News!

[mtemplar_fic]

Everyone in CA ok?

The missing scene from THANTH *should* be posted tomorrow, barring any major catastrophes with the 3rd edit. I'm thinking about making it 'friends only' for now and will maybe open it up for general consumption later... yes, I'm that nervous about it (it's prolly a mom thing)! I have no plans to cross-post it as of right now; I really can't post it to time_and_chips (where the rest of THANTH was originally posted) as Rose is only mentioned in passing. Any suggestions? I'm guessing that readers in other fic communities wouldn't be interested in slogging through all 30 chapters of THANTH just so they could read a missing scene.

And I'm probably the last one to know about this stuff as usual, but if anyone is interested, here's more info on the slate of Doctor Who novels coming out in April 2009.



The Slitheen Excursion
by Simon Guirrier

1500BC - King Actaeus and his subjects live in mortal fear of the
awesome gods who have come to visit their kingdom in ancient Greece.
Except the Doctor, visiting with university student June, knows
they're not gods at all. They're aliens. For the aliens, it's the
perfect holiday - they get to tour the sights of a primitive planet
and even take part in local customs. Like gladiatorial games, or
hunting down and killing humans who won't be missed. With June's
enthusiastic help, the Doctor soon meets the travel agents behind this
deadly package holiday company - his old enemies the Slitheen. But can
he bring the Slitheen excursion to an end without endangering more
lives? And how are events in ancient Greece linked to a modern-day
alien plot to destroy what's left of the Parthenon?

Judgement of the Judoon
by Colin Brake

Elvis the King Spaceport has grown into the sprawling city-state of
New Memphis - an urban jungle, where organized crime is rife. But the
launch of the new Terminal 13 hasn't been as smooth as expected. And
things are about to get worse... When the Doctor arrives, he finds the
whole terminal locked down. The notorious Invisible Assassin is at
work again, and the Judoon troopers sent to catch him will stop at
nothing to complete their mission. With the assassin loose on the mean
streets of New Memphis, the Doctor is forced into a strange alliance.
Together with teenage private eye Nikki and a ruthless Judoon
Commander, the Doctor soon discovers that things are even more
complicated - and dangerous - than he first thought...

Prisoner of the Daleks
by Trevor Baxondale

The Daleks are advancing, their empire constantly expanding in to
Earth's space. The Earth forces are resisting the Daleks in every way
they can. But the battles rage on across countless solar systems. And
now the future of our galaxy hangs in the balance... The Doctor finds
himself stranded on board a starship near the frontline with a group
of ruthless bounty hunters. Earth Command will pay them for every
Dalek they kill, every eye stalk they bring back as proof. With the
Doctor's help, the bounty hunters achieve the ultimate prize: a Dalek
prisoner - intact, powerless, and ready for interrogation. But where
the Daleks are involved, nothing is what it seems, and no one is safe.
Before long the tables will be turned, and how will the Doctor survive
when he becomes a prisoner of the Daleks?



Anyhoo, looks like Ten will be companionless. Poor guy!

Comments

[garpu.livejournal.com]

Bah. Was really hoping we'd get more Ten/Donna ones.

[mtemplar-fic.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I'm unenthused about the Mary Sue-sounding characters.

[garpu.livejournal.com]

this last wave isn't too good. It wouldn't be so bad, if they weren't so inconsistent with the way they did Martha's character. (I'm reading Snowglobe 7 right now. The last 3 they released I finished in a weekend.)

[mtemplar-fic.livejournal.com]

Eh... that's too bad. I have those to read still. *wishes she had a TARDIS so that she could keep up*

[garpu.livejournal.com]

They're not *bad*, but they aren't grabbing me like the last set were, if that makes any sense.

[mtemplar-fic.livejournal.com]

That's some serious grabbing, if you finished all of them in a weekend!

[principia-coh.livejournal.com]

Either Mary Sue or Ye Olde Generic Not-Companion, which doesn't interest me that much either. Or they could turn out to be someone who'd make at least a decent temporary companion like Jabe or Dee Dee.

[principia-coh.livejournal.com]

More Ten novels = good. Ten novels that randomly have no Donna because they wasted a bunch of time publishing Martha novels when they should've been publishing Donna ones = bad.

Seriously, if the standard is 'if the person's no longer the regular companion, they don't get novels', then why did we get another entire batch of Martha novels after she'd already been replaced by Donna?

Grrargh.

[mtemplar-fic.livejournal.com]

Just how many sets did Martha get? Was it more than four? Doesn't seem very fair, does it?

*grumbles*

I suppose I should clarify that I don't mind Martha as such, I just don't like having the greatness that is Martha thrust upon me. I think they tried a bit too hard with her, you know?

[principia-coh.livejournal.com]

Martha, who was a full-time companion for one year, has been in a total of 12 novels, plus the one that's theoretically her own, which fills in what she was doing during The Year That Never Was.

By contrast, Rose, who was a full-time companion for two years, was in a total of 12 novels. Myself, I'd love to see a novel that's theoretically her own which fills in what she was doing during all that universe-hopping leading up to the end arc of Series 4.

As of next April's releases, there will have been a total of 4 Donna novels, and 4 Ten-by-himself novels.

Let's be fair and base this on number-of-appearances versus 'who do you like better?'.

Let's say that each episode with each of them as the sole companion counts as 1 unit, each where they had to split with another companion as half a unit. Rose, with 19 solo-companion episodes and 10 split-companion episodes, gets 24 units. Martha, with 10 solo-companion episodes and 8 split-companion episodes, gets 14 units. Donna, with 8 solo-companion episodes and 5 split-companion episodes, gets 11 units (I'm counting Midnight as a partial). Ten solo gets the Christmas special, plus the still-up-in-the-air number of specials next year - let's give him 5 units just to be on the safe side.

Set the template based on Rose, who was first at bat. 12 books were published featuring her during her first 22.5 units.

Using that math, Martha should have been in 7 books. Donna should have been in 6 books. Ten solo should be in 2 books (maybe 3).

That even works out with the publication schedule, which has had 6 books per series, plus let's say 3 books for Series 4.5 (since it's just under half a series' worth of material), for a total of 27 books.

Donna: Shorted 2 books

Rose: Shorted 1 book

Ten Solo: Over 2 books

Martha: Over 6 books

The rest of the overage is books that in theory should've primarily featured Jack or Mickey.

----------------------------

Anyway...

It's like the BBC decided that they really wanted to push Martha, and so they've spent the entire time she was on the show and then off again trying to cram her down everyone's throats. And I say the BBC rather than TPTB, because you'll notice (as even Freema Agyeman has started to comment on, bless) that both towards the end of Martha's run and when they brought her back, she's been all by herself a whole lotta the time.

And now she's probably headed to Torchwood as Owen's replacement, with Mickey replacing Tosh. Versus RTD leaving her to Moffat's tender mercies, 'cos god knows with the way he was foaming at the mouth at SDCC he might've up and killed her off.

[garpu.livejournal.com]

Actually I've heard she's not going to be in Torchwood because she took a role on ITV in their Law & Order show. :/

[principia-coh.livejournal.com]

If that's true, after all the hooha and energy the BBC invested in making sure that all eyes were on her... BWAHAHAHHAHAHAHA.

Anyway.

Are you sure that's the case, and you're not thinking of Georgia Moffett being in the Spooks spinoff?

[garpu.livejournal.com]

http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/cult/torchwood/

Was in the Sun, as well, but I'm not sure how credible either source are. I didn't mind Martha's character, but they were really inconsistent with how she was written.

[mtemplar-fic.livejournal.com]

Reportedly, RTD didn't attend Comic-Con because of the frantic re-writing of TW scripts that had Martha in them. They start filming soon.

[the-lucky-stars.livejournal.com]

*sighs* I'm unenthused when it comes to these new books. I suppose they felt that they had to add monsters from the show to make the kids buy them, but if I'm honest I watch the show for the companions, and same goes for the novels. I wish we'd had more with Donna...

[mtemplar-fic.livejournal.com]

More Donna would have been nice, yeah. The last one sounds like it might be interesting, but the others? Eh. They sound very Mary Sue-ish to me.

[principia-coh.livejournal.com]

There's another audio-only thing coming out in October, but there are scant details on that so far. Should we keep our fingers crossed for it being one Catherine Tate has read?

Anyway, my tally above didn't even count the various kids' books and choose your own adventure things. If you take those into account, there's been one with Rose, 14 with Martha (two kids' novellas plus all of the CYOA), and one Ten solo.

[mtemplar-fic.livejournal.com]

I saw those when I was in London! There was only one on display *without* Martha - guess which one I purchased for the kidling?

I hadn't heard about the October thing - here's hoping it will have Donna.

[larissa-j.livejournal.com]

Eh. They sound very Mary Sue-ish to me.

Exactly... I may buy them and then let them sit on the shelf until the next major wind storm hits Washington and we are without power for days. I'll be desperate for something to do by day 4.

That's usually when I start combing the cat. Errr. really, my pet cat DRACO. GAWD guys.

[principia-coh.livejournal.com]

Exactly... I may buy them and then let them sit on the shelf until the next major wind storm hits Washington and we are without power for days.

If it hadn't been for the rather pointed demonstration in Midnight that if the Doctor doesn't have a companion/advocate in the ranks he's likely to get utterly screwed, they might well have made this well and truly solo.

I hope/suspect that the books won't feature these Martha stand-ins much - although if they're of the caliber of the female scientist that he spent much of Feast of the Drowned partnered with, that won't be a bad thing.

[mtemplar-fic.livejournal.com]

...although if they're of the caliber of the female scientist that he spent much of Feast of the Drowned partnered with, that won't be a bad thing.

Complete with the 'Davina' voice in the audiobook! *grins*

[mtemplar-fic.livejournal.com]

Exactly... I may buy them and then let them sit on the shelf until the next major wind storm hits Washington and we are without power for days. I'll be desperate for something to do by day 4.

Does this happen often? Yikes. We were snowed in for a week around two years ago, but at least we had power (lines are underground).

Errr. really, my pet cat DRACO.

*sniggers* I had a cat named Thomas O'Malley and another named Boogie when I was a kid. The hubby is allergic to cats, so CAN NOT HAS now. Woe.

[larissa-j.livejournal.com]

Does this happen often? Yikes. We were snowed in for a week around two years ago, but at least we had power (lines are underground).

About once a year. I guess it's too much trouble to update the grid... or something. I think the State of Washington just likes to see everyone flail for 5 days a year.

CAN NOT HAS now. Woe.

WOE

[huggabledog.livejournal.com]

I'd quite like a companion that isn't a young female. A male companion for a change, even an older male companion, or an older female companion? Just something different. I realise the books are aimed at children, so probably only another young male companion would work there. Also, I'd be very interested in a series of novels aimed at an older audience. No, not ADULT adult. Just deeper and longer. I think there would be a real market for that type of book. Certainly enough of Doctor Who's audience are past their teens and would appreciate more depth.

[mtemplar-fic.livejournal.com]

I think there'd be a market too, but you're probably unlikely to get it, given that it is 'A Children's Show'. Much for the same reasons that TPTB have given when they say that the Doctor will never appear as a character on 'Torchwood'. SJA is a different story, as the Doctor reportedly turns up in a short scene in the next series.