My book list this year is rather short this year. As I said previously, I decided not to listen to any audiobooks this year, and I really didn’t concentrate too much on reading anything early in the year. I’ve been making up for it the second half of the year, but it makes for a small list.
It’s time to start the year in review. In previous years I listed my books read that year, and I still intend to do that this year. The list will be quite a bit shorter this year, though, because I made the decision at the beginning of 2010 not to listen to any audiobooks. I even canceled my Aubible subscription. Why? Well for years I’ve been buying audio dramas, mainly from Big Finish and primarily Doctor Who related. But I never listened to many of them because most of my spare “listening” time was taken up with audiobooks. So I decided to take a year and see how many audio dramas I could get through. How did I do?
Today Big Finish Productions released the much-awaited Doctor Who audio adventure Cobwebs, a a four part story by Jonathan Morris. It’s noteworthy as it is the first time in 26 years that the 5th Doctor ensemble of Peter Davison (The Doctor), Janet Fielding (Tegan Jovanka), Sarah Sutton (Nyssa), Mark Strickson (Vislor Turlough) are all together for a Doctor Who adventure of any kind. Here’s the trailer:
It’s the first of 3 audios featuring the 4 actors together. As much as I like the Big Finish Doctor Who audio stories, there’s always been a sense of incompleteness when the crew was doing separate audio stories or companion chronicles. I just listened to it, and it was like coming home again. I was grinning the entire time. Plus the story is a very good time travel one, complex without being mind-numbing.
You can order Doctor Who: Cobwebs online or purchase it for download on the Big Finish website.
The original 1963 Doctor Who theme by Delia Derbyshire, recreated by Bill Ruppert using just a guitar and some Electro-Harmonix pedals. Pretty cool.
Need a little reference? Here’s a video of the opening sequence:
and the full classic theme (audio only):
After my leaking battery incident last weekend, I decided it’d be best to check my other handheld games to make sure there were no batteries in the others. I snapped a picture of the above as I did it, which is my tub of old handheld LED and LCD games. I annotated the pic above (click for larger), if you’re wondering what’s what. Most are older with the exception of some re-issues. There’s an Entex Electronic Baseball (with corded pullout pitching controller), a Conic Multisport (with overlays hidden below), a Mattel Football and re-issued Mattel Classic Football, a Mattel Football 2, a re-issued Mattel Classic Baseball, a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles LCD game, a Gauntlet LCD game, Doctor Who and the Daleks 1993 LCD game, a Parker Brothers Merlin, and a Super Mario Bros Widescreen Game & Watch. I’m the only owner of all except the Multisport (garage sale) and the original Football (my brother’s… he had Football and I had Football 2). Hours of fun to be had in one small tub.
It’s been a good week for free Doctor Who stuff! Once again, Doctor Who Magazine has teamed up with Big Finish Productions to offer an exclusive audio adventure free for DWM readers.
Doctor Who: The Companion Chronicles – Freakshow
A new adventure for the Fifth Doctor, Turlough and Tegan
Starring Mark Strickson as Turlough and Toby Longworth as Winklemeyer
Aboard the TARDIS, Turlough records a testimony about a recent adventure. A trip to Buzzard Creek in the USA, where he encountered the sinister Winklemeyer, who claims to have discovered a cure for every known illness…
If you missed it on page 12 of the 31 March issue, hit up www.bigfinish.com/dwm and enter the code 5844. The offer has been running for awhile and expires 26 May 2010, so don’t delay.
While you’re there, why not subscribe to some of their ranges? I currently subscribe to two.
If you watched the Doctor Who episode Victory of the Daleks (and 7.81 million viewers did when it aired, making it the fourth highest programme on BBC One and the eleventh highest on all British television for the week, not even counting those of us oversees who don’t watch BBC One live), you might have dug that retro WWII era look to the Daleks, complete with Union Jack markings on their dome and military green paint jobs. One standout from the production was the wartime propaganda-style Dalek poster, which is available for free from the BBC Doctor Who website. While you’re there, check out the pages for other recent episodes for downloads a River Song diary dust jacket and a Patient One wanted poster. Perfect stuff for your Doctor Who room! (What, doesn’t everyone have a Doctor Who room!?!?)
British toy company Character Options released a series of Doctor Who figures called Time Squad, which are similar to the Star Wars Galactic Heroes toys made by Hasbro. The released a set called the End of Time series (or sometimes Series 2) that consists of 6 figures. Each Collect & Build figure package has a piece of The Master in it, and if you get all 6 you can put him together. See the photos of the set, which includes the Tenth Doctor, an Ood, a Weeping Angel, a Sontaran, a Cyberman, and a Clockwork Man, as well as the completed figure of the Master, after the break.
