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Buoyed by the discussion here, and a nostalgic reading of the Warlock magazines, I gave Warlock of Firetop Mountain a go last night. Rather than cheat a bit, as I used to as a nipper, I thought I'd play it completely by the book (pun intended!): follow the rules to the letter and even draw a map as I went on.

RnGesus was on my side, at least at the start, as I rolled outrageously good stats: Skill 11, Stamina 23 and Luck 10. This allowed for a bold play style, as I could rifle through all the rooms early on with barely a scratch and soon had 26 pieces of gold, the bronze key, the potion of invisibility, glove, cheese etc. My luck eventually started to fail me the other side of the river though. Naively I told the man with the dog that I was raiding the place, at which point he set his dog on me, and after I killed the dog, he turned into a werewolf and came at me. I thought I'd fare pretty well in the fight, after all, I had skill 11 compared to his 8....but the rolls were bad! I defeated him, but with stamina now depleted to 9. I'm now on paragraph 122 which has the memorable picture of the four gaunt looking men in rags, so I'm still to do labyrinth part of the adventure.

It's been quite interesting to follow the rules properly. I've realised how important the luck mechanic is, and how the game is set up to reward boldness by giving you luck points. But by doing that it also provides an incentive to test your luck during battles, as otherwise you won't get the benefits of the luck points you get (as you can't exceed your initial value). Also using provisions to give a +4 to stamina becomes important, and those paragraphs where you're allowed to take a meal become very welcome.

I'll continue tomorrow. I have a vague plan of replaying the first 6 books, as those were the ones I had as a kid.

I found an archive of Warlock magazines (it was the Fighting Fantasy magazine that ran quarterly in the mid-80s in case you didn't know). Check them out: https://annarchive.com/warlock.html

I thought Eve of the Daleks, was ok - a welcome palate cleanser after the lumpeness of Flux. Once the time loop conceit had been established, I got rather excited that this would be an unexpected - and most welcome - classic.

I don't think it quite nailed the landing though. That kind of plot needs a meticulousness in its execution, as people will rewatch it to compare each iteration of the loop. Of course, meticulous plotting is not really Chib's bag is it? He obviously abandoned the idea of when people die in each iteration being somehow significant, but forgot (or couldn't be arsed) to scroll up in his Word document and delete the initial set-up. Slapdash.

I didn't see the whole Yazz being keen on the Doctor thing coming though. Not that that could develop much though - the 13th doctor is perhaps the most emotionally evasive we've ever had, which is ironic (in a good way) as she's the first female doctor, and it's typically a quality seen in blokes. She's no more likely to talk about her inner feelings than a dad in the 1970s - instead using the gambit of standing there awkwardly until the other party changes the topic of conversation.

Sir Ian Livingstone, I presume!


Ahhh Fighting Fantasy. I had the first 6 in their original cover art (before they besmirched them with the green top border and FF crest). I remember my faves being Starship Traveller (as I was more sci-fi than fantasy back then), and Deathtrap Dungeon. In fact I played Deathtrap Dungeon with my son when he was about 7 on a long bus ride from South London, where we were staying with friends, to the centre. We were off to the Science Museum and when we got there, there was a hell of a queue so I entertained him by ad libbing my own FF-style adventure for him to play.

I never kept my FF books, which I regret. I also had the first issue of Warlock magazine, and Avenger! which is the first book of a rival series of books called Way of the Tiger with a Ninja character. Anyone remember that?

I've gone from paper to digital in my 2000 AD/Meg sub, and overall it's been a good move for me.

I save the files on PC as CBZ rather than PDF, as it's better supported by comic reader apps. I can always log on to the 2000 AD and re-download everything in PDF if I ever change my mind. In any case, I tend to just read each issue on my iPad via the 2000 AD app. The app works well, and each issue looks great on the iPad. My iPad is only an iPad Air though, so the screen is not as big as a physical issue. But it's easy to pinch the screen and expand the picture as and when needed.

The main disadvantages are the following:

1. You get your prog/Meg on Wednesday morning, so I'm always a bit jealous of peeps here who get their progs on Saturday. On the other hand you never get a late prog that you have to track down with customer support, so swings and roundabouts.

2. You don't get any of those sweet subscriber freebies, like that issue 0 facsimile recently.

3. No reduced rate for subscribing to both the prog and Meg. Although of course, the cost is much cheaper that the physical combo subscription anyway.

4. Occasionally the iPad app is a little janky. For me I get issues trying to download the new prog and have to restart the app to get the download to start. I could probably fix this my deleting and reinstalling the app, but I might lose all the issues I have downloaded and have to redownload them all, so I can't be arsed. I'll just live with having to restart the thing every now and then.

5. Double-page spreads aren't the best on an iPad. But if you're on pc you should be fine.

That's all I can think of, and it's all pretty small potatoes imo.

And without further ado, never mind the best XMAS Prog, what's the single best PROG?

Hope you enjoyed the ride!

I very much enjoyed this! And agree with you about 500. I remember having to wait until finishing my paper round to read this, and having to deliver it to a few homes before I could settle down to read it properly! What a great line up, especially artistically with Talbot, Fabry and Ewins/McCarthy leading the charge.

And you're so right about prog 723, the first all-colour one. What a disappointment! I cancelled my regular order a few weeks later.

On a more positive note, the run beginning with Prog 650 was a classic, and totally agree with your 5/5 rating.

My own personal faves are the run starting with prog 335 and the run circa 400. 335 onwards started a run of Nemesis Book 3, Dredd The Graveyard Shift, Strontium Dog The Moses Incident and shorter Slaine and Rogue Trooper stories.

This has been a great read. If you feel a sequel coming on any time soon, may I humbly suggest a look into the best APNIAMOFJOP of all time? See the review thread for prog 2250 if my jargon eludes you.

Of course APNIAMOFJOPs are, at the moment, an Autumnal affair, reflecting the New Season time of the year in TV-land. This works because there are usually 50 progs per year...

...except when the year begins on a Wednesday, or if the year begins on a Tuesday and is also a leap year. Then there are 51 progs. Which means the APNIAMOFJOP creeps a week earlier one year out a 7 for the former reason, and one year out of 28 for the latter. Which equates to 5 out of 28 years I think, on average. So one day the APNIAMOFJOP will be in the summer. Although it will likely be a long time coming.

Well, I'm glad that's sorted.

This has made me so happy 😁- an early Christmas prez! Thanks Funt and your wonderful data scraping

To end on a more positive note, there were some things I enjoyed about the Flux. The performances of the guest starts was generally of a high caliber. The general look of it, from CGI to set design to costumes was great. In places it gave me "70s Doctor Who"-feels much more than NuWho had before - particularly the Temple of Atrapos. That and the whole "not understanding what's going on" deal made me feel like I was 6 years again!

But to end my positive note on a negative note (thereby reverting to form), I hated with a seething passion that whole sorry business of Bel's tamagotchi interface to her unborn baby. Not the idea, but the execution of it, with those bloody animated heart emoticons. That's the most dystopian I've ever seen Doctor Who get.

And I've got a sinking feeling that in the New Year's Day episode, none of the fallout of The Flux (see above post) will be even acknowledged, and we'll just have some light-hearted festive shenanigans with Aisling Bea and a bunch of daleks who shouldn't exist any more. Hope I'm wrong, though

I was flu(mmo)xed on first viewing, but I binge-watched the whole thing again this week, and it made a lot more sense. There's a shedload of plot weaknesses - things that don't really add up, and I honestly can't be arsed to enumerate them, but I'm not sure if it's significantly worse than that of the average season finale of any NuWho series to date.

Where The Flux does compare unfavourably to previous NuWho (especially the RTD era) is exploring the emotional consequences of plot events. Eg Karvinsta is now the last of his species - oooh don't we have someone to hand who can empathise with that? Oh, my mistake, apparently not. The bulk of the universe has been destroyed- that's a got to be a bit of a downer? Apparently not. The doctor just had to commit genocide of the three races to save the universe. That must be a hard pill to swallow? After all, the Doctor would surely balk against such "end justifies the means" tactics, that's presumably why she left The Division. No, it's all good - hey, Dan, fancy joining us for another jolly adventure? My step mum who brought me up, and shaped me to be the person I am, even though I don't remember it, and she's clearly gone a bit twisted and evil, just got murdered in front of me. How do I process that?

Ultimately if these things don't appear to affect the story characters in any way, then it's not going to emotionally resonate with the average viewer.

A question to you guys that have read the books and watched the show so far: I have started reading the first book and does the show cover the first book or must I read more books?

The first season, I believe, is set to cover the first half of the first book, The Eye of the World. It also incorporates some aspects of the prequel novel, New Spring - in particular the characters Kerene and Stepin. However, reading New Spring is generally not recommended until you've read at least the first 5 books in the main series, as it will reveal spoilers that are best left until later in the series. Personally I read it between the 10th and 11th novels, which is the publication order.

This is uncanny for me as I did maths at uni. Is someone stalking me? 😬

https://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/arts-entertainment/six-nerd-gateway-drugs-that-ruined-your-life-20211116214344

I've been enjoying this disco-funk take on Dancing in the Street by The Grateful Dead. A toe-tapping start to Monday! https://youtu.be/eV16Ysr03Vw