Miranda Writes

You have the right to remain silent, so say the Miranda Rights. But there's one Miranda I'd particularly been looking forward to having as a guest on my blog and since she agreed to pop over here for an interview, what would be the point in her remaining silent? So, a big welcome to Miranda Dickinson, fantastically talented and pretty wonderful bestselling author and one of the true stars of HarperCollins' authonomy site back when I used to patrol that virtual beat.

Anything you say here will be taken down and used, not against you, but very much for you in a promotional capacity.



So, first of all, we're about a year on from Fairytale of New York. Is it all still a fairytale for you?

It is, in that I can walk into my favourite bookshop and see my book there. I will never get over the thrill of that. It’s very odd when something you’ve done for fun becomes the thing that pays your rent (or not, as the case may be…) because suddenly you don’t have the luxury of having a day off, or writing whenever the mood takes you. It always amuses me that, when I’m surviving on three hours sleep, writing like a madwoman every minute I get and panicking about impending deadlines, someone invariably comes up and says ‘Wow, you’ve got a dream come true, haven’t you?’ Living the dream, baby, living the dream… But when all’s said and done, it is a dream come true and an incredible honour to be able to write books that are read by people all over the world.

As far as I understand it, you initially landed a two-book deal with Fairytale. Did you have ideas in hand for the second book or was that something you had to come up with after the deal was signed?

It was a three-book deal, which scared the living daylights out of me because at the time HarperCollins first got in touch with me I only had two ideas! When I had the initial conversation with them, they asked me if I had any other ideas besides the one that eventually became Fairytale. After an embarrassingly tumbleweed moment when I mentioned my mystical wombat novel (it’s still on Authonomy and I think it’s really good, although perhaps not rom-commy enough for Avon!), I mentioned an idea I’d had where for most of the book the protagonist was locked in the middle cubicle of the ladies’ loos at a village hall after an almighty argument at a party. They loved that idea – and that’s what became Welcome to My World, my new novel.

This book concerns Harri and we leave Rosie behind, although I remember you saying that the story took place in the same fictional world and there may be references readers can pick up on. Was there ever a part of you that wanted to do a straightforward sequel to Fairytale or did you consider that story closed?

There are tiny links to Fairytale in that Rosie’s mum Rosemary is in the story and the action takes place in the small Black Country town where Rosie grew up before she moved to America. I like to sneak subtle links in as little rewards for people who’ve read Fairytale, but it’s not vital to have read that before reading this story. As for a sequel to Fairytale, I’ve been asked about that a lot, but to be honest I want to leave the characters where they were. I would only consider a sequel if I felt there was sufficient room for the characters to move their stories on; as it is I feel like I left them in a good place and I’m happy for them to work out their own futures without my intervention!

How was the writing process for your second novel compared to the first?

Very quick! It’s true what they say that you have your whole life to write your first novel and four months to write your second. In my case it was more like three months for the initial draft. The first four chapters were already written before Fairytale was ever spotted on Authonomy, so I had a bit of a head-start, but it was still a lot of work to get done – especially as I still work three days a week.

The main issue I faced was a sudden bout of nerves, which almost stymied me for quite some time. I think this was largely due to Fairytale’s stratospheric rise: within the first month, it had become a Sunday Times Top 10 Bestseller and by Christmas it had passed the 100,000 sales mark. I found the whole thing unbelievably intimidating and instead of enjoying the rollercoaster success ride I’d always dreamed about, I found myself terrified that I’d never be able to live up to the success of my first novel. The words ‘disappointing second novel’ hung over me like the Sword of Damocles and I battled with doubts throughout the whole year.

That said, I’m a big believer in the theory that the things in life that are worth something are the ones you have to fight the hardest for. Welcome to My World is a definite step up from Fairytale and I can see that I’ve learned a great deal from the experience of publishing my first novel. I think Welcome is more of a slow-burner success-wise than Fairytale and actually that’s come as a bit of a relief after all the hype and craziness last year. The point is, I know it’s a better novel and the reaction from reviewers has been a lot more positive – even those who haven’t liked the genre have said it’s well written.



What was the inspiration for Welcome To My World?

When I wrote Fairytale it was as an avid Armchair Traveller – and what interested me was the ambitions so many people hold dear yet never pursue. What stops us from following our dreams? Is it fear, circumstance or history? And how do we break out of that? So Harri, the main character, is completely in love with travel but has only experienced it though other people’s eyes. Worse still, she works as a travel agent in a town where most of the population isn’t bothered about seeing the world. I wanted to see what would happen to her when she met other people who had taken the leap of faith and what effect this would have on her own dreams.

Of course, these days, it's de rigeur to have a preview chapter of your next book included in any novel and I already notice a preview for your third book in the back of Welcome To My World. Does that pile on the pressure or do you see it as part of the ongoing dream?

It was actually a conscious decision of mine to include the first chapter of the next book in the back of each of my novels. This was mainly because they are written in very different styles, so I wanted people to get a taste of what to expect from the next story so it didn’t come as a shock! I want to take people with me on the literary journeys I create, so I think it’s really important to leave people wanting more!

How do you handle the publicity side of your career? It must be pretty hectic for a bestselling author. Would you prefer to shy away from all that and stick to the writing or do you relish that? How on earth do you balance the two - as well as your music career?

I don’t think you can exist in splendid isolation as an author any more, particularly if you write romantic comedies or chick-lit like I do. A crucial part of encouraging people to stick with your writing is to be very open and accessible and now, with social media so much a part of everyone’s lives, this is even more important. I actually love it, if I’m honest. I’m a chatterbox and very gregarious at heart, so chatting relentlessly about writing, life and just about anything else that blows into my mind comes incredibly naturally to me (as my lengthy answers to your questions so far will attest!) But I know I’m fortunate in that respect and that many authors struggle with having to be publicly on show so much. I strongly believe in engaging with the wonderful people who choose to pick up my book when there are so many other shiny titles in the bookshop. It’s a responsibility I take very seriously.

Now, I've read Fairytale and enjoyed that very much. It struck me as very readily translatable into a Hollywood Rom-com. Is that something you'd like to see and if so who would you cast as the main characters?

Absolutely! I write very visually, in short scenes like a film, so it would be fantastic to see it realized on the big screen. As for casting, probably someone like Anne Hathaway or Carey Mulligan as Rosie (good English accent would be crucial), Patrick Dempsey or Justin Bartha (Failure to Launch, The Hangover) as Ed, Alison Janney (The West Wing) or Wendie Malick (Just Shoot Me) as Celia, Zooey Deschanel (500 Days of Summer) as Marnie, Matthew McConaughey as Nate and Jake Gyllenhaal as David.

You wrote about New York for Fairytale and now in Welcome we travel to Venice. To my poorly informed perspective, New York always conjures cop shows and the like, but you painted it with such warmth in Fairytale. While Venice is definitely romantic territory. So first of all, have you been to Venice? And whether you have or not, how do you go about capturing the character of a place for your novels?

Perhaps unsurprisingly, (after writing Fairytale about a place I’ve yet to visit) I’ve never been to Venice! I think the key to making the setting realistic is to really research it. It’s important to get a sense of a place, not just the facts that you’d glean from a travel book. I talk to people who’ve been there, asking them for details like the smells, sounds and feelings they got from the city, and read anything set there. I think it’s an art to get the balance between facts and feelings right: hopefully, if you succeed, you give the reader enough detail to provide a framework and then their imagination will fill in the gaps.

Welcome To My World seems a very inviting title. So go ahead and invite us into Harriet (Harri) Langton's world. What can readers expect to find there?

Harri’s world is one of hopes and dreams yet to be fulfilled; love and friendship from those around her; and a longing for the family she has lost. When she is talked into helping her best friend Alex’s mother Viv into finding him a suitable date, Harri unwittingly sets a chain of events into action that end with her locked in the middle cubicle of the Ladies’ loo at Stone Yardley Village Hall after all hell breaks loose at an engagement party. Find out what causes it – and, more importantly, what lies in wait for her when she finally emerges from the grey-green vinyl sanctuary to finally face the music…


Thanks so much for having me!

M xx


My pleasure!

Readers should know that Welcome To My World (which I'm currently reading!) is available from Amazon (both paperback and Kindle versions) and all good bookstores. As is her first novel, Fairytale Of New York. Miranda herself can be found at her website, where you'll also find details of a competition to win a trip to Venice. And be sure to check out her blog, Coffee & Roses.

SAF

Merlignant Enterprises Competition

Merlignant Enterprises, something of a spin-off of Evil UnLtd, in that I just made them up, are offering 5 copies of The Nightmare Begins, my most recent novelisation for BBC's Merlin series. Which, if nothing else, has a picture of the lovely Morgana on the cover :-)

It may seem an oddly unrelated 'prize', but we can't really sign Evil UnLtd, what with it being an ebook, so our best alternative is to scrawl our moniker across a page of another of our works.

Anyway, we're offering two ways to win one of these books. (I'll only ever be signing these five so they are in that sense, a limited edition :) )

1) Write and post a review of Evil UnLtd Vol 1: A Root Of All Evil on Amazon.com (only $2.50) or Amazon.co.uk (only £1.99!). You're under no obligation to be glowing either - just your fair and honest opinion will do. Email me the link to your review along with your Amazon invoice no. for the purchase of the ebook.

2) Email as many of your friends and contacts as possible telling them about Evil UnLtd - link to the FREE E-Shirt post on the Evil blog, or to the ebooks themselves on Amazon.Com, Amazon.Co.Uk or Smashwords if you like. BCC me in the email and whoever has sent word to the most contacts will win.

Note: my email address is available via my website, under Contact. And don't forget, even if you don't have a Kindle, you can download the software for FREE for reading on your PC, Mac, iPhone, iPad, Blackberry, Android. And the Smashwords Special Edition is offered for a variety of ereader formats. And remember to let me know in your emails who you'd like the autograph made out to! (Perhaps you're parents of young Merlin fans, for instance, who might like a signed copy.)

Since reviewing will take longer and involves a purchase and a spot of critiquing, we'll be holding back three of the books for reviewers, while two will go to the top email marketers.

Closing Date 31st Dec 2010 for email marketers. 31st Jan 2011 for reviewers. Names of winners will be posted to this blog and I'll be happy to post links to their blogs or websites here, as a bonus.

Good luck and I'll be practicing my handwriting to make sure my autograph won't be too much of a scribble. :)


SAF

Kindle In The Wind

Goodbye paperbacks
Though I've got a load of you at home
You pose a minor bulk problem
When I'm reading on the roam
They have this neat new gadget
And it's lighter than my brain
All the books are virtual
Though the price is oft the same

[chorus]

And it seems to me that what we need
Is a Kindle in the wind
Never turning pages over
When the breeze blows in
And I would have liked to have one
When I was just a kid
I had so many schoolbooks in my desk
I could never close the lid

Reading books was tough
When they were on computer screens
Amazon created a super toy
About a ton was the price you paid
Though it seems a lot
Oh it's really small potatoes next
To the paper you could save
And you can get a cover or keep it nude

[chorus]
And it seems to me that what we need
Is a Kindle in the wind
Never turning pages over
When the breeze blows in
And I would have liked to have one
When I was just sixteen
Easier for reading with one hand
Some virtual magazines


Goodbye paperbacks
Now I'm really running out of shelves
I've had to go and get this toy
Made by Amazon's little elves
Goodbye paperbacks
From the young man who loved all his books so
It's really quite something - but not sexual
More just sort of biblical, you know

[chorus]
And it seems to me that what we need
Is a Kindle in the wind
Never turning pages over
When the breeze blows in
And now I'm out to sell an ebook
Evil UnLimited
It's really something special
For just under two quid


SAF

Evil UnLtd is also available at Amazon.com and a Special Edition (with all sorts of extras) can be found (in different e-formats) at Smashwords. Remember if you don't have a Kindle you can download the software for FREE to enjoy the read on your PC, Mac, iPad, iPhone, Blackberry, Android or Cuddly Panda.

Ode To Katie The Wastrel

The song Katie should have sung in the X Factor Beatles Week:

What would you think if I sang out of tune
Would you still call and vote in for me
Lend me your ears and I'll sing you a song
And I'll try not to sing out of key

Oh, I get by with a little help from my friends
Mm, I get high with a little help from my friends
Mm, gonna try with a little help from my friends

What do I do when my fans fail to vote
To be always in the bottom two
I sit on my butt and say sod it then
And trust the judges to still put me through

Yeah, I get by with a little help from my friends
Mm, I get high with a little help from my friends
Mm, gonna try with a little help from my friends

I just need everybody
I need them all to love me
Oh please just anybody
Someone to love little me

Would you believe that I'm still in the show
When so many don't like what they see
I just change my disguise, wear feathers in my eyes
Then tell them this is the real me

Oh, I get by with a little help from my friends
Mm, I get high with a little help from my friends
Mm, gonna try with a little help from my friends

I just need everybody
I need them all to love me
Oh please just anybody
Someone to love little me

Oh, I get by with a little help from my friends
Yes, despite weekly audience trends
Mm, on Cowell and Walsh I depend
Yes I get by with a little help from my friends
With a little help from my friends


SAF

Psi Fi

We Are Not Alone, said the tag line for Close Encounters. Since I've met other indie authors over the internet, the encounters may not be counted as close, but it's good to know that the tag line still applies.

Continuing our showcase of other authors, today we feature Debra L Martin, a sci-fi fantasy author who braved the world of Kindle and indie publishing before me.




Can you tell us about your novels?

My co-author, David W Small, and I have two full-length novels in our RULE OF OTHARIA series, Quest for Nobility and The Crystal Facade. The books revolve around royal Otharian twins, Darius and Dyla Telkur and their struggle to maintain control of the throne of Telkur. The reader will delve into a world of PSI powers [telepathy, empathy, telekinesis], betrayal, intrigue and murder. There is an evil mastermind bent on eliminating the twins and, of course, there is a deliciously evil telekinetic assassin. There is also a connection back to Earth which Darius and Dyla uncover. To unravel the mystery, they must shift through the clues from the Arthurian legends of Merlin and the Lady of the Lake.

We also have two novelettes in our DARK FUTURE series, Path to War and The Right Path. The stories are set in a bleak post-apocalyptic world where only the strongest survive. Food and water are scarce and gangs roam the streets preying on the weak. System cops try to keep the peace any way they can but it’s not always pretty.

You write with a collaborator. What is your process?

We both live on opposite coasts and our writing process has evolved over the past four years. With email, Instant Messenger and Skype we are able to keep in touch to plot out the next scene, chapter, or action sequence. We’ve found through trial and error that what works the best for us is to do edits/additions in real time. We send chapters/scenes back and forth to each other for comments. It’s always a wonderful surprise to see what kind of twist Dave has put on a chapter especially when I thought I knew what was going to happen. That keeps our writing exciting.

How do you research the science in your science fiction?

My coauthor, David W Small, and I like to have the science we use in our books grounded in reality. For example, in our Otharia books, we use crystals to enhance PSI power. We wanted these "crystals" to be something that people would recognize easily and so we chose to use diamonds as the model. Anyone who has purchased a diamond knows that diamonds are rated by 4Cs - cut, clarity, color, and carat. We enhanced the 4C rule and had the Otharians discover another intrinsic “C” within the nature of diamond: conductivity, the 5thC. This fifth C is what fuels their PSI abilities and the largest 10K crystals open their portals for interplanetary travel.

What will your readers like about your work?

I think readers will enjoy our novels because my co-author and I create fast moving action-packed stories. We strive to keep the reader turning the pages through tension, challenges and the conflicts our characters face.

What inspires your stories?

I get inspiration from many things from catching snippets of conversations during the day to reader comments on my blog and forums. It’s amazing how you can spin a story from one seemingly innocent comment.

Why did you go indie?

It was very discouraging hearing from a number of agents that they liked our book and thought it had commercial potential, but they just didn’t love it enough to offer representation. When Amazon offered the chance for authors to self-publish their works, it was the perfect solution for us.



Where can we find your novels?

In the US, my author page at Amazon is:
Debra L Martin, Amazon.Com
In the UK, my author page at Amazon is:
Debra L Martin, Amazon.Co.Uk

I also try to visible as much as possible on the internet and frequently comment on forums such as Kindleboads.com. You can also find me here:

Blog: http://twoendsofthepen.blogspot.com/
Website: http://martinandsmall.com/
Facebook: Debra.L.Martin.Author
Twitter: dlmartin6

What is your current WIP?
Dave and I are actually working on two manuscripts at the moment. One is a new fantasy involving assassins, witches and an ancient prophesy. We hope to finish this in 2011. The second project is another novelette in the DARK FUTURE series tentatively titled, Zia’s Path.

Thanks Simon for hosting me!

Pulp Fiction

For those of you who thought this blog was all me-me-me, today we offer something completely different. First in a series of guest spots, showcasing the talents and thoughts of other authors. Since, as writers, we're all in this together.

I'm still very much a newcomer to the world of Kindle and independent publishing and when finding your way through the fog, you can encounter all sorts of strangers. Luckily, most of them are friendly - not a monster among them. One such fellow is William Meikle, who coincidentally knows quite a bit about strangers, monsters and fog.





William Meikle - Why I write pulp
___________________________


I choose to write mainly at the pulpy end of the market, populating my stories with monsters, myths, men who like a drink and a smoke, and more monsters. People who like this sort of thing like it.

My pat answer as to why has always been the same. "I like monsters."

But it goes deeper than that.

I write to escape.

I grew up on a West of Scotland housing estate in a town where you were either unemployed or working in the steelworks, and sometimes both. Many of the townspeople led hard, miserable lifes of quiet, and sometimes not so quiet desperation. I was relatively lucky in that both my parents worked, but I spent a lot of time alone or at my grandparent's house.

My Granddad was housebound, and a voracious reader. I got the habit from him, and through him I discovered the Pan Books of Horror and Lovecraft, but I also discovered westerns, science fiction, war novels and the likes of Edgar Rice Burroughs, Robert E Howard, Louis D’Amour, Mickey Spillane, Ed McBain, Alistair MacLean and Dennis Wheatley.

When you mix all that together with DC Comics, Tarzan, Gerry Anderson and Dr Who then, later on, Hammer and Universal movies on the BBC, you can see how the pulp became embedded in my psyche.

Pulp is all about the struggle of the dark against the light. The time and place, and the way it plays out is in some ways secondary to that. When you're dealing with archetypes, there's only so many to go around, and it's not surprising that the same concepts of death and betrayal, love and loss, turn up wherever, and whenever, the story is placed, whether it be in crime, fantasy or horror.

I also have a deep love of old places, in particular menhirs and stone circles, and I’ve spent quite a lot of time travelling the UK and Europe just to visit archaeological remains. I love what is widely known as “weird sh**”. I’ve spent far too much time surfing and reading fortean, paranormal and cryptozoological websites. The cryptozoological stuff especially fascinates me, and provides a direct stimulus for a lot of my fiction.

So, there’s that, and the fact that I was grew up with the sixties explosion of popular culture embracing the supernatural and the weird. Doctor Who, Gerry Anderson series, The Avengers and Adam Adamant on TV, then Hammer horror movies got me, and led me back to the Universal originals. My early reading somehow all tended to gravitate in similar directions, with DC comics leading me into pulp and to finding Tarzan.

Mix all that lot together, add a dash of ZULU, a hefty slug of heroic fantasy from Howard, Leiber and Moorcock, a sprinkle of fast moving Scottish thrillers from John Buchan and Alistair MacLean, and a final pinch of piratical swashbuckling. Leave to marinate for fifty years and what do you get? A psyche with the urge to beat up monsters.

When I was at school books and my guitar were all that kept me sane in a town that was going downhill fast. The steelworks shut and employment got worse. I -could- have started writing about that, but why bother? All I had to do was walk outside and I'd get it slapped in my face. That horror was all too real.

So I took up my pen and wrote. At first it was song lyrics, designed (mostly unsuccessfully) to get me closer to girls.

I tried my hand at a few short stories but had no confidence in them and hid them away. And that was that for many years.

I didn't get the urge again until I was past thirty and trapped in a very boring job. My home town had continued to stagnate and, unless I wanted to spend my whole life drinking (something I was actively considering at the time), returning there wasn't an option.

As I said before, I write to escape.

My brain needed something, and writing gave it what was required. That point, back nearly twenty years ago, was like switching on an engine, one that has been running steadily ever since.

And most of the time, the things that engine chooses to give me to write are very pulpy.

I've also been criticised for it by people who don't get it. Willie Meikle is..."the author of the most cliched, derivative drivel imaginable...the critical acclaim he receives from his peers is virtually non-existent." is only one of the responses I've had.

Now, I don't write for the critical acclaim of my peers. I couldn't give a toss what other writers think of me. I'm writing for two reasons... myself and a readership. Posterity, if there is one, can decide on whether it's any good or not. Besides, the harder I work at it making my writing accessible, the more readers I get, so I'm doing something right.

But that's still not why I do it.

I think you have to have grown up with pulp to -get- it. A lot of writers have been told that pulp=bad plotting and that you have to have deep psychological insight in your work for it to be valid. They've also been told that pulp=bad writing, and they believe it. Whereas I remember the joy I got from early Moorcock, from Mickey Spillane and further back, A E Merritt and H Rider Haggard. I'd love to have a chance to write a Dracula, Tarzan, John Carter, Allan Quartermain, Mike Hammer, Dr Who, Quatermass or Conan novel, whereas a lot of writers I know would sniff and turn their noses up at the very thought of it.

I write to escape.

I haven't managed it yet, but I'm working on it.

_________


You can check out William Meikle's impressive catalogue of books at Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk.

Wednesday Night Music Club

We all have those artists and bands we’ve longed to see live. This year I get to see two of them. Yay me! Turns out in order to make some dreams come true, you don’t need a genie, you don’t need a Fairy Godmother, all you need is cash or credit. But who cares when it’s worth every penny.

Fair warning now: I’m a fan of Sheryl Crow and I arrived at the concert on a high anyway, (met up in the afternoon with a very dear friend I don’t get to see nearly often enough), so the chances of any objectivity here are slim.

Let me just begin then by saying exactly what you’d expect me to say at this point.

Sheryl rocks.



The Hammersmith Apollo was a new experience for me and it’s a great venue with all the character of a lovely old theatre, which makes for a more intimate setting than the huge arenas you’d expect to see stars of Sheryl’s magnitude playing. Magnitude, by the way, not being any reference to size: she looks great and she has no qualms about telling the audience she’s 48. And if I look that good in five years’ time, you can bet I’ll be doing international music tours and shaking my stuff on stage with just as much vibrant energy. Scary thought, I know, but don’t worry, it’s just my way of saying it’s never going to happen.

But it’s not about the looks, it’s very much about the music with her. She’s one of the artists I welcome (most) covers from, because there’s more of a sense she’s doing it not to sell more records but because she loves the song. And she’s managed to evolve her sound and explore fresh avenues with each album, without uprooting and moving on altogether. True, a lot of it comes down to voice – you ought to know those textured velvety tones anywhere – but she does put a certain instrumental stamp on whatever she does. And I love a talented artist who, when hearing a new record of theirs for the first time, no announcements or even halfway through, I know right away it’s them.

What she gave us live was an electric (not eclectic) mix of old, new, borrowed, blues – which is what you want from a Sheryl Crow concert – with never more than two newbies or classics in a row, so there’s no sense of this is the new section and now for some old favourites. Which worked really well. It’s all one body of work, it’s all Sheryl and it all fits comfortably together.

Regrets? I’ve had a few, but then again too few to mention. But what the heck, in the interests of balance, I’ll go ahead and say that there were – inevitably – some songs I’d been hoping to hear but didn’t. (Good Is Good and Diamond Road, for instance.) At the Peter Gabriel gig I attended, in a momentary quiet spell you could hear my solitary voice in the crowd shouting a request for Solsbury Hill – and lo! the nice man obliges. But alas, Sheryl wasn’t listening to me. In fairness to her, it was a loud crowd and there were a couple of tracks where the sound mixers even managed to drown her out – most notably in the middle of the Terrence Trent D'Arby cover, Sign Your Name. Which is a song I’ve never especially liked, I don’t know why, but even with that I like Sheryl’s version more.

All I Wanna Do was a predictable choice for an encore number, but hey, it’s not like she could have gotten away with not playing it and I’m happy to say, as familiar as I am with that number, it – if you’ll forgive the cliché - rocked the house. And in that vein, the rest is just awesome, I’m afraid, but I’ll spare readers a long list of glowing reports and just recall a few select highlights.

Which would have to include the sublime I Shall Believe (grand piano wheeled out especially) and (Are You) Strong Enough (To Be My Man?) – the latter of which she entertainingly turns into a sort of personal ad in the middle, reminding us she has two little uns now and therefore might be a lot to take on. Most of the males in the audience were undeterred and were keen to take her up on the offer. Although not me, of course, I’m married and my wife reads this blog. Although having said that, at one point she leans down to take the hand of a guy in the front row and sings directly to him. And it wasn’t me, damnit. Sigh.

Most of the oldies hailed from Tuesday Night Music Club and her second album, Sheryl Crow, with the belting If It Makes You Happy (it did), the uplifting Every Day Is A Winding Road (helped me forget I nearly got run over on one of London’s not-so-winding roads) and the gorgeous Redemption Day (I have no glib comment to make). But she found room for My Favourite Mistake, which is one of my favourites and not at all erroneous – from quite possibly my favourite album of hers, The Globe Sessions – and Soak Up The Sun from C’mon, C’mon.

If the whole thing had gone on until the sun came up over Santa Monica Boulevard, I’d have been over the moon. Actually, what with the time zones, for all I knew it had. But anyway for two hours, between 9pm and 11pm I was a very happy bunny. And several days later, I still am.



Next up in the dream concert series, Shakira in December. I anticipate more belly dancing. But for the time being, I have to concur with Sheryl. Good is good, bad is bad – but I know full well which one I had.

Kindle Surprise

The other day I was walking into town and bumped into a friend of my sister's, who happens to be an avid reader and she always asks how my writing's going and from there – not least because she always has a book in hand - we usually end up talking about what we've been reading lately. On this occasion I answered that I was reading some Jules Verne (Mysterious Island – seen the film, never read it before) and showed her my shiny new Kindle, on which said work resided along with two or three other e-books that represented my earliest purchases from the Kindle store.

Whereupon this lady, who is really funny in all the best possible ways, backed away and held up her fingers in the sign of a cross and, like a true exorcist, urged me to return to the world of real books.

I laughed, discreetly tucked the offending device away in my pocket and promised I'd still read proper books as well.

The funny thing is, it probably wouldn't have been all that long ago that I might have reacted like her. Call me a literary Luddite, but when it comes to reading there's no real substitute for the feel of a paper book in your hand and anyway, after my experiences of so much proofreading of other people's work on authonomy, I think I'd rather have gouged my eyes out than read another document off a computer screen. Add to that my lifelong dreams of publication and an e-book just doesn't cut it from an author's perspective either.

When I think of the trees that have died to bring us the works of Katie Price and others, well, my material's worth many a rainforest next to that, damn it. But setting those green sentiments aside, nothing beats seeing your books on the shelves and I've always looked forward to the day when I could add volumes of my original works next to my previous Doctor Who output and so on that currently have their own little shelf at home.

So when others recommended I publish one of my own works on Kindle, I stopped short of making the sign of the cross, but was sceptical and resistant to say the least. But after a prolonged period of coming up against similarly resistant publishers and agents – the two worst forms of writers' block – you owe it to yourself to investigate alternatives.

These same agents and publishers were, after all, telling me that my work was “excellent”, “colourful, imaginative, well-written” etc and declaring that as an author I should be encouraged. All the while, in spite of those endorsements, acting as barriers between my books and potential readers. Nervous because of the state of the industry, ridiculously high advances paid to a select few (like the Katie Prices) whose books end up immediately discounted in the windows of WHSmith and the inevitable reservations when met with anything original. (Wot no Teen Vampires?)

Now if I'd had the resources, I might have set up as an independent publisher, but at the end of the day I'm a writer and I was cautioned by an independent publishing friend that basically I'd end up with little or no time left for writing. Not good. On top of which, I doubt I would have been able to produce books at a comparably affordable price to compete with the mass marketed slush pile known as popular fiction.

Time then for me to embrace the 21st Century. (In a purely Platonic way, you understand.)

Me being me, if I was going to publish some work of mine on Kindle, I was going to treat myself to a Kindle gadget.

Now I do like gadgets, it's true. And you might suppose a certain bias on my part, since I have now made one of my books available on the device, but this is not a sales pitch – you don't need a Kindle to enjoy my book, you can download the software free to your PC, Mac, iPhone, iPad and what have you – no, it's more just a shared revelation, in that I can't quite believe how quickly a staunch paperback traditionalist like me has become a convert to the e-reading experience.

Admittedly, it's still early days and any toy has a degree of novelty value, so maybe my current enthusiasm will wear off. Allowing for that then, I am impressed.

The Kindle is a good deal slimmer and lighter weight than I'd expected and, especially for something grey and rectangular, it's an elegant design. First and foremost though, it's the reading experience that won me over. There's no screen glare, it's as easy on the eye as reading a cleanly printed page and the refresh rate means the delay between pages is no more than you get from physically turning a paper page.

Obviously it scores in the portability department over a paperback and I'm not entirely sure how many books you can store on it, but I'm pretty sure it's more than my entire collection. (And I have too many books for our shelf space at home.) Plus you can 'archive' books that you've read and they're removed from the device but available to re-download at the touch of a button. The downloads, by the way, are very fast and the range of titles available (now including Evil UnLtd folks ;-) ) is , well, what you'd expect from Amazon really. It's tempting to spend more time browsing than reading, almost too easy with its one-touch purchasing, and you could spend a fortune on books without feeling it at all. Luckily I confined myself initially to the 'FREE' list – and even though some titles on the list will cost you £0.49 for example it's been a great way to catch up on some classics without breaking the bank. Meanwhile there are plenty of other titles I already have my eye on and it has genuinely reawakened my reading habit, which can only be a good thing.

In addition, you can email your own documents (Word, PDF) to the device, and make notes on them, so potentially ideal for proofreading. I'm aiming to put that to the test on Evil Vol 2 and a new YA fiction idea I'm developing, I'll let you know how that goes. Supposedly there's also an MP3 player on there, but I've yet to put that through its paces. It's not crucial, and I honestly would be happy with it as a dedicated e-reader.

The downsides? The keyboard is serviceable for the little I've needed it so far, although numerical digits are only accessible via a 'Symbol' key and that can be a minor nuisance. Far more grating, I gave the speaking book feature a whirl and frankly it made a hash of it. It struggles with pace and intonation, 'just a bit'. The words were discernible, but – no offence – unless you relish the prospect of Stephen Hawking reading you your book at bedtime, I wouldn't bother. (Although listening to it read the first page of Evil UnLtd last night did provide some entertainment value.) Maybe technology will allow for a voice of your chosing – Holly Hunter or Emily Procter would get my vote. Or, for Evil, Stephen Fry, Richard E Grant or Benedict Cumberbatch could do a worthy Dexter Snide, I think. Yeah, a voice to suit the work, that'd be the way to go.

Since I don't need that feature, it's not a real gripe. So my only proper grumbles arise from an author's viewpoint. It's not the uploading of your work that's a problem, that's as easy as pie. But, and I appreciate I'm a learner here, while the conversion process from PDF (or Word) to Kindle is a breeze, there are formatting issues and I had to download the resulting HTML and edit that in order to polish my processed MS to presentable standard. (This after the original doc – and hence the PDF – had been polished and smartened to the nth degree.) It wasn't anything major, but I did have to go through and check every line break and scene break etc, and then each time changes were made and I uploaded the altered document, it could take anything up to another 48 hours before the book was 'live' again on the Amazon Kindle site.

So, a bit fiddly in that respect, but that's the process for the author, rather than the device. And as I say, I'm a learner, and I'll know by the time it comes to uploading Evil Vol 2 (this time next year, Evil fans!) to attend to all the relevant formatting changes in one go before re-uploading. Also, once I'd finished smartening up the document, I had some trouble downloading the updated version, since the device still retained the old version in its archive. Happily, the Kindle support people were prompt and helpful and emailed the updated version direct to my Kindle. Sorted.

And I have to say, all bias aside, it looks the business. (Obligatory plug here: take a look – you can download a sample for free. Also available on Amazon.com, for readers across the Atlantic.)

It's true that I still aim to see Evil UnLtd – and other works from yours truly – in paper form, a nice collection of spines all in a row on the bookshelf. Luverly. But in the meantime I'm at least happy that now some of my work is out there and available to readers because, well, that's the whole point, isn't it.

But the biggest turnaround for me – and the biggest surprise – is how readily I've become a convert to the electronic age of reading. I love it. Just don't tell my sister's friend that. She'll likely drive a wooden stake through my heart and chop off my head.

EVIL RE-KINDLED

Some people might think Cheryl Cole was Evil for choosing Katie over Gamu. But that's nothing compared to Evil UnLtd.

They're Evil. Their Evil knows no limits. And they work exclusively for themselves.

And now they're launching their enterprise on the Kindle. The first volume of their exploits - Evil UnLtd: The Root Of All Evil - is now available, from the Kindle store on amazon.co.uk and amazon.com.

There's no greater volume of Evil.*

And don't worry, if you don't happen to have a Kindle device (although I treated myself to one recently and I can thoroughly recommend it), the Kindle software is available to download FREE for a variety of platforms: PC, Mac, iPad, iPhone, Android and Uncle Tom Cobbly and all. Although Uncle Tom would appreciate it if you asked him nicely before using him as an e-book reader. He's funny like that.

Please Support Evil. Every two minutes and seventeen seconds another villain falls prey to some big dumb action hero. They need your help.

As Dexter Snide himself says,

“All that it takes for evil to succeed, someone once said, is for good men to do nothing... In a word, bollocks. Evil needs nurturing, looking after, hand-raising by those who understand its little ways.”


So please spread the word, tell your friends. And go on, treat yourself to a quick download. All proceeds will go towards Gamu. Okay, not really, but one more random mention might earn us more hits.

*Evil UnLtd were filmed using Evil extensions and enhanced in post-production.

Wibbly Wobbly Timey Wimey

Everyone has their bugbears. Reset switches are one of mine. When it comes to writing, I always figured Undo and Delete were for the stuff you don't want ending up in the story. Unfortunately when time travel is involved, there seems to be a temptation to throw bigger and bigger wham-bam dramatic oh-my-god-how-will-they-get-out-of-that events at the screen because whatever happens can simply be undone.

The writers even seem to be labouring under some delusion that it's clever. And yet it's more often than not exactly what it looks like at the cliffhanger stage: a dramatic dead end. They've painted their central characters into such a corner that the only way out is to reverse out of the cul-de-sac. And they seem to convince themselves that the way to improve upon this formula is to raise the stakes. The bigger the catastrophe, the bigger the drama, right? Well, no. The bigger the catastrophe, the Bigger the Undo. Hence, the bigger the catastrophe, the harder it is to care about the outcome.

The Doctor Who TV Movie left me singularly unimpressed for a number of reasons (although I quite liked McGann's performance and loved the TARDIS set design), chief among them was the way in which the end of the world was undone with the TARDIS rolling back time. That and two companions brought back from the dead. Clearly, no series arose from that pilot because the addition of this handy feature to the time capsule's capabilities rendered any subsequent adventures pointless.

If that's how time and space work in your fictional universe, one may as well travel in dreams or virtual reality, since although characters remember the experience, there's precious little difference between events that didn't really happen and events that are just going to unhappen.

Sadly that TV Movie has become the template for season finales, coupled with an obsessive compulsion to go bigger and 'better' each time. Threat: millions of Daleks. Solution: Rose 'Holy Ghost' Tyler and her mass-disintegration and resurrection schtick. Small potatoes. Threat: millions of Daleks and Cybermen. Solution: handy Invasion Reverse lever. Still, for all its convenience there was a cost: poor Rose was cast into a parallel dimension, lost forever. Well, until she came back. Next up, we had the Earth completely subjugated by the Mad Master and his Amazing Levitating Balls. But luckily Doctor Dobby was able to transform into a more helpful floaty Messianic being who could roll back time just like a TV Movie TARDIS. (Ironically, a miracle achieved by the power of storytelling. Ha.) Next, Rusty has the Daleks relocate the Earth to a remote part of the universe. There's plenty of other guff going on, but naturally the Earth has to be returned to its rightful place and in fine TVM tradition this is achieved by adding another absurd capability to an already ridiculously comprehensive and drama-cheapening TARDIS spec. Planet-towing. And they used to worry that K9 made things too easy for the Doctor. Finally – thank God – we had a sort of Being John Simm scenario plus the return and unreturn of Gallifrey, handily rectified by some thoroughly unconvincing gubbins that I couldn't care enough about to remember the specifics. I recall a gun being fired, followed by a nauseating twenty minute pre-regeneration goodbye.

With the bar set so high, how in the name of Rassilon was the Grand Moff ever going to top that lot?

Perhaps the most unfortunate thing about his two-part season closer - The Pandorica Opens/Big Bang - is that he tried. Frankly, I would have been a happier bunny if he had diverged from the template altogether. If he had, I could have dispensed with all this comparison, for starters. But context insists on playing its part.




Clearly any two-parter will consist of setup and resolution. Too frequently, it's more a case of setup and upset and the scale of disappointment is usually proportional to the scale of the setup. If a Part One has done its job well, it will have built up the drama, the suspense, the expectations etc, so that it's more full of promise, Eastern or otherwise, than Turkish Delight.

The Pandorica Opens is damn near perfect in that respect and boasts enough key differences to overcome some worrying commonalities it shares with a Rusty finale.

The pre-credits sequence is a joy, treating us to cameos in an inventive and meaningful way that feeds us into the story as well as celebrating some of the season's best characters. (Contrast this with the overblown appendix to End Of Time – the aforementioned nauseating departure sequence, because, let's face it a simple touching farewell – a la Green Death, say - is just not good enough for a guy so central to the universe. There was at least one person I know of who was checking his watch and asking, “Aren't you gone, yet?”) In the opening of The Pandorica Opens, we're treated to a brisker procession through the Moffat character archives and one that amuses and entertains rather than makes me want to throw up.

A clever little temporal line is deftly traced from Van Gogh through to Churchill and Bracewell to River Song and her very own 'Great Escape'. Liz Ten practically had me standing and singing the national anthem. Well, okay, it was more of a simple “Yay!” but she is one of those magical characters where great writing, the right actress and a sparkling performance all combine brilliantly. Moffat, I'd argue, has a gift for writing 'female Doctors' – which is what Liz Ten, River Song and even Amy Pond are, to varying degrees. It's a good job Matt Smith is so charismatic and likeable a Doctor, otherwise he'd have a tough job getting noticed when these other characters are on the screen. Credit where it's due, he and Gillan are a key contributing factor in why I didn't hate this season ender.

They – both their characters and their performances – along with the best ratio of good stories to duds we've seen since Doctor Who's 21st century return earned a lot of goodwill. What's more, despite the clumsily chucked-in prophesy in The Eleventh Hour, the cracks in time, the threat of Silence (it feels like it should be capitalised) Falling and all that have featured sufficiently prominently in a number of stories to develop a genuine sense of intrigue and a worthwhile mystery in a way that scattered references to Bad Wolf in Season One didn't.

Thus, there was more eager interest and anticipation for me, going into this finale, than I'd felt for a loooooong while. And, quite crucially, I cared about the outcome.

And as the first episode drew me in, continuing to impress and surprise (and, by the way, I had to applaud the Hitch-Hikers homage with River's message on the mountainside), I was given no reason to doubt it would deliver on that promise.

On a very basic level, the choice of setting – Roman Britain – lends it a different feel to a Rusty finale from the get-go. Naturally, as soon as we get the Cleopatra name-drop, we know it's going to be River. But I'll be honest, I never thought the shadowy legionary would turn out to be a resurrected Rory.

Interestingly, this rang the first real alarm bell. Since he was killed - and erased from all time - in Cold Blood, I was dreading a Big Undo and here, apparently, it was. Dead major character, brought miraculously back to life. Yawn. Crafty Moffat even plays on that, with Rory having no idea how it happened, no explanations are offered and it's all attributed to, well, a miracle. The truth, when it hits, is a master stroke.

Before that we're treated to a refreshingly measured and suspenseful build-up as our heroes investigate the shadowed vaults under Stonehenge. It's creepy and atmospheric and surprisingly patient in terms of pace. The presence of the Cyberman throws in a perfectly timed and exciting setpiece, with the parts coming to life – particularly the head scuttling about spider-fashion, like a machine re-enactment of The Thing, and the skull inside – making the Cybermen as genuinely scary on screen, for the first time, as they've always been in my imagination. And throughout it all, we're kept on edge by the central question of what is in the box. In Pandora's original, all that remained inside was hopelessness. Five years of Rusty finales had primed me for disappointment. One year of Moffat's who had reintroduced the concept of optimism. What would this deliver? Will it be the 1p or one of the Banker's power five?

Moffat precedes the reveal with a dose of Rusty-ish excess. Correction, he sees Rusty's excess and raises. Cybermen vs. Daleks, pah! The Master conquers the world? The Daleks steal the Earth? The return of Gallifrey? You might think that's big, but that's just peanuts to The Pandorica Opens.

What do you say to death of the TARDIS and River Song, the killing of Amy Pond, the Doctor imprisoned in the trap set for him by an alliance of aliens straight out of a Doctor Who Monster Book and the end of the universe? How'd you like them apples?

There can be no denying the dramatic impact of such a multiple whammy ending. It is, however, a curious double-edged thing.

Like the Monster Alliance itself, it cuts two ways: on the one hand it's big and bold and appeals to the child in every fanboy heart (what kid didn't imagine or even write a story that united a compendium of their favourite monsters against the Doctor?); on the other, it's big and dumb and makes a joke of the Doctor Who universe, the notion that all these races would band together in such an involved and convoluted plan is a bit silly. On the other hand – if I might allow myself a third – the fanboy in me was more disgruntled that they went and mentioned Draconians and Zygons and failed to include them in the monster assembly. No fair.

Alongside the wow or ooo-er factor, whatever you want to call it, there's more of those alarm bells. Surely the only way out of this is a rewind. In an effort to outdo his predecessor, has Moffat upped the ante too far? Amid all the galaxies winking out and the Earth left alone in darkness, the most powerful element of that episode conclusion for me was the emotional battle fought by Auton Rory and the killing shot still sends cold shivers through me. A potent reminder that small is beautiful. And you wonder, could that sound effect be the report of Moffat shooting himself in the foot?

When, in an earlier moment, the Doctor is confronted by a host of alien ships in the sky above, he resorts to the increasingly tired ploy of driving them off with his reputation. And what I really wanted to see at that point was for all the ships to open fire at the end of his grandiose speech and see that plan backfire for the first time. That would have been priceless. However, although we're robbed of the comedy, we are then shown that the alien menaces only withdrew for the purposes of their trap. So in that sense, Moffat once again proves his ability to undercut our expectations.

So I could take some encouragement from that and look forward to the closing episode with some confidence.

Does he disappoint? Well, as with Time Of Angels/Flesh And Stone the answer is Yes and No. In other words, in many respects it's perfect, despite its flaws.

The critical flaw is that it is a massive Reset. A far bigger Undo than it is a Bang.

On the plus side, for the most part it's fabulously low-key. In Rusty-eval times, we would have seen the excesses of the previous episode ramped up for the final part. More monsters, greater absurdities and, er, more universes ended - I'm not quite sure, but he would have managed it somehow. Here, Moffat takes it down a notch or several. For actual enemies, the Monster Alliance is gone and there's just the one Stone Dalek. Which, forgetting that it doesn't make any sense – why would races wiped from existence persist as stone relics? – is a great idea in terms of pure imagination.

What it is, is the stuff of fairy tales. And that is the realm in which we find ourselves.

Are we sitting comfortably? Then I'll explain.

It takes us back to the beginning, where Once Upon A Time there was a little girl praying to Santa and a mad, raggedy Doctor crash landed in her garden and changed her life forever. That scene establishes this season's fairy-tale credentials and it's entirely fitting that we find ourselves back in that territory for the ending. Amy's the Cinderella, the Doctor is her Prince, Rory is Buttons and River Song is, um, the Fairy Godmother, I suppose. There are no Ugly Sisters because this is TV and only glamorous people need apply. But tenuous analogies aside, it's the tone that counts. 'Wibbly wobbly timey wimey' has become something of a catchphrase, courtesy of Moffat's accomplished story, Blink, and he evidently regards it as a magical, wonderful thing, something to be waved about playfully like a wand. The idea that, as long as you remember someone, you can bring them back is plainly a nonsense, even when 'supported' by some questionable Doctor Who pseudoscientific mechanics, but it is perfect fairy-tale fare. The emotional aspects of it are handled with that in mind and, for the most part, are pitched beautifully – less drawn-out and less desperately hammered-home than we're used to, and that degree of restraint - and, at times, understatement - is a blessing. Even the Doctor's farewell speech to a sleeping Amelia is fairly gently done and is a further credit to Matt Smith's very likeable Doctor. It persuades me that I will be sorry when he eventually goes, although of course we knew damn well that wasn't going to happen here. A fairy tale – especially a Steven Moffat fairy tale – is going to have a happy ending.

It's only a shame that it's all a bit too Happy Ever After for my liking and could have done with being a bit more Grimm.

Although there's no denying the cleverness of the timey-wimey weaving going on – including discreetly embedded clues, like the jacketed Doctor having a quiet word with Amy in Flesh & Stone, and thematic pointers like Amy's Protest or Forget choice in The Beast Below – it's in some ways too clever for its own good.

It furnishes us with too neat and far too tidy a conclusion for my liking. Not satisfied with zero dramatic cost, Amy ends up ahead with a gain of two parents. The price? She gets to watch the Doctor's embarrassing-dad dancing at her wedding reception. Don't get me wrong, I found that hilarious – this episode was loaded with great comedy. Even the Bill And Ted-ish time-shenanigans offered some amusement, despite being rather hackneyed by now, and it wouldn't be the first time the Doctor extricated himself from a difficult fix with a comic turn. But the main problem I found with it, was that it does kind of make a joke of the ominous cliffhanger in Part One.

As is entirely customary with Doctor Who, in other respects it's not nearly clever enough. While part of me gazes on in wonder, the other part is brimming with questions and niggles. I'm sure there's some wand-wave explanation in there, but to my mind when you put a dead person in stasis it keeps them dead. Also, it takes the gift of River Song's little blue book (“something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue”) to jog Amy's memory, so we must assume that, despite all the blank pages, River recalled the Doctor and events with sufficient clarity to remember to present Amy with the book – and yet her memories weren't enough to bring him back. To say nothing of why she kept a blank journal with a distinctive TARDIS-motif cover, or are these things freely available from gift shops and if so where can I get one?

But any further focus on the quibbles would paint a misleading picture of my overall impressions, which were on balance positive. In the midst of it all, there was a lot of terrific stuff – Amy meets Amelia, the Stone Dalek, Rory's vigil (a touching twist on Marvin the Paranoid Android's long service as a Milliway's parking attendant in The Restaurant At The End Of The Universe), River Song, that bedside farewell from the Doctor to Amy. Just, oh, lots and lots.

Time is relative and so are season finales. To say this was the best season ender of 21st century Who would be faint praise, but equally it's no understatement. It's a well-crafted piece of writing within it's inherited framework. It pushes all the right emotional buttons, rather than thumping the console repeatedly in order to get a response. It does everything right... except perhaps the story.

Like the season as a whole, what the Grand Moff Steven delivered wasn't radically different to what we got from his predecessor, but the differences were enough to restore my optimism. For the most part, he knew which parts to keep, which to play around with and what new things to bring to the mix. Among them, a degree of restraint and subtlety. And through the eyes of Amelia Pond and a charming avuncular young Doctor, he breathed fresh life into the show, making it feel magical again.

It's only a shame, as I say, that, out of admiration for the supercalifragilistic something-quite-atrocious finales of previous years, he felt the need to fence himself in with that same kind of framework. He's proven his ability to toy with and undercut audience expectations and some borrowing from the past is both inevitable and often desirable, but as for impossible odds and dramatic back-pedalling or the Big Undo, please, it's time to seal that particular evil in a box and if that minx Pandora comes anywhere near it with a glint of piqued curiosity in her eye, somebody shoot the woman. We can do without having that unleashed on the Doctor Who universe ever again.

By all means, give us more timey-wimey - since Mr Moffat clearly delights in playing his temporal games - but less of the wibbly-wobbly, if it's not too much to ask. What we've seen over the past thirteen episodes – well, ten of them anyway – are some key steps in the right direction and I've thoroughly enjoyed this series as a result. Next, let's see some bolder, braver strides and see where that takes us.

For the first time since we've had Christmas specials, I'm already looking forward to the next one – Orient Express (In Space)? - and please oh please let the “Your Majesty” the Doctor referred to be Liz Ten! Listen to me, I sound like a fan again.

Meanwhile, the sad fanboy in me will be over there remembering Draconians and Zygons on the off-chance that will do the trick of bringing them back.

Doctor In The House

In much the same way that certain things in Doctor Who (Churchill and Daleks, return of the Silurians) fuel anticipation with possibilities and promise, some things just ring alarm bells and put you on your guard. The name Gareth Roberts, for instance, is like a big Beware Of The Dog sign at the gateway to an episode.

In canine terms, I suppose he'd be one of those yappy little ones who'd like to prove he has teeth and go for the jugular, but only manages to annoy with lots of attention-seeking jumping around and nipping at your ankles. He's rated by a bewildering number (where any number above zero can be considered bewildering) of Who fans and as far as I can tell he is convinced of his own pedigree.

As such, when you're met with a story that's as average, unambitious and unpretentious as The Lodger from a writer who's so spectacularly failed to impress in the past it's a refreshing change. It didn't appear to aspire to much beyond being fun. It certainly didn't aim for a decent, well-constructed plot. So as long as you weren't expecting anything of that sort, you were pretty safe from disappointment.

I guess one remedy for a writer too often bound up in his own cleverness is to write a story that's not even trying to be especially clever. What you're left with is a script that clearly delights in its characters and their situation. Arguably, a sitcom.

And like a sitcom, it works to maintain the status quo because, since the comedy arises out of the situation, the last thing you want is for the situation to change too dramatically. Of course, this is Doctor Who, so ultimately it has to change – the evil has to be defeated and so on, so we can move on to the next episode, the next situation.

But that's essentially the level The Lodger is on. Two Pints Of Vraxoin And A Packet Of Jelly Babies – so to speak.

And it's funnier than a lot of sitcoms. In being out of his element, the Doctor is in his element and whether it's playing interfering gooseberry to his landlord's relationship, building fantastic Scrapheap Challenge contraptions in his bedroom or swapping Black Orchid's cricket for a spot of footie, Matt Smith is hilarious. Even James Corden, who I'm not a fan of, is perfectly cast and there's a nice enough rom-com chemistry between him and Daisy Haggard as Sophie.

As a rom-com it's less successful. Many (all?) rom-coms blatantly identify which two characters are destined to kiss in the final reel, but they work (the ones that do anyway) by throwing in more barriers, setbacks and misunderstandings to romance than are in evidence here. It's fair enough, because there's only 45 minutes to play with and also the small matter of a Doctor Who story to tell.

In this case, a mysterious predatory presence living upstairs, luring innocent victims to its lair. Despite a decent stab at atmosphere and the creepy images of shadowy figures on the stairs, it's on this level that the episode is weakest. The identity of the menace – a TARDIS hunting for a pilot - is sufficiently novel, but the resolution is rushed, messy and not immediately clear.

Ship wants pilot in order to leave. This desire is overridden by combined psyches of two inveterate stay-at-homes. So ship self-destructs or simply vanishes - it's unclear: the Doctor says 'implode', the fx say disappear. I freely admit I could have it all wrong there, but explanations were hurriedly shouted under a crescendo of sparks and Murray Gold.

I'm all for throwaway lines, but you're not meant to actually throw them away. Least of all the ones that (perhaps) explain what's going on.

Worse than that, though, is the fact that this is a climax without any proper build-up. It's because of that sitcom need to maintain the status quo, but it means that in terms of the mystery there's no carefully measured peeling away of layer after layer. It's all just the one big reveal at the end when the Doctor and Craig charge up the stairs because Sophie is the latest in a long line of victims. Story progression prior to that is minimal, essentially limited to the spreading stain on the ceiling, which is little more than a flag to tell us that the crisis, whatever it actually is, is worsening.

All of which is incredibly critical of a story that, it must be said, I enjoyed watching.

My main gripe with it at the time of viewing was the manner in which Amy was horribly sidelined. It's fair enough that she needed to be out of the picture in order for the premise to work, but for preference I wouldn't have done that by placing her in a predicament where the character was largely hapless and helpless. The rest of the season has worked well to build her as a resourceful and resilient – and highly spirited – companion and here that's all rather carelessly tossed aside because the writer apparently considers it too unimportant to give the matter any thought.

It's half-arsed and the Bill & Ted-style timey-wimey 'plot twist' with her placing an ad (in red pen) in the local post office just so the Doctor can find the right house etc falls far short of mitigating the laziness.

Oh and the one-storey house at the end looked really odd. To the extent I did wonder if it wouldn't have made more sense to have the offending TARDIS appear as an out-of-place third storey, which is what first attracts the Doctor's attention to the mystery and in the resolution the building goes back to looking like every other house in the row...

Other than that, expectations played their part again, this time to the episode's benefit. I wasn't expecting a decent story from the pen of Gareth Roberts, so could sit back and enjoy the comedy. It's not particularly cutting edge stuff - the Doctor fails to fit in is hardly news – but it does deliver plenty of giggles.

It's a fish-out-of-water situation, and that generally involves a lot of flapping about before expiring feebly at the end. Enough said.

Chicken Little

And now a welcome break from my opinions, as guest blogger, Zoe, airs and shares her views on Richard Curtis-penned Doctor Who episode:



Vincent And The Doctor has a very poignant, very touching message which has very little to do with the invisible bloodthirsty space chicken terrorising both the "mad" artist and Provencal ladies.

For those of us with loved ones in the creative industries, the sad truth is that recognition and popular success often has little to do with either talent or skill, and this is ultimately the story of Vincent Van Gogh, the tragic artist who, during his lifetime sold only one painting, to be "discovered" less than 20 years after his death (by self-inflicted gunshot wound at 37).

Whilst the causes of Vincent's real "madness" are far more complex than portrayed in the episode (his depressive moods were likely the downswings of bipolar disorder which he attempted to correct with nearly lethal doses of absinthe - a side effect of which is the tendency to see more yellowing tones or yellow spots - alternately, this may have been caused by one of his doctors treating his epilepsy with digitalis; visualising halos around objects as seen in The Starry Night would be consistent with lead poisoning from using lead based paints), we see through Amy's eyes how the story should have unfolded: once Vincent was shown that he was indeed a great and beloved painter - in the future - he was meant to cast aside self-doubt and and frustration at the small-mindedness of mid 19C society and happily paint into old age. And although the story did not show Vincent's all too quick spiral from elation at his eventual appreciation to punctual suicide, one cannot imagine it as separate from the crash-landing to the status quo, where drinks must be paid for, and anyone who considers buying a Van Gogh must surely be laughed out of town.

This sobering message aside, I urge anyone slaying their own invisible creative bloodthirsty chickens, or creative demons, take Amy's lesson. Somewhere, someday, someone will appreciate your work. Someone who makes the effort worthwhile. It may be someone you know, but someone who, because they are not a publisher or agent, doesn't have a ... valued opinion. Or it may be most of the world, but in the future. Or it might be most of the world, just in ten years' time.

If there is any lesson we can take from the Doctor, it is that things happen in their own time, not when we want them to. Don't let the invisible chicken win. Keep creating as though you know your work will be valuable one day, whether you will live to see it or not. It is the only way to live. Make Amy proud.

But as for that chicken...

The chicken has it's pluses and minuses. On the plus side, it's an engrossing way to get the Doctor and Amy into Vincent's life, to put him in danger, that just going for a visit with Amy's favourite painter wouldn't have done. The design was imaginative, but ridiculous, so I suppose that's a plus and a minus. And the big minus is in its demise. A little tear-jerker moment when they realise they've just murdered a, well, admittedly a killer alien monster, but a blind, frightened killer alien monster, who was just shredding local girls out of its own terror (which begs the question, then why didn't it respond to the Doctor speaking so kindly to it?). There's a moment of pathos when they all feel guilty, then the moment passes and there are no real consequences of what they obviously feel, in retrospect, was a rash act. And also, I hesitate to point out, no clean up. I mean, surely it is even more important to dispose of the body when the corpse is enormous and invisible. Imagine someone coming into the chapel and running into it?

So, in summary, a beautiful story about a complex and tortured man, stunning visuals, excellent use of Amy, extra 100 points for Bill Nighy's cameo, but no extra credit for the invisible bloodthirsty space chicken.

Z

Flat Earth

I've said it before (quite recently too) and I'll say it again: if you want a decent rule of thumb for what makes a good Doctor Who story, you could do worse than 'something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue' (where blue is just a handy metaphor for mood/atmosphere). It's that special blend of the familiar and the original that, to my mind, makes for the best stories, the ones that endure and lodge themselves in the imagination for years. If you get the balance right.

Unfortunately, something old, something borrowed, something borrowed, something borrowed and precious little new is not going to do it. If The Hungry Earth/Cold Blood leaves any lasting impression at all, I'll be surprised. Which, given the two-parter's inability – with a single (arc-related) exception - to surprise in any other respect, seems unlikely.

Was it rubbish? Well, it wasn't a complete landfill, but for me it qualifies as the poorest offering of this season so far. As with Victory Of The Daleks, the scale (haha) of disappointment is inevitably measured against expectations and a revisit of Doctor Who And The Silurians territory, one of my all-time favourite DW stories, is saddled with the burden of high promise. Truth to tell, the anticipation was tempered by the knowledge that Chris Chibnall (of Torchwood 'fame') would be scripting the episodes and the trailered glimpses of a new brand of Silurians who looked a lot more ordinary.

With optimism duly kept in check - after a return from a rather lovely holiday - I sat down to watch the two episodes back to back and found a story that fell spectacularly short. Sadly, it was for the most part a bit flat and dull.

It's almost a cybernetic reconstruction of an old story, with all its complex organs removed and replaced with functional mechanical parts, along with an artificial heart. Not content to retread And The Silurians, it stops to riff on Inferno (drilling project reaching to the depths of the Earth), The Green Death (infection of popular alien hue) and The Daemons (energy barrier seals off village from rest of world) along the way.

Within its scenario, it does at least succeed in generating a degree of tension in the first part, with the ground swallowing people up, the impending menace of monsters making their way towards the surface and the flitting of shadowy figures about the graveyard. But it never really conveys any sense of a global threat in the way that And The Silurians does, with its widespread plague. Unlike The Green Death and The Daemons, it doesn't even manage to give us the sense of a community under threat. Probably because the village that's been targeted has a current population of about four.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for small-scale threats focused on a handful of characters in isolated locations – Horror Of Fang Rock is another favourite of mine, for example. But this story doesn't have the predatory suspense and tension necessary to pull that off. It appears to want the best of both worlds, and although it shows us a vast reptilian army in stasis, it never properly evolves to extend its scope of menace beyond the regulars and limited guest cast.

And by 'limited' I only mean in terms of numbers, because to be fair the performances are pretty much all better than the script warrants. But nobody in particular shines. Meera Siyal is good, dependable guest star material but her character feels a bit sketched and generic. It's a nice little bonus to have Stephen Moore in the mix, throwing in a spot of voice-over to accompany a shot of the Earth and adding a dash of Hitch-Hikers nostalgia. But at the same time, it feels odd, thrown in at the start of the second episode – and then not really satisfactorily tail-ended. Wouldn't it have been better to use that device (albeit better-written) to frame the entire thing? Perhaps giving us at least the illusion that there was some point to it all.

Because pointless is what it felt like to me.

As well as the need to be great, it really needed to have something new to offer. All it had in the new department was bio-manipulated soil (fair enough) and a lashing lizard-tongue for the Silurians. Which, okay, was a reasonably interesting accessory, but not remotely as interesting as the third eye which they lost. Indeed, this branch of the Silurian race is as ordinary and dull as I'd feared and instead of the creative vision inherent in the original Silurian (and Sea Devil) masks are reduced to your bulk-standard Star Trek reptilians. I'm not averse to a change in design, I just would have liked to have seen more evidence of inventiveness applied. It's as big a misfire, albeit in different ways, as the re-modelled Daleks in Victory. I gather these Silurians may have owed their humanised appearance to budgetary constraints, but back in the days of old man-in-a-suit Doctor Who monsters I was always led to believe that tight finances were one of the things that inspired the fx experts and creature creators to be more creative. Lady Gaga looked more alien in a green scaly outfit in her Bad Romance video. (It you don't know the outfit I'm referring to, it appears at around the 3:30 mark). These Kermit-coloured Klingons completely fail to convince.

When one of them - Alaya - is captured, the story hands itself an opportunity for a major twist, as she declares she knows one of the humans will kill her and she knows which of them will do the deed. Then blows it, by it turning out to be exactly the same one you thought it would be. It's that level of predictability that compounds the (unforgivable) averageness of it all.

There are, of course, some compensations to be found in the mix, snatches of amusing dialogue here and there, for instance, and even if it lacks the sharpness of a Moffat script, say, Matt Smith continues to prove his credentials as the best Doctor since Davison. His lecturing a desperate mother on morality doesn't sit quite right next to his declaration of love for the Silurian vivisectionist, but that's the script's fault for not letting the Doctor in on the scientist's habit of dissecting living human specimens. But heck, even his subjects appear to forgive a bit of surgical probing a tad too readily for my liking.

Gillan's still great, even if the signs are minimal that Amy values Rory any more since making her Choice in the previous episode and, not for the first time, it seems she only appreciates him when he's gone. Which makes her look like a slow learner. More attentive script editing could have taken care to show better character/relationship development there. Meanwhile, Rory is as entertaining and engaging a character as ever, whether it's the business with the ring, being mistaken for a plainclothes detective or being left in charge of the group on the surface.

His death, when it comes, is the two-parter's only genuine shocker and there's real tragedy in Amy's battle (which she loses) to retain her memories of him. It's the first time in the two episodes my emotions are engaged. Then, of course, there's the follow-up whammy when the Doctor reveals the piece of wreckage he fished from the fissure. Okay, that last revelation wasn't totally unexpected, but it still delivers a pleasant oooer tingle. And the fact is, it's all so much more dramatic than anything that precedes it. (My only concern at this stage is that this, coupled with Rory's demise, points towards a big Undo at the climax of the season... but I guess we can worry about that when the time comes.) It's not all Mr Chibnall's fault then, because clearly this critical arc material needed to be squeezed in and that takes charge of proceedings at story's end. In a better story though, it might not have dominated quite so much and with the materials handed to him, the writer really should have been able to deliver something that was at least equal to those closing events and not so easily overpowered.

As it is, the effect is rather like following a meal with one of those mouthwashes that practically makes your head explode. The taste of what went before is obliterated, but actually in this case it's no great loss, because the meal was mediocre.

Those rumbles? Not the Hungry Earth. That'll be me hankering for something a darn sight better and a good deal more substantial.