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The English Assassin

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Posts posted by The English Assassin

  1. Ooh, this is a fun idea:

     

    William Hartnell: Best -The Dalek Invasion of Earth / Worst - The Web Planet

    Patrick Troughton: The Mind Robber / The Krotons

    Jon Pertwee: The Daemons / The Monster of Peladon

    Tom Baker: Pyramids of Mars / Logopolis

    Peter Davison: The Caves of Androzani / Resurrection of the Daleks

    Colin Baker: Revelation of the Daleks / All of his other stories, but in particular Attack of the Cybermen

    Sylvester McCoy: Ghost Light / Paradise Towers

    Christopher Eccleston: The Empty Child + The Doctor Dances / Aliens Of London + World War III

    David Tennant: Human Nature + The Family of Blood / Love and Monsters

     

    It is, I cannot help but feel, highly significant that I found it a struggle to confine myself to a single favourite story from Jon Pertwee's and Tom Baker's eras, and likewise difficult to pick out just one worst story from Peter Davison's, Colin Baker's or Sylv's.

  2. At the very opposite end of the musical spectrum from The Clash, I've been listening to Porcupine Tree's Fear of a Blank Planet. And very good it is too.

    How would you rate their Deadwing? I was given it but can't get into it.

    I've grown to like Deadwing a great deal, but it's neither as immediate an album as its predecessor, Stupid Dream, nor nor as ambitious as Fear of a Blank Planet. Like the latter, it rewards repeated listening, and benefits immesurably from being heard in a 5.1 surround mix on a swanky hi-fi.

     

    That said, I am an unapologetic (or at least only grudgingly apologetic) prog rocker, and am thus probably not much of a barometer of musical quality. What, if you don't mind my asking, did you not like about it?

  3. Iron Council by China Mieville-The third book in his trilogy that started with Perdido Street Station (well, it's a trilogy right now, doesn't mean there won't be more in the series, I assume).

    Now granted I'm not terribly far into the novel so far, but I'm thinking that I am going to enjoy this one better than the first two. In my opinion, there's been a steady progression by Mieville in each of the books. I thought Perdido"" was good, but it didn't really draw me into the story....wasn't exactly the type of Fantasy story I usually enjoy. The Scar I felt was better written, but once again, the type of fantasy wasn't quite my cup of tea. Don't get me wrong. Those are both good books, and the mere fact that I read them all when I'm very choosy when it comes to the Fantasy genre speaks for Mieville's ability.

    Having said all that, I feel that Iron Council is going to end up being the best of the books and by far the closest to what I want to see in a fantasy story.

    This one takes place decades after The Scar, and the world is going through its own Industrial Revolution.

    If you like China Mieville (who is, indeed, fucking marvellous), I'd highly recommend, if I haven't already, City of Saints and Madmen by Jeff Vandermeer. He's another postmodern dark fantasy/horror writter, albeit one more Lovecraftian and less Marxist.

     

    I've just finished Leigh Brackett's Sea Kings of Mars, a collection of forties/fifties pulp gems by a woman who, oddly enough, went on much later to write the screenplay for The Empire Strikes Back. Sadly, despite having been much praised as an influence by the likes of Michael Moorcock and Ray Bradbury, she remains unjustly forgotten by the fantasy/sci-fi world.

  4. Yeah, that's a fair enough comment, actually. I'd also agree with whoever pointed out that Vaughan's portrayal of Constantine was a hell of a lot better than Azzarello's. Vaughan's run did little for me at the time, but, since I've still got it somewhere, I should probably read through it again in that light.

  5. Yeah, pretty much what everyone else's said. I don't think it would have been much of a loss to the comic book-reading world had the series ended when Alan Moore left, for all that I enjoyed bits of Veitch's and Millar's runs. I'd second the notion that there's not much more that can be done with what remains in any case a fairly daft character concept.

  6. I just wanted to share a pair of friends of mine who won the Best Craftsmanship award at the SDCC 2007 masquerade :biggrin:

    Cool pictures! Looks like a lot of fun. The girl dressed as Poison Ivy is particularly fetching.

     

    What are the Mitchells Sontarans doing these days? You never hear much of them anymore.

    Still mired in their endless war with Den Watts the Rutans, so far as I know.

  7. If you don't object to another question, how are you planning, if you are at all, to address John's relationship with the bottle? Apologies if this has been asked already, but I've always thought of this as one of the more uneven aspects of our hero's characterisation.

  8. I've never read Jack Kirby's run, but I was thoroughly disappointed by Neil Gaiman's go at Eternals, it had its moments, and it was still better than 1602, but it still lacked any of the wit or inventiveness he displayed in, say, the Sandman or Mr. Punch.

     

    I could't help being left with the impresion that he was just going through the motions for he sake of Marvel's big cheques. That's an unkind judement to make of a writer whom I respect, but it's been far too long since he's written a comic that I've truly enjoyed.

  9. Dependant upon whether the trades sell?

    Entirely, as with just about everything Vertigo puts out.

    That's more-or-less what I'd presumed.

     

    The fact that it's made it to a third trade bodes well for it. I imagine that it's playing a different market than most Vertigo stuff and there's probably good crossover potential with the Manga market - or would be if Manga types ever bought US comics.

    Eh? Do the later issues feature huge city-destroying robots?

  10. I'd noticed that too. I'll probably end up picking up the next trade at some stage. More than anything I was disappointed, since I'd quite enjoyed Seagle's House of Secrets back in the days where everything Vertigo did was all eyeliner and floppy sleeves.

     

    I note from the sales statistics you so helpfully provided that it's selling a grand 8,000-odd copies a month. Enough to keep it going or not? Dependant upon whether the trades sell? At £2.50 (or equivalent) each, that's a pretty measly £20,000, which hardly looks like enough even to cover publication costs, and I can hardly imagine that so many big-spending advertisers are queuing up outside Vertigo's doors for them to make their money back that way.

  11. (Actually a completely trivial question, but I'm given to hyperbole.)

    Which is the crappest Doctor Who monster?

    Let in not be said that Who has not provided a pretty damn strong field for this particular accolade, but for me it can only be the Nimon - Minotaur meets wastepaper bin.

  12. I'd sooner a Doctor Who story that's hard to follow because the script writer didn't spoonfeed the audience absolutely everything about the ideas underpinning the plot at great and tedious length than one that's crystal clear and insufferably tedious because they did, to be honest. I may have to get some of the later McCoy stories on DVD now this has been raised, actually.

    Don't mistake me, Ghost Light is an excellent story, up there with The Talons of Weng-Chiang, and all the better for not being typical of the intelligence-insulting simplicity that characterisd most latter-era Who. I'd highly recommend it.

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