Thomas, Gwyn (1947) The Alone to the Alone

The Alone to the Alone (1947)
Gwyn Thomas
Library of Wales, 184pp
The Dark Philosophers return.
Gwyn Thomas’s previous collection reviewed on this site introduced a group of men that sit on the wall in their village, discussing the day, their lives, their village. They were old men of the South Wales valleys, men whose voice [...]

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Maitland, Sara (2008) A Book of Silence

A Book of Silence (2008)
Sara Maitland
Granta, 287pp
Sara Maitland’s work has often been infused with a sense of faith, and a fascination with myth and religion. It seems only fitting that with these interests would come a need to explore ways of living – and Maitland has become interested in the eremitical. Silence and [...]

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Doctor Who #30: Seasons of Fear (2002)

Doctor Who: Seasons of Fear (2002)
Paul Cornell & Caroline Symcox
Starring: Paul McGann & India Fisher
Big Finish #30
When Charley Pollard boarded the R101 in Storm Warning, she was travelling to Singapore for a date – she was to meet her man at Raffles Hotel on New Year’s Eve 1930. Since travelling with The Doctor she [...]

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Doctor Who #29: The Chimes of Midnight (2002)

Doctor Who: The Chimes of Midnight (2002)
Robert Shearman
Starring: Paul McGann & India Fisher
Big Finish #29
Robert Shearman first impressed me with his script for The Holy Terror, previously reviewed on this blog, and he impresses again with this, the second story in the second season of The Eighth Doctor. Charley and The Doctor arrive at [...]

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Dickens, Charles (1838-1839) Nicholas Nickleby

Nicholas Nickleby (1838 – 1839)
Charles Dickens
Penguin, 811pp
Charles Dickens’s third novel, Nicholas Nickleby, is a lengthy and picaresque novel detailing the exploits of the Nickleby family – notably Nicholas, his sister Kate, dear Mama, and Uncle Ralph. It is more interesting that the villain of the piece is Ralph Nickleby, and made clear from the [...]

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Doctor Who: The Ratings War (2002)

Doctor Who: The Ratings War (2002)
Steve Lyons
Starring: Colin Baker
Big Finish
Given away with the first part of Invaders from Mars by Doctor Who Monthly, The Ratings War is a standalone Sixth Doctor story that sees him stopping wholesale slaughter being committed by a creature known as Beep The Meep (not heard of him before, but he [...]

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Doctor Who #28: Invaders from Mars (2002)

Doctor Who: Invaders from Mars (2002)
Mark Gatiss
Starring: Paul McGann, India Fisher
Big Finish #28
So the second season of stories featuring Paul McGann’s Doctor begin, and he and Charley are in Manhattan, 1938, and a certain Orson Welles is about to broadcast his infamous War of the Worlds adaptation on national radio. There are spies in [...]

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Doctor Who #27: The One Doctor (2001)

Doctor Who: The One Doctor (2001)
Gareth Roberts & Clayton Hickman
Starring: Colin Baker, Bonnie Langford
Big Finish #27
The Doctor takes Mel to the Generios system where the people are celebrating. It seems the Doctor has just vanquished a great foe and is about to address them, and he has no memory of this and cannot sense [...]

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Doctor Who #26: Primeval (2001)

Doctor Who: Primeval (2001)
Lance Parkin
Starring: Peter Davison, Sarah Sutton
Big Finish #26
There is a knocking on the door, and the Doctor’s voice is heard: Nyssa has collapsed, can you help? He has bought her back to Traken, her home, only three thousand years in her past, to see the famed physician Shayla. Over Traken, [...]

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Doctor Who #25: Colditz (2001)

Doctor Who: Colditz (2001)
Steve Lyons
Starring: Sylvester McCoy, Sophie Aldred
Big Finish #25
The Doctor and Ace land in the courtyard of a castle and Ace suggests looking around, only the Doctor recognises this place, but before he can articulate his thoughts Nazi officers have arrested them both. They are in Colditz, 1944, and are taken to [...]

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