Celestial Toyroom #508/9

The next Celestial Toyroom is another Alan Stevens-edited spectacular, with plenty of interest to Magic Bullet Productions fans: a reminiscence about Peter Miles, a Cool Things... on The Magician's Apprentice/The Witch's Familiar, and an incisive article about why the Cybermen are less rational than they pretend to be! Check out the full contents here.

Art History of the Daleks

New article this month: "Dalek Art" by Alan Stevens. Do the fascist mutants of the planet Skaro have an artistic side? Are they the ones behind the mysterious carvings on the planet Spiridon? And what is their strange connection with modern British sculptor Barbara Hepworth... and plagiarism-courting American artist Roy Lichtenstein?

Celestial Toyroom/Robots of Death interview

Fiona Moore was interviewed today by Southside Radio, about the Black Archive volume on the Robots of Death, Expressionist movies, and the joys of Zooming with cats. Download or listen to it here.

Vworp Vworp compendium now on sale

Missed out on early issues of the awesome Vworp Vworp! zine? No problem! Now you can order the collected, and expanded, Volumes One and Two direct from the source! Go to https://www.vworpvworp.co.uk/ to get yours.

Copied below is my Doctor Who Appreciation Society online editorial for Celestial Toyroom issue 506, plus Andy Lambert's issue cover, minus the Celestial Toyroom Logo.

And here we are again!

Physics teaches us that every single particle in the universe has a gravitational effect upon every other particle, no matter how great the degree of separation between them. This unified effect supports the theory that all events are related in some way. Synchronicity can then, in turn, be seen as merely a very personal and subjective observation of this inter-connected universe, of which we are but a small part.

The Robots of Death has always been a personal favourite of mine, and so when I was given an opportunity to build an issue of Celestial Toyroom around Fiona Moore’s critical monograph for The Black Archive, my first concern was how the hell could I pull it off?

I was the producer of Magic Bullet’s Kaldor City audio plays, and, although it’s been several years since there has been any addition to the series, the compact discs and downloads still sell, and I am frequently asked questions about the story… which is a little problematic in that Kaldor City was written to be a mystery with many possible answers, not a secret, which, by definition, can only have one.

So although an article on the Kaldor City plays was a necessity, it was not for me to write it. Equally, any piece commissioned by myself on the subject could be seen as an indirect reflection of my thoughts, which would influence the reading of the series, causing certain narratives to become more defined, whilst other possibilities vanished.

Then, as I wrestled over and over with this philosophical Gordian Knot, Ann Worrall turned up, unsheathed her sword of shining clarity, and sundered the knot with a single stroke!
“I’ve written this article about competing narrative structures in the Kaldor City audio plays,” she said.

Synchronicity or plain dumb luck?

You decide.

In conclusion, I’d like to thank Andy Lambert for his highly surreal wrap-around cover featuring a Voc robot playing a metaphysical game of chess, and JL Fletcher for yet another awesome full colour postcard, this time depicting the Fourth Doctor, Leela and the crew of Storm Mine Four.
Kindest regards,

Alan Stevens (with thanks to Chris Boucher)

Fiona's book on The Robots of Death is available here: https://obversebooks.co.uk/product/43-robots/

Here is JL Fletcher's superb giveaway postcard from Celestial Toyroom issue 506.

Glad to report our restock of Faction Paradox and Kaldor City CDs arrived from the duplicator today! These great adventures can be ordered from here.