Whos in Brief

So, in the last week, the American government broke, the Gambia withdrew from the Commonwealth because the president is scared of gays or something, and scientists finally cracked nuclear fusion for power, but at least there was some important news.

Because, yes, it's true, the BBC really have secured some lost sixties Doctor Who episodes. After all the rumours and vague reports, they finally went and released an official statement. I was quite happily poo-pooing all suggestion of missing episode recovery, and then it goes ahead and becomes true. We've even been promised that we'll be able to buy and download the things soon. We used to have to wait years for episodes to make it onto scratchy old video. We still don;t know how many episodes have been found, although the Radio Times suggested two before amending this to 'some.' They are believed to be Patrick Troughton episodes, although, as yet, this is still rumour.

UPDATE: The nine episodes discovered are confirmed as the five missing episodes of The Enemy of the World and four of the missing episodes of The Web of Fear (ep 3 remains lost).

Still, that's quite a few runaway rumours that have been proven true this year: Tennant is back for the special, Matt Smith is leaving, Peter Capaldi is his replacement. One person who won't be in the anniversary is Karen Gillan, though. From the Radio Times, again:

"I’m not in it, just to put that out there. I think I’m going to be in America, so I’ll probably round up all the people who like to watch Doctor Who in the area. We’ll probably watch it and drink PG Tips and eat Jammy Dodgers, if I can get them."

One person who is desperate to return is Kate O'Mara, who played the Rani in 1985's The Mark of the Rani, 1987's Time and the Rani and the 1993 crossover classic Dimensions in Time. From Sci-Fi Now:

"I would love to come back. I have white hair now, but a lot of it, and I’m still very glamorous and so I won’t disappoint, I hope! I’ll still be wearing the tight leather trousers and high-heel boots, regardless of what age! That’s what the fans are expecting, so that’s what you’ve got to give them."

Beyond television, other exciting news includes:

Honest-to-goodness classic serial City of Death by the late Douglas Adams and Graham Williams is to be novelised. This 1979 serial is quite simply Doctor Who at its finest. It's to be novelised by Gareth Roberts, who previously did the same for Adams's aborted serial Shada,. It will be released next year, as will a second eleventh Doctor novel by Jenny Colgan, Into the Nowhere.

Radiostatic, creators of the Parsec Award-winning audio series The Minister of Chance, are well into the process of making their new cinematic version of the story. As well as reuniting their principle cast, that includes Julian Wadham, Lauren Crace, Paul McGann and Jenny Agutter, they've only gone and cast Tim McInnerny as the king. This promises to be something very special indeed. Radiostatic productions are funded entirely by fans, and they are currently halfway towards their goal for raising £30,000 to produce the first part of the movie. If you want to help out, click this link here. You can also find out more about the production, and download the original audio series for free.

And did I mention that you can still buy the Doctor Who Information Network's new short fiction anthology? Myth Makers: Golden Years features stories by such talented folks as Blair Bidmead, Kelly Hale, Cody Quijiano-Schell and, um, me. Plus it has some cracking artwork and extra contributions by all manner of wonderful people. You can order it here.

REVIEW: Iris: Fifteen

Iris Wildthyme has two birthdays. This is, of course, entirely appropriate. She first appeared in Paul Magrs's 1995 novel Marked for Life, in which she was, at least at first, an improbably ancient lesbian who lived in a battered old bus. This version of Iris has made occasional reappearances, but it was her debut in the Whoniverse that is being celebrated this year. In 1998, Iris made her first appearance opposite the Doctor – the fourth Doctor, in fact – in the short trip 'Old Flames,' before making a big splash (of gin, naturally) in the eighth Doctor novel The Scarlet Empress. And so, after many more adventures in the Multiverse, at the hands of not only Paul Magrs but many more authors, for BBC Books, Big Finish, Snowbooks and Obverse, Iris is fifteen (and eighteen. And nine hundred and seven).





Iris: Fifteen is the straightforward title of Obverse's new celebratory anniversary collection, and, as with any celebration attended by Iris, there's plenty of booze to go round. Iris has already had... I'm not even sure, eight incarnations..? but this is nothing compared to what we see here. While previous volumes from Obverse have featured the version of Iris created for Big Finish, and voiced by Katy Manning, Fifteen features a surfeit of Irises. There's the old Beryl Reid version of Iris; her successor, the Barbarella incarnation; Brenda Soobie, the Scots Carribbean songstress; and a whole host of Irises new to this volume. There's a ravishing, raven-haired Iris, a red-haired dykey Iris, a drag Iris, and a distant future Iris who looks like Carol Channing. Sometimes there are hints of involvement by the being known as Lazarus, or El Jefe. Other times, the boundaries between fiction and reality are blurred. The stories come thick and fast, never giving the reader a chance to get bored with whichever corner of the Multiverse Iris is currently visiting.


Naturally, it starts, as it did before, with Paul Magrs. 'The Ninnies on Putney Common' actually brings the Celestial Omnibus to its supposed destination for once, where Iris faces Paul's monstrous creations, the dreaded Ninnies. Refusing to keep to anything so dull as a linear narrative, it's a perfect start to a collection that hops throughout time and space. The talented Eddie Robson creates a brand new Iris for 'Gimme Shelter,' one who looks so young she can't even get served in the pub. The horror! But even enforced sobriety isn't enough to stop her confronting the latest supernatural terror she encounters.


Collection editor and Obverse supremo Stuart Douglas gives us 'Party Fears Two,' one of the most blatantly, unashamedly celebratory episodes in the volume. Brenda Soobie throws a party in her own honour, attended by her own authors and heroes. Wonderful indulgence. 'God Engine Rhapsody' by Julio Angel Ortez begins as a more straightforward sort of adventure, but takes its action-oriented American version of Iris through a tale of twisted temporal shenanigans.


Cavan Scott and Mark Wright return to their Big Finish creation the Forge for 'Project: Wildthyme.' The Forge, which were doing Torchwood's thing with more competence way before that Welsh rabble turned up, have only one target more sought after than the enigmatic Lazarus, and that's Iris Wildthyme. Poor old Panda goes through the ringer, though. It couldn't be long before that other untrustworthy organistation, MIAOW, turned up, and Ross Douglas gives them a run for their money in the cheeky 'Our Tune.' Nick Campbell scores a belter with 'The Wildthyme Effect,' which takes Iris and her latest victim/companion from a bookshop to a land of wonder. Neil Chester gives us a winning, haunting ghost story with 'Ouroboros.'


Nick Wallace's contribution, 'In Passing,' is a rare slice of pure science fiction for Iris, but no less moving and effective for it. Master of Victoriana George Mann gives us a clever interlude in 'Iris at the V&A.' Our favourite art critic and raconteur, Panda, reviews some of the Iris's appearances in the artwork of the ages. Obverse regular Cody Quijano-Schell pens a mad celebration named 'The Golden Hendecahedron,' a tale that sees Irises past, future and improbable appear in an attempt to prevent a temporal catastrophe (with hints of Meglos). And Iris's old friend Tom is in it too, which is a treat.


James Manley-Buser pens a very different sort of story in 'Samsara,' a sultry, evocative tale of reincarnation in India – with a couple of cheeky misquotes from familiar sources. Eric Brown's 'Iris and the Caliphate' mixes dinosaurs, metatextuality and a truly horrific future world to great effect. Fans of the old 'Find Your Fate' style books will enjoy the brief but fun 'Mix Your Own Adventure' by Patrick Magee. Andy Smillie's 'Time to Exist' is a little longer than most of the stories in this collection, using the extra wordage to take Iris and Panda on a very peculiar adventure beyond the edge of existence.

One of the best stories in the collection is 'Scream in Blue' by Dave Hoskins, an ingenious tale told from the point of view of a young girl with autism and synaesthesia. It's a fascinating read, at the same time as being a bonkers parody of Speed. Finally, Roy Gill's 'Dog Days of Summer' rounds off the anthology in style, with a story that follows one boy's journey to adulthood, punctuated by periodic Wildthyme.

Absurd, funny, poignant, inventive and often over the top, Iris: Fifteen is a wonderful celebration of all things Wildthyme. A must for any fan of the Mistress of the Magical Bus.

Radio Review: Imaginary Boys by Paul Magrs

Paul Magrs is one of those authors whose work is often misunderstood. He has no fear of silliness or camp, and so his work is all too often disregarded, by those many critics who see silliness as the same as disposable, or irrelevant. To view such material is to do it an injustice. Paul's work is often very silly, frequently camp, fantastic and impossible to categorise, but just because something is silly, doesn't mean it isn't also serious.

Paul writes with passion and honesty, and nowhere is this more evident than in his new radio play, Imaginary Boys, broadcast as Radio 4's Afternoon Drama on the 3rd of October. It's a strange, funny, wonderful piece, quietly subversive yet beautiful in its telling of the love between two young men. For a gay listener, it will of course have some extra poignancy, but anyone who was once young and has fallen, unexpectedly, in love - which is to say, everyone - will find something to recognise here.

James Baxter gives a strong, truthful performance as seventeen-year-old David, struggling with how his community perceives his developing sexuality. There is, from what I know of Paul's life, more than a little of the autobiographical in David's story, which makes it all the more affecting. All of the tiny cast are excellent, but it is Geoffrey Breton, as the painfully literal, inhumanly literate Lawrence who steals it. Lawrence is a Noveliser from Verbatim 6, a small planet about three hundred light years from Earth. Paul introduced the Novelisers in his Doctor Who plays Find and Replace and Ringpullworld, both part of the Companion Chronicles series, so there's a little bit of extra fun for Whoheads, knowing that this must take place in the universe of Iris Wildthyme and the Doctor.

But that's not important. It's not about science fiction, or magic realism, or any genre trappings. It's about love. About falling in love with someone you feel you shouldn't, but can't help loving. About falling in love with someone through their writing. About growing up and learning about love. It's really quite wonderful.

Imaginary Boys is still available to listen to for the next few days on BBC Radio 4.

Guillermo del Toro enters the Treehouse of Horror

Yes, released a couple of days ago was the much anticipated opening sequence for this year's Simpsons Hallowe'en special, Treehouse of Horror 24. Watch through and see how many references you can get to classic horror movies, horror novels, old Simpsons gags and del Toro's own work.

So what do you call someone from Jupiter?

Everyone knows that Martians come from Mars. That's straightforward enough. Beyond that, things get fiddly. Just what do you call someone from Jupiter, Venus or Pluto? What of the asteroid belt? Even in professional astronomy circles, people argue over the correct use of demonyms and adjectives for astronomical bodies. Much of the terminology used today originates from alchemical, astrological and classical works, and the growth of science fiction has only made it more confused. Of course, nowadays we know the likelihood of finding little green men on Mars or Mercury is slim to none, but the use of adjectival forms is necessary to describe features on the planets or their satellites. Plus, there's still fiction - everyone loves a good, old-fashioned Martian invasion.

Firstly, we need to look at where the names of the planets come from. The eight major planets, barring the Earth, take their names from Roman gods, with which they were identified by early astronomers. The Roman gods are mostly equivalent to the Greek pantheon, the Romans being dab hands at assimilating the traditions of other cultures, so each planet has an equivalent Greek name, which, unsurprisingly, is how they are known in Greece. In classical astronomy, the sun and moon were considered to be planets, since the exact definition of a planet was a long way off (and still hasn't really been settled on). The Romans knew of five actual planets beyond the Earth: Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn, all of which are, under the right conditions, visible to the naked eye. Uranus was identified as a planet in 1781 by astronomer Sir William Herschel, having previously been misidentified as a star. Neptune was discovered in 1846 by  Urbain le Verrier, although it may have been discovered independently by John Couch Adams three years earlier (in fact, Galileo had first seen the planet over two hundred years earlier, but again, had misidentified it as a star). Pluto, which is, of course, no longer considered a planet, wasn't discovered until 1930, by Clyde Tombaugh. Rather wonderfully, a portion of his ashes are currently en route to Pluto on the New Horizons spacecraft.

The upshot of this is that the adjectival forms of planets have to follow classical rules, which sometimes throws up some oddities. Also, the traditions of astrology - which, for centuries, was part of astronomy - and alchemy, have granted supposed properties to the planets. In alchemy, each classical planet had a symbol, and each of the spheres was thought to be related to a human attribute. The result is that the adjectival forms of planet names have meanings in themselves in modern English.

Mercury

Mercury, the innermost and smallest planet of the solar system, is named for the fleet-footed messenger of the gods; the original, Roman version being Mercurius, which is sometimes used in astrology. His Greek equivalent is Hermes. The adjectival form of Mercury is mercurial, which can mean swift, quick-witted, volatile or changeable. Capitalised, Mercurial is used to describe objects and features related to the planet Mercury, although Mercurian is becoming more commonly used. An inhabitant of Mercury would be a Mercurian. An alternative demonym or adjective would be Hermean, from Hermes; a related term is hermetic, once used in alchemy, but now used to mean sealed away (as in 'hermetically sealed'). Mercury is, of course also the name of a metallic element; all the classical planets were alchemically linked to a particular metal, but only mercury has adopted the name of its planet (the traditional names being hydrargyrum or quicksilver). Mercurial can, therefore, also refer to compounds of the element mercury.

Venus

Venus is where things start to get problematic. Named for the goddess of love and sex, Venus is the only major planet named after a female figure (although many minor planets are too). The adjectival form of Venus is venereal, which does not have a pleasant connotation. The Greek equivalent, Aphrodite, is rather pretty, but again produces an adjective with unfortunate connotations: aphrodisial or aphrodisiac. The correct term for an inhabitant of Venus would, therefore, be a Venerean, but the connotations of venereal disease means that this has, unsurprisingly, fallen out of favour. The most common word used today is Venusian (occasionally Venutian), but this is linguistically problematic, kind of like using 'Marsian' for something from Mars. My preferred term is Cytherian/Cytherean, a word originally related to the Greek island of Kytheros, which had traditional links to the goddess Aphrodite. It's a very attractive word, in my view. Sci-fi stories featuring inhabitants of Venus sometimes use both Venusian and Cytherian as names for separate cultures or species on the planet.

Venus is both the Morning and Evening Star, and in Latin, had separate names for both phases. It was Hesperus, or Vesper, in the evening, and Phosphorus or Eosphorus in the morning. A such, other terms you might like to use for Venusians are Hesperian and Phosphorian.

Nobody likes being called a Venerean.

Earth

The Earth is, of course, named after that dusty stuff we stand on, rather than any mighty god or goddess. The Latin term for the earth was tellus. The goddess of the Earth was Tellus, or Terra, whose name lives on in romance languages as the term for the Earth (such as the Spanish Terra or French le terre). The Greek goddess was Gaia or Gaea, again, still in common use as an alternative name for the Earth, or its biosphere as an entity, in the so-called Gaia Hypothesis. 

The correct adjective to apply to the Earth is terrestrial, used for both things of the earth, as in the land, and the Earth, as in the planet. From this we get the term extraterrestrial, for things beyond the Earth. Science fiction has never been happy with this term. Too mundane, I guess (mundane also meaning 'of the world,' as it happens, from the alternative Latin term mundus). Why not Terrestrian for an inhabitant of the Earth? Old-fashioned sci-fi popularised the terms Earthling and Earthman, which today are considered old hat and are usually used humorously. Futurama suggested Earthican. The most common term for inhabitants of Earth in sci-fi is Terran, which is very occasionally used scientifically; indeed, Terra is commonly used as an alternative name for the Earth in English language sci-fi. Confusingly, terra is also used for landmasses on other worlds in astronomy. An alternative term that I favour is Tellurian, from Tellus, which was used by E.E. 'Doc' Smith in his Lensman series, and by Robert Holmes in his Doctor Who work. Tellurium is a semi-metallic element sometimes called sylvanium; tellurian can also refer to compounds and ores of this element. Arthur C. Clarke, in 3001: The Final Oddyssey and other works, stuck with terrestrials for Earth-born humans, often with 'Terries' as a mildly pejorative nickname used by offworlders.