An Excerpt from Leaving Who

Calling all Whovians and rom-com fans... Now on sale, Book 2 in the Loving Who series, Leaving Who! Feel free to share the book link with others. Thank you.

Leaving Who
by Cynthianna 
http://www.devinedestinies.com/leaving-who/

After traveling for six months throughout the vastness of time and space with the alien known as John Smith, Cici Connors wants to do one more thing—go home and see her friends. Homesickness is something Cici never expected to experience as a rabid Doctor Who fan, along with her deeply held desire to be a time traveler's companion, but it's real. Once back home, things aren't quite the same as Cici remembers. John's colleagues, the gorgeous Captain Mac and the femme fatale, Babbling Brook, may not be as harmless as they first appear, either. Will the imminent destruction of Earth throw a kink in Cici's plans of leaving John? Will John ever let her go?

An excerpt from Leaving Who:

 

“She doesn’t know?” Mac accused my lover without a glance at me. “You didn’t tell her? She doesn’t understand why you came to earth in the first place?”

John shrugged. “It never came up in conversation.”

“What never came up in conversation?” I demanded. “Will one or both of you start talking directly to me instead of around me?” They both turned and stared at me. “Thank you.”

Mac flashed a toothy smile and gave me a wink while carrying on his conversation with John. “I still can’t believe you didn’t inform such a beautiful creature that her life was in dire jeopardy--and everyone else’s on the planet.”

“Like I said, it never came up in conversation.” John continued to grin at me, but I may as well have been in the next county for all it mattered. “You can’t land on a primitive planet and tell them they’re doomed. They won’t invite you in for tea if you start a conversation with, ‘Excuse me. I have something important to tell you. You’re all going to die.’”

I jumped to my feet and shouted. “Why are we all going to die?” Several heads in the restaurant turned my direction. I sat down, blushing, and lowered my voice. "Why are we all going to die?” I repeated in a firm tone.

“Because you’re going to run out of oxygen,” Mac said calmly, his smile never wavering.

I stared at Captain Mac. “How? Due to global warming? Carbon emissions?” 

“No, a giant Hoover,” John interjected. “It’s going to suck the oxygen right out of your atmosphere.”

Mac sighed and flicked the fez tassel off John’s face. “Don’t try to make it any easier on her. She deserves to know the truth.”

Easier? We were all going to suffocate? A giant vacuum cleaner? 

“Okay, I’ll come clean.” John took my hand and squeezed it. “It’s because of us, Cici. The time traveling causes an imbalance wherever it takes place. Matter has to rearrange itself across the timelines and most of the time it means basic elements such as oxygen are moved from one place to another to rebalance the multiverse. It seems the Bygons are working for another concern that is in need of it, possibly due to their time travel throughout the universes. What better place to borrow oxygen from than Earth?”

“Surely they could find oxygen elsewhere!” I cried, trying to read into their expressions for any clues that they were joking. “Can’t they find an intergalactic Wal-mart somewhere and purchase it cheap? Why not make their own?”

Mac shrugged and tutted. “You’d think they’d do that, but in this case they’ve decided Earth’s air is quite sufficient for their needs. Right place, right price, right time.”

“I beg to differ.” There’s never a good time or place for suffocating, but then the entirety of what he said hit me. I leaned toward him. “Excuse me, but what price are these aliens paying and to whom are they paying it?”

Mac’s sexy grin faded. As the twinkle in his eye dimmed, John cleared his throat awkwardly. I turned to see an unusual blush coloring his cheeks. Oh, no.

“Don’t tell me it’s your people who are paying the Bygons to help them suck up Earth’s oxygen.” I moaned as my head dropped into my hands. “Why doesn’t this distressing revelation surprise me in the least?”

“Yes, you’ve been fraternizing with the enemy all along, Cici Connors,” John Smith declared in a quiet voice. “I can understand why you’d want to leave me, but I hope you can see why I wanted to keep you from returning home.”

Leaving Who now available at Devine Destinies Books, Amazon and wherever fine ebooks are sold.  http://www.devinedestinies.com/leaving-who/

And don't forget to read Book 1 in the series, Loving Who...
http://www.devinedestinies.com/loving-who/

Feel free to like my Loving Who series Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/lovingwhoseries/

Retconning the Doctor (on New Doctor Who)

 Retconning the Doctor

by Cynthianna

***Spoiler Alert!***

"Am I supposed to understand anything you're saying?" -- Clara in the Matrix on Gallifrey

Take all the cool and interesting things that a multitude of writers have created for Doctor Who since its inception--the Time Lords, Gallifrey, the TARDIS, time travel, the Matrix, the cloister bells, those odd cardinal-like robes and funky head/shoulder gear the bigwigs wear--toss into a big pot, forget all about series canon, and stir. Upturn pot and pour out onto the page. Ta-da! You have the season finale, Hell Bent.

Of course, since this is Moffat's Who script you have to add in his creations--Clara and Ashildr (Me)--and plenty of creepy bits of his Blinking Angels and a Dalek stuck in a haunted-house-like data collection device known as the Matrix. (Google the Tom Baker episode The Deadly Assassin to see how different the original Matrix on Gallifrey is from this new incarnation. Yeah, it's that different!) There are some funny bits tossed in as well, such as Time Lords now regenerate without much of a hangover, changing gender/age/race simultaneously. Tack on a relatively satisfactory ending after a lot of head scratching and feet dragging.  Ta-da!

This time it's the Doctor who gets the mind wipe and not the companion (see Donna Noble) so he can move on. The undead Clara gets to have some "girlfriend time" with Ashildr in their own fifties diner-shaped TARDIS with a pure-white classic interior. How either of these young ladies know how to pilot a TARDIS isn't explained. Neither is the previous "rule" given that only a Time Lord could manage a TARDIS because of their psychic link. 

Is it good to violate the TV series canon? Nah, who cares! Nobody will notice.

Even for new Whovians who haven't a clue that Leela lives somewhere on Gallifrey, this "word salad" of a script seems to be missing something vital: emotional connection. Even with a script jumping all over the place like a hyperactive kid on a Christmas candy rush, you'd think it would be able to settle down long enough for the characters to connect with their audience. But therein lies its weakness: the emotions are telegraphed for you. 

You don't have to think or feel for yourself when you're told pretty much what is going to happen up front, similar to what happened in an earlier episode this season. (See my review for Before the Flood.) You know that Clara is going to "live" again, and the Doctor is going to forget all about her since we start out in a scene at the diner where this is made painfully obvious. I suspect the current show runner feels he has to spell everything out because he believes Doctor Who's viewers have IQs to match their shoe sizes, and we all have tiny feet.

I think my husband, a long time Whovian, said it best: "The show has gone from good scripts and wobbly sets to good sets and wobbly scripts."

All the lovely photography, location shoots, costuming, special effects, musical score, etc., do not a strong story make. (Just ask George Lucas.) Not even a classic character like the Doctor can withstand all the retconning that's happened to him in the Moffat era and come out for the better. He's been diminished somehow, made into a permanent fool, a pale shadow of the strong action character he used to be. 

Peter Capaldi reminds me of Pierce Brosnan when he finally got the part of James Bond after many years. Pierce made a great Bond, but unfortunately he got stuck with the weak scripts of that period and left early. If only the great writer Robert Holmes was around to give Peter's Doctor the shot in the arm he so badly needs after this season. A great actor like Peter Capaldi deserves the best!

We have the Christmas special with River Song to look forward to in a couple of weeks, and it appears to be a comical tale. That's good. After all the forced drama and tears of the Clara years, it'll be nice to see the Doctor relax and enjoy himself a bit with a mad romp. Fingers crossed!

What do you think? Please leave your comments below, and check out my reviews of earlier episodes of this season of Doctor Who:

Heaven Sent
Face the Raven  
Sleep No More
The Zygon Inversion (or Inversion of the Zygons)
The Zygon Invasion

The Woman Who Lived

The Girl Who Died    
Before the Flood

Under the Lake

The Witch's Familiar

The Magician's Apprentice

Classic Who on Retro TV

Welcome to Nerdvana!

 

Doctor Who, Star Trek, MST3K, Babylon 5...So many fandoms, so little time!

It's like...Nerdvana.

A place where only a science fiction/fantasy fan would dare to tread...A room full of photos and original artworks and figurines and statuettes and autographed books, cards, pictures and even comic books. Yes, it's my new office. And I love it.

It's Cyberman vs. Dalek in a War of the Worlds!

I am a card-carrying nerd. I even have the fan club card to prove it! I actually belonged to the original Findlay College Sci-Fi Club. I'm not sure if the club is still in existence, but the school is now called "University of..." and has a lot more students, so perhaps they have an anime club at the very least? It would be nice to find out if they're any Whovians attending currently.

And I have proof of being a nerd since...forever! Notice my 8th grade card. All A's and nice comments in English and Social Studies. Okay, I got a B in P.E. Yeah, I showed up to gym class, but I was probably bored out of my gourd most of the time and sat in the corner reading a book--a classic sci-fi novel probably. (I was big into H.G. Wells and Robert Heinlein about that time.) That's a nerd for you!

Some of my original cross-stitch work. Do you remember Avon's quote from  
Blake's 7?

It's been fun traveling down Memory Lane while we unpack and move into our new digs. In the bottom of long-ago packed boxes I've found my autographed photos of Colin Baker (The Sixth Doctor), Anthony Ainley (The Master) and George Takei (Sulu). My hubby and I have had a great time trying to find places to show off our favorite SF artists' creations, too. We have three Tempest at Hazard prints from Paul Daly hanging in the office and two Jon Kaufman's hanging in the living room. Nerdvana just keeps growing and going... and even in the more "mundane" rooms of our home there's usually a nod or two to our passion for SF fandom. Because once a nerd--always a nerd!

A "Pair-of-Docs" by Jon Sies and "Little Horsie Who #6" by Michelle Rondeau. Some original art I haven't been able to hang on the wall for years. Now I have a whole room (and more) to hang all my favorite SF inspired artworks!

Where and how do you display your fan memorabilia? Do you have your own Nerdvana? Tell us all about it in the comments section so we can drool over your SF/fantasy collections! C'mon! You know you wanna... you have to... because you're a NERD, baby, and proud of it!

Will Write for Food!

Our wedding cake was rather unusual... It was shaped like a TARDIS, the time travel capsule from the BBC series Doctor Who.

I was going to write a little something about my recent marriage to fellow author AJ Matthews, but he beat me to the punch. To quote my English-born hubby: “Ah, bugger!” No matter, I can always find another lofty topic to pontificate upon for this blog, right?

That last sentence proves that I am rusty and don’t have a clue what to write, doesn’t it? Sigh!

I confess I’m terribly out of practice. Think of me as a ballplayer who has been injured and set out on the bench all summer long… and I haven’t been called in to play until the very last play of the very last game of the very last championship series. It’s all up to me to knock one out of the ballpark and make a big “hit” to the adoration of the cheering crowds. Oh, dear… I swung and missed. My confidence has struck out faster than my vain attempts at fanning the air.

(Hmm, note to self: Do not attempt to be creative while listening to the Rolling Stones croon the classic, “Nineteenth Nervous Breakdown”. Yeah, it’s a catchy tune with a great danceable beat but still… It just reinforces the fact that I’ve not been able to write anything more than an email in quite some time now, and I’m terrified I won’t be able to write something coherent.)

You’d think being recently married to the most gorgeous, most charming and loving male on Planet Earth would inspire me to write some hot love scenes—and don’t think that it doesn’t—but unfortunately the demanding “day job” gets in the way. It’s either spend what little energy and free time I retain after toiling in the salt mines all week long with the new handsome hubby or completely ignore him and my need for sleep and write. I have chosen the former and not the latter.

Given the choice of which of the two—writing or the day job—to give up the answer is rather easy—I’d lose the day job in a flash if I could support the two of us on my writing. Unfortunately, even when I was fairly free to write full-time, I still couldn’t make a living of it. Sure, I could pay a few bills and go to a few writers’ conferences, but I couldn’t consistently pay rent or keep the heat on in the winter. And always I have this need to eat… Not a lot, mind you, but at least three meals a day, or I pass out from hunger.

So when there’s a choice of write and starve (and freeze) the two of us or stay and slave in the salt mines, you can see what decision I’m forced to make.

But I am more than willing to keep looking for employment elsewhere—employment that doesn’t drain my physical energy and ruin my eyes staring at a flat screen (two actually) all day long and playing with numbers (not my forte). Any and all employers you might know of open looking for a creative type who doesn’t enjoy mindless data entry and anal retentive paper-pushing eight hours a day, any work you think might appeal to a displaced romance novelist, feel free to send my way. Thanks!

In the meantime, don’t forget to buy my books… I still have a few out there and every sale is appreciated. Thanking you in advance… and now it’s back to the grind. That salt doesn’t mine itself, you know!