Bad Doctor Who, good Doctor Who, and sf/f books galore

[auroracloud]

I've just got to break my accidental posting silence to say I seem to have managed to watch the absolutely worst New Who episode, now that my Series 9 watching reached 'Sleep No More'. At least I'm not managing to come up with another as terrible. 'Kill the Moon' made equally little sense and its 'science' was also basically nothing but holes, but at least it had a few character moments worth seeing.

I mean, seriously - sentient evolving sleep eye mucus? Let me just state that nobody's allowed to complain about the Slitheen being stupid monsters anymore. They're fine art in comparison, even without considering Margaret in Boom Town who actually is great. Back to 'Sleep No More', the twist ending is very underwhelming when it makes no freaking sense. How would a visual signal cause your eye mucus to evolve? Sorry, but... no. Just no. Doctor Who is rarely strong on the science front, but still, there needs to be some alignment with how the physical world works. I'm willing to suspend my disbelief pretty far for the sake of an otherwise intriguing story in this show, but a) my disbelief suspension has its limits and they have been reached, and b) there was nothing at all worth watching in this story except Peter Capaldi's acting. I wonder how he convinced himself to take the script seriously enough to act it...

And there could have been something about this, you know. It could be worthwhile to explore the consequences of profit-driven humans trying to invent a way to do away with sleep, but to take that starting point and end up with "... and then your eye mucus will become sentient, grow into a huge monster and try to kill everyone and take over the universe" is... well. I'll let that stand for itself. You couldn't possibly have tried to explore, say, humans going bonkers because we actually do need more than five minutes of sleep, and have that cause problems? Now that could have been worthwhile. (Though I do feel a need to point out that I think unless we get over that extreme profit-driven mindset where people would even try to do away with sleep altogether just to make more money, we're unlikely to exist as a major species by the 38th century, or at least a technologically advanced one. But that's hardly the most unlikely thing about this story, so whatever.)

When I think about it, the only Mark Gatiss episode I've really liked is The Unquiet Dead. Cold War and the Empress of Mars were okay, but seriously... how about he's not allowed to write Doctor Who episodes anymore now? Just stick to playing Mycroft and keep away from writing Doctor Who, Mr Gatiss.

Well, at least I had heard enough not to expect a masterpiece, going into this story. And now I'm only a few episodes away from having watched all of New Who.

So on the positive side of Doctor Who things: Twitch is going to show a marathon of all of the classic series, from 1st Doctor to 7th Doctor, free everywhere in the world (so it says), between May 29th and July 23rd! Just when I'd planned to start finding ways to watch some of the classic series! And bemoaning how expensive it would be to buy all or even a sizable fraction of them on DVD!

They're running a few stories each day in blocks that they run three times a day, so that makes it easier to catch at least some stories in different timezones and with different schedules. The full schedule is here (that's for UK times; here are the US times). In the case you didn't all know this already!

What with only being on weekdays, it's not absolutely the easiest to manage with my time zone - a lot of the showings will be when I'm either sleeping or working - but I should manage many of the first stories before I have to go to bed, and I should catch most of the Friday stories on the second or third run which will actually be Saturday for me. Also sometimes I may be able to catch the last story or two after I get home from work. Not that I've been furiously browsing the timetables and comparing it to lists about how many 25-episodes each story is, converting it all to my timezone... I think I'm going to need to buy a calendar book. A good thing they're cheap at this point of the year.

Don't know how to combine this with the fact that I went and bought a supporting membership for this year's WorldCon just so I could vote for the Hugos, and probably ought to read the nominated novels at some point... And haven't read the previous volumes of any that are second or third in a series. I've read some of the novellas and the short stories, though, and fully intend to read the ones I haven't. I'm otherwise not too worried about managing the novels, but the Jemisin books are kind of big and don't seem to be the easiest writing (some of it's in 2nd person! I've never managed to wrap my brain around 2nd person POV!) and I haven't read the previous ones. I'm also a bit concerned about the Yoon-Ha Lee book because I've read many times that the series is rather brutal and violent, and I have a hard time reading any of that. But I especially want to read all the novellas that I haven't read yet - I hope the voter package gets here soon. I want that Binti #2 as soon as possible! (I could just buy it, yes, but I'm planning to wait for the pretty hardcover editions that will be released this summer before buying the Binti series.) I also want all those Seanan McGuire books. If I end up not being able to read the Best Novel nominations, I guess I could always see how many of the series I get through in two months?

But actually the biggest obstacle to my Hugo reading success, other than an impending Classic Who marathon, is that at the moment I apparently just want to read about soldiering AIs. I'm impatiently waiting for the second Murderbot novella to get here because I wasn't smart enough to preorder so it's still on its way; and last week I finally read Ann Leckie's Ancillary Justice and now want to read the sequels, and basically I just want to keep reading about Breq. And about Murderbot. I'm not sure what it says about me that they're my most happy-making book characters at the moment, but yay them both, anyway. I probably am about as sociable as Murderbot these days, so yeah.

But look, I wrote an actual post! I only came here to complain about Sleep No More, but the post ran away with me. Success! So, hi, everyone who is still reading by this point, I hope you have been well.

Comments

[sylvanwitch]

I've heard great things about the Murderbot books as well as the Leckie series. They aren't my own personal favorite flavor of SciFi, but with your strong recommendation, I think I'll give them each a go this summer.

I've read the Jemisin series, and it's absolutely amazing. Like you, it took me a bit to get into the second person, but her writing is so good and the characters so compelling that I forgot the POV before long. I positively devoured those books. She's amazing. (I also very strongly recommend Jemisin's Dreamblood duology. It's gorgeously written and absolutely addictive.)

Six Wakes is great--a locked spaceship murder mystery, essentially.

McGuire's whole series is simply amazing. Again, I devoured those books almost as soon as they arrived.

I've heard wonderful things about the Binti books, too. In fact, I think I have one already (?). I am a compulsive book-buyer, particularly when I'm stressed out and short on reading time. It's a defense mechanism.

Anyway, thank you for the recommendations. I love hearing about what other people are reading. :-)

(I'm reading Ursula Vernon's second Clocktaur book, The Wonder Engine. This series is also absolutely fantastic and I don't have strong enough words to recommend it with. :-)

[auroracloud]

I definitely recommend trying both the Murderbot books and Leckie's Imperial Ranch series. Neither of them is really a typical example of any particular kind of sci-fi, and they're excellently written. I had no idea I loved AI characters so much before I had read these. Well, another favourite of mine is A Closed And Common Orbit by Becky Chambers, which has an AI learning to live in a human body, so that gave me some idea. But anyway. Murderbot is super easy to start reading, but if you pick up Ancillary Justice, I recommend making sure you can read the first 50 pages or so in a longer session with peaceful surroundings and an alert mind. It takes a while to get used to it, since the narrative alternates in two different timelines, and you're just dumped straight into the events and left to fend for yourself until you've figured out what's going on in this world. The first time I tried reading the book, I made the mistake of taking it with me on my commute, which means short spurts of reading interrupted by people being noisy etc. I was totally lost and had to abandon the book, but I'm glad I gave it another chance. After I'd gotten through the first handful of chapters and started being able to orient myself in the world, I gobbled up the book in a few days of frenzied, loving reading.

Thank you for the rec about the Jemisin series! I've heard it's good, and there's got to be something to a series where both of the first two books have won the Hugo and the third is nominated and might stand a good chance at winning as well. I figured I have to just do what I did with the Leckie book, and give myself enough peaceful time to read the beginning. I tried it now, and I'm already really liking it. :-)

I've read the first of Seanan McGuire's InCryptid series, and loved it. Really look forward to the rest of it. I read the first of the Wayward Children novellas, too; it's beautifully written and plays gorgeously with myths and fairy tales and portal fantasies, but it's quite a bit darker than the InCryptid books, so it wouldn't work for all of my moods.

The first Binti book was great! I think I devoured it in one or two sittings. I haven't read the other two yet, but I really look forward to them.

Essentially, I've only just become aware in the last year or two of what a great Golden Age of imaginative, diverse, creative, well-written sci-fi and fantasy has started just recently, at least in the English-speaking world. I'm waiting for it to be reflected in what gets translated and published here, too.

[st_aurafina]

Murderbot! And the Radch!! I'm glad you liked them - I think they're both awesome series.

I hope you enjoy Classic Who - there's so much there. My preference is for the Seventh Doctor, but you've got a long way to go to get to him. Not that it's an arduous journey.

[auroracloud]

They are! And I think I found Murderbot thanks to your journal. As soon as I read the phrase "Murderbot Diaries" I knew this was something I needed to get my hands on. Luckily my library had it, and I was hooked from the first sentence. :-) I'd tried Ancillary Justice before, but it was at a time when I was super-exhausted and stressed and couldn't wrap my brain around the narrative and the world. Now I tried it at a time when I could concentrate on it enough, and loved it to bits.

I look forward to the Seventh Doctor! He seems cool, and from all I've heard about Ace, I can't wait to "meet" her. I don't think it'll be possible to watch all of the Classic Who marathon, or even most of it, but I'm planning to try to get at least a few stories from every Doctor, and as many Companions as possible. Then I can start looking for DVDs of the ones I like best. :-)

[jenett]

On Doctor Who, BritBox has everything airable of Old Who (i.e. not episodes that are missing, or I think there are a couple where rights were really complicated) streaming - I did a major rewatch from last summer until this January of all of it. Also good for other BBC goodness if you're inclined that way.

[auroracloud]

Thank you for the rec; however, Britbox is only available in the US and Canada, so it's not helpful for me in Finland. I suppose there may be a way to circumvent those things, but I honestly don't have the energy for that sort of stuff. That's why I'll try to take advantage of the Twitch marathon as much as my schedules allow, because it's supposed to be worldwide, not limited by country.

[tinny]

I love Ancillary Justice, too! Haven't heard about Murderbot, but once the term "AI" is mentioned, I am always going to love it, no matter what. Going to check this out now.

(In case you haven't read it, the Spin series also has an AI. First part is called Spin State. My review here: https://tinny.dreamwidth.org/2017/12/19/)

[auroracloud]

I definitely recommend trying out Murderbot! The robot character is super endearing in its social anxiety and "please stop bothering me and let me continue to watch binge TV". Also, they're novellas, so it's easy to check out the first one and see if you like it enough to continue with the series. The second one is just out, and there will be two more novellas later this year.

And yes, I remember you were one of the people praising Ancillary Justice so much I had to give it another shot. I'm glad I did!

And thanks for the rec!