Raven

Doctor Who: The Suns of Caresh, by Paul Saint. Strange things are afoot in West Sussex; people are being turned to stone; a lost alien is found wandering the streets of Chichester; a mental patient is haunted by strange terrors; some boys discover an impossibly large cave hidden beneath a lake and, on a far away planet, the Doctor is asked to track down a missing Time Lord . . . It's been a long time since I last read a Doctor Who novel, I generally shy away from them these days because the quality of the writing varies greatly from book to book (and on-line reviews can't be trusted because Who fans aren't the best source for balanced opinion!). Despite that, the setting in this one tempted me into giving this book a try . . . It's strange reading a Doctor Who story set, in part, in your home town. The idea of the Doctor walking the same streets I do, and reading descriptions of places I know well, made the whole experience slightly surreal (especially as the story is set in 1999 and several of the places described - St Ivel and Hammicks bookshop, for example - have now passed into history themselves). Past that, however, The Suns of Caresh is a very uneven book. The first few chapters suffer from a bloat of characters. With so many being introduced its hard to keep track of them all as the narrative jumps around - which it does quite a lot. Later on the book settles down, but it then starts to feel as though the author is adding padding to get to the required page count. This really is a book of two ideas ("Doctor Who in my backyard", and a more traditional "Doctor trying to save an alien race" type story) and I feel the author, Paul Saint, would have done better if he had chosen one of them rather than trying to combine the two. I also feel that some of the characters he introduced were woefully underused. Simon, a science fiction fan who suddenly finds himself living with a real alien, and Michael, a rather self-possessed amateur UFO nut - where both quite interesting and I think they should have been explored further (I think that taking a sci-fi fan and a UFO nut to the alien world would have given Saint more options with the story, and I also think that their inclusion could have avoided a section of the book that simply feels like padding). It's also quite jarring to have two seemingly important characters introduced at the start of a book only for them to both disappear before the story is half done - I kept expecting them to reappear, but they never did. Saint doesn't get it all wrong, his writing for the Third Doctor is excellent, and he adds some nice touches (such as the total eclipse in 1999), but this isn't enough to redeem a novel that I feel could have been so much more. The Suns of Caresh is a Third Doctor novel, set shortly after The Three Doctors.

A couple of reviews to catch up with . . . South of the Border, West of the Sun, by Haruki Murakami. South of the Border, West of the Sun tells the story of Hajime, who after a turbulent time in his twenties has finally found contentment in his thirties as a husband, father, and the owner of two successful jazz bars. Despite having everything however, Hajime is a man haunted by his past, and one day she walks back into his life . . . The story is one of a man who is troubled by his past, and the notion of what could have been, and despite his happiness with his current life, his doubts and the pull of those unanswered questions cause him to risk everything in an obsessive pursuit of a life that never was. This book is a bit of a departure from the other Murakami novels I have read in that although it has an air of mystery to it, it doesn't have the same surreal aspect that both After Dark and Sputnik Sweetheart do. Murakami's writing is once again achingly beautiful, with prose so precise it almost feels sculpted. Hajime is written without any attempt to excuse the character's actions, and the honesty of this portrayal allows you to side with him even when his actions are more than questionable. This is a bitter-sweet book about love and loss; about the choices people make and their consequences and about finding redemption and peace with oneself. Like the other Murakami novels I have read, this stayed with me for a long time after I put it down.

Where did you get this list Kell?

I couldn't do a worse job than Tim Kring and Co are at the mo . . .

No idea, I've not been watching it, I just saw this on another web site earlier today. It could be that they all get recast, you never know!

There are a number of films on that list that are more speculative than actually happening - Indy 5 for example. It may well happen at some point, but there's nothing but internet rumour fuelling that one at the mo . . .

Being Human has been renewed for a second series.

I got around the need for a recap by not watching the last episode of the last series until an hour before the first one of the new. Monday night was Heroes Night in the Raven household (complete with beer and a curry!). As for Sylar's Dad, I reckon he should be a cross-dresser, that should just about finish him off!

Leave the forum. Go now, and never look back, or you will turn into a pillar of bookmarks!

The BBC Two episode was pretty good, but the BBC Three episode back-slid into "making it up as we go" territory again. They really need to work on a game plan before they start writing . . .

Today is the anniversary of the day the Pancake Fairy was hung by Cromwell for trying to blow up Santa's Workshop - don't ask, it's terribly complicated . . .

I do like pancakes, but they are too much faff for one person on a school night.

Gronda, Gronda aspidistra!

Just in case people have missed it - as several I know have - Heroes series three re-starts again tonight on BBC Two at 9pm, with the next episode being shown at 10.30pm on BBC Three.

You might want to read Wee Free Men and A Hat Full of Sky before you read Wintersmith, as it is the third in the Tiffany Aching series.

I'd like to, but it is difficult for me to get to somewhere that isn't affected by street lighting.

Orion Nebula. That's pretty impressive!

It's reverted to a Waterstone's Paper.

He had no hair in Iron Man, it took me half the film to work out who he was . . .

I still need to get a copy of this . . .

But not Mike Gayle . . .

That's what Post-It notes were invented for.

Wow, and I thought my OCD was bad! I always look up how many pages a book has when I start one, so I know how many I have left to read, but I've never kept track of the number of pages I've read. Having the actual story start on page 8 or 9 doesn't bother me either. Forget all that binding nonsense, blank pages are put at the end of books so you can re-write the ending if you don't like the one the author came up with!

They are definitely male confessionals; it says so on the back of several of them. Oh, look! Some staw!

Sir Terry Pratchett.