I would normally come across, but Dalfino Madrigal Keyte asked me to review this album on here and so that is what today’s entry is. I haven’t reviewed an album before, but what I shall do is give my thoughts on each song individually.

1. Arcarsenal
This is a short, but very loud and intense piece of music which is sung in a shouty voice. It’s not bad, but, I don’t think it quite has the emotional engagement to make it particularly noteworthy. Rating: 6/10

2. Pattern Against User
This track is a little calmer than the last, and I think the instrumental side of it was very good. Sadly though, I didn’t think that the shouty voiced matched with this piece quite as well, and brought the quality of the track down a little. Still, just a touch above the first track. Rating: 7/10

3. One Armed Scissor
I think this song has something that the other two don’t; it’s quite catchy and you begin to remember the tune as it’s going along. I liked that. It has a very weird ending though, and while I did very much like this when I listened to it just now for the first time, I can imagine that being annoying if you’re just listening to several songs on your iPod or something like that. Rating: 7.5/10

4. Sleepwalk Capsules
While the other songs did all have a loud shouty voice, it was always at least slightly comprehensible. This time I could barely understand it, and this track was, for me, just an angry voice with loud music so I didn’t particularly enjoy it. Rating: 3/10

5. Invalid Litter Dept.
Instrumentally, this one is quite fine, it was an easy listen. But the lyrics for this song are very strange and morbid (‘dancing on the corpse’s ashes’) and while this isn’t always an issue with songs I felt that it was in this case as I kept wondering what on Earth the singer was talking about. Still, it’s probably best to ignore the lyrics while listening to this song and you’ll still probably enjoy it. Rating: 7.5/10

6. Mannequin Republic
I found this song to be rather generic. I really can’t think of anything else to say. Rating: 5/10

7. Enfilade
The opening to this song is very unusual and seems to be a bit of a homage to the Saw series of films. On the whole it was a rather atypical sounding piece of music, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. I did, in fact, find it to be quite a curious listen. Rating: 7/10

8. Rolodex Propaganda
Nothing particularly special or enjoyable about this one. Rating: 4/10

9. Quarantined
This song features the lovely sound of a rainy storm, which is very nice, but sadly it ends quite close to the start. I must admit, the lead singer’s voice isn’t that appealing to me; there’s a fair bit of music before the lyrics start and I was a little disappointed when I realised there was no chance of it being an instrumental piece. A bit of an odd ending too. Rating: 7/10

10. Cosmonaut
This was another song which was just pretty generic and pretty forgettable. Rating: 5/10

11. Non-Zero Possibility
Finally, some variation! Even the weirder songs before this one sounded kind of samey, but this song is quite distinguishable from the rest. This album’s main problem is a lack of variety; it’s pretty much the same until this one, which is very different and very nice. Definitely the best on the album. Rating: 8.5/10

12. Extracurricular
A step down after the last song, but it’s not bad, especially when compared to some of the other tracks on this CD. There’s a certain despairing quality to this song which puts it just above most of the rest. Rating 7.6/10

13. Catacombs
Sadly the ending of this is nothing spectacular. It ends with a blip, rather than a bang, and the very ending has some very weird sounds. Rating: 6/10

In conclusion, it was alright. The kind of music that could be playing quietly in the background of a shop and I wouldn’t mind, but not really anything I’d choose to listen to and certainly not anything I’d pay for. The biggest flaws, for me, were the musician’s singing voice and the lack of variety. Average rating: 6.2/10

(The whole album is available for free here.)

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Debit Destruction

Posted on October 2, 2013 by Adam Randall
Several weeks ago I headed to a cash machine to top up my phone. I did that, then headed home. It was a few days later that I realised my debit card was missing! I checked my online statement, and that top up had been the last time I’d used it. I was very confused, I had never lost a debit card before, and I had no idea where it could have gotten to. So I headed to the bank, explained the situation and a new card was sent to me a few days later.
    About a week or so later, I was relaxing at home when the phone rang. I answered and found that it was my Nan. She told me that a friend of her’s, who works at the local Co-Operative, had found my debit card and wanted me to come and pick it up. I thought it was quite funny, since I already had a replacement and I wondered how it had gotten there. So I asked her to tell the person who had found the card to destroy it, since I didn’t need it anymore.
    A couple of days later I was out in Bath and planning on buying some lunch. Before I did so, though, I wanted to check how much money was in my account because Student Finance was due to give me some money around that time. Sadly, I’d not be getting any lunch out that day; I opened my wallet and found that my debit card was missing. It seems I’d lost the second one too, and then ordered it destroyed just days afterward…
    Today the third one arrived and it looks much cooler than either of the other two! I hope it lasts a long time…
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Child Abuse

Posted on September 30, 2013 by Adam Randall

About five years ago my friends and I often spotted a man who would violently hit or shout at his very young son. Now, if it had happened once, we may have assumed that it was just a bad day for the man and he had unfortunately lashed out on the boy because of it, but it seemed that every time we went to the local park, he was there doing some horrible thing to the boy.

Eventually, my good friend Elliott Egan and I (and possibly a third friend of mine, but I can’t remember who) decided that it would be a good idea to intervene. So, when we next saw him violently swear or hit the boy, we went over to have a word with him.

“Alright, mate,” said Egan, “leave him alone!”

“Yes,” I said in agreement. “What you’re doing is hardly necessary or appropriate.”

“Shut up,” he said to us. “You’re lucky my son’s here! You have no right to say that to me. You better hope I don’t see you again.” The violent man then grabbed his son by the arm and walked him away, leaving Egan and I with nothing but strong negative feelings towards him. With him gone, we continued our day as normal, trying to forget the unpleasant experience.

I told my Mum about it all afterward, and she suggested I not stay out late by myself due to his threat. While he was clearly not afraid to use violence, I wasn’t too concerned as I didn’t think the likelihood of bumping into him alone was that high, since I only ever saw him with his son during the day.

As it happens I did bump into him again, and as you can imagine, it wasn’t the most enjoyable of meetings.

“Oh, it’s you,” he said contemptuously. “I’ll teach you to tell me how to raise my son!”

“I’d rather you didn’t,” I said to him, and then quickly fled in the other direction. Despite my rather low level of athletic ability, I was somehow able to escape him; I guess it must have been some kind of adrenalin boost. That was the last time I ever saw him (and luckily Egan managed to avoid him too). That’s twice now that I’ve had a violent threat and then never seen the other person again, but I suppose I can’t always rely on being so lucky…

And that’s the end of the story. You may ask, why did we not simply report him to the police? And that’s a question I can’t answer. It now seems such an obvious solution to the problem, but at the time, for whatever reason, it never really occurred. It’s all quite sad, really, because when we spoke out against him, he clearly got very angry, for all I know, our actions could have simply lead him to unleash more anger on the child, and since we never saw him again, who knows what happened to the pair of them in the next five years? I can only hope things started to improve.

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The Return of the King by J. R. R. Tolkien

Posted on September 27, 2013 by Adam Randall

PictureThis is the third and final book in the Lord of the Rings trilogy. I heavily suggest that you do not read this if you haven’t read both the first and the second books too. Together, they form one very long book.

Much as with the second, the story is not told linearly. You find out how the war is going for the first half, then it cuts back to Frodo and Sam in Mordor. This means that, again, you have a very long wait until the previous novel’s cliff-hanger is resolved! That one was a pretty big one too, so that was very suspenseful.

There are some big shocks in this book which make it quite an exciting conclusion, but, by this point, there was something I’d noticed Tolkien does a little too often. Specifically, a character will be killed off and a big sad event will be made of it, only for them to have magically survived somehow afterward. Once or twice, is okay, but not as many times as it’s done, I can’t help but feel he was a little afraid of killing his characters. This book also features a return of the boring battle scenes that the previous one had, which is a shame.

But, that said, there’s still lots to enjoy in this book. I’ve said before that each of his books tend to have at least one really interesting or really likeable character and this time it is a woman named Éowyn, who had actually appeared in quite a small capacity in the previous book, but here she has quite an exciting role to fill. I was also very pleased with the ending; I shan’t spoil it, but, it wrapped everything up nicely and certainly did not disappoint. On the whole, this book is equally as good as the second in the trilogy, but sadly, not quite on the same level of the first. Anybody who’s read the first two should definitely finish the story with this!

Rating: 8.5/10

Average rating of the whole trilogy: 8.83/10

Buy it here.

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The Two Towers by J. R. R. Tolkien

Posted on September 27, 2013 by Adam Randall

PictureThis is the second book in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, I would heavily suggest that you do not read it if you haven’t read the first. I would also suggest that you do not read this review if you haven’t read the first book, as I’m going to mention things which are spoilers for the first, but not for the second.

Things pick up exactly where they left off last time with Frodo and Sam having separated from the rest of the group in their mission to destroy the ring. Though, oddly enough, things aren’t written linearly. For the first half of the book, you’re given no word of Sam and Frodo, and instead find out about what Aragorn and everybody else did next. I can’t quite understand why this was done; although it does build a fair bit of tension for Frodo’s cliff-hanger which I suppose could be the reason. You’re also treated to quite a shock very early on, which is good, but I shan’t spoil it…

As with other Tolkien novels, there are many interesting and likeable characters to be found in this book. One character I particularly liked was somebody called Treebeard. Treebeard is a type of sentient tree called an Ent, which I thought was a very nice idea. Plus several orc characters are introduced who are very effective villains, being both comical and menacing. We’re also treated to the return of two lovely characters from his previous works, including one particular favourite of mine from The Hobbit, which I was very happy about.

Sadly though, while this book certainly is good, it doesn’t quite reach the incredible levels that the previous one did. Part of the reason for this book falling a little short is the fact that there are several battle scenes. I did not find the battles at all fun to read. Often, when going to read a bit more, I dreaded having to read through another boring segment on fighting. Another thing is, that while the first book (and The Hobbit too) were big, bright exciting fantasy stories, here things begin to get quite bleak which took a lot of the fun out of it for me. That said, this is still a good novel and, if you’ve read the first, you should definitely read this.

Rating: 8.5/10

Buy it here.

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