NovelCon in Manchester

A limited number of tickets remain for NovelCon, the upcoming Doctor Who event dedicated to the long history of Target books, Virgin New Adventures and BBC books to be held on Sunday October 11th at the Lass O'Gowrie pub in Manchester.

Appearing on the bill will be...

Paul Magrs, Mark Morris, Mark Michalowski, Steve Lyons, Paul Dale Smith, Andrew Cartmel, David McIntee, Daniel Blythe, Justin Richards, Simon Guerrier, Martin Day, Trevor Baxendale, Paul Cornell and Gary Russell.

Various panels will take place throughout the day, with conversation covering the various forms of Doctor Who novel from TV adaptations to readings and some fun stuff thrown in.

If you're a lover of Doctor Who literature, then you cannot miss NovelCon - it takes place at the superb Lass O’Gowrie pub in Manchester on Sunday, October 11th.

Full address is:

The Lass O’Gowrie
36 Charles St
Manchester M1 7DB

T 0161 273 6932
E info@thelass.co.uk

For more details of the pub, visit www.thelass.co.uk - note that at this late stage there is no guarantee tickets will be available on the door.

This is a murder in a 19th century public school, so the leaves must be falling

I went to grab a new book to read the other day and found myself shoving tie-in paperbacks and gritty Harlem detective novels back in the bookcase, prefering instead to immerse myself in a hot bath ato read The Sudbury School Murders by Ashley Gardner.

It must be autumn.

Having spent the summer reading bright, shallow Star Trek: Enterprise novels and brittle autobiographies of Carry On people, I can tell it's autumn now because I find myself buying and reading mainly historical crime books.

I just finished The Galleon's Grave by Martin Stephen and before that James Anderson and now I find myself eyeing up The Suspicions of Mr Whicher by Kate Summerscale which I can see from my seat, balanced precariously on top of a copy of James White's The Watch Below, which I raked out of a box in the shed the other week having mentioned it online somewhere. It's something to do with the warmth this kind of book engenders: not quite the cosy England of Rosemary and Thyme and the like, but with a certain taste in their settings of mulled wine and the feel of brown crackling leaves underfoot, with hardy protagonists defending the reputations of near fallen young women and solving baffling crimes in the orange light of lamps and lanterns.

The Sudbury School Murders could serve as a template for these sort of books - rarely empoying a flashy turn of phrase, Gardner writes solidly and well, and creates a world where nothing is too awful. She fills that world with misty canals and public schools, retired army captains on half pay and notorious dandies with more money than sense, crisp nights of adventuring and warm pints in village pubs.

There's something terribly appealing and Octoberish in it all...

Stuff wot I have seen and heard...

Not the world's most clever or amusing blog post title, but I'm in a bit of a mood today.

So - following on from my own daily Twitter aide memoire, #threegreatthings - more detail on three things that are great...

The Robin Hood audios from Big Finish

I marginally preferred The Siege to The Witchfinders, but both were a bit more enjoyable than, say, the similar Doctor Who Companion Chronicles. It helps enormously that Richard Armitage is a very talented voice artiste who does quite fabulous impersonations of the rest of the cast (his Much is uncanny) but the stories are interesting and engaging and make good use of the audio format, and even manage to include the same level of silly plot convenience as the TV Series (such as the frankly silly reason given for not pulling the pretend Lazarus' hood off in Witchfinders) . I'm looking forward to pikcing up the rest of these at some point.

The Henry Grisham novel series by Martin Stephen

I'm on the third of these (The Galleon's Grave) and this remains the best serious(ish) historical fiction series I've read since Patricia Finney. An engaging hero with a bit of a mysterious back story, a fine sense of historical detail and a solid and flowing writing style make these top notch novels.

Obscure (and not so obscure) Girl Groups

I've been listening to a 4 cd set of slightly obscure girl bands from the 60s called 'One Kiss Can Lead to Another'. Lots of great pop songs, but '442 Glenwood Avenue' by the Pixies Three and everything by the Shangri-Las are especially brilliant.

Interesting fact of the day - Mary Weiss of the Shangri-Las allegedly attracted the attention of the FBI for transporting a firearm across state lines...

Some definitions from fandom

Full cast audio drama: An audio play from Big Finish in which four actors all have a speaking role.

Talking Book: An audio play from BBC Audio in which four actors all have a speaking role.

Companion Chronicle: A generally accepted, industry standard term for an audio play which features any narration at any point.

Doctor Who and The Pescatons: The WORST DOCTOR WHO STORY EVER. Also a Companion Chronicle style audio play. Only not as good, obviously.

Audio Soundscape: Something very noisy in the background.