I am Ashley Elsdon

someone who's doing some things

Tag: Science fiction

What’s not to like right? It is my favourite genre of fiction by a long way indeed.

Doctor Who: Engines of War, the verdict

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So I wasn’t really looking forward to this audiobook. I’d bought it to see what it was like, to try it out and also because of the narrator, Nicolas Briggs, who I think is excellent. He really delivered with this book. His voices were excellent. Very convincing and very consistent. I was very impressed with that aspect of the production.

But what about the story? Well, I’m not going to give away any spoilers, so if you were thinking about listening to it you can read on. I liked the story a lot. It didn’t hold back at all. For me it seemed to give the War Doctor a proper identity and developed the character in the way I’d hoped that the writers would. It also firmly left open the possibility of a new set of War Doctor stories, and I hope that this too gets developed. I would certainly give them a listen if they appear.

So, all in all, a very solid audio story. Maybe Big Finish could take this further? I know they’d do an excellent job of it.

Charlie Hisgon’s The Enemy

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I’ve been a fan of these books since I started reading the first one. This year the last book in the series is due to be released in September. Book 7 will be the last book in the series. I know that they are really children’s books, but I still really like them and have read them all twice now I think.

I’m really looking forward to book 7 so I’ve decided to re-read all of them in the run up to the release of the last book. I’m going to enjoy doing that too.

Doctor Who: Engines of War

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I have to say that I was skeptical about this story until I saw that Nicholas Briggs was reading it. I felt that the best thing about the 50th anniversary episode of Doctor Who was John Hurt, the War Doctor. I thought that John Hurt was the best thing about it in fact.

So I wasn’t sure of what to expect with this audio story. However, after getting into it I’m quite impressed. Mr Briggs does a very passable John Hurt and has really captured the character of the war doctor. It makes me wonder if there are going to be more stories from the war doctor? I think that might be a good thing.

Fourth Doctor: The Darkness of Glass

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I listened to this story today and enjoyed it immensely. It was like a hybrid between Talons of Weng Chiang and The Horror of Fang Rock. It great fourth Doctor story. Just a classic. Wonderful.

The writing is great, the characters are excellent and it’s a good old fashioned adventure. I can’t say anything bad about it at all.

Survivors, the original story

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So I finished listening to this audio book. An unabridged version of Terry Nation’s original novel and read by Carolyn Seymour who played Abby Grant in the original 1970s series. It was good. Good in so many ways. Sometimes it really is worth it to hear the original story. Where all the spin offs started and the root of all the versions. That’s certainly the case here. It was well worth it.

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve enjoyed the other versions, both TV series, what Big Finish have done with the full cast audio story, but this has been the best so far. It was coherent and in some ways helped to make sense of the other versions too.

I won’t spoil it in case you are interested enough to read it or listen to it yourself, but it is quite different from both TV versions. I won’t say more than that. I’ll leave it there. At some point I’m going to write a post about all of the versions, perhaps in a few weeks time.

Big Finish: Survivors the series

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I’ve been listening to this again. It’s interesting to hear it after watching the original series and of course the BBC remake as well. The big finish series is a different story altogether. The same ideas but different characters telling a different side to the story. It merges into the original about halfway through the set of audio books. Of course the production values are very high as you’d expect from Big Finish.

It’s interesting to get all these different perspectives on the story. The original TV series. The new TV series (comparatively new anyway), the Big Finish series, and also their unabridged version of the novel itself.

I’m looking forward to hearing the next season of the Big Finish full cast drama when it’s available, in June I think.

When I’ve finished listening to everything that I’ve got so far, and possibly even re-watching the newer TV series I might do a post about the whole lot in one go, and cover what I think of each treatment.

Blake’s 7: Ghost Ship

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Another good story from Big Finish. I’ve enjoyed the full cast series of Blake’s 7 a lot more than the liberator chronicles, although the few of those I’ve listened to have been good too. I think that there’s something special about a full cast drama. It is probably my favourite kind of audiobook.

This series has been consistently good as is this story. I won’t give anything away just in case you’re going to listen to it. But suffice it to say that there’s an interesting story arc building and I’m keen to hear where it goes.

It’s a great series all in all. So much so that I really don’t want it to end. I just hope that they keep making them.

Oh yes, and one other thing, this is now post 2000! I couldn’t think of any particular science fiction show or really anything else to commemorate the 2000th post on my blog, so I thought that Blake’s 7 was as good, if not better, than anything else.

It’s only fair that post 1999 be about Space 1999

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Season 1 DVD Box Set
Season 1 DVD Box Set

It’s only right isn’t it. I’m a fan and I feel that I should dedicate post number 1999 to Space 1999. I’m still slowly making my way through season 2, and if that wasn’t enough I’m not sure that I’ve finished reading the comic editions on comixology either.

Perhaps I need to make a bit more effort and finish off reading and watching this stuff soon, especially after celebrating Space 1999 today.

 

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Big Finish: Doctor Who, The Ultimate Adventure

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This is one of the few Doctor Who stage plays, and is the only one that I ever went to. It was back in 1989 and I’ve occasionally thought about it over the years, but when I realised that I’d inadvertently bought a copy of Big Finish’s audiobook version it all came back to me.

Listening to it for the first time brought back a lot of memories, but the most interesting thing was hearing about how the production came about and the problems that it faced. It was really interesting to find out all about how it came about and what eventually happened to the production.

Whilst it is most certainly not one of the best Doctor Who stories of all time, even though it is strangely named the ‘Ultimate’ adventure! Although I guess that’s more to do with it being produced in the 80’s more than anything else. It is part of Doctor Who history, and I guess I’m one of the few (ok, probably there would have been over 10,000 people who saw it, but against the scale of Doctor Who fans that’s small) who saw it.

Anyway, I got in touch with the two people who I went with and they both remembered it, and one even still had the theatre programme! So here it is …

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