review of Rowling's Beedle the Bard

This book is a perfect example of what the modern author can do to create something ancient much as a book of fables. The tales are similar to the fables and such that Muggles are brought up with in their basic moral principles. The tale of the Three Brother's teaches patience; the tale of the Wizard and the Hopping Pot teaches responsibility; the tale of Babbity Rabbitty and her Cackling Stump teaches justice; the tale of the Fountain of Fair Fortune teaches self reliance and belief; the tale of the Warlock's Hairy Heart teaches the importance of acknowledging feelings and not locking them away or ignoring them.

review of Monstrous Affections:An Anthology of Beastly Tales

If you're looking for something creative and unique, this is the book. It has a classic feel to it like reading a fairy tale while still keeping itself fresh in it's style. The characters are varying and suck the reader into the story. It could be a story of a kraken in a girl's mind who offers her a release from her life. It could be the story of a vampire working in a nursing home. It could be the story of a girl who stayed on her uncle's ship without him knowing and then the ship being overtaken by pirates. No matter what the story is; the characters are compelling and the situations old and yet unique.

review of Guy Adams' Sherlock Files

An intriguing read that shows how Sherlock Holmes has evolved over time. It has interviews with the creators and cast. It even has the cases of the first two seasons presented in scrapbook form with sticky notes passed between Sherlock and John. Humorous and informative.

book review of Marney's Every Breath

I absolutely adored this book. A modern day adaptation or rather a modern book with elements of the old (cough...homage). James Mycroft, who goes by Mycroft, is best friends with Rachel Watts, Watts. They are downright inseparable with an impeccable chemistry. They visit a homeless friend of theirs, Homeless Dave, to find his throat slit. They decide to be like Holmes and Watson and do their own detective work. The story evolves from there (without giving any spoilers).I would recommend this book to people who are looking for characters with good chemistry and that love a mystery.

Review of Eleven Doctors, Eleven Stories

Review of Doctor Who: Eleven Doctors, Eleven Stories

The first Doctor: A Big Hand for the Doctor

Written by Eoin Colfer

The basic premise is that the Doctor has lost his hand and needs a new one.  His granddaughter, Susan, has been kidnapped and put into a strange blissful state.  Other children are taken with her as the strange Soul pirates have been doing.  He got away with the children by locking the anti-gravity onto his own DNA and keeping in physical contact with all of the children.  (One on his shoulders while Susan hugged the rest to him.) 

The story brings out the grumpiness of the first Doctor while still showing his ingenuity.  Because he was not a Doctor of action, he was a Doctor of thought.  He always outsmarted the baddies and didn’t resort to violence.

On a funny note, the epilogue addressed the similarities of the story with a certain piece of British literature.  It has a man, a writer, thinking of what to write about.  He looks up at the house and sees children floating and surrounded by a strange dust (fairy dust to him) and a hook handed man (the doctor) fighting a pirate (Soul Pirate).  This would seem to be the birth of J.M. Barrie’s Peter Pan.

The Second Doctor:   The Nameless City

Written by Michael Scott

Jamie McCrimmon saves an old man from being mugged and as a thank you gift the old man gives him a book.  The book is old and wrapped up in a cloth.  It is written in a language that very few can read.  He does not tell Jamie that it is, in fact, alien.   In the end, the Doctor gets rid of the Archons by playing very loud music on an exceptional frequency.  Jamie on his bagpipe and the Doctor on his recorder.

The Third Doctor:  The Spear of Destiny

Written by Marcus Sedgwick

This is a story literally of legend.  Odin stands before them with his sons by his side.  He is a man who possesses a powerful weapon, but who will later become a god within Norse legend.  The Master is there under a different guise in order to take the TARDIS from the Doctor and kill him (the usual agenda to be honest).  The Doctor proves himself to be brave and clever and tells Odin of the Master’s deceit.  So, fun times for him and Jo Grant, who spends most of the story being manhandled and sneered at by big smelly Vikings.

The Fourth Doctor: The Roots of Evil

Written by Philip Reeve

The Doctor and Leela go to a planet full of trees since she complains of missing trees.  The natives there are not friendly at all; they seem to be a whole tribe of people dedicated to killing him (revenge).  He insists that he hasn’t been there (the one who will go there will in fact say that ‘bow ties are cool’).  The wildlife goes mental since they were programmed to do so when he arrived and begin to attack.  He then has to band together with the people who have been bred to hate him in order to save them.  All goes well as he sweet talks and befuddles everyone around him (aw, the charm of the Fourth Doctor is unique).  Leela then walks away no longer desiring a forest to surround her.

The Fifth Doctor:  Tip of the Tongue

Written by Patrick Ness

The Doctor is in a town suffering through the Great Depression with his companion Nyssa.  It turns out that the town has been taken over by a strange device that is a fad with the youths.  It attaches to their mouths and tells the truth (Truth Tellers) to all those that the wearer faces.  It spreads chaos and hatred.  This, as it turns out, is the goal of a small alien family that have arrived and taken over the town themselves with their strange shop and immense money.  The Doctor returns the aliens and sets the Truth Tellers free (they had been enslaved).

The Sixth Doctor: Something Borrowed

Written by Richelle Mead

The Doctor is on a distant planet with his companion, Peri.  There is an interesting ceremony/marriage about to take place.  The female is not of the same species and the question arises whether the male will transform into the better being as the rest of his people do when married.  The love within the two hearts of those marrying is supposed to literally transform them in body and mind on a greater level.  Who is this mysterious female?  Can Peri and the Doctor do what needs to be done?

The Seventh Doctor: Ripple Effect

Written by Malorie Blackman

The Doctor and Ace are stuck in the Temporal Plexus.  They get out when the Doctor does something clever.  The TARDIS lands on the nearest planet, Skaro.  This would have been disastrous if it weren’t for the fact that they were in an alternate timeline.  A timeline where Daleks are a people of education and pacifists.  The Doctor must fix this because the universe will start to dissolve.

This story begs the question of the idea of a good Dalek.  It shows how resistant the Doctor is to change and how embracing of it that Ace was.  She was the best type of companion for him because she was someone that would ‘go with the flow’ instead of sticking to the past as the Doctor does with Daleks and Cybermen.

The Eighth Doctor: Spore

Written by Alex Scarrow

Spores start to infect the planet (plants and then people).  They kill within seconds and all it takes is one touch.  It seems to be liquid, but it is a sort of thinking shape changer.  It seeks intelligence.  It infects a planet until the question can be answered.  Only an intelligent race can answer the question and once deemed intelligent; the planet is left alone.  The Doctor is immune and knows how they work, so he makes him into a sort of emissary for the planet. He claims to be an antivirus that was made to wait for the spores and answer the question when they came to Earth. This questions the idea of intelligence because the spores are unable to believe that the people of the Earth cannot even communicate with them.

The Ninth Doctor: The Beast of Babylon

Written by Charlie Higson

The Doctor lands on the planet Karkinos asking if they’ve seen anything.  He’d followed a Starman there. A strange being that is born when a star dies.  It eats worlds and he needs the orb to stop it.  He takes care of that one only to have another (even worse one) appear on Earth in Babylon.  He begrudgingly takes a female from Karkinos (who are renowned for being the best warriors, think berserker) as a companion.   They take care of business with his big crazy grin and her skills as a warrior. 

The Tenth Doctor: The Mystery of the Haunted Cottage

Written by Derek Landy

The Doctor and Martha Jones are in a world that she recognizes from her childhood.  It was the first book that she read from a book series as a child.  It was a mystery with an underlying mystery provided by the Doctor.  The underlying mystery being: how did they get there and where are they?  They travel through the different books that Martha has read until the creature shifts its attention to the Doctor and tries to pull from his mind.  No one can ever contain what all the Doctor’s mind holds, so we all know how it’ll end.

The Eleventh Doctor: Nothing O’Clock

Written by Neil Gaiman

The Doctor and Amy encounter a weird scene in the year of 1984 on the planet Earth.  The people have all gone.  The question is how and where.  The answer is the Kin.  They are a race that is made up of one being who goes throughout time and replicates itself.  They/It wear masks and tear at the fabric of time, taking down planets in the process.  Their goal is to go to the time of the Big Bang so as to make it that they are the only intelligent race to form.  They wish to erase the existence of all others.  To do this, they need a Time Lord.  The Doctor being ever so clever takes the Kin to before the Big Bang where it will wait for existence to begin and not be able to accomplish what it wished.

Katherine Langrish's Troll Mill

Set three years later.  The family's settled in with Peer as one of them.  Now that he's older, he's developing feelings for the lovely Hilde who's always been by and on his side.  Peer just wants to be grown and show how independent and self sufficient that he is to Hilde.  Then, the dilemma of the story.  Kersten, Bjorn's wife, runs at Peer with her baby and tells him to bring it to Bjorn.  She runs off into the water and then the book starts to move.

review of Katherine Langrish's Troll Fell

a fun book that is rich enough to lead to a couple of other books following it.  the character's are engaging and just having to live through injustice. everyone seems to have their own ideas of what happiness is and they all seek it out.  it is set amongst trolls, vikings, and other beings in-between.  it can be very fun or quite dismal with a dash of dark humor. recommended read for people who like to read a good fantasy book that mixes with history and takes itself lightly while not being flippant.