Ben Aaronovitch

It is just another administrative headache to be managed by underpaid government employees.

Which leads us perfectly to book three on the list, Rivers of London by Ben Aaronovitch.

A staple of urban fantasy.

Absolutely.

So what have you got for number two?

Uh, I've got Remembrance of the Daleks by Ben Aaronovitch.

Oh, okay.

I mean, that is a bit basic.

Terrible John Peel books.

Yeah, good grief.

He had a good start though, didn't he? I mean, the choice was, wasn't it, they could either have the special weapons Dalek or, uh, Ben Aaronovitch could have a Dalek shooting around corners.

But JNT said it's one or the other.

Um, and that, yeah, that thing, that always kind of annoys me.

But I mean, the thing is, and like I take Ben Aaronovitch gets compared to Pratchett 'cause he's a massive Terry Pratchett fan, the guy who writes Rivers of London.

Um, and like I was doing an event recently and he was talking about it as well as I, was I.

And but his books are very different to Terry Pratchett books.

On today's episode, we are going to be discussing the Doctor Who episode, Battlefield.

I'm here, as always, with my co-host, Ben.

Hello.

Ben, let's just jump right into this.

Give us a synopsis of Battlefield.

The Doctor and Ace arrive near the site of an archeological dig, to discover strange goings on that have already attracted the attentions of UNIT, now commanded by Brigadier Win- Winifred? By Brigadier Winifred Bambera.

Soon, a battle of mythological characters of Arthurian legend is raging.

But why do they all refer to the Doctor as Merlin? That was taken from the description of the Battlefield video on the Doctor Who Classic YouTube channel.

However, the latter element was abandoned due to concerns that the wings could not be effectively realized.

Ben Aaronovitch came up with the backstory involving Ace's friend, um, and the unfortunate attack on her.

Gwendolyn was originally called Maud after the character Maud Ruthyn in the 1864 Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu, Le Fanu novel Uncle Silas, but the name had to be changed due to the BBC's adaptation of The Dark Angel set to air around the same time.

Gwendolyn was the name of Mark's mother, and similarly his father was called Ernest, and Josiah was one of his grandfathers.