‘In the endless forests of the Wild, humanity scratches a living by the side of the great Godroads, paths of crystal that provide safe passage and hold back the infernal tide. Creatures lurk within the trees, watching, and plucking those who stray too far from safety…. In crystal castles held aloft on magical currents, seven timeless royal families reign, protecting humanity from the spread of the Wild and its demons. Born and reborn into flawless bodies, the Deathless are as immortal as the precious stones from which they take their names. For generations a fragile balance has held…. House Sapphire, one of the ancient Deathless families, is riven by suspicion and madness. Whole villages are disappearing as the hunting expeditions holding the Wild at bay begin to fail. Then, when assassins strike, House Sapphire shatters. Nothing lasts forever.’
Praise for The Deathless
Newman likes to build his own distinctive world that will be memorable enough to stand out among myriads of other fantasy settings. His characters are exceptionally well-fleshed-out, staying close and occasionally crossing the obscure, thin line, separating hero from villain. The story itself is intriguing and provocative, but it’s the compelling prose and captivating imagery that tops it off.
Compared to Newman’s previous Vagrant series there’s a noticeably different style at work here – more traditional fantasy than that terse, stripped back and stylised approach – but it shows his ability to craft a darkly compelling world just the same… This is, undoubtedly, the start of another series to get excited about!
Every Tuesday, I post a new edition of Spotlight: a short post which shines a proverbial spotlight on a published novel or collection of short fiction. If you would like to have your book considered for a future edition of Spotlight, drop us an e-mail including a short synopsis of your book and a link to where we can buy it. Better yet, send me a copy of your book and I can include a mini-review.
I’m still looking to interview fiction authors here on Penstricken, especially new or indie authors. Whether it’s books, plays, comics or any other kind of fiction, if you’ve got something written, I want to hear about it. If you’re interested in having your work featured on Penstricken, be to sure to drop us an e-mail or message us on Facebook/Twitter/Pinterest.
Please be advised that due to a recent surge in interest, I am presently committed to a significant number of reviews/interviews over the next couple of months. If you would like an interview or review, I would still love to hear from you, though it is unlikely that I will be able to begin work immediately.
Every Tuesday, I post a new edition of Spotlight: a short post which shines a proverbial spotlight on a published novel or collection of short fiction. If you would like to have your book considered for a future edition of Spotlight, drop us an e-mail including a short synopsis of your book and a link to where we can buy it. Better yet, send me a copy of your book and I can include a mini-review.
I’m still looking to interview fiction authors here on Penstricken, especially new or indie authors. Whether it’s books, plays, comics or any other kind of fiction, if you’ve got something written, I want to hear about it. If you’re interested in having your work featured on Penstricken, be to sure to drop us an e-mail or message us on Facebook/Twitter/Pinterest.
Please be advised that due to a recent surge in interest, I am presently committed to a significant number of reviews/interviews over the next couple of months. If you would like an interview or review, I would still love to hear from you, though it is unlikely that I will be able to begin work immediately.
After a whopping ten years of blissful happiness, my trusty old third generation Kindle Keyboard was finally starting to show its age and so I decided it was time for an upgrade. New decade, new Kindle and all that, and so I asked Santa Karen and she very kindly obliged by leaving a shiny new Kindle Paperwhite under my tree.
So, I hear you cry, what has it got that the old Kindle Keyboard hasn’t got?
Well the hardware itself is certainly easier on the eye. As well as being smaller, the Kindle Paperwhite has no physical keyboard, page turn buttons or any buttons of any kind save a titchy little power button and despite being smaller and thinner, it also feels a lot sturdier than the Kindle Keyboard. It is, apparently, waterproof and although I have no interest in personally testing that claim, I could certainly believe it to be so. There are no obvious cracks in the hardware for water to seep into when compared with its 3rd Gen progenitor. According to Amazon, ‘Paperwhite is IPX8 rated to protect against accidental immersion in up to two metres of fresh water for up to 60 minutes.’ How you could accidentally leave your Kindle under two meters of water for as long as 60 minutes is a mystery to me, but it’s reassuring to know if that does happen, I still won’t have to fork out for a new one.
So, let’s turn it on. At first glance, the home screen appears a lot busier than the Kindle Keyboard, which essentially just gave us a list of all the books we owned. The home screen on the Paperwhite, on the other hand, displays both your own library and reading lists as well as key lists from the Kindle Store, such as book recommendations. The menu bar along the top of the screen provides links to everything you’ll need to start reading right away, while everything else is tucked away neatly in the side menu. You can link into your GoodReads account, listen to your Audible books and even browse the internet on the ‘experimental browser.’ Book covers and other images are also beautifully rendered in crystal clear high-resolution.
The front-lighting is very nice indeed. One of the things I liked about my old Kindle Keyboard was how easy it was to read the screen for hours on end without hurting your eyes, even in brilliant sunshine, thanks to its unlit anti-glare screen. I was a little bit concerned that by introducing illumination, it might become a little less kind to my eyes (as someone who wears glasses and suffers from frequent headaches, this was not something I wanted). I needn’t have worried. I don’t know exactly what sorcery they’ve used to illuminate the screen, but the illumination is soft, milky and even, giving it just enough of a glow to make it visible in the dark without any harsh glare. When reading in a well lit room, the screen appears just slightly more luminescent than would be natural if you were reading on white paper (hence the name, I guess) and when reading in the dark, it does not flood the rest of the room with light, meaning I can read in bed even while the wife is trying to sleep. Of course, if you find the front-lighting a little too brilliant, you can adjust it to just the right level for your own needs (though it took me ages to figure out how to do).
The complete lack of any physical buttons means everything is controlled by touch screen. If you are familiar with using touch screen on your phone, you’ll already know the basic principles: tapping, swiping, long pressing and so forth. It all works the same as on your phone and I personally find it a lot smoother to use than physical buttons, especially when it comes to typing notes. The majority of books that I read on Kindle are books that authors have gifted me for author interviews or book reviews, and so I often want to add notes to what I’m reading. You could do this with the Kindle Keyboard, but the tiny little buttons were just so fiddly and awkward that I often resorted to a crude form of short hand and wilfully ignored all my typos because it just wasn’t worth the fuss. Not so with the Kindle Paperwhite! The on screen keyboard is a breeze to use and I can write long winded notes to myself until the cows come home.
If I was being hypercritical, I would say the touch screen takes a little bit of getting used to while reading. It’s not overly fiddly, just takes a bit more practice than its predecessors. For instance, you need to tap just the right point on the screen to bring up the menu bar and if you tap anywhere else by mistake, it turns to the next page. In a similar way, you turn the page back by swiping left but if your swipe isn’t quite swipey enough, you’ll find yourself turning forwards instead of back. It is possible to temporarily display touch screen while reading so all controls are locked save the ability to turn to the next page, however this is probably more trouble than its worth since you have to lock the Kindle and then unlock it again to turn this feature off. You can’t even turn the power off without first turning touch screen back on, so it’s not really worth the trouble. Hardly a deal breaker though.
All in all, a fantastic piece of kit. I fully expect it to provide me with another decade or so of reading pleasure (and audio-book listening pleasure, if that’s your bag) and would highly recommend it to anyone looking for a snazzy new e-book reader that won’t burn your eyes out.
Every Tuesday, I post a new edition of Spotlight: a short post which shines a proverbial spotlight on a published novel or collection of short fiction. If you would like to have your book considered for a future edition of Spotlight, drop us an e-mail including a short synopsis of your book and a link to where we can buy it. Better yet, send me a copy of your book and I can include a mini-review.
I’m still looking to interview fiction authors here on Penstricken, especially new or indie authors. Whether it’s books, plays, comics or any other kind of fiction, if you’ve got something written, I want to hear about it. If you’re interested in having your work featured on Penstricken, be to sure to drop us an e-mail or message us on Facebook/Twitter/Pinterest.
Please be advised that due to a recent surge in interest, I am presently committed to a significant number of reviews/interviews over the next couple of months. If you would like an interview or review, I would still love to hear from you, though it is unlikely that I will be able to begin work immediately.
For me, antagonists are often the most fun characters to create. However, most of the usual rules apply and it’s especially important (as it is with all characters) that your antagonist’s motive and goals are clearly established in your mind. More often than not, these will form the whole basis for the conflict your protagonist has to deal with, so it’s vital you get this right.
If I was to boil it down to a single rule for antagonists, it would probably be something like this:
An antagonist’s motive can be anything at all, but their goal should bring them into direct conflict with the protagonist.
Let’s start by thinking about the first part of that rule: ‘An antagonist’s motive can be anything at all’. Motives are simply what drive a character from day to day. When it comes to your bad guy, this could be something sinister such as megalomania or it could be something far more ordinary– perhaps even laudable. For instance, in The Count of Monte Cristo, the antagonist, Fernand Mondego, is in love with the protagonist’s fiancee. As a result, he falsely accuses the protagonist of treason so that he can marry Dantès fiancee instead.
So, Mondego’s motive is that he is in love with Dantès fiancee. His goal (in the beginning, at least) is to get Dantès out of the way. Loving a woman is not a particularly evil or unusualthing, nor is it a motive common only to antagonists. Plenty of good guys in other stories (especially romances and romantic comedies) are driven by the exact same motive.
Ahh, but he was in love with the protagonist’s fiancee! I hear you cry. That’s bad!
Well, I agree it’s not an ideal situation, but in and of itself it doesn’t make him an antagonist or a ‘bad guy’. There are plenty of stories out there with characters who refuse to behave inappropriately when they’re in love with someone else’s partner. What made Mondego a bad guy was his goal, not his motive.His motive (which he arguably had in common with the protagonist) drove him to carry out a sinister plot against the protagonist. That’s what made him a villain and an antagonist. It is highly unlikely a good guy would act on this motive the same way Mondego does (though remember, not all protagonists are good guys; some protagonists are bad).
Which brings me neatly onto the second part of our working rule: ‘[the antagonist’s] goal should bring them into direct conflict with the protagonist’. It’s worth mentioning that this is not the same as saying their goals must be inherently immoral.
Oh sure, they can be. They often will be. Personally, I love it when an antagonist is really bad. Murdering the hero(es), stealing something valuable and violently taking over the world are just some of the more common goals antagonists sometimes strive for. But remember, an antagonist is not necessarily defined as a morally evil character; they are simply a character whose goals conflict with that of your protagonist. They can be morally evil, but even then, their function is to present the protagonist with a real and significant problem that cannot simply be ignored. They are, if you like, a walking, talking conflict for your character to face.
When you’re so evil you want to blow up all reality. Image source: http://gph.to/2AhoZVE
Take C.S. Lewis’ story The Screwtape Letters as a radical example. This story is written from the perspective of a senior devil (Screwtape) writing to his nephew (Wormwood), giving him advice on how to lead a human into eternal damnation– a morally objectionable goal to say the least. In it, Screwtape makes frequent references to their ‘Enemy’ — namely, God. In this story, Wormwood is the protagonist. His motive is his natural diabolical nature and his goal is to secure the damnation of his unsuspecting human ‘patient’. Even though God is clearly not portrayed as evil in this story (C.S. Lewis was a Christian), nevertheless he is still the antagonist because his goals are in direct conflict with those of the protagonist.
“He (God) wants servants who can finally become sons. We want to suck in, He wants to give out. We are empty and would be filled; He is full and flows over. Our war aim is a world in which Our Father Below has drawn all other beings into himself: the Enemy wants a world full of beings united to Him but still distinct.”
C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters (parenthesis mine)
Which brings me neatly onto my third and final point: the audience’s sympathies. This can sometimes be a sticky issue when you try to create an antagonist of any real depths, as I previously discovered.
In The Screwtape Letters, C.S. Lewis presumably wanted us to sympathise with God’s goals instead of Wormwood’s, even though God is the antagonist. After all, The Screwtape Letters is as much as Christian Apologetic work as it is a story. Under most circumstances, however, you will want your audience to support the protagonist’s goals instead of the antagonist. I know of only two ways to do this effectively:
Make your antagonist at least a little bit immoral (optional – but usually a good idea)
Create a strong protagonist with goals and motives the audience really cares about (mandatory)
Remember, an antagonist might provide the vital point if conflict in a story, but he is not the sum total of the story. If all you have is a really complex antagonist who threatens to take over the world and some half-baked protagonist to fight him just because that’s what good guys do, you’ll not hold onto your audience for very long. Remember this rule:
Your story is about your protagonist, not the antagonist.
The antagonist is the point of conflict for your story, but he is not the story in and of himself. Take the Wicked Witch of the West from The Wizard of Oz. She is a persistent hindrance to Dorothy throughout the film. Without her, it would be a frankly boring film about a girl who gets a bit lost (okay, very lost) then goes home. But none of that would matter if it wasn’t for the fact that Dorothy wants to get home. If we didn’t care about Dorothy and her plight, the Witch would be pretty redundant.
Every Tuesday, I post a new edition of Spotlight: a short post which shines a proverbial spotlight on a published novel or collection of short fiction. If you would like to have your book considered for a future edition of Spotlight, drop us an e-mail including a short synopsis of your book and a link to where we can buy it. Better yet, send me a copy of your book and I can include a mini-review.
I’m still looking to interview fiction authors here on Penstricken, especially new or indie authors. Whether it’s books, plays, comics or any other kind of fiction, if you’ve got something written, I want to hear about it. If you’re interested in having your work featured on Penstricken, be to sure to drop us an e-mail or message us on Facebook/Twitter/Pinterest.
Please be advised that due to a recent surge in interest, I am presently committed to a significant number of reviews/interviews over the next couple of months. If you would like an interview or review, I would still love to hear from you, though it is unlikely that I will be able to begin work immediately.
From the dawn of man, the war between Demons and Angels has ravaged the land. Two thousand years of peace has lulled the people into a false sense of security. Malach is on a journey to find his place in the world and pick a side in the war that is quickly approaching, meeting unlikely allies along the way.
Praise for From Men and Angels
From Men and Angels is a strong debut and I can’t wait to get my hands on the next book in the series… Well imagined, well written and with plenty of excitement … Be sure to grab a copy of this book with my fullest blessing. It’s great.
Every Tuesday, I post a new edition of Spotlight: a short post which shines a proverbial spotlight on a published novel or collection of short fiction. If you would like to have your book considered for a future edition of Spotlight, drop us an e-mail including a short synopsis of your book and a link to where we can buy it. Better yet, send me a copy of your book and I can include a mini-review.
I’m still looking to interview fiction authors here on Penstricken, especially new or indie authors. Whether it’s books, plays, comics or any other kind of fiction, if you’ve got something written, I want to hear about it. If you’re interested in having your work featured on Penstricken, be to sure to drop us an e-mail or message us on Facebook/Twitter/Pinterest.
Please be advised that due to a recent surge in interest, I am presently committed to a significant number of reviews/interviews over the next couple of months. If you would like an interview or review, I would still love to hear from you, though it is unlikely that I will be able to begin work immediately.
Every Tuesday, I post a new edition of Spotlight: a short post which shines a proverbial spotlight on a published novel or collection of short fiction. If you would like to have your book considered for a future edition of Spotlight, drop us an e-mail including a short synopsis of your book and a link to where we can buy it. Better yet, send me a copy of your book and I can include a mini-review.
I’m still looking to interview fiction authors here on Penstricken, especially new or indie authors. Whether it’s books, plays, comics or any other kind of fiction, if you’ve got something written, I want to hear about it. If you’re interested in having your work featured on Penstricken, be to sure to drop us an e-mail or message us on Facebook/Twitter/Pinterest.
Please be advised that due to a recent surge in interest, I am presently committed to a significant number of reviews/interviews over the next couple of months. If you would like an interview or review, I would still love to hear from you, though it is unlikely that I will be able to begin work immediately.
While every effort has been taken to avoid spoilers in this post, anyone who has not read From Men and Angels by H.L. Walsh is hereby advised that this post may contain a few unavoidable spoilers.
Imagine a world where Angels and Demons are not just spiritual beings but physical beings we can see an interact with. How would that change our world? If humans fought alongside with and also against these titans; what kind of world would that be?
H.L. Walsh, author of From Men and Angels
Debut author H.L. Walsh answers his own question in his new book, From Men and Angels, chronicling the adventures of Malach, a hunter and son of an angel and Amara, an exiled thief living in a world of fully corporeal angels and demons. These two protagonists, despite their very disparate origins, come together in the city of Newaught where they are quickly caught up in an ancient war which has been silently raging between angels and demons for over two thousand years.
The world-building in this novel is excellent. The blending together of fantasy with real-world religious elements can be a tricky business but Walsh accomplishes this masterfully, creating a world which is vividly imagined, inspired by certain aspects of Christian theology without creating obvious allegories to patronise the reader or crude caricatures to offend the believer. Indeed, where most authors writing this type of story might be tempted to create allegorical ‘God figures’ and ‘Satan figures’ with different names, Walsh has taken the bold step to make specific references to God and Satan, as well as one more indirect reference to Christ. A risky move in some ways, but one which I feel has paid off.
Many fantasy authors create detailed and vivid fantasy worlds only to be let down by presenting them in a way which bogs the reader down with tedious descriptions of the world’s political, historical and geographical landscape and forcing the reader to constantly refer back to the map(s) on at the front of the book. From Men and Angels does not have this problem. Thanks to Walsh’s clear and direct writing style, the reader is fed a gentle and steady diet of everything they need to know about Walsh’s fantasy world in a way which feels natural and enjoyable to read without info dumping.
The characters in this story are, for the most part, all reasonably well rounded with clear motives driving their actions. Malach is a hunter with of unusual physical strength, owing to his angelic ancestry. All he wants is a quiet life of hunting in his home village, but his life is quickly turned upside down when it is revealed that his parents are alive in a demon prison and that he personally has a crucial role to play (for some reason?) in the coming conflict between the Angels and Demons. In some ways, he’s a little bit typical for a fantasy hero: strong, solitary, plagued by demons and reluctant to follow the call of his destiny. He is accompanied throughout the story by his friend, Daziar and his wolf, Skie.
As much as I liked Malach, I liked the Amara character just a little bit more. She seemed just a shade or two more complex than Malach, more driven by her own needs rather than having other characters popping out of the woodwork and telling her about her destiny. My only real criticism of this character was how she responded to Malach. Given the life she has lived until this point, it struck me as more than a little odd that, in her darkest hour, a streetwise thief like Amara would turn to a relative stranger (not to mention a natural enemy) simply because she finds him attractive and perhaps a little mysterious.
There’s one more character I’d like to mention: Malach’s sword, Reckoning. It’s an angel blade: a living weapon Malach liberates from a demon early in the story, with a personality all of its own, which is a fascinating concept in and of itself. When Malach first acquires this weapon, he is cautious, fearful of its ability to read his thoughts. In spite of this, he quickly comes to trust Reckoning and the reader is left wondering if Reckoning really is to be trusted. Having now finished the book, the short answer seems to be: yes, Reckoning is exactly who he claimed to be. In some respects, that was a bit of an anticlimax. There’s nothing wrong with Reckoning being a good guy as such, but it might have been nice to find a few darker shades to Reckoning’s character or even just to learn that he does have a few secrets or agendas of his own. Having said that, I’m also conscious that this is only the first book in the series so you never know what’s still to come!
I don’t have many seriously bad things to say about this book. If I was being hypercritical, I would say the romantic subplot is this story’s biggest let-down. There’s nothing wrong with the idea behind it or the basic path it follows but the execution felt a bit rushed and sloppy. The two characters don’t meet until fairly near the end of the book, which is fine, however the circumstances of their meeting don’t naturally lend themselves to the kind of relationship which develops between them. Amara, having just lost everything and having no where else to go, decides to go looking for this guard (Malach) whom she barely knows and who has every reason to arrest her. When she finds his house (through educated guesswork, I might add) she breaks in and after a rather tense encounter, the two quickly become as a thick as thieves to the extent that she goes out hunting with him and joins him on a dangerous quest to liberate his father from a demon prison. That just didn’t seem natural or believable to me, especially not while both characters were pre-occupied with their own issues.
All in all, From Men and Angels is a strong debut and I can’t wait to get my hands on the next book in the series. The premise of a world with flesh and blood angelic forces is simple but fascinating and I was chomping at the bit to read it from the moment I heard about it. I was not disappointed. Well imagined, well written and with plenty of excitement; its few and minor let-downs were not nearly enough to stop this being a great read and a real page turner. If high fantasy with respectful and non-preachy religious elements is your thing, be sure to grab a copy of this book with my fullest blessing. It’s great.
Every Tuesday, I post a new edition of Spotlight: a short post which shines a proverbial spotlight on a published novel or collection of short fiction. If you would like to have your book considered for a future edition of Spotlight, drop us an e-mail including a short synopsis of your book and a link to where we can buy it. Better yet, send me a copy of your book and I can include a mini-review.
I’m still looking to interview fiction authors here on Penstricken, especially new or indie authors. Whether it’s books, plays, comics or any other kind of fiction, if you’ve got something written, I want to hear about it. If you’re interested in having your work featured on Penstricken, be to sure to drop us an e-mail or message us on Facebook/Twitter/Pinterest.
Please be advised that due to a recent surge in interest, I am presently committed to a significant number of reviews/interviews over the next couple of months. If you would like an interview or review, I would still love to hear from you, though it is unlikely that I will be able to begin work immediately.
Anyone who has not watched any part of Doctor Who reboot series 11 (including the New Year special, Resolution) is hereby advised that this post may contain a few unavoidable spoilers.
Well, well, it may feel like it’s only just begun but Jodie Whittaker’s first series as the titular character in the BBC’s Doctor Who is finally over. Actually it was over almost two weeks ago but I had to do 6 Six Word Stories for the 6th last Sunday so you’re getting the review this Sunday instead. Lap it up.
I’ve already written in some depths about the first episode, so I’m not going to waste too much time talking about that today. What I really want to do is give an overview of the series as a whole.
Let’s start with the most important question of all: characters, specifically the four regular ones.
The Doctor in this series is lively, kindhearted and generally likable. My biggest criticism is that she seems to have completely lost all her demons, and with it, her motivation. She still abhors violence but previous Doctors (especially in the reboot) have been somewhat weighed down by the violence they’ve witnessed and committed themselves. One of the things I loved about Peter Capaldi’s Doctor, for instance, was how plagued he was by his own sense of guilt. This motivated him to chase around the galaxy seeking vindication. As a result, I cared about the Doctor’s goals, even in rubbish episodes like Into the Dalek. The Thirteenth Doctor, alas, lacks this depth.
Graham wins the ‘best character’ prize by a million miles. He is haunted by the death of his wife and is travelling with the Doctor mainly as a way of fleeing from his own grief, only to be faced with it everywhere he goes, finally culminating in his showdown with Tim Shaw whom he (quite rightly) blames for his wife’s death. My only real criticism is how suddenly his hunger for revenge comes upon him in ‘The Battle of Ranskoor Av Kolos’ (which, by the way, was the most forgettable last-episode-of-the-series since the show rebooted in 2005). It might’ve been nice to see hints of this slightly darker side to him before he finally encountered his wife’s killer again but this is the only minor grievance I have with Graham.
Ryan started strong. His dyspraxia gave him an inner struggle to overcome, as did the loss of his grandmother; he apparently had a tense relationship with both Graham and his absentee father and there was some chemistry between him and Yasmin in the first few episodes. That should’ve been more than enough to make a really interesting character. Unfortunately, most of these issues came to nothing. His dyspraxia was barely mentioned and in no way hindered him; he deals with his grandmother’s death fairly easily and the sexual tension between him and Yasmin fizzled out into nothing after a few episodes. Only the business with his dad came to any sort of resolution, and even this in a fairly clumsy manner in the New Year special.
Speaking of Yasmin, I’m still trying to think of anything I can say about her, whether good or bad. She seemed like a nice person but as characters go, she had all the substance of the Speaking Clock. That’s not a criticism of the actress. She brought Yasmin to life as well as anyone could, but the fact of the matter is, the character could have been completely cut out of this series with almost no loss to the story as whole (even in ‘Demons of the Punjab’ — arguably the only real ‘Yas episode’ — she was just there enough to make the story happen and no more). The character was, in a word, only half-written written.
Now, what about monsters? Doctor Who has always been famous for its monsters, though since the 2005 reboot, it’s been an almost constant barage of Daleks, Cybermen and Moffat’s pet invention, the eye-gougingly tedious Weeping Angels. Not so this time! Every monster (barring the New Year special) was brand spanking new, which was a breath of fresh air for me at least. Although while I’m on the subject of Daleks, I just need to say one thing: since when could the sonic screwdriver disable the Dalek’s gun arm?! If sonic screwdrivers can do that, why was there ever a Time War?
This series has come under some pretty heavy criticism, especially on social media (where all the vitriol of society coalesces, kind of like in that Star Trek: The Next Generation episode, ‘Skin of Evil’, but I digress), for being too ‘politically correct’. I don’t know if that’s because the Doctor’s a woman, because they finally wrote an episode where the racism of modern history is shown in all its ugliness while still being a family friendly TV show (complete with a time travelling white supremacist bad guy) or what but in any event, I see nothing wrong with this. Oh, sure, you might not always personally agree with the message behind each episode, but that doesn’t make it bad writing. Quite the reverse. Give me a real life theme that offends my sensibilities over Moffat’s meaningless, sentimental fluff any day of the week (though just to be clear, I wasn’t offended by this series at all). When it comes to the themes that were explored in this particular series, my only real criticism is how poorly executed they were, often feeling obvious and preachy.
I have only one more criticism (and I know, it sounds like I hated this series, but I really did enjoy it): there was no series-long story arc whatsoever. Since the reboot began (and now and again in the old series, too), Doctor Who has boasted some excellent story arcs. This series just didn’t have one. Just a bunch of time travellers with no discernible motive (apart from Graham) going on lots of pointless but mostly entertaining mini-adventures, finally (anti-)climaxing in them bumping into Tim Shaw again who was, frankly, less scary second time around.
I know it sounds like I’ve really slammed this series. That notwithstanding, I did enjoy it. Really. And since I know you’re all just dying to know what I think about having a woman Doctor, I really did like Whittaker’s portrayal of the character. Please don’t come away from this thinking I hate series 11 or Jodie Whittaker. I do not and I’m really looking forward to series 12. It could’ve just done with a bit of tightening up here and there on some of the most basic principles of serialised story-writing: characterisation and development, subtle execution of themes, story arcs and so forth. But please, watch it with my blessing. It was, for the most part, entertaining and certainly not the worst series in the show’s mostly excellent history.
Every Tuesday, I post a new edition of Spotlight: a short post which shines a proverbial spotlight on a published novel or collection of short fiction. If you would like to have your book considered for a future edition of Spotlight, drop us an e-mail including a short synopsis of your book and a link to where we can buy it. Better yet, send me a copy of your book and I can include a mini-review.
I’m still looking to interview fiction authors here on Penstricken, especially new or indie authors. Whether it’s books, plays, comics or any other kind of fiction, if you’ve got something written, I want to hear about it. If you’re interested in having your work featured on Penstricken, be to sure to drop us an e-mail or message us on Facebook/Twitter/Pinterest.
Seven ordinary lives are changed by their extraordinary relationships with a little green Jeep in Of Metal and Earth, a tale of restoration and redemption…. Readers of Mitch Albom, Nicholas Sparks, Jeep owners everywhere, and viewers of This is Us will enjoy this heart-warming tale of restoration and redemption, a must read book for anyone inspired by the resiliency of the human spirit.
Every Tuesday, I post a new edition of Spotlight: a short post which shines a proverbial spotlight on a published novel or collection of short fiction. If you would like to have your book considered for a future edition of Spotlight, drop us an e-mail including a short synopsis of your book and a link to where we can buy it. Better yet, send me a copy of your book and I can include a mini-review.
I’m still looking to interview fiction authors here on Penstricken, especially new or indie authors. Whether it’s books, plays, comics or any other kind of fiction, if you’ve got something written, I want to hear about it. If you’re interested in having your work featured on Penstricken, be to sure to drop us an e-mail or message us on Facebook/Twitter/Pinterest.
Every Tuesday, I post a new edition of Spotlight: a short post which shines a proverbial spotlight on a published novel or collection of short fiction. If you would like to have your book considered for a future edition of Spotlight, drop us an e-mail including a short synopsis of your book and a link to where we can buy it. Better yet, send me a copy of your book and I can include a mini-review.
I’m still looking to interview fiction authors here on Penstricken, especially new or indie authors. Whether it’s books, plays, comics or any other kind of fiction, if you’ve got something written, I want to hear about it. If you’re interested in having your work featured on Penstricken, be to sure to drop us an e-mail or message us on Facebook/Twitter/Pinterest.
