This is a fascinating might-have-been, a six episode script for the first season of Doctor Who telling the story of a murder conspiracy against Alexander the Great, by Moris Farhi. It is moderately thrilling stuff: the plot is tight; the characterisation of the Tardis team, Alexander and his generals very good; the sense of historical predestination also consistent with Who as it developed.

But it could never have been made. It's not because of the numerous hostages to continuity offered by Farhi's script - language-teaching machine in the Tardis, the Doctor's belief in God, Susan's statements about their home time - these would have been weeded out in the editorial process. It is not even that the Tardis crew don't really impact events (though that is a weakness of the story). It is simply that it is too sad: Alexander's three closest friends all fall victims to the conspirators, followed by Alexander himself, leaving his realm to be divided between the complicit Seleucus and the loyal Ptolemy. As one of the commentaries in this edition puts it, Barbara and Susan shed more tears in this script than Rose Tyler does in her entire career.

We also have a bonus here, a single episode story (or perhaps the last episode of an unwritten longer story), The Fragile Yellow Arc of Fragrance, in which the Tardis crew visits a planet where one of the locals literally dies of love for Barbara. It is also too sad to ever have been turned into a broadcast story, but I think that today's fanficcers would love it - it's totally in tune with the idea of takiing the show's characters to places that the show's writers never could.

So this is strongly recommended, though for slightly different reasons than I though it might be: good emotional character-driven writing, and a glimpse of how Doctor Who mght have been.

Tags: bookblog 2009, doctor who, doctor who: 01

This cartoon is in today's European Voice, along with a profile of Catherine Ashton:



There is no explanation in the article of why she is depicted in this way, so a lot of European Voice readers will be mildly puzzled.

Tags: doctor who, eu

Tweaks and enhancements

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4. You'll now receive the Writer's Block Question of the Day in the body of email notifications. To sign up for Writer's Block notifications, visit writersblock and choose the Watch Community option. Next, update your Writer's Block notification settings by checking the box to the right of "Someone posts a new entry to writersblock."
5. Paid and permanent users can now view, add, and edit Notes of commenters. Notes will appear beside the username of comment posters (instead of stars) on S1-themed comment pages.

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Photos of the week

We're so delighted with the immense talent of our growing, global lj_photophile community that we've decided to introduce a poll. Each week, we'll choose a half-dozen photos (based on user comments and staff feedback) and ask you to select a photo of the week. The winning photo will be announced in the next newsletter. If possible, please limit photo size to 350x350 to ensure that images display properly on friends pages. We want to thank you again (and again!) for sharing your passion.

Check out this week's photo poll and more fantastic user content after the jump!

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Curtains

Thanks for joining us. To our American friends, have a fantastic Thanksgiving. To all of our international neighbors, we'll eat a little extra for you!

Tags: facebook connect, lj_photophile, m.livejournal, mobile, notes, security patch, writer's block

Fancy hosting the next ILC in your home town?

It is time to begin preparing for ILC-2011, the International Lisp Conference 2011. As a first step, the ALU is soliciting bids for locations to host this conference.

Right now, the ALU is looking for plausible venues. Bids should show what the conference might look like, but not specify how to actually run it. A few phone calls may be helpful in getting estimates, but don't worry about getting details. Your bid is just a proposal; the ALU will request more information as bids are being evaluated. Submitting a bid does not bind you to execute it; the decision to commit can be made later.

More details here.

Tags: lisp

I saw a reference to this in Michael Moorcock's article about writing a Doctor Who book and got it from Project Gutenberg. It is a hundred years old this year, having been published on early 1909.

Moorcock describes this as a "funny, futuristic" book, but it is really a parody of the invasion scare sub-genre. I have read a few other books in that genre - The Riddle of the Sands by Erskine Childers, When William Came by Saki, and a collection edited by I.F. Clarke.

Moorcock is, however, correct to describe it as funny, despite the incomprehensible contemporary cultural references and unpleasant racial stereotypes (which as far as I remember are largely absent from later Wodehouse). England is invaded by nine different armies, ranging from the Germans and Russians down to the forces of Monaco and the Mad Mullah of Somaliland (the latter driven to further derangement by a meeting with Irish Nationalist leader John Dillon). The occupied English grumble about the disruption to cricket and the theatre caused by the invaders, but this is resolved when the German and Russian commanders agree to appear as music-hall acts.

Clarence Chugwater, the somewhat nerdy Boy Scout who is Wodehouse's comic hero, manages to sow dissension between the German and Russian leaders by way of his day-job at an entertainment weekly. The two armies come close to wiping each other out, the Boy Scouts capture the survivors, and England is saved. Hurrah! (In the unlikely event that anyone feels I have spoiled the ending for them, I would point out that all is revealed in the very first chapter.)

This is not a good starting place for reading Wodehouse's works. (Indeed, it wasn't even a very good starting place foir writing Wodehouse's works.) But it is an interesting intersection of the fringes of the sf genre with his rather different genius when both were at an early stage of development.

Tags: bookblog 2009, writer: pg wodehouse

The Waters of Mars was shown while I was driving across southern Connecticut to catch my plane from JFK last weekend, so it was a day or two before I caught up with it. I enjoyed it. I think RTD is rather good at the base-under-siege stories, and Lindsay Duncan, who I don't think I had seen before, was superb as Adelaide. (Has anyone remarked on the fact that this story was headed by two Scottish actors putting on English accents?)

( The ending, and the Doctor )

I got home to find The Circus of Doom, episode three of the new The Hornet's Nest series, with Tom Baker as the Fourth Doctor, waiting for me. A half-day in Paris on Thursday gave me time to listen to it as I walked from the Gare du Nord to my meeting at the Tuileries and back. Unfortunately I wasn't wildly impressed; it seemed to me too similar to the second episode, The Dead Shoes, with the added demerit of a comedy foreign disabled character (played very well by Stephen Thorne, but that doesn't really help). I do hope that the fourth and fifth episodes, due out at the start of next month, are an improvement.

As I drove across Connecticut last weekend, I was listening to The Adventure of the Diogenes Damsel, one of the Bernice Summerfield plays released just over a year ago. It is a sequel to my favourite New Adventure, All-Consuming Fire, and features two brilliant actors, David Warner playing Mycroft Holmes and Peter "Nyder" Miles as the evil alien, as well as of course Lisa Bowerman herself. It would alas be slightly incomprehensible to those who don't know All-Consuming Fire but was great fun and consoled me for missing the broadcast on the other side of the Atlantic.

Tags: doctor who, doctor who: 04, doctor who: 10, doctor who: audio, doctor who: companions: benny

Well, I have very nearly caught up with myself after my 17-day trip which included five countries, five hotels and three overnight flights. I can't write much here about the actual trip to Juba, but I can share with you some of the photographs I took (below the cut):

( pictures )

Hope I go back some day.

Tags: world: sudan

• reading_gibbon: Chapter IX: The state of Germany till the invasion of the Barbarians
  
  
  This chapter does what it says in the title, giving us an account of the Germans largely (and occasionally critically) based on Tacitus, and ending by wondering why they did not make more effort to attack Rome between Varus [9 AD] and Decius [251 AD] (the explanations given being lack of metal technology, and too much internal dissent). But Gibbon also uses it to attach a lot of other philosophical speculation, in particular about the politics, social life and culture of the German tribes as precursors of the civilisation of Western Europe (in particular of course England).
  
  
  (tags: gibbon)
  
  

Tags: del.icio.us, gibbon, linkspam

( November Books 17) Time Of Your Life, by Steve Lyons )
( November Books 18) Millennial Rites, by Craig Hinton )
( November Books 19) Spiral Scratch, by Gary Russell )

In summary, both Time Of Your Life and Millennial Rites are rather good, and Spiral Scratch improves after a weak start.

Tags: bookblog 2009, doctor who, doctor who: 06, doctor who: spinoff fiction

...and I am not being even slightly ironic:

She has a full-sized Dalek in her living room.

Tags: doctor who, eu