Top Five Novels: The Ninth Doctor (Doctor Who)

When it comes to Doctor Who ancillary materials, I tend to prefer the comics (for the visuals) and the audiobooks (for the vocal performances,) but the novels shouldn’t be sold short. There are some fun, inventive ones out there, and particularly with Nine, who’s so exceptional and whose time on the show was so short, I’ll gladly take any story of his that I can get my hands on. In the case of his novels, there are only six to choose from, so this Top Five isn’t especially choosy, but it still includes some fine stories.

 

The Clockwise Man

You can’t go wrong with a good clockwork baddie. The Doctor and Rose land themselves among displaced Russian aristocrats in the early 20^th century, up to their ears in intrigue that extends far beyond St. Petersburg. I enjoy following the twists of the plot, Rose makes a little friend, and the Doctor deputizes the the members of a posh private club for a heroic last stand.

 

The Monsters Inside

Getting me to like a Slitheen story is a tough sell, but this one is actually fairly enjoyable. The Doctor and Rose have the misfortune to land in a planetary system that’s a series of prison planets and are immediately separated onto different prisons/worlds. I like watching their differing but parallel experiences on their respective prisons, each figuring out part of the mystery until they’re able to find their way back to each other and put it all together, and I’m always here for the Doctor being a smartass to his captors.

 

Winner Takes All

While a lot of the novels/audiobooks/comics take advantage of being without the constraints of a BBC budget, doing all kinds of wild things, this story honors RTD’s penchant for returning to the companion’s family life in 21^st-century London. And it’s a good one – I love aliens invading the Powell Estates through a mysterious lottery and a hot new gaming system, and the book offers up a pretty decent showing for both Jackie and Mickey. Also featuring some good body horror and the Doctor getting way into a video game in order to save lives.

 

Only Human

Probably my favorite Ninth Doctor novel. The Doctor, Rose, and Jack encounter a Neanderthal in modern-day England, accidentally scooped up in a fractured time experiment. This leads to the Doctor and Rose going back to the Stone Age while Jack teaches the Neanderthal the ways of the modern world. A fun and inventive mix of ideas and eras, and I like what the book has to say about Neanderthals, humans, and the progression of time.

 

The Stealers of Dreams

The TARDIS lands in a dystopian police state where imagination and fiction are outlawed – what’s not to love about that? Naturally, the Doctor’s entire existence is suspect in a world like this, and Jack probably shouldn’t be in a place where lying is illegal. We get fun stuff for the Doctor, Rose, and Jack, both as a group and in separate adventures, and the story takes some good twists and turns.

News Satire Roundup: June 20th

Sunday, June 20

·        Recap of the Week – Biden-Putin summit, Tokyo Olympics

o   This made me laugh, in response to Putin declaring, “There is no happiness in life. There’s only a mirage on the horizon” – “Of course Putin dropped bleak Tolstoy quotes, that’s very on brand. It would’ve been much weirder if he’d said, ‘Follow your bliss,’ ‘It’s 5 o’clock somewhere,’ or, ‘Navalny, you have the floor.’”

o   Yikes, only 6% of Japanese citizens are vaccinated, and the Olympics are going full steam ahead – John didn’t know what the appropriate vaccination percentage out to be, but he knew “it should be higher than the number of films in the Fast and Furious franchise.”

o   The part about Olympic athletes being given free condoms but encouraged not to have sex (for social distancing reasons” led to an amazing video of an anime-style explainer on condoms, which ended with the even more amazing cliffhanger “To Be Condom” – “So much more fun than sex ed in the U.S., where it’s usually, ‘Here’s a banana, here’s a condom, let’s never speak of this again.’”

·        And Now This – Westminster Dog Show

o   The show’s voiceover guy offered up alternative names for different dogs, including naming a black poodle “Drama” and a corgi “Ragnaroth, Devourer of Souls.”

·        Main Story – Property Assessed Clean Energy

o   The PACE program was set up as a way to make energy-related renovations on homes, but John outlined how it was a well-intentioned idea that’s been heavily mangled by the predatory greed of private corporations. :sigh: What else is new?

o   John realized that people under 35 might not need to watch this story, since it deals with home ownership – After helpfully defining what a homeowner was for young viewers, he added, “Don’t worry, though, that will never be you. You don’t get to do that.”

o   We were introduced to Cisco DeVries, a CEO with a lot of PACE clout who describes himself as a “capitalist hippie” – “Which absolutely tracks for a guy whose name sounds like he’s about to gentrify jazz.”

o   John also took issue with the name of Ygrene, a primary company that handles PACE loans – “It sounds like a contemplative jazz record put out by Kermit the Frog.”

o   The main issue is that people are talked into these loans, which are in fact liens on their houses, without getting a clear explanation on what that means. After her “no money down” energy upgrades, one woman’s property taxes increased from $600 to $10,000 – “The only time the value of something should change that much is if Elon Musk shits out a tweet about it.”

o   And of course we see higher concentrations of these predatory loans among minority communities, non-English speakers, senior citizens, and people with intellectual disabilities.

o   The contractors who pressure homeowners to get this work done emphasize the fast loan-approval process over clear information – “I’m not sure ‘look how easy it was to get this over-stressed homeowner to sign this legally-binding contract’ is quite the flex you think it is.”

o   Great line – “Nobody in this country should be losing their home because of an air conditioner. They should be losing their home because of unexpected medical bills, you know, like an American!”

·        And Now This – Westminster Dog Show winner

o   A montage of local news anchors puzzling over the winning dog – I loved, “It looks like a head of hair. Like, Amber, I picture just yours or my hair walking on the ground with no legs.”

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Why yes, I do have more thoughts about the Shang-Chi trailer, why do you ask? Namely: soooooo badass! I love that this movie is giving us both triad-boss-style beatdowns and glorious wuxia-style face-offs, all aided by the power of the Ten Rings. I continue to love that the Ten Rings are worn on the forearms like Hung Gar iron rings, and I love the balance Tony Leung Chiu-wai is striking in the trailer between unassuming and sinister. He can be so quiet, so still, and then flip on a dime, and I think that’s what’s in store for us with Wenwu. How is it not September yet??