Second paragraph of third chapter:'A croc wrestler? Never!' snorted the Doctor in disbelief.
A rather odd little book from 1982, featuring the Fifth Doctor, Nyssa and Tegan, woefully characterised and going on an exciting educational journey to learn about extinct animals and early humans. (Why Nyssa should have any interest in some other planet's ( Read more... )

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As part of my gradual catching up with Big Finish audios, these are three main sequence releases from 2014, all starring Peter Davison as the Fifth Doctor, Sarah Sutton as Nyssa, and Francesca Hunt (India Fisher's half-sister) as temporary companion Hannah Bartholomew.


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One of my vague ambitions for the year ahead is to get back into Big Finish again. There are a load of Big Finish audios which I did listen to a few years back, and never got around to writing up here; I haven't gone into it systematically, but I'll listen again to all those I haven't yet posted about.


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Second line of third episode:The Fifth Doctor: "Cathy? From Hurley Hall…?"
A straight historical story from the pen of Paul Magrs, dealing with the infamous attack on protesters in Manchester on 16 August 1819 by what we would now call security forces, in which 15 people are known to have died (though the real number was probably more). I realised ( Read more... )

Second line of third episode: Hargreaves: Yes, Miss?
Another audio story with the Fifth Doctor, Tegan and Nyssa, written by Simon Barnard and Paul Morris (who wrote the brilliant Scarifyers, starring Nicholas Courtney and Terry Molloy, a few years back). It's a nice isolated space ship story: the TARDIS arrives to find the human crew mysteriously ( Read more... )

Second frame of third chapter ("In With the Tide", art by Mike Collins):
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Second speech of third episode: Rembrandt: "Vessels of the stars. Not my usual line of work, but she was willing to pay and I was unwilling to starve."
I listened to this for the first time back in March, on a day when other matters broke my concentration, so returned to it with the intention of taking careful notes. But you know, I was just ( Read more... )

Second paragraph of third story ("Thinking Warrior", by Huw Wilkins): I chamber a smoke round and fire it up into the air to obscure the sniper's view, then sweep the blank-fronted tower block with the microwave radar.
Another of the Big Finish collections of Doctor Who short stories, this time all set in the year 2040 (an anagram of the year of ( Read more... )

Second paragraph of third story ("Reversal of Fortune", by Graeme Burk): Mikhail laughed so hard he began to cough. For an instant his vital signs became bee-bop-syncopation and arrhythmia.
The theme of this book is explorations of closed environments, and how the Doctor's arrival might change them (or not). I couldn't help but think that the steel ( Read more... )