I’ve made a Pinterest board for Alan Lennox and the Temp Job of Doom, with some pictures of the real world locations for some of the places in the book, plus the inspirations for Mark and Dakota. Check it out!
Happy Valentine’s Day! In honor of the holiday, I’m taking a look at that cosmic Casanova, the Lothario of space-time, the Don Juan of the vortex. For someone so often portrayed as either apart from, confused by, or simply uninterested in human romance, the Doctor sure does get a lot of play. Let’s celebrate love with the Time Lord by going backwards through the many, many, many loves of Doctor Who…
Missy kissy.
The Master
Let’s start with what is possibly the most significant relationship in the Doctor’s life – his love/hate affair with his eternal nemesis. The Master may have waited for a gender-swap regeneration to finally plant one hell of a smacker on her arch-enemy, but come on. This was building between them for a long, long time. Just take a look at that death scene in Last of the Time Lords – the Master cradled in the Doctor’s arms, the Doctor weeping, begging him to stay, promising they’ll spend eternity together, just the two of them…now that’s a love scene. (Should it worry me that I find a scene that ends with suicide-by-spite romantic?) Producer Steven Moffat clearly considers the Master to be the Doctor’s One True Pairing – way back in 1999’s charity comedy spoof Doctor Who and the Curse of Fatal Death he had Jonathan Pryce’s Master walk off into the sunset with Joanna Lumley’s Doctor. (But more on that story later…) It’s a fine line between love and hate, they say, and the Doctor and the Master have been straddling that line for a long, long time.
I’m a massive fan of the long-running British science fiction show Doctor Who, and if you are as well, then you might have caught some Whovian Easter eggs I’ve slipped into my stories. I did this for my own amusement, but I thought it might be fun to turn it into a contest. Who doesn’t love a contest?
Here’s how it works. In (almost) all of my books, there’s one character who shares a name with a character from Doctor Who. In Doctor Who, the character appears in one and only one story. (Story, not episode – they may appear throughout a multi-episode story.) In my books, the character is referred to by full name, first and last, but does not actually appear on-page.
To win, simply name the character, the book, and the Doctor Who story they appear in. If you’re the first to get it, I’ll immortalize you on the contest’s permanent page forever and send you a copy of any book you like, in any format you like (any type of e-book, or paperback). It doesn’t have to be one that’s out yet – if you’d like to wait for an upcoming release, I’ll send it to you as soon as it’s published.
The best part of this contest is, like Doctor Who, it’s never ending! Or at least, it won’t end until I stop writing. I’ll keep putting these names in my books, and you can keep looking for them!
As of now, the books you can search are Alan Lennox and the Temp Job of Doom and Caitlin Ross and the Commute from Hell. Dakota Bell and the Wastes of Time will also be eligible, once it’s released.
There are two books of mine that don’t have a Who character – This Is What He Should Have Said, and Mark Park and the Flume of Destiny. This Is What is a bit too short to get one in there smoothly, and Mark Park had a character who wound up getting cut from the book before release. So to make up for this glaring omission, I’ll add in a BONUS question! In Caitlin Ross, there’s a character who doesn’t quite fit the rules of this contest. He or she is mentioned without ever being seen, but we don’t get his or her first name, and the matching Doctor Who character appeared in more than one story. This character does appear in Mark Park and the Flume of Destiny, where we learn his or her first name – which does not match the Who character’s. Name this character, the not-quite-matching Who character, and any of the Who stories that character appeared in to win!
You can email me your answers at brianolsenbooks@gmail.com, or send them to me through my Contact page. Happy hunting!
I’m a comic book fan. A big comic book fan. A life-long comic book fan. Richie Rich, Archie and the Justice League taught me to read. I think it’s safe to say that my writing – no, scratch that. I think it’s safe to say that my world view has been significantly shaped by comics.
Don’t worry, I’m not about to get all serious. I just want to establish my deep love of the medium before I start making fun of it.
If you read comics in the seventies or eighties, you may remember that the most powerful weapon heroes had at their disposal was not their great strength, their nifty gadgets, or even their pure hearts. It was their supply of Hostess snack products. A series of advertisements running in just about every title featured DC and Marvel superheroes using Twinkies, Cupcakes and Fruit Pies to defeat their nemeses. These one-page comics were written and drawn by the regular artists of the main series, so to a kid like me, there wasn’t much difference between Superman beating Lex Luthor with a punch or with a processed chemical snack. It was all canon. Batman has Twinkies in his utility belt? Sure! Why wouldn’t he? I sure would, if I had one.
Some of the bad guys in these strips were the normal arch-villains the heroes would face in their own comics every month, but some were original to the advertisements. Let’s take a look at one such match and relive the glory days of comic/snack synergy with this gem, which probably ran in a bunch of comics but which I found in The Invaders #25, cover dated February, 1978. (These Hostess ads were uncredited – some sources I’ve found give the writer as Marv Wolfman and the penciller as either John Buscema, Sal Buscema, or Bob Brown.)
Thor in “The Ding-A-Ling Family”
I thought Ding-A-Lings were a Drake’s product…
Don’t hurt your eyes by trying to read that – an excruciatingly detailed panel-by-panel analysis follows…
I’ve been reading through my old Livejournal and Blogger blogs, archiving them to my desktop in case they someday go away forever (beware the perils of not owning the site that hosts your content!). A lot of my posts are just me making fun of various old comics, but some of them I think are worthy of keeping alive. So, I’ll probably be re-posting some old stuff. They’ll all be new to this blog, but if you’ve been following me for a while some of my upcoming posts may look kind of familiar. I’ll put a nice new spit ‘n’ polish on them, though, just for you! Stay tuned…
