Today I thought I’d tell you about my top three fictional relationships. While I do not consider myself a hard core shipper, there are a few pairings in which I am super invested, and here they are. The Doctor and River Song (BBC, Doctor Who) Perhaps I should provide some background here for those readers unfamiliar with the BBC series. The Doctor is a space and time travelling alien from the planet Gallifrey who has a special fondness for Earth and who is frequently called upon to use his smarts and trusty sonic screwdriver to save the world. As a Time Lord, he has the unique trait that, when he is severely injured, his body regenerates, giving a whole new look and personality to the character. River Song is a slightly-more-than-human time traveller whose timeline collides on a regular basis with that of The Doctor. Showrunner Russell T Davies, who introduced River to the show, has said that his inspiration for the character was Audrey Niffinegger’s novel The Time Traveler’s Wife in which a time traveller’s relationship with his wife is complicated by his meeting her at different points in her life. The first time we – and The Doctor…
One of the books I was most anticipating this year was Robin Hobb’s Fool’s Quest, which was released on August 11th and it certainly didn’t disappoint. I found it impossible to review this book without mentioning some minor spoilers, so I will hide the spoiler part of the review. To summarise though I loved this book. Fitz and the Fool are one of my favourite literary partnerships and I loved reading the continuation of the story. This is the second in the Fitz and the Fool trilogy, following on from Fool’s Assassin. The first book was a slow burner, if still very enjoyable, focussing more on character development than action. This followup is more action oriented and is a wonderful read. I gave Fool’s Quest five stars out of five and would thoroughly recommend it to any Hobbs fan. For those new to Hobbs, start with Assassin’s Apprentice (but be aware it’s a slow starter but well worth it) The rest of the review may contain spoilers and my speculation for book three, so click through only if you have read the book and/or want to be spoiled.