#booksky #books 6615 Doctor Who And The Sea-Devils / Malcolm Hulke (Target 1975) lots of naval support for UNIT tackling the underwater branch of the Earth's prior reptilian overlords, a jolly cameo by the Clangers and The Master free again to be really irritating. I like the diving bell cliffhanger

#booksky #books 6614 Doctor Who - Inferno / Terrance Dicks (Target 1984) the Doctor's attempts to escape his Earth-exile send him sideways to a parallel world where all his friends are Nazi's and a drilling project is about to destroy the planet - can he get back and stop the same happening here?

#booksky #books 6613 Doctor Who And The War Games / Malcolm Hulke (Target 1980) 10-part epic end to the 2nd Doctor with stalwarts David Troughton, Philip Madoc and Bernard Horsfall all getting a run-out as the Doctor finally meets a problem too big for him to handle and has to call in Timelord help

#booksky #books 6612 Doctor Who - Fury From The Deep / Victor Pemberton (Target 1986) Attack Of The Killer Seaweed - Victoria departs the TARDIS crew after "screaming my way in & screaming my way out" though that finally proves a blessing : the dangers of North Sea drilling & the BBC's foam machine

#booksky #books 6611 The Many-Colored Land / Julian May (Pan 14th post 1982) serious intent to deliver a thick tetralogy by spending most of the 1st 400-pager introducing the characters without starting the main story : time-travellers from near future Galactic Earth find aliens 6 million years ago

#booksky #books 6610 Magic / William Goldman (Pan 1978) on his usual pattern, Goldman wrote the novel first then got hired to write the screenplay of the movie version - both jobs done brilliantly though the personality divide between deranged ventriloquist & vicious dummy benefits from the visuals

#booksky #books 6609 Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency / Douglas Adams (Pan 6th post-1988) Professor Chronotis' rooms at Cambridge are also a time-machine which explains why the phone doesn't work but not why Susan's brother's ghost can't leave a message on the answer machine + electric monks

#booksky #books 6608 So Long, And Thanks For All The Fish / Douglas Adams (Pan 2nd post-1985) it shows how packed with fizzing throwaways the 1st book is that the title is the final message of the dolphins leaving humanity to its fate and the story teaches us how to fly and not get nailed to a tree

#booksky #books 6607 Doctor Who And The Mutants / Terrance Dicks (Target 1977) glad to see this story is somewhat better regarded by fans these days than it was for many years - any undermining of the ugly=bad trope is always a positive and the Bad Human colonial Marshal is a proper barking villain

#booksky #books 6606 Life, The Universe And Everything / Douglas Adams (Pan 1982) the Campaign For Real Time intervening to stop an omni-cidal race from sterilizing the universe by parking their invisible spaceship on the Nursery Ground at Lords during a Test Match - Arthur and Ford arrive to "help"

#booksky #books 6605 Doctor Who - The Three Doctors / Terrance Dicks (Target 1975) big expansion of Timelord lore and good sparring between Doctors 2 and 3 ("you've recorated : I don't like it" on entering the TARDIS became a running joke) but it's a pretty weak story not least for the gel-monsters

phone says it's raining. it isn't

#booksky #books 6604 Doctor Who And The Curse Of Peladon /Brian Hayles (Target 1974) slew of aliens arrive to discuss Peladon's accession to the Galactic Federation but traditionalists are opposed and stirring up ferocious beasts to attack their enemies. Time to brush up on a few Venusian lullabies

the phome says it's going to rain - so no need to take a brolly if you're going out (previously posted without the crucial word "no" duh)

#booksky #books 6603 The Restaurant At The End Of The Universe / Douglas Adams (Pan 1980) the cow that recommends its best bits for eating, the Ruler of the Universe to whom nothing is certain and the inhabitants of the Space Ark of staggering vapidity strangely misplaced by the rest of their planet

yes - I use te "conforting story" line but very selectively because there are so many that can't take it. There are also a few religious people that I deeply respect and I don't have the right to patronize them however wrong I think they are

fesshole 🧻@fesshole.bsky.social · yesterday

It was only after my parents died that I knew, unequivocally, that there is no afterlife. It took those moments of their dying to realise that it's just a comforting story that we tell to children, and here I was at 40-something only just working it out.

#booksky #books 6602 Doctor Who And The Cave-Monsters / Malcolm Hulke (Target 1975) a complex & conflicted "enemy" (badly-served by this version's title) with a fair grievance against humanity, a few pet dinosaurs & a biological weapon that spookily empties London before UNIT bombs the problem away

#booksky #books 6601 Doctor Who And The Day Of The Daleks / Terrance Dicks (Target 1980) rare time travel story ; guerrillas from the future come back to disrupt the peace conference they believe lead to their Dalek-occupied Earth timeline. Except it's their intervention that caused the deviation

the late reasonably-great Hylda Baker lives : just heard 5Live pundit saying fans were "vicoferous" in calling for their manager to be sacked

#booksky #books 6600 The Hitch-Hiker's Guide To The Galxy / Douglas Adams (Pan 1980) Whit Holiday 1978. Teenage me is on cricket tour in Gloucester with my parents because I had nothing better to do. Sunday I'm about to meet up with them for lunch but have Radio4 on on my room. What The Actual Fuck

#booksky #books 12825 Doctor Who And The Daemons / Barry Letts (Target 1974) The Master's more convincing than usual as a C of E vicar leading his flock into devil worship & Damaris Hayman's autobiographical turn as a white witch is a highlight. The denouement is corny as hell but will be repeated

#booksky #books 6599 The Big Bad City / Ed Mcbain (New English Library 1999) multiple plotlines keep the 87th precinct on their toes - there's a murdered nun in the park & Carella's on a killer's death-list. He's also worried about turning 40 - after 43 years hard service in this magnificent series

#booksky #books 6598 Marathon Man / William Goldman (Pan 1976) if you think about it, there's no reason at all for the mad Nazi dentist to torture the hero in his chair because there's no reasonable way he would know if it's "safe" or not : je just assumes that his business is everybody's main focus

#booksky #books 6597 Doctor Who And The Doomsday Weapon / Malcolm Hulke (Target 1979) given the writer's politics, little surprise that the Interplanetary Mining Corporation comes out of this story really, really badly, A good surprise reveal of The Master and a fair plot about the weapon itself