News designed to mess with geeks

Maisie Williams (Arya Stark in Game Of Thrones) is to guest star in Doctor Who this year, and the press release included this photo...

... which is a classic “I’m the Doctor” shot if ever I saw one.

I’m sure she isn’t as she’s a bit busy, but wouldn’t she be great?

In related news, Catherine Tregenna is returning to write for Doctor Who after writing a chunk of good early Torchwood including Hugo nominee Captain Jack Harkness.

FanTAStic!

io9 on how important, how different and how great the Ninth Doctor was.

Do you wanna come with me?

Cubicle 7 reflect on DWAITAS on the 10th anniversary of Rose.

Ten Years

Rose aired ten years ago today, ushering in a new era of Doctor Who.

Where were you that evening? I was in the Sports Bar at the University of Edinburgh’s Teviot union, watching it on a big screen with fifty or so other Conpulsion attendees.

I remember seeing this on a big billboard and thinking "this could work..."

Peter Capaldi on watching Rose.

SFX quoting lots of interviews with lots of people involved.

It’s been quite a ride since then, hasn’t it?

The Eclipse

As Paul Cornell has noted in the past, the planet is perfectly lined up for eclipses every now and then:

“the apparent size of the moon is exactly the apparent size of the sun (so much for Earthly ordinariness, total eclipses from a planetary surface would make us a galactic tourist destination)”.

The First Space Walk

Fifty years ago today, Russian cosmonaut Alexey Leonov stepped out into space.

Anna Atkins

Google Doodle for Anna Atkins, the botanist and photographer born 216 years ago, believed to be the first person to publish a book illustrated with photography. What else might have appeared in the frame of her botanical images?

Happy Pi Day

It’s 3/14/15 9.26.53. This is far as the numbers on a calendar clock will go towards Pi, the ratio that never ends. I can see it being the kind of date that the Doctor gets excited to visit and companions remain nonplussed.

It’s also Einstein’s birthday. Many happy returns!

TimeWatch, Spanish Division

An RPGnet thread informs me of The Ministry Of Time, a Spanish time travel TV series about public service workers looking after a building where the doors open onto different points in history.

(Caveat: largely family-friendly, but includes a topless sex scene in episode two.)

The most watched programme on the BBC, after the news, is probably ‘Doctor Who’. What has happened is that science fiction has been subsumed into modern literature. There are grandparents out there who speak Klingon, who are quite capable of holding down a job. No one would think twice now about a parallel universe.
Sir Terry Pratchett

"Doctor, are those good beeps or bad beeps?"

A preview of the Ninth Doctor comic series from Titan.

International Women's Day 2015

Happy International Women’s Day 2015. See previous adventure ideas.

The Mary Sue picked up the #FilmHerStory hashtag for women in history whose achievements should be better known. See also the FHS Pinterest. Why hasn’t there been a Harriet Tubman film yet? Or an Ada Lovelace episode of Doctor Who? (Especially with the Eighth Doctor adventuring with Mary Shelley.)

Holi

Another Google Doodle, to celebrate Holi, the festival of colours that marks the start of spring in India.

Definitely the kind of thing the Doctor and companions would go to enjoy - and might then end up going into an adventure with disapproving officious types without washing it all off - or spot something that the pigments stick to that is otherwise invisible...

Mercator

Gerardus Mercator was born 503 years ago. Now then Google, you were around three years ago. As the Independent article linked shows, his map was highly useful, influential, but also created and enforced biases - think how many times you see Earth from space is SF and the north is on top. Of course, from where he was based such biases were natural - how would he be influenced by seeing Earth from space at a different angle?

GM's Day - treat yourself

GM’s Day, a 7000-strong 30% PDF sale at DriveThruRPG, and it includes C7 books up to including the brand new Eighth Doctor Sourcebook!

Even if you aren’t picking up the other Doctor books, this one is worth a look by GMs as it’s almost entirely brand new adventures. Pirates and Sea Devils! 60s-style 21st century space explorers! The Brigadier and the Master! An impossible city in the Void! The Mara! Telepathic snails! Battlefield Knights! The Patchwork Man! The Gamestation! A frozen world! Weeping Angels! The Time War!

101 SF game pitches, planets and stations

For my 1138th post, a list of SF campaign hooks which could easily be places for a group of time and space travellers to visit, as well as a list of that selfsame thing.

He doesn't want to go.

Big Chief preview a new Tenth Doctor figure with a headsculpt showing his angstier side.

Normally one hugs toys because they’re cuddly, not because they need a hug.