A cheerful bit of unashamed fanwank affectionately dedicated to Simon and Rob Shearman (wherever he may be!). I suppose I should really dedicate it to Steven Moffat, too, but I’ve already done that with “The 1969 Diaries” and “A Hull of a Time.”
From: “Diana Goddard” dgoddard@ggmail.com
To: nightingale3@yahoo.co.uk
Date: Thu, 9 September 2012 16:03:48 -0600
Subject: Genealogy
Hey Terry,
Sorry for the long silence. Things got really crazy at work—and then really crazy. But now I’m my own boss, no more PAing to some schmuck I can’t stand, much less respect. I’ve come into a bit of money, too, and that’s kinda why I’m writing. Last time I visited, I heard you talking about doing a little bit of family history, genealogy and family trees and stuff. I’ve been interested for years in the family, but I just haven’t had the time. So I was wondering if you could e-mail what you’ve found out or if I have to go all the way to England for it? ;-)
Diana
From: “Terry Muffaletto” nightingale3@yahoo.co.uk
To: dgoddard@ggmail.com
Date: Fri, 10 September 2012 02:17:04 GMT
Subject: Re: Genealogy
So how are things really on the other side of the Pond, Di? I remember hearing something about your old boss—what’s his name? Van Statten. I thought he disappeared. What really happened? You’re not going to keep secrets, are you? If you’re not PAing, what are you doing?
More questions than answers! Yes, I’ve done a little bit of research into the family, and I’m happy to share it. Surely you’ve got the “big bucks” to hire a private jet and fly to Heathrow? What kind of money did you come into?
Terry
From: “Diana Goddard” dgoddard@ggmail.com
To: nightingale3@yahoo.co.uk
Date: Fri, 10 September 2012 16:03:48 -0600
Subject: Re: Re: Genealogy
Terry,
I don’t think it’s really fair for you to criticize bosses considering who you used to work for. Making mistakes is part of human nature, though, isn’t it?
Are you going to give me the family tree or not? By the way, Mom says hi.
Diana
From: “Terry Muffaletto” nightingale3@yahoo.co.uk
To: dgoddard@ggmail.com
Date: Mon, 13 September 2012 06:12:38 GMT
Subject: CALM DOWN!
Okay, okay. I’ve got something that might interest you. The Goddard side of the family. A great-great-great-great grandfather (or something like that) was a doctor in the 17th century. In fact, he was Cromwell’s personal physician and followed him around on all his campaigns. He was at the Siege of Drogheda and wrote rather a curious account of it, I’ll try to get it for you. Anyway, he was one of the founding members of the Royal Geographical Society. People of my generation would say that’s “cool.”
Terry
From: “Diana Goddard” dgoddard@ggmail.com
To: nightingale3@yahoo.co.uk
Date: Mon, 13 September 2012 11:04:17 -0600
Subject: stupid question ;-)
What’s the Siege of Drogheda?
From: “Terry Muffaletto” nightingale3@yahoo.co.uk
To: dgoddard@ggmail.com
Date: Tues, 14 September 2012 09:10:12 GMT
Subject: Oh dear
I lament for you Yanks if your grasp of history is so poor. Yet you are not easily able to forget the unfortunate accident with President Winters. Honestly, when is your press going to stop griping about it? Bringing it up all the time isn’t going to make things any better!
Anyway, Siege of Drogheda. Sorry, you rile up a history teacher . . . Ireland, 1649. Brutal. English army starving the Irish out. Really starving them out. Something hard to envision in your age of touchscreens and plasmic interfaces or whatever you’re developing out there now. Do have a serious thought about coming to visit. Tell your mum as well.
Terry
From: “Diana Goddard” dgoddard@ggmail.com
To: nightingale3@yahoo.co.uk
Date: Thu, 16 September 2012 16:47:48 -0600
Subject: Re: Oh dear
First of all, just because you’re my cousin doesn’t mean you can insult my intelligence, Terry. You didn’t even know where Utah was before you looked it up on Mapquest. Second of all, you have no right to criticize the American press. You worked for Harold Saxon, and he murdered President Winters! Yes, he was insane, but it is an old joke around here, how Britain could have elected a Prime Minister like that. And no, we are not just jealous because you had the Valiant first.
Diana
From: “Terry Muffaletto” nightingale3@yahoo.co.uk
To: dgoddard@ggmail.com
Date: Mon, 20 September 2012 02:23:16 GMT
Subject: In Pace!
Shall I extend the olive branch? I admit it: I was on the campaign trail for Harold Saxon, but they discovered years ago it was a sophisticated brainwashing technique. No one can explain to me quite how it was done, but it all made perfect sense when they did an exposé on it. Actually, I’d never even met Harold Saxon: I spoke to his people on the phone, but really, I was doing the campaigning on the grass roots level.
As a peace offering, I’ve managed to get a copy of Dr. Goddard’s journal from 1649 faxed from some library in Ireland. I’ll attach the whole PDF but I just thought I’d highlight to you the most interesting bits. There was another doctor—our ancestor says he was “a small man, dark in coloring, with a most unusual piercing glance.” He had these friends, a rather Amazon-like woman named Elizabeth and a young man Cromwell almost had hung as a witch! It’s rather fascinating stuff, when you get down to the nitty gritty. Take a look if you’ve got time. I’ll do work on the other side of the family, too.
Your most obedient servant,
Cousin Terry
From: “Diana Goddard” dgoddard@ggmail.com
To: nightingale3@yahoo.co.uk
Date: Mon, 20 September 2012 16:14:47 -0600
Subject: Re: In Pace
Hey, thanks for the PDF. You’re right, it’s pretty interesting stuff. Cromwell and the strangers. Is the name Hex really historical? It seems a bit out of place to me. There was this guy, when we had the really crazy days a few months ago—I can’t say too much and you wouldn’t believe me if I told you. But he was called the Doctor—just the Doctor—and even though he looked nothing like the one Dr. Goddard talked about . . . they sound the same. I wonder if they’re related?
Do you still have the photos of your grandmother? I’m also interested in researching that part of the family—such great stories.
Thanks,
Diana
From: “Terry Muffaletto” nightingale3@yahoo.co.uk
To: dgoddard@ggmail.com
Date: Thu, 24 September 2012 07:16:22 GMT
Subject: Re: Re: In Pace
I can’t think in what way the doctor in 1649 resembles someone called the Doctor who, if I’ve got the story right, was involved in the disappearance of your EX BOSS (but we won’t go into that; I can understand you want to keep mum about it). Except that they’re both just known as the doctor. But if you say so, Diana, who am I to argue?
No, I’m afraid I don’t have the photos of Grandmother. You know she had some peculiar traits and quirks. No doubt your mum has told you some interesting stories . . . letting slip she knew there was going to be a world depression in 1929, warning a great-uncle not to go to London to visit a friend right before a German bomb dropped on the friend’s house, you know. Always seemed a bit uncanny to my dad, never quite got used to Nan, I don’t think. But we all thought she was lovely!
The long and short of it is, Diana, that Grandmother had one last request before she died, and she told me about it. Not Dad, not Mum, not your mum. I was small when she gave me the envelope, and though she made me promise to follow it to the letter, she told me not to read it until I came of age. Then it all made sense. Well, not really, it didn’t make sense at all. I was supposed to take the old photos you remember, of Grandmother and Grandfather and our parents as kids, plus some other things, to an address and deliver them to someone called Sally Sparrow. She’d given all these details. It was quite spooky, really.
An exact date, you understand, an exact time. Turned me quite off at first, I wanted nothing to do with it. But then I thought, what’s the harm in fulfilling a dead grandmother’s last request? Sally Sparrow didn’t believe me, didn’t understand. But I did what I promised Nan I would do. It gets a bit hazy after that because I was still campaigning for Saxon at that point.
Well, I’ve done and written you a novel. Sorry. The short answer is that I don’t have the photos anymore. But you’re welcome to see an engraving of our ancestor Dr. Goddard any time you like. I bought it on eBay.
Terry
From: “Diana Goddard” dgoddard@ggmail.com
To: nightingale3@yahoo.co.uk
Date: Fri, 25 September 2012 16:16:06 -0600
Subject: Doctor Who?
I own eBay, Terry, I’d know if there was an engraving of our Dr. Goddard for sale! Really, you are the world’s greatest fibber sometimes. I don’t know whether to believe a word of what you’ve just said about Grandmother and someone named Sally Sparrow. I mean, who’s got a name like Sally Sparrow?
I got a hold of some of the CCTV footage of the Doctor—my Doctor, the one at the site in Utah. It’s classified, for reasons I can’t divulge—don’t look at me like that, Terry—but I was able to sift out a .jpeg of the Doctor. I’m going to attach it. I KNOW there’s probably no connection between him and the guy in Cromwell’s army, but just have a look and maybe you’ll understand. Dr. Goddard talks about his “unusual piercing glance,” and that’s totally what he had.
Years back, there used to be something called LINDA but it’s all gone off the Internet now.
Diana
From: “Terry Muffaletto” nightingale3@yahoo.co.uk
To: dgoddard@ggmail.com
Date: Sat, 26 September 2012 21:04:05 GMT
Subject: Re: Doctor Who?
Diana, I hope this Doctor thing isn’t going to become some kind of obsession. Believe me, I’ve done the obsession thing—trying to figure out how Nan knew the things she knew—and it just is unhealthy. I think it made me more susceptible to the Saxon brainwashing.
And I’m not lying about the engraving OR Sally Sparrow! She ran upstairs when I tried to give her the photos. I couldn’t stay any longer—nor did I want to, really—so I gathered them all up nicely (she’d thrown them all over the floor!) and left them on the banister for her. What she did with them, I’ve no idea. I think I saw her last year—at some kind of a book fair. But I wasn’t about to go up to her and say, “D’you remember me? My grandmother made me give you a bunch of photos at some derelict house a few years ago.” She’d think I was mad!
I think I figured it out. There was a coup. You said that 200 personnel died in the Utah compound? Well, there must have been a protest staged by some religious group—your EX BOSS offended a lot of people—and it just got out of hand. Yes? Am I right?
Terry
From: “Diana Goddard” dgoddard@ggmail.com
To: nightingale3@yahoo.co.uk
Date: Mon, 28 September 2012 10:20:47 -0600
Subject: Re: Re: Doctor Who?
Don’t quit your day job, Terry, you’re not the new Sherlock Holmes. See, I’m not as culturally deficient as you think.
Did you look at the .jpeg or what? I meant to tell you, I got a phone call from Nottingham—that’s your neck of the woods, isn’t it? It was actually a message—my PA took it down and played it back on the voice mail for me. It claimed to be this kid, Adam Mitchell, who was working on the Utah project before things went—what do you say over there? Pear-shaped? Anyway, he claimed he’s just been on an extraordinary journey with the Doctor and his girlfriend Rose and that he HAD to tell me about it, because I was the only one who’d believe him. I’ll see what he has to say, but he was raving like a lunatic.
Look, I’ve just booked my flight over Christmas to see you and your folks. I’ll only be able to get off for a few days—breakneck schedule, trying to develop ways of marketing environmentally-sounded carburetors after the ATMOS scandal—but, you see, I’m actually making good on a promise. I’ll see you at the airport!
x Diana
Showing posts with label simon. Show all posts
Showing posts with label simon. Show all posts
Monday, June 30, 2008
Friday, June 27, 2008
who i want to be when i grow up
Evan always says I should want to be myself when I grow up, and I agree with her. But having finished another O’Brian novel that just filled with me with joy, I decided I wanted to pay a tribute to the four (so far) people I most want to emulate in life and art. (I wanted to do a much longer entry about all the people through the history of the world who I admire—whether they deserve it or not—but someday when I’ve got more time I’ll do it.)
Patrick O’Brian, OBE (1914—2000)
Patrick O’Brian was born Richard Patrick Russ (changing his name in 1945) in Buckinghamshire to parents of Irish and German descent. He wrote his first book at age 12 (!) which was published in 1930 and a slew of young adult novels published through the 1950s. He moved in 1949 to the village of Colliuore in the Catalan region of Southern France with his second wife, Mary Tolstoy, where he lived for the remainder of his life (and is buried there). There he met Pablo Picasso about whom he wrote a comprehensive biography (he also wrote the biography of Sir Joseph Banks). He was an accomplished translator, translating Simone de Beauvoir and a biography of Charles DeGaulle from the French.
O’Brian began writing the Aubrey/Maturin novels in 1970, beginning with Master and Commander; he was working on #21 at the time of his death. His wife Mary was his editor and typist (he handwrote all of his manuscripts). Her death in 1998 was a severe blow. His books have sold over 300 million copies in the US alone. He once said, “Obviously, I have lived very much out of the world: I know little of present-day Dublin or London or Paris, even less of post-modernity, post-structuralism, hard rock or rap, and I cannot write with much conviction about the contemporary scene.” Of the many interesting and instructive links I could give you about POB, here is the most charming: a species of weevil named after him (for the joke this refers to, see the Peter Weir film of Master and Commander).
I came to Patrick O’Brian through my mom, of course, who was already a fan, and I’m not ashamed to admit it was the Peter Weir film that inspired me to start reading. (And it’s a very good film and launched my desperate passion for Dr. Stephen Maturin.) I’ve absolutely adored every single thing I’ve read of his, now totaling four books, and savor every chapter in the Aubrey/Maturin saga as a treat once per year. I honestly think he is the best historical writer who has ever lived, and only in my wildest dreams could I come close to his unparalleled skill.
Verity Lambert, OBE (1935—2007)
Verity Lambert did very well in school but was told by her headmistress that she was “not university material.” Her parents sent her to the Sorbonne before she got a secretarial degree. She tried to break into television at Granada Studios before going to the ABC and the BBC and New York. In 1963 she became the successful producer of Doctor Who, which she produced for 19 stories. At 27, she was one of the youngest producers in the history of the BBC.
Further success followed, as through the ‘60s and ‘70s she produced Adam Adamant Lives!, W. Somerset Maugham, Rumpole of the Bailey, The Naked Civil Servant, (which won the Prix Italia and an Emmy) Quatermass, Danger UXB, and The Flame Trees of Thika. She launched the career of writer Linda LaPlante in Widows. Her marriage to Colin Buckley in 1976 had dissolved by 1984, and her years at Thorn EMI Screen Entertainment were frustrating. She started her own company, Verity Cinema, and recruited a largely female staff. She had great success with A Cry in the Dark, but ultimately abandoned film work for TV. The massive soap Eldorado flopped, but she produced four seasons of Jonathan Creek. She received an Alan Clarke Award before she died, at age 71, from cancer.
I must have first read Verity Lambert’s name as a producer for Doctor Who around 2001, and it excited and intrigued me, as I thought it was fantastic that a woman should have been the show’s producer in 1963. Women involved in the show in any capacity other than acting are rare indeed, and I did vaguely wonder what sort of woman she was. Sadly, I didn’t get the full picture on Verity until she died, but then I realized she was a person of boundless energy who didn’t let anyone get her down. As the only non-writer in this bunch, I recognize her superior skills in making things work. She also really believed in herself and kept working despite setbacks. She was a woman of remarkable courage whose legacy lives on in British TV to this day.
Bill Bryson, OBE (1951--)
Bill Bryson was born in Des Moines, Iowa, and pursued his degree at Drake University before dropping out in 1972 to go backpacking around Europe. He got a job at a sanatorium in England in 1973 and met his future wife, Cynthia. The couple returned to the US so Bryson could complete his degree in 1977, then settled in Yorkshire until 1985. He worked for The Times and The Independent until 1995, when his first child was three years old. He then moved the family back to the US, to Hanover, New Hampshire. As an independent writer he returned to Norfolk in the UK in 2003, where he continues to live.
His first major book was Neither Here Nor There: Travels in Europe, followed by The Mother Tongue and English and How it Got That Way (on English etymology). He wrote further travel books such as Notes from a Small Island, A Walk in the Woods, I’m a Stranger Here Myself, and In a Sunburned Country and authored a popular science book, A Short History of Nearly Everything, (for which he won the Aventis Prize), as well as a memoir and a biography of Shakespeare in 2007. He was appointed Chancellor of Durham University and given honorary degrees from a host of universities. In 2003, Notes from a Small Island was voted by UK participants in World Book Day as the book that best sums up British identity.
Again, my mom was the fan. I read A Walk in the Woods right before I left for the UK and laughed all the way through it. I was surprised to hear Bryson delivering audio commentary at the Roman Baths in Bath. I thought it was the best audio commentary I’d heard! I recently read and utterly loved Notes from a Small Island, and A Short History of Nearly Everything was recommended to me by Simon Guerrier as one of his favorite books. Not only is he critically acclaimed, hugely successful, and consistently hilarious, he’s an American Anglophile who somehow manages to be funny and heartfelt to both nations. I’d like to be all of these things someday.
Jacqueline Rayner [future OBE recipient?] (1971?--)
There isn’t a lot of biographical information available on Jacqueline Rayner, though apparently she was married in 2002. She also seems to love chocolate cake, and I will reprint (unless the BBC or Ms. Rayner herself tells me not to) her quasi-Evelyn Smythe chocolate cake recipe. Her first Doctor Who work was an audio adaptation of Paul Cornell’s Oh No It Isn’t! featuring Benny Summerfield and Big Finish’s first play, in 2000. She went on to write two more Benny audio plays and two Benny novels. She wrote two novels for the BBC EDA (Eighth Doctor Adventure) range, EarthWorld and Wolfsbane.
As executive producer at Big Finish for a number of years, she also wrote two Doctor Who plays, The Marian Conspiracy and Doctor Who and the Pirates. She edited and contributed to several of Big Finish’s Short Trips anthologies before being tapped to write a Ninth Doctor book (Winner Takes All) and two Tenth Doctor books (The Stone Rose and The Last Dodo). She is also part of the Time Team for Doctor Who Magazine.
Jacqueline Rayner is probably my favorite Who writer of all time (yes, above Moffat, Holmes, and the rest) and, cor, she’s also a woman, so in some ways she’s my inspiration. I’ve loved everything I’ve ever read of hers, including Wolfsbane (to date, my favorite EDA), Winner Takes All, The Stone Rose (which I’d have loved to have seen in place of “Fires of Pompeii,” no offense), several short stories, and The Last Dodo. Jamie’s the one who recommended The Marian Conspiracy as my first Big Finish play, and it was absolutely wonderful. Even better, and, tying with Southland by D.J. Britton as the best radio play of all time, is Doctor Who and the Pirates.
Sources: Blue at the Mizzen: W.W. Norton Mourns Patrick O’Brian, on their US website
Jacqueline Rayner interviewed on http://www.bbc.co.uk/cult/doctorwho
Tise Vahimagi, “Verity Lambert.”
“Tough at the Top,” Doctor Who Magazine #391.
Wikipedia entries on Bill Bryson, Patrick O’Brian, and Jacqueline Rayner.
And the cake recipe:
• 6oz marg (melted) 6oz caster sugar 6oz self-raising flour
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 2 free range eggs
• 2 heaped tablespoons cocoa, mixed with 2 tablespoons hot water. Mix everything up together. Put in two tins and cook for 25-35 mins at 170 deg C. After they've cooled, sandwich together with vanilla or chocolate butter icing.
Patrick O’Brian, OBE (1914—2000)
Patrick O’Brian was born Richard Patrick Russ (changing his name in 1945) in Buckinghamshire to parents of Irish and German descent. He wrote his first book at age 12 (!) which was published in 1930 and a slew of young adult novels published through the 1950s. He moved in 1949 to the village of Colliuore in the Catalan region of Southern France with his second wife, Mary Tolstoy, where he lived for the remainder of his life (and is buried there). There he met Pablo Picasso about whom he wrote a comprehensive biography (he also wrote the biography of Sir Joseph Banks). He was an accomplished translator, translating Simone de Beauvoir and a biography of Charles DeGaulle from the French.
O’Brian began writing the Aubrey/Maturin novels in 1970, beginning with Master and Commander; he was working on #21 at the time of his death. His wife Mary was his editor and typist (he handwrote all of his manuscripts). Her death in 1998 was a severe blow. His books have sold over 300 million copies in the US alone. He once said, “Obviously, I have lived very much out of the world: I know little of present-day Dublin or London or Paris, even less of post-modernity, post-structuralism, hard rock or rap, and I cannot write with much conviction about the contemporary scene.” Of the many interesting and instructive links I could give you about POB, here is the most charming: a species of weevil named after him (for the joke this refers to, see the Peter Weir film of Master and Commander).
I came to Patrick O’Brian through my mom, of course, who was already a fan, and I’m not ashamed to admit it was the Peter Weir film that inspired me to start reading. (And it’s a very good film and launched my desperate passion for Dr. Stephen Maturin.) I’ve absolutely adored every single thing I’ve read of his, now totaling four books, and savor every chapter in the Aubrey/Maturin saga as a treat once per year. I honestly think he is the best historical writer who has ever lived, and only in my wildest dreams could I come close to his unparalleled skill.
Verity Lambert, OBE (1935—2007)
Verity Lambert did very well in school but was told by her headmistress that she was “not university material.” Her parents sent her to the Sorbonne before she got a secretarial degree. She tried to break into television at Granada Studios before going to the ABC and the BBC and New York. In 1963 she became the successful producer of Doctor Who, which she produced for 19 stories. At 27, she was one of the youngest producers in the history of the BBC.
Further success followed, as through the ‘60s and ‘70s she produced Adam Adamant Lives!, W. Somerset Maugham, Rumpole of the Bailey, The Naked Civil Servant, (which won the Prix Italia and an Emmy) Quatermass, Danger UXB, and The Flame Trees of Thika. She launched the career of writer Linda LaPlante in Widows. Her marriage to Colin Buckley in 1976 had dissolved by 1984, and her years at Thorn EMI Screen Entertainment were frustrating. She started her own company, Verity Cinema, and recruited a largely female staff. She had great success with A Cry in the Dark, but ultimately abandoned film work for TV. The massive soap Eldorado flopped, but she produced four seasons of Jonathan Creek. She received an Alan Clarke Award before she died, at age 71, from cancer.
I must have first read Verity Lambert’s name as a producer for Doctor Who around 2001, and it excited and intrigued me, as I thought it was fantastic that a woman should have been the show’s producer in 1963. Women involved in the show in any capacity other than acting are rare indeed, and I did vaguely wonder what sort of woman she was. Sadly, I didn’t get the full picture on Verity until she died, but then I realized she was a person of boundless energy who didn’t let anyone get her down. As the only non-writer in this bunch, I recognize her superior skills in making things work. She also really believed in herself and kept working despite setbacks. She was a woman of remarkable courage whose legacy lives on in British TV to this day.
Bill Bryson, OBE (1951--)
Bill Bryson was born in Des Moines, Iowa, and pursued his degree at Drake University before dropping out in 1972 to go backpacking around Europe. He got a job at a sanatorium in England in 1973 and met his future wife, Cynthia. The couple returned to the US so Bryson could complete his degree in 1977, then settled in Yorkshire until 1985. He worked for The Times and The Independent until 1995, when his first child was three years old. He then moved the family back to the US, to Hanover, New Hampshire. As an independent writer he returned to Norfolk in the UK in 2003, where he continues to live.
His first major book was Neither Here Nor There: Travels in Europe, followed by The Mother Tongue and English and How it Got That Way (on English etymology). He wrote further travel books such as Notes from a Small Island, A Walk in the Woods, I’m a Stranger Here Myself, and In a Sunburned Country and authored a popular science book, A Short History of Nearly Everything, (for which he won the Aventis Prize), as well as a memoir and a biography of Shakespeare in 2007. He was appointed Chancellor of Durham University and given honorary degrees from a host of universities. In 2003, Notes from a Small Island was voted by UK participants in World Book Day as the book that best sums up British identity.
Again, my mom was the fan. I read A Walk in the Woods right before I left for the UK and laughed all the way through it. I was surprised to hear Bryson delivering audio commentary at the Roman Baths in Bath. I thought it was the best audio commentary I’d heard! I recently read and utterly loved Notes from a Small Island, and A Short History of Nearly Everything was recommended to me by Simon Guerrier as one of his favorite books. Not only is he critically acclaimed, hugely successful, and consistently hilarious, he’s an American Anglophile who somehow manages to be funny and heartfelt to both nations. I’d like to be all of these things someday.
Jacqueline Rayner [future OBE recipient?] (1971?--)
There isn’t a lot of biographical information available on Jacqueline Rayner, though apparently she was married in 2002. She also seems to love chocolate cake, and I will reprint (unless the BBC or Ms. Rayner herself tells me not to) her quasi-Evelyn Smythe chocolate cake recipe. Her first Doctor Who work was an audio adaptation of Paul Cornell’s Oh No It Isn’t! featuring Benny Summerfield and Big Finish’s first play, in 2000. She went on to write two more Benny audio plays and two Benny novels. She wrote two novels for the BBC EDA (Eighth Doctor Adventure) range, EarthWorld and Wolfsbane.
As executive producer at Big Finish for a number of years, she also wrote two Doctor Who plays, The Marian Conspiracy and Doctor Who and the Pirates. She edited and contributed to several of Big Finish’s Short Trips anthologies before being tapped to write a Ninth Doctor book (Winner Takes All) and two Tenth Doctor books (The Stone Rose and The Last Dodo). She is also part of the Time Team for Doctor Who Magazine.
Jacqueline Rayner is probably my favorite Who writer of all time (yes, above Moffat, Holmes, and the rest) and, cor, she’s also a woman, so in some ways she’s my inspiration. I’ve loved everything I’ve ever read of hers, including Wolfsbane (to date, my favorite EDA), Winner Takes All, The Stone Rose (which I’d have loved to have seen in place of “Fires of Pompeii,” no offense), several short stories, and The Last Dodo. Jamie’s the one who recommended The Marian Conspiracy as my first Big Finish play, and it was absolutely wonderful. Even better, and, tying with Southland by D.J. Britton as the best radio play of all time, is Doctor Who and the Pirates.
Sources: Blue at the Mizzen: W.W. Norton Mourns Patrick O’Brian, on their US website
Jacqueline Rayner interviewed on http://www.bbc.co.uk/cult/doctorwho
Tise Vahimagi, “Verity Lambert.”
“Tough at the Top,” Doctor Who Magazine #391.
Wikipedia entries on Bill Bryson, Patrick O’Brian, and Jacqueline Rayner.
And the cake recipe:
• 6oz marg (melted) 6oz caster sugar 6oz self-raising flour
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 2 free range eggs
• 2 heaped tablespoons cocoa, mixed with 2 tablespoons hot water. Mix everything up together. Put in two tins and cook for 25-35 mins at 170 deg C. After they've cooled, sandwich together with vanilla or chocolate butter icing.
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
The Sparrow
I believe in God the way I believe in quarks. People whose business it is to know about quantum physics or religion tell me they have good reason to believe that quarks and God exist. And they tell me that if I wanted to devote my life to learning what they’ve learned, I’d find quarks and God just like they did.
I just finished Mary Doria Russell’s The Sparrow, another recommendation from Simon Guerrier. I’m not going to review it in the detailed fashion I’ve used before simply because at this point I’m too lazy, and I don’t want to give the majority of the plot away. Suffice it to say I really enjoyed it and consider it one of the best sci-fi books I’ve ever read. The author’s profession is as a paleoanthropologist, which may beg the question: can she write a decent fiction book? The answer is she must be a voracious reader taking note of all the elements that make good fiction, as she nails them all, along with an impressive grounding in astronomy, physics, social and physical anthropology, and linguistics—it’s enough to make one’s head spin. (And while, as a former academic, she gives a semi-bibliographic listing, I’d like to have a longer, more detailed list of her inspiration.) She has a great idea, truly memorable characters, excellent pacing (for the most part), and attacks the huge, overarching themes of human life.
The story takes place in the near future, with one end of it being the result (Naples 2060) and the other being the cause (2019), meeting up nicely in the center and suspending suspense in a very artful way. The premise is unbeatable—intelligent life is discovered on a planet in the Alpha Centauri system, and a mission of four Jesuit priests, an astronomer, a doctor, an engineer, and a computer expert is sent to make first contact—though people I’ve told the story to have scoffed at the convenience of intelligent life in such a near (relatively-speaking) system. To quote another book I recently finished, Doctor Who Completely Unofficial Encyclopedia, this could just be a case of Whirling Fans (ie, just accept that it is the way it is).
What are really impressive, however, are the characters. Russell gives excellent characterizations that a) make you sympathize with the characters, almost right away; b) make them real, whole, three-dimensional. There aren’t enough words to describe the title character, Emilio Sandoz, a Jesuit priest from Puerto Rico, a scholarship boy, a frustrated lover, a linguist, full of humor and humanity, without just reading the book. (Interestingly Russell reveals he is not based on anyone she knows, but I actually know someone he reminds me of.) I’m also very impressed by Anne Edwards, a fifty-something physician; I feel like I know her, or I know someone like her, even though the author says she is partly autobiographical. (Here are two sides to her: “What’s an ionosphere?” Anne asked. Jimmy gaped at her. “Sorry. I’ve heard the word but I don’t know what it is, really. I’m a doctor, Jim, not an astronomer!” and the title quote.) There’s her husband, George, who I also feel I know, an engineer and sort of jack-of-all-trades. (Their zesty sex life leads to much amusement.) There’s Jimmy Quinn, a giant Chicago astronomer who likes to get along with people, who tries to find ways to please his parents, his teachers, his buddies, his girlfriends. Marc Robichaux, a French-Canadian Jesuit artist, who I can see very clearly and even hear cursing in Québecquois (I can’t understand French-Canadians in English or French). D.W. Yarborough, a Texan who reminds me of several Texan friends rolled into one. John Candotti, Edward Behr, Alan Pace—all Jesuits, all good characters. Sofia Mendes, a Sephardic Jew in “intellectual prostitution” and loved by all—though curiously I found her the least convincing character.
Though the book is in parts very funny (it even quotes The Princess Bride), it’s also dark, serious, and disturbing. I thought what a wonderful film this would make, how rich these characters would be, what a succulent challenge for designers, directors, artists, but I realized this will never get made. The Christian Right, for one, would have a heart attack, perhaps the Vatican would too, and others surely would find the revelation at the end too upsetting, and in general the story too bleak. The ending was certainly bleaker than I had imagined, and my one criticism is that as the destructive elements of the climax were set in motion, it was too rushed—not that I want to dwell on the violent and humiliating aspects of this section, I just felt since the rest of the book was so well-paced, this sudden acceleration was a bit sloppy. The book is a response, in some ways, to the revisionist views on the Columbian contact dating from 1992 (which we explored in depth in my class Inventing America)—though I wonder how far the parallel with the Arawak, Taino, Lumbee, and other native groups and the alien Runa and Jana’ata can go.
I just finished Mary Doria Russell’s The Sparrow, another recommendation from Simon Guerrier. I’m not going to review it in the detailed fashion I’ve used before simply because at this point I’m too lazy, and I don’t want to give the majority of the plot away. Suffice it to say I really enjoyed it and consider it one of the best sci-fi books I’ve ever read. The author’s profession is as a paleoanthropologist, which may beg the question: can she write a decent fiction book? The answer is she must be a voracious reader taking note of all the elements that make good fiction, as she nails them all, along with an impressive grounding in astronomy, physics, social and physical anthropology, and linguistics—it’s enough to make one’s head spin. (And while, as a former academic, she gives a semi-bibliographic listing, I’d like to have a longer, more detailed list of her inspiration.) She has a great idea, truly memorable characters, excellent pacing (for the most part), and attacks the huge, overarching themes of human life.
The story takes place in the near future, with one end of it being the result (Naples 2060) and the other being the cause (2019), meeting up nicely in the center and suspending suspense in a very artful way. The premise is unbeatable—intelligent life is discovered on a planet in the Alpha Centauri system, and a mission of four Jesuit priests, an astronomer, a doctor, an engineer, and a computer expert is sent to make first contact—though people I’ve told the story to have scoffed at the convenience of intelligent life in such a near (relatively-speaking) system. To quote another book I recently finished, Doctor Who Completely Unofficial Encyclopedia, this could just be a case of Whirling Fans (ie, just accept that it is the way it is).
What are really impressive, however, are the characters. Russell gives excellent characterizations that a) make you sympathize with the characters, almost right away; b) make them real, whole, three-dimensional. There aren’t enough words to describe the title character, Emilio Sandoz, a Jesuit priest from Puerto Rico, a scholarship boy, a frustrated lover, a linguist, full of humor and humanity, without just reading the book. (Interestingly Russell reveals he is not based on anyone she knows, but I actually know someone he reminds me of.) I’m also very impressed by Anne Edwards, a fifty-something physician; I feel like I know her, or I know someone like her, even though the author says she is partly autobiographical. (Here are two sides to her: “What’s an ionosphere?” Anne asked. Jimmy gaped at her. “Sorry. I’ve heard the word but I don’t know what it is, really. I’m a doctor, Jim, not an astronomer!” and the title quote.) There’s her husband, George, who I also feel I know, an engineer and sort of jack-of-all-trades. (Their zesty sex life leads to much amusement.) There’s Jimmy Quinn, a giant Chicago astronomer who likes to get along with people, who tries to find ways to please his parents, his teachers, his buddies, his girlfriends. Marc Robichaux, a French-Canadian Jesuit artist, who I can see very clearly and even hear cursing in Québecquois (I can’t understand French-Canadians in English or French). D.W. Yarborough, a Texan who reminds me of several Texan friends rolled into one. John Candotti, Edward Behr, Alan Pace—all Jesuits, all good characters. Sofia Mendes, a Sephardic Jew in “intellectual prostitution” and loved by all—though curiously I found her the least convincing character.
Though the book is in parts very funny (it even quotes The Princess Bride), it’s also dark, serious, and disturbing. I thought what a wonderful film this would make, how rich these characters would be, what a succulent challenge for designers, directors, artists, but I realized this will never get made. The Christian Right, for one, would have a heart attack, perhaps the Vatican would too, and others surely would find the revelation at the end too upsetting, and in general the story too bleak. The ending was certainly bleaker than I had imagined, and my one criticism is that as the destructive elements of the climax were set in motion, it was too rushed—not that I want to dwell on the violent and humiliating aspects of this section, I just felt since the rest of the book was so well-paced, this sudden acceleration was a bit sloppy. The book is a response, in some ways, to the revisionist views on the Columbian contact dating from 1992 (which we explored in depth in my class Inventing America)—though I wonder how far the parallel with the Arawak, Taino, Lumbee, and other native groups and the alien Runa and Jana’ata can go.
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