Author Archive: Shaun

Schedule Interlude 2

Arissa staggered back into the control room of the Masters TARDIS, dragging a massive shield and broadsword behind her, leaving a deep gouge on the floor. She heaved a sigh, dropped the armaments to clatter on the floor and closed the door. “So much for the Land of Fiction.”

She set the coordinates and dematerialized, and the time rotor began rising and falling, indicating flight. “Don’t worry, Masters, I’ll use the fast return switch to send the ship back to you once I’m done with it.”

She caught sight of her reflection in one of the mirrored surfaces lining the room and noticed the mud and blood that caked her face. “But first things first, time to hit the showers.”

She took two steps away from the console, then stepped back. “Well, THIS first things first.” She said, and hit the transmit button, sending the schedule spinning out into the cosmos.

The Time War: Prologue

Genesis of the Daleks, Shadow of the Daleks 1, Shadow of the Daleks 2

Ravenous 3.1 Deeptime Frontier, Ravenous 3.2 Companion Piece

The War Master 2 – The Master of Callous (4 Stories)

Galifrey: Time War 1.1 – Celestial Intervention, Galifrey: Time War 1.2 – Soldier Obscura, Time Lord Victorious

 

The Time War: Act One

The War Master 3 – Rage of the Time Lords, The Diary of River Song 5.4 – Concealed Weapon

UNIT: The New Series 6 – Cyber Reality (4 Stories)

The War Master 5 – Hearts of Darkness (4 Stories)

The War Master 4 – Anti-Genesis (4 Stories)

Scheduling Masters

Cpt 8

“The Land of Fiction?” Arissa repeated after a moment. Her tone was disbelieving, little more than a whisper, and she hated herself for it as it implied weakness, and weakness was something you couldn’t express if you wanted to survive the Master.

Showing weakness in a room full of them? Well, that was just inviting trouble.

To be fair as her eyes scanned the room, Arissa actually felt fairly confident that she could take them on. Not all at once of course, but one on one. Well, all but Missy, as that version was like a bag full of cats. You could smell the crazy on her. She was unpredictable enough to be the real threat and also seemed to be REALLY excited about the idea of doing great harm to our intrepid heroine.

“The Land of Fiction,” Missy repeated, her eyes boring into her as she smiled a toothless smile that somehow still implied fangs were involved.

Arissa stared back, determined not to break eye contact first. “I’ve been there once. It wasn’t the most pleasant of experiences.” She said, discreetly tightening the grip on the sword hilt.

“Well if you’re familiar with it there’s no point in explaining is there?” The purple-clad Master quipped.

“Indulge me.” Said Arissa, still staring down Missy.

The original Master (but again, who was to really know) stepped forward and gently laid a hand on Missy’s sword, lowering the blade. She glared at him, but allowed it to happen, giving Arissa a golden moment to blink when she whirled away and sheathed the sword inside her umbrella. “It seems, my dear, that several cosmic coincidences have taken place at once. It started with this ridiculous crusade of the Doctor’s and his journey into THE DARK TIMES.”

The Master in the black crushed velvet began to laugh ruefully. “Who would have ever thought the destruction of the universe could be laid at his feet and not our own?”

“Sickening, isn’t it?” Asked blondie.

The original Master continued, unabated, “The first event was not the paradoxes, but the very act of traveling back. It ripped the fabric of space-time asunder and weakened the dimensional barriers that keep reality together. The paradoxes created in THE DARK TIMES echoed forward throughout the continuum, creating tears of their own.”

“By the time of your own excursion into THE DARK TIMES, the universe was in pretty rough shape.” Came the low voice of the leather jacket, sunglass-wearing Master, who somehow had snuck up behind her. He moved to her other ear. “You didn’t help.”

The crispy, sunburnt Master picked up the thread. “By the time we became aware of the Doctor’s meddling, all of time had begun to unravel. Catastrophic, cataclysmic damage done to the time vortex.”

“Bleedthrough was inevitable.” The original Master said.

“And one of those points of bleed-through was from The Land of Fiction,” Arissa confirmed.

The original Master nodded. “Precisely. Threads of that pocket universe snaked out and infected our own, manipulating reality and blending it with fiction.”

Missy sipped at a cup of tea and continued. “At the same time, a small podcast from Kansas gets the bright idea to suddenly change their schedule listings into a fictional story, featuring a fictional character who is self-aware. Coincidence?”

“The author is being influenced by the Land of Fiction,” Arissa said, realization dawning.

“Got it in one.” Missy purred.

“Here’s where it gets interesting.” The purple-clad Master intoned. “Because of that influence, their schedule quickly became the template for the real world. History was re-written into a new… UNBOUND universe.”

“Didn’t care for that.” Blondie injected.

“As their schedule became more and more prominent in the real world, more and more of reality became tethered to it. This podcast was suddenly the most important thing in the cosmos.”

“Speaking of, Transmitting now.” The crispy Master interrupted.

497 – The First Doctor Adventures 1.1 “The Destination Wars” (Big Finish Audio), Doctor Who: Missy comic issues #2, #3.

498 – The Ninth Doctor Adventures Ravagers Box Set – 1. “Sphere of Freedom”, 2. “Cataclysm”, 3. “Food Fight” (Big Finish Audio)

499 – Lost in Time: The Space Pirates (Retcon & Novelization)

500 – Whosical the Musical – (Rocking revue of the Music inspired by Who)

501 – Lethbridge-Stewart The Laughing Gnome: Rise of the Dominator by Robert Mammone (Novel)

502 – The Eighth Doctor Adventures 4.3 “Nevermore”, 4.4 “The Book of Kells” (Big Finish Audio)

“And that’s when we began seeking you out, my dear. You continued to transmit the schedule for them, even as the walls of reality were breaking down. Your dedication simultaneously kept the cosmos from imploding and allowed the Land of Fiction to further infiltrate reality.”

“Things have inverted,” Arissa said. “The author is no longer in control; he only thinks he is.”

“Indeed. But as a construct of the author, you are the essential bridge to solving this problem.”

She looked around the room at the various faces of the Master looking expectantly (or in Missy’s case, predatorily) at her. “Whey do I get the feeling this is going to end badly?”

“Because it will, Poppet.” Missy’s toothless grin widened.

Podcast Delayed

Real world responsibilities have once again intruded upon our dream job, causing a hitch in the proceedings and forcing us to delay the podcast this week. Never fear, we will return next.

What this means for you is there is still time to get in on the give away of the Sarah Jane Smith: Roving Reporter book from our friends at Pencil Tip Publishing. Just send us your favorite Sarah Jane Smith moment hash tagged with #SJSBookGiveAway to register to get a free copy!

Victorious Mastering of the Schedule

Cpt 7

Lucky number seven. Double-O seven, Seven-eleven…

“Will you knock it off?” She asked, though she wasn’t entirely sure who she was talking to anymore. It might be a plea to the author, (if she ever pleaded for anything, which she didn’t), or perhaps she was talking to herself, ordering her brain to cease its whimsical connective association game. Or hell, it may even be that she was talking to him.

The rest had done her some good, and now she gingerly sat up in the bed, finding the restraining field had dissipated. There was a red light on the console next to her, silently blinking on and off. Surely an indicator to the console room that she was awake and mobile.

Which meant the next move was hers.

Well, technically the next move involved getting to the wardrobe, which indeed, opened only on a sparse closet containing her clothes and sword and not into the fabulous fantasy world of Narnia.

“Well, he did warn me.” She mumbled, getting dressed. Which lead to the next thought. If he was honest about the clothes and sword, was he being honest about everything else? She barked out a laugh, which same so quickly and forcefully it startled her. What was she even thinking?

The only thing the Master was honest about was his dishonesty. The Doctor’s oldest foe, (and hers too, if she were quite honest), he put the MY in enemy. Fiendish, clever, ruthless, and evil, but still charming in his own way. What with the whole Time Lord Victorious nonsense, this was no time for him to show up and wreak his usual brand of havoc.

And yet, he had returned the sword to her. He was either being extra dubious, or he didn’t see her as an immediate threat.

She’d have to cure him of that notion, toot sweet.

Dressed and armed, she made her way through his TARDIS. Whether through simple necessity or some trick of the trans-dimensional engineering, the sickbay bedroom was just down the corridor to the console room, so she didn’t wander far. She drew the sword, and with her left hand grasped the doorknob to the nerve center of the ship. She didn’t have a plan so much as an inkling of a course of action, but sometimes those were best. With a mighty bestial roar (what Whitman described as a barbaric yawp and Robin Williams tried to explain to a group of adolescents in that movie), she charged through the door, sword leading the way.

He stood at the controls on the far side of the center console, the lighted column in the middle rising and lowering with each great breath of the time machine indicating they were in flight.

And because that was the scene she expected in her mind’s eye, the sheer number of him in the room stopped her in her tracks and the yawp died in her throat. There was a Master in a fetching purple three-piece checking the time on a fob watch. Another Master wearing a leather coat and sunglasses leaned against the wall looking for all the world like he’d rather be somewhere else. A Master who looked like he’d been left too long in the sun—scratch that, ON the sun—hunched over the other side of the console consulting with still another Master in black crushed velvet.

There was some Mucho Master going on.

Another sword tip parried hers, and SHE stepped forward in her blue and orange Mary Poppins ensemble. Suddenly that nightmare about a classroom full of clowns was starting to look pretty good.

“Oh, you’re awake my pet” Missy said, managing to be all kinds of condescending. “Pity.” She turned to yet another Master, this one with short blonde hair. “I owe you a five spot.”

“Double or nothing she disarms you in under two minutes.” The Master leaning against the wall said.

Missy turned back to face her. “What do you say gosling? Shall we dance?”

The Master, (the original in her mind, though honestly who could know at this point where his timeline diverged and folded back on itself) stepped forward. “Now now, is that anyway to treat a guest? Arissa is here at my invitation. I do not want her to feel unwelcome.” He raised a gloved hand and lowered the points of their still crossed swords.

Arissa took a chance a lowered her guard. Either this would look cool and carefree, or Missy would try and run her through. “Alright, I’m here. I’m not fighting–” She stopped herself. “—yet. So what’s going on? You having a soirée? A little get-together? A meeting of the Master-minds?” She was proud of that one. She knew by pushing she was increasing the odds of Missy lunging point first, but she was on a roll. “Are there refreshments? Some chips and dip? OOOOhhh, a convention! Where’s the ‘I tried conquering the universe and all I got was this lousy t-shirt’ vendor?”

Missy smiled that quirky, half smirk of hers, and Arrisa steeled herself for the steel that would surely be plunging into her any minute. But instead, she turned her maniacal glare back to the Master—damn the descriptors when multiple versions of the same person are present—and said menacingly, “We don’t really need her, do we?”

The Master surprised her then. “In point of fact, we do. My dear Arissa, as impossible as it may be to believe, I rescued you from THE DARK TIMES—”

“Oy!” Shouted the blond Master.

“Forgive me. WE. We rescued you from THE DARK TIMES… because we need your help. Not only has the Doctor’s foolish Time Lord Victorious crusade endangered the cosmos on scale we could only hope to dream of, but your podcaster friends are in trouble as well.”

“The author? But he’s controlling all this.”

“If only that were the case. You keep sending out their schedule because it was what you were contracted to do, and you never renege on a contract. An admirable trait. But its so much more than that. Despite its insignificance to the world at large, the very act of sharing it is also a tether. A very tenuous tether keeping the real world from disintegrating entirely.”

“We know a thing or two about disintegrations.” Said the purple clad Master a little too eagerly.

“Speaking of” the crispy Master spoke from his perch at the controls, and his voice was as dry and raspy as his skin. “It’s time to transmit the new schedule.”

“Then by all means.” The Master said, moving back to the console and pressing a series of buttons, then flipping a toggle.

They all turned to the viewer, which irised open to display the following:

491 – Lethbridge-Stewart The Laughing Gnome: Havoc Files (5) by Various Artists

492 – 25th Anniversary of Doctor Who: The Movie, Big Finish Master!: #1 Faustian, #2 Prey #3 Vengeance

493 – Fury From the Deep (Animated) DVD review

494 – Sarah Jane Smith: Roving Reporter by Various Artists

495 – TLV: Echoes of Extinction (Big Finish Audio)

496 – TLV: The Edge of Time (Video Game), Time Fracture (Event), The Time Lord Victorious & Brian the Ood (Action Figure/Short Story?), Overall impressions (w/special guest Timothy Harvey of SciFi4MeTV’s TARDIS Sauce)

“What do you mean tether? Why is this podcast so important to the fate of everything? And what does the author have to do with this?”

Missy whirled on her, her eyes flashing. “Tell us poppet, what do you know about The Land of Fiction?”

Masterpiece Scheduling

Cpt 6

Swimming in darkness, her mind cast about for something, ANYTHING to latch itself to. It settled on an old memory of happier days and simpler times when she wasn’t floating helplessly on a Dalek Saucer trapped in THE DARK TIMES without power, or heat, or air, or wifi… any of those conveniences the kids go all-in for nowadays. She wanted to stay in the memory, wrap herself up in it like a comfortable blanket and just sleep. A rest. A long, quiet, well-deserved rest.

Her eyes sprang open at the thought.

She was no longer floating helplessly on a Dalek Saucer without power, heat, or air. She was floating helplessly on an incredibly comfortable hover-mattress in a softly lit, warm room. Wifi was still in question, but she tabled the idea, for now, trying to determine exactly what had happened.

“Ah, you’re awake my dear.” Came a velvety smooth voice from a darkened corner. “Feeling better?”

She was actually, as the cobwebs began to clear and she realized she had blacked out from oxygen deprivation back on the saucer. “Where am I?” Her voice sounded small and far away.

“My TARDIS. I’ve rewired the Zero Room components into the sickbay here. I find the creature comforts of a bedroom particularly regenerative, and you, my dear, certainly seemed in need of a rest and recharge.”

“You rescued me?”

“From both the debris of the Dalek ship and THE DARK TIMES, yes. Though my methods were unconventional, they were ultimately successful.”

She closed her eyes, dreading the next question but knowing it had to be asked. “And what do you want?”

The voice chuckled in the darkness, sweet and sinister. “I should think a word of gratitude to start.”

Arissa made to bolt off the bed, thinking a surprise attack might just buy her time to escape. Hell, she might even get lucky enough to wrap her long fingers around the collarless jacket he wore closed about his neck. But all she succeeded in doing was rattling the bed frame. She had forgotten the part at the beginning about floating HELPLESSLY on an incredibly comfortable hover-mattress.

She was held in place, though whether by straps or stasis field she didn’t know.

He laughed again. “You will find you’re quite immobilized, my dear. Didn’t want you to hurt yourself. Or me, for that matter. Consider yourself my guest. When you’ve had a bit more rest, you’ll find your clothes and sword in the wardrobe, which I’m afraid does not lead to Narnia. We’ll chat some more, and then you can decide if you still want to attempt to kill me.”

“One more question?” She asked.

“Of course.”

“Did he send you?”

“He…?”

“The author.”

The third laugh seemed to lower the temperature in the room, for Arissa shivered. “My dear, the author is exactly the reason why I’m here. The very heart of the matter, you might say. And yet, he is completely unaware.”

She sank back, unable to process exactly why that riddle left her more exhausted than when she initially awoke.

He pressed a button a small remote nearly hidden in his palm.

486 – I Am The Master – Legends of the Renegade Time Lord

487 – Big Finish The War Doctor Series 1: #1 The Innocent, #2 The Thousand Worlds #3 The Heart of the Battle

488 – Titan Comics The Thirteenth Doctor Vol 2 (Issues #5-#8), Big Finish 8th Doctor Adventures #4.2 Situation Vacant

489 – Base Under Siege Discussion

490 – Doctor Who Annual 1974: The Short Stories Listen – The Stars & Out of the Green Mist, and the Comic The Time Thief

“You can relax, I’ve just transmitted the next bit of their ridiculous schedule. Now, get some rest. The trials to come are likely to be more strenuous than those prior.”

He padded softly out of the room, leaving Arissa to reflect that she may have been better off suffocating in the debris.

Scheduling Victorious: Chapter V – Scheduling Unbound

Chapter Five

Compared to the universe, she burns bright and hot like a young star, yet she is ageless and infinite. Her wisdom goes hand in hand with her neurotic mischievousness, the sly smirk on her lips never belaying the surprise she feels at learning something new. Her temperament as unpredictable as her hair, and her fury…

Her fury burns hotter than all those bright stars.

It’s the fury the Daleks feel—smoldering white hot rage—as they die in droves all around her, screaming their ineffective threats of extermination. Some are panicked, yelling about impaired vision. If your eyestalk was sliced off, your vision would be impaired too. She moves like poetry, like water droplets playfully cascading down a brook, as she darts across the control room of the scout ship from one drone to the next. Her weapon cuts just as deep as words, an ancient sword rumored to have come from these very DARK TIMES, forged by the great weapon smiths of Andromeda, its alloy folded more times than could be counted, fused in the vortex itself and imbued with any number of incantations and spells, covered with magic charms and runes from dozens of galaxies.

It’s also on fire, because, reasons.

The sword’s name is lost to time (and likely unpronounceable, given the Andromedan alphabet) but legends passed down through the eons roughly translate it to “sharp burning stick”. A gift to her from Absalom Daak—

“You can stop there.” She warns, driving the blade solidly through the dalekanium hull of another drone. “Bad enough you gotta go all “smoldering eyes” on me, but to mention HIM…” She withdraws the sword and whirls on the Dalek commander, “is hitting below the belt.”

The Dalek Commander’s gunstick quivers, just enough to signify the retargeting computer has locked on her, and without a second thought she thrusts out and upward, decapitating the dome off the engine of war. The gun falls limp.

“Ha.” She says.

She looks around and takes a deep breath, and for the first time since this whole Time Lord Victorious started, feels reassured. As if history was back on track

And that’s when the temporal distortion wave hits and knocks her on her ass.

The Dalek scout ship instantly tumbles end over end, sending drones careening into bulkheads and ceilings, sounding like a washing machine full of cast iron skillets. Sparks fly from Dalek casings and computer bays, their interfaces fried by the temporal wave. Arissa dodges artfully and avoids most of the debris thrown around the control deck, finally coming to stand on the communications board. She nearly swoons, her mind awash on the shores of history, as the tide runs out and takes half the sand making up the beach with it.

“I never swoon.” She says through grit teeth, looking up at the forward view screen, now orientated on the ceiling, trying to get a feel if the Pyramid ship survived the impact. More sparks fly from shorts and blown connections. One certainty is that the scout ship won’t much longer. She was a little overzealous with the Osiran weapon pods when overtaking the Daleks, and of course there was the whole sword play thing.

“What was that—“ She starts to ask, but is cut off by the blaring speaker below her left heel as it starts to recite an incoming transmission. “But there’s no one to transmit—”

 

“Attention. Attention. The following schedule” (the voice pronounced it “shed-u-all” and sounded oh-so familiar) “reflects the next month of transmissions from Traveling The Vortex, delving into the Unbound rage from Big Finish:

482 – Doctor Who Unbound #1 Auld Mortality, #2 Sympathy for the Devil 

483 – Doctor Who Unbound #3 Full Fathom Five, #4 He Jests at Scars

484 – Doctor Who Unbound #5 Deadline, #6 Exiles

485 – Doctor Who Unbound #7, A Storm of Angels, #8 Masters of War 

“Follow along, or don’t. It makes no difference to me.

And my dear Arissa, if YOU are receiving this message, you’ll know what to do.”

 

The voice transmission trails off into a series of chuckles that chill her to the bone despite the heat coming off Sharp Burning Stick. It couldn’t be HIM…

She runs along the wall to the science console and kneeling down does a quick sensor sweep…

…only to have her worst fears confirmed. (Well, second worst fear. The recurring dream about showing up to the first day of class naked and surrounded by evil clowns is her worst fear, obviously.) But this is just as bad.

History HAD been rewritten. Whatever the Doctor has been doing in THE DARK TIMES was now over with, and time has reset. Which means with one or two exceptions, the Osirans die out here in the next couple of centuries.

Which mean they do not exist in the 35th century. Which means they will never construct a golden Osiran Pyramid Ship. Which means it isn’t floating nearby, ready to get her home.

She is trapped in THE DARK TIMES, and the author is in terrible danger…

She tries to utter a dramatic “dun dun DUN!”, but finds her throat is too dry.

Scheduling Victorious: Chapter IV

Cpt 4

Sprong.

With a rippling of its mighty engines, the golden Osirian Pyramid ship rends the fabric of reality asunder and pops into existence in THE DARK TIMES.

Arissa stares at the viewscreen with a mixture of amusement and disbelief, both that the ship actually arrived in THE DARK TIMES, and that the author allowed it to happen without killing her.

And that he continues to type THE DARK TIMES in all capital letters.

And that the Osirian Pyramid ship, technological marvel of the 35th Century, actually makes a “Sprong” noise.

What can she say? She is easily amused.

She fiddles with the view screen to get a look at her surroundings, and despite the desperate circumstances, feels a weight of relief at no longer being in the year 2020. The jokes and internet memes had started early, but if humanity only knew the depths to which time travelers actively avoided the year, they might feel better about having survived it.

Assuming, of course, this was THAT timeline. There was after all, still a couple of weeks to go.

The sensor readings bounce back to her display, confirming the worst: Major temporal disruptions. Arissa always thought of time (incorrectly) as the surface of a lake. A temporal disruption was like dropping a rock in the middle of it, sending ripples and waves out in concentric rings that changed the surface reflection. These readings indicated someone had dropped a dump truck full of gravel over the water, seeding it with minor blips and ripples that were cascading back and forth into each other before being wiped out by the impact wave when the truck itself fell in.

Time was tearing itself apart as forward moving paradoxes begat backward traveling paradoxes.

She hadn’t seen anything like this since The Time War (which, she notes, only warrants capitalization of the first letters, not the whole title). The sensors also show her a myriad of wreckage outside. The Pyramid ship had materialized in the middle of a debris field. And quite the interesting on at that. She detects pieces of Dalek saucers, hull fragments of Arkanian star liners, the burned-out hulks of Draconian battlecruisers, and what appeared to be stonework from the monolithic Cathedral-Class Coffin ships of the Great Vampires. Very few of these races occupy the same plot of history as each other, and yet here they all are, mingling in yet another paradox mixer as the flotsam and jetsam tumble endlessly in space.

These wrecks did not belong here, not in this when. Had they been pulled to their destruction by the paradoxes? Or had they arrived intact and fought amongst themselves until only scrap remains? She backs away from the monitors and sensors intending to step out onto the terrace and see the devastation firsthand, to see if the distortions are visible to the naked eye. Pyramid ships are quite capable of holding an atmosphere over their ray-shielded observation decks—when her heel strikes something, sending her suddenly tumbling over backward.

At this point, there was any number of things Arissa was prepared to accept, but a gigantic stone tablet was not among them. Her fingers snaked out to caress the tablet, which is covered with a combination of hieroglyphics, runes, symbols, and pictograms, all deeply etched upon its surface.

“Is this High Galifreyan?” She asks, knowing the author will not reply, but unable to stop herself. She’s rusty but manages to decipher a few pieces of the tablet while the Rosetta circuits embedded behind her eyes and ears translate the rest.

TTV #477 – A Christmas Carol Revisited, Eleventh Doctor Chronicles “The Top of the Tree” (Big Finish Audio)

TTV #478 – TLV: The Last Message, Mission to the Known, (Eagle Moss / Hero Collector short stories), Mutually Assured Destruction (Big Finish Audio)

TTV #479 – Revolution of the Daleks

TTV #480 – TLV: Exit Strategy, Genetics of the Daleks (Big Finish Audio)

TTV #481 – TLV: Tales of the Dark Times Episodes 4 & 5 (Comic Maker), All Flesh is Grass (Novel)

“Really? There’s no one here who could possibly listen to your podcast. Why would you send me your schedule to post…” She trails off, suddenly understanding. “You really have no control over this, do you? I suspected as much, but this bloody well confirms it, doesn’t it?”

She rises, moving back to the controls. If things are this bad, she has less time than she thought. Scouring the debris for salvage would have to wait. Arissa transmits the schedule—because despite it being a worthless gesture that would not gain them listeners, she had been contracted to do the job, and therefore it was going to get done—and fiddling with the sensors, slaved them to the navigation controls and set a new course. As the Pyramid ship moves off, she heads to the wardrobe.

You can’t save the universe wearing a silk robe, no matter what the movies say.

Scheduling Victorious – Interlude

Interlude

It was the best of THE DARK TIMES; it was the worst of THE DARK TIMES.

Arissa slams the book shut and throws it across the room in disgust with no regard for the ancient binding or crumbling pages within. It thuds against the far wall before hitting the floor, leaving her instantly ashamed. One simply doesn’t throw books, no matter how inane the book may be.

“I know, I know.” She acknowledges, rising off the couch to retrieve the tome. “But come on, ‘the best of THE DARK TIMES’?” She quotes. “Times that were so dark, they are spoken about in ALL CAPITAL LETTERS? How could there possibly be any ‘best of’ times?”

She inspects the book, and satisfied that there was no permanent damage done, returns it to its place on the bookshelf.

“The problem with THE DARK TIMES is that not too many people made it out of them alive. It’s difficult to learn the history when so little history exists. So, we’re left with all these half-truths and myths and legends, and most of them involve the Doctor in some way, shape, or form, which automatically makes the truth of the stories suspect in my mind.”

She whirls suddenly, glaring skyward. “You used my name. I thought we agreed, no names?” The author starts to type something about “literary license”, but is cut off—“No, no, no! I’m doing you a favor. Don’t forget that. Stick to the terms of the deal.” She warns. Then sighs, rubbing a hand through her short hair. “Well, it’s out. Can’t take it back now, can we?”

She begins to pace the confines of the pyramid’s control room, walking around the black silk couch, between the pool table sized control panel and the gold felt covered pool table, in front of the giant viewscreen that dominated one wall of the room, and past bookshelves stuffed full of leatherbound first editions, signed copies of the dead sea scrolls and other documents from all over the universe. She bypasses the open doors that lead out onto the terrace that overlooks the ruined city. 2020 is out there and she inherently knew it would contribute nothing of value.

There’s only so much paradox a mind can take, after all.

Arissa thought she was almost at capacity herself. She found her memories changing from moment to moment, adding to her frustration. It was one thing to know something and be confused by contradictory evidence, and quite another to suddenly realize the thing you knew wasn’t what you knew at all, and the evidence wasn’t contradictory, because IT was correct all along, and you knew that. She shakes her head vigorously trying to dislodge the chaos. She even considers reconsulting Andrew Kearley’s “The Complete Adventures” for reference, but that website, (and all other subsequent Doctor Who websites for that matter), while normally rock-solid kept displaying File 404 error messages as if the internet itself was giving up.

Without consciously knowing that she’s doing it, Arissa moves back to the control panel and begins laying in a course. The Pyramid ship responds to her touch, sealing off exterior bulkheads and lifting gently off the towers it was resting on. The buildings crumble into their own pyramid-shaped piles of debris, but the sound dampers are already on, so inside she hears nothing but the distant throb of the engines from somewhere deep inside the ship.

“There’s really only one way out of this.” She reasons. “I don’t appreciate being forced into it, mind you, but if you’re being affected by these temporal shifts more than just having to change the upcoming podcast schedule every week—well then drastic measures it is.”

The Pyramid ship hangs over the ruins, tears a hole in the fabric of reality with the sound of a door stopper being sprung by a precocious kitten, and vanishes.

“Next stop, THE DARK TIMES,” Arissa says grimly.

Scheduling Victorious III

Cpt 3

She crumples the paper into a compact wad and throws for the wastebasket, (both as anachronistic as can be: an Osirian Pyramid ship from the 35th century—one of the most technologically advanced pieces of starcraft ever created—and sitting in its gleaming white, high-tech, fully automated control room, an honest to goodness piece of paper and cylindrical metal can) sending it in a near-perfect arc across the room. The makeshift ball bounced once on the rim and out, skittering across the floor making that noise that was both satisfying and strangely unnerving.

She rolls her eyes. “Really? You couldn’t let me have that one?”

She melts upright off the couch and into a stretch, her lithe body arching beneath her white silk robes. Paradoxes aside, it was getting annoying to have to reschedule things every other week, even if she was just the mouthpiece. Sauntering over to the wastebasket, she nimbly plucks the wad of paper up and unsmooths it, re-reading the characters on the page. She shakes her head, inputs a few sequences on the panel before her, and hits the transmit button.

TTV #473 –Tales of the Dark Times #3 (Comic Maker), The Enemy of My Enemy (Big Finish Audio), Monstrous Beauty #3 (Comic)

Thanksgiving – OFF

TTV #474 – TLV: Daleks! #1 “The Archive of Islos”, #2 (Animated Series)

TTV #475 – TLV: Daleks! #3, #4 (Animated Series)

TTV #476 – TLV: Daleks! #5 (Animated Series), The Minds of Magnox (Audio Book)

That finished, (again), she crumples the paper and drops it without fanfare into the trash.

“You realize this is wrong, right?” She shakes her head. “I mean, you are aware of the inaccuracies here.” She hooks a thumb over her shoulder toward the platform she spoke from not all that long ago. “I mean, aside from the fact that there is a ruined city outside that looks like it barely survived a nuclear blast—and granted, that may just be 2020 doing its thing—there’s a golden Pyramid ship sitting on top of it. Weird, right?”

She begins to pace, waving her hand around the room. “A 35th century Pyramid ship, you described it as. But the Osirians, are from the DARK TIMES. With one or two notable exceptions, they do not still exist today, and they certainly won’t exist in the 35th century to create this technological marvel that I’m currently shooting hoops in.” She moves back to the wastebasket and digs out the printout. “And look at this!” She cries out, holding the page aloft. “It’s ye ol’ green and white striped, tractor fed, DOT MATRIX paper!?! Could you get any more analog? WHAT IS GOING ON HERE?!?”

She collapses back on the couch, a sense of genuine worry about her.

“Are you off your game? I mean, I thought something was afoot last week when you named the post ‘Scheduling Victorious II’ and didn’t tag it with ‘Electric Boogaloo’ at the end. I know how you love that joke.” She pauses, the wheels in her sharp mind turning. “Unless… the Time Lord Victorious paradoxes… are they affecting you too? Is that even possible? I mean, you’re the author. The Narrator. You should be outside of these fictional events, but…” Her eyes travel skyward as if looking for god. “Hell, I’m self-aware, so who knows what your game plan is.”

Somewhere, the loud and abrasive grinding of the dot matrix printer started its insecticide chewing noise. It was only one line, and so mercifully short. She rose to pull the just printed page.

AS ALWAYS, THE SCHEDULE IS SUBJECT TO CHANGE WITHOUT NOTICE.

She re-reads the words several times as if imposing her own will on the text would cause it to change. But of course, it doesn’t. Instead, she wads the paper up and tosses it into the trash, where it makes a perfect basket, (nothing but net) thudding on the bottom of the can with a small echo.

“That isn’t reassuring.” She tells the author.

Scheduling Victorious II

Cpt 2

Deep within the pyramid that sat atop the ruined city, she lounges on a couch of black silk. The couch is in stark contrast to everything else in the room which gleamed white, from the sandblasted marble floors to her own white silk robes. She cradles her head in her hands, long, slender fingers absentmindedly play with an errant lock of her short, spiky blonde hair.

“Don’t do that.” She mutters. “I’m tired and frustrated. It’s been a long year that doesn’t show any signs of improving. I’m in no mood to have you describe my beauty just to make me feel better.”

But she was beautiful, tall and strong, with rounded features and bright eyes that sparkled with the depths of her intelligence.

“Okay, that wasn’t bad.” She admits. “At least my eyes aren’t piercing. What do you want anyway? Shouldn’t you be toppling a regime or sending a starship into a black hole or something?”

A wall panel within the pyramid illuminated suddenly. Words filled the glowing wall, words she barely payed attention to from her perch on the couch.

“Seriously? You’re still doing this? After the last batch was such a disaster?”

The words continued to flow across the wall screen.

“I mean, it’s not like we told people you were going bi-weekly and had to change it. OR that several of the dates were wrong and you had to issue a retraction. A retraction, I might add, that you simply uploaded to the website without calling attention to it. You sneaky bugger.”

The words paused, then in all capital letters spelled out, “AS ALWAYS THE SCHEDULE IS SUBJECT TO CHANGE WITHOUT NOTICE” then went back to their scrolling.

“Ooh, THAT hit a nerve. Look, don’t blame me. If you didn’t want to have these stimulating verbal debates, you wouldn’t have written me as self-aware.” She rises from the couch and considers the writing on the wall. “I’ll make the announcement.”

Nov
TTV #472 – Book Review – The Wintertime Paradox by David Rudden, TLV: Canaries (Short story)

TTV #473 – TLV: The Last Message (Short Story), Tales of the Dark Times #3 (Comic Maker), The Enemy of My Enemy (Big Finish Audio)

TTV #474 – TLV: Mission to the Known (Short Story), Monstrous Beauty #3 (Comic), Daleks! #1 “The Archive of Islos” (Animated Series)

TTV#475 – TLV: Daleks! #2 & #3 (Animated Series)

That taken care of, she returns to her place on the couch to contemplate her part in this mad story.

Scheduling Victorious

Dawn.

The sun’s rays have just begun to crest the horizon, illuminating a towering pyramid that looms over the desolate cityscape below. ‘Scenes from an apocalypse’ might be one way to describe the city. If it were a boxer, it would be beaten, bruised, and bloodied. The sprawling metropolis certainly had seen better days, but it was the people who still cowered in it that should be the focus. They too were broken and haunted, mere shadowy reflections of their former selves, for their eyes had seen horrors.

And yet they survived.

Atop the pyramid, a cloaked figure appears, gliding up to a stone podium that stands near the edge. Soft robes billow about her form as she lifts her hands aloft. The silence, which in reality was merely quiet, now becomes an eerie sound vacuum in anticipation of the words to follow. Breaths are held in that pause for attention, and she certainly has it.  Time stretches out into a thin stream of nothing in that heartbeat before she begins to orate, leaning into the strange device that can only be a microphone sending her voice booming into the valley below:

“Is this thing on?”

The cacophony of sudden noise startles her, and the bombastic feedback of her words causes a crumbling tower to finally give up its fight against gravity and collapse to the earth.

“Right. Here we go…

BEHOLD MORTALS:

A NEW DAY DAWNS.

A NEW FORMAT BEGINS.

TRAVELING THE VORTEX RETURNS.”

She pauses, looking thoughtful.

“Really? Is that it? Isn’t this an awful lot of pomp and circumstance just to announce your silly little podcast is coming back? I mean, I get it, you’ve been doing this pretty much non-stop, week after week for YEARS.” She draws out the word, adding more syllables to it than should be phonetically possible. “And then you take a little hiatus for a breather and suddenly that turns into a long hiatus because of a pandemic and…”

The author stares hard at her, projecting his will onto the flashing words that form on the screen. The meaning is clear.

“Oh fine, I’ll get on with it,” She mutters, not at all convinced the author wouldn’t carry out his threat to feed her to some horrible abomination in his next story. She coughs, attempting to get back into character.

“JOIN THE VORTEX BOYS IN THEIR NEW BI-WEEKLY FORMAT AS THEY REVIEW WHAT MAY BE THE MOST AMBITIOUS PROJECT IN DOCTOR WHO HISTORY:

THE MULTI-PART, MULTI-FORMAT TIME LORD VICTORIOUS!”

Words appear at the bottom of the screen, spelling out the upcoming schedule dates and topics:

Aug
8/31 TTV #465 – LOCKDOWN continued…

Sep
9/21 TTV #466 – Lost in Time: The Myth Makers (Recon and Novelization)

Oct
10/5 TTV #467 – TLV: A Dalek Awakens (Escape Room), Defender of the Daleks #1 (Comic), The Guide to the Dark Times (Annual 2021)

10/19 TTV #468 – TLV: Monstrous Beauty #1 (Comic), The Knight, The Fool and The Dead (Book)

and more to come!

“AS ALWAYS,” She concludes, looking rather exasperated by the whole ordeal, “THE SCHEDULE IS SUBJECT TO CHANGE WITHOUT NOTICE, BUT WE’LL TRY AND LET YOU KNOW!” With that, she turns in a flutter of robes and strides from the dais, muttering something about “real authors like Andy Frankham-Allen”.

And in the ruined city below, a faint sound reaches back up to the top of the pyramid. She could not be certain, of course, but it sounds like applause.

A Pause in the Proceedings…

So you may have noticed a significant lack of new show this week. And with everything going on, you might be (understandably) concerned about us. Rest assured, we are fine, life just managed to throw a couple of curve balls our way (some expected, some not) and we thought we could field them, and wound up flubbing them a bit.

(Look at me with the Sports analogies!)

First, Baby Liam has arrived! Safe, sound and without a time head, so that’s good. Mamma Sarah is fine, and Keith is busy doting over the new arrival and keeping Jemma occupied.

Glenn has been sick with a lingering… thing. It’s not Covid19, thank goodness, but it’s a persistent bug. (Maybe the Nucleus of the Swarm got him? I’ll have to monitor and see if he begins muttering “Contact has been made.”) At any rate, he’s taking it easy and recuperating.

Leaving Shaun to run the asylum.
[lightning flashes]
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!

Anyway, we were planning to taking a break around the birth of the baby anyway, it just came a week earlier than we anticipated, and Glenn and I didn’t get out the special content we wanted too to tide you over. So sorry. 🙁

But, rest assured we are not done, not by a long shot.

Traveling the Vortex will return…

The Timeless Schedule

March

TTV #463 – S12x10 The Timeless Children

Then a return to the literary worlds of Doctor Who in TTV #464 with a Book Review: Lethbridge-Stewart The Laughing Gnome: Havoc Files.

Hiatus – A break in the action here, as Keith and Sarah celebrate the arrival of Little Liam. Glenn and Shaun plan on recording something to fill the empty void in your lives, not sure yet what it will be!

We’ll return in April with more Big Finish as we delve into the War Doctor in TTV #465 with the Series 1 boxset: The Innocent, The Thousand Worlds, The Heart of the Battle

TTV #466 is Lethbridge-Stewart The Laughing Gnome: Rise of the Dominator by Robert Mammone

And back to where we left off with the 8th Doctor in TTV #467 as we review Big Finish 8th Doctor Adventures #4.2 Situation Vacant, and #4.3 Nevermore

The 4th Doctor and Leela grace our ears with Big Finish 4th Doctor Adventures Series #3.3 The Crooked Man, and #3.4 The Evil One in TTV #468

and the first arc of Titan Comics Thirteenth Doctor Season 2 is the topic of TTV #469 (#1-4)

The Laughing Gnome continues in May in TTV #470 with Lethbridge-Stewart The Laughing Gnome: Lucy Wilson & The Bledoe Cadets by Tim Gambrell

Beyond that? Only time will tell!