Recent reading

When second-hand book shopping last week, I bought The Time Machine, as I think I said. We ought to have had it, as Pedar never throws away a book, but it's sf and he is consequently allergic to it. So I bought it, along with American Gods and the Target novelisations. Actually, talking of the Target novelisations, I've read all of them except one now, and they are, as said, fabulous. Written for children in the seventies, they're brilliant. My favourite bits: ( my brain hurts )

There are some good bits in The Five Doctors, but I think hathy_col has taken that to the Planet of the DaleksSkiathos. I actually really want to see that one, along with Pyramids of Mars and Robot. As far as I know all the dialogue is the same for the televised stories and the accompanying novelisations. Anyway, Pedar apparently owes me money for some computer stuff I did for him a while ago. He says he does, anyway, so I'm not complaining, so if he gives it to me in Amazon vouchers as he's planning to, I rather think I may get one or two DVDs.

I've also read The Aztecs, in which the Doctor gets engaged. By accident. I'm pretty sure it wasn't meant to be quite that funny, but it is. Interestingly, there's no suggestion of his being asexual; although it does happen by accident, he's genuinely fond of the woman in question and sorry to leave her at the end.

The one odd bit about these books is the way Doctor Who and the Daleks doesn't fit in with the others. It's written in the first person, and gives an entirely different backstory for Ian, Barbara and Susan. It's the one I haven't finished yet, so we shall see.

And, yes! The Time Machine, which I enjoyed thoroughly. I wasn't expecting to, but the dense Victorian prose is unusually readable, and I got into it, so to speak. It helps that it's more of a novella than a novel, manages to throw out lots of ideas in a very small space, and ends on a particularly surprising note.

One thing that amused me, though: no-one in the book is given a name, including the narrator. There are many guests at a dinner party where the story is being told, but they are the Editor, the Journalist, the Very Young Man, the Psychologist, etc. Even the owner of the eponymous machine is "the Time Traveller." And, because you knew it was coming, there is a three or four-line cameo by a character known only as "the Doctor."

There's a fic there. I may even try and write it today, as I have nothing of significance to do.