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Post by Jaedan on Feb 18, 2018 14:06:29 GMT
Well - having almost completed my first re-listen, I've found favourites and not emerging... so I wondered what everyone else's opinions were.
I didn't like 'Ever After' much - I've never liked the 'is-it-real; is-it-not' dimension to madhouse stories, and I didn't appreciate it any more in 'Confessions' than any other fiction which has used that particular trope. And while they're good stories, I do prefer the ones narrated by Dorian himself than the others. I didn't like Dorothy Parker very much.
I think my favourite is 'We Are Everywhere' (sorry, Dorian). The idea of him as the perfect serial-killer stalker victim was brilliant, and I just LOVED the way he played Luke in the end by pretending to be rather bored. Fantastic! Another favourite is 'Living Image' - just a simple coincidence that turned to s*** when Dorian got involved, showing that it doesn't all have to be supernatural.
So, what did others think of these? What are everyone else's favourites or least-liked? Would love to know...
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Post by Zagreus on Feb 20, 2018 1:32:20 GMT
Oof, making me choose... Going by series, I'd say Series 1: This World Our Hell - Just a stunning introduction, really sets the tone, lets you know what you're in for. Such a stupendous start to the range, I still love it the most of the Series 1 stuff. Series 2: The Prime of Deacon Brodie - This may surprise people who've read my thoughts on body swap stories and such, but it's such a great story, showcasing how life moves on around Dorian while he stands in place. Really good stuff. Series 3: Blank Canvas - This one barely has Vlahos in it at all, and showcases instead the magnificent talent that is Bernard Holley, and also staunchly reminding the listener, after Series 2, that Dorian is not a good man. Like This World for Series 1, this sets the tone and shows you just how brutal this Series can (and will) be without Dorian's inner monologue there to couch the atrocities with justification. Series 4: The Enigma of Dorian Gray - I seem to like series premieres, don't I? This one, again, is very reminiscent of Series 1, and deals with Dorian, the ambiguously evil protagonist, and how others perceive and react to him. A very personal tale, and an oddly science fiction one at that, in a series filled with the purely supernatural. It actually reminds me of a short story, The Gray Picture of Dorian, which coincidentally came out earlier in the year, and I must wonder at the convergent evolution of the stories going on there. Series 5: .... you know, I'm not sure I actually like Series 5 at all. They're all so.... gut wrenching, and emotional, and traumatic, and well-done, and I think I'm still digesting that release, some 15 months later. I've listened to One Must Not Look At Mirrors more than the others, if that's any indication of things, but even that is so.... uncomfortable in spots that even though I acknowledge how superb it is, I'm not actually sure I can say I like it at all.
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Post by Jaedan on Feb 20, 2018 20:08:20 GMT
Wow; you've given me so much to think about there (which, I assure you, is a good thing!)
I would have been quite nervous when I started 'This World Our Hell', except that it came free as a sample when I got 'The Picture of Dorian Gray'. And I was pleased it was the whole story rather than just a teaser. It was a brilliant start and convinced me that the investment in the Series One & Two CDs would be worth it. It was the perfect opener to let people know what the series was going to be like; using a small cast, simple but compelling story and establishing Dorian as ruthless as Wilde wrote him, but not outright evil (besides Wilde himself making an appearance, as well).
'Deacon Brodie' is an odd one; I'm not a big fan of body-swap, either, unless it is done well. And I'm glad to say this WAS done well. I agree it captured a down side to Dorian's immortality in an original way, and did give the impression you said - life rushes by him. It was also one of those odd sparks of impulse the character sometimes has. He says several times that everything has its price and I thought giving him the strong motivation to agree to the swap was clever, as under any other circumstances he might have searched a bit more thoroughly for the potential price.
Blank Canvas grew on me during the re-listen, more than I'd enjoyed it first time 'round. I also had a better idea of the relationship between Dorian and the Portrait by then (which are sometimes such different characters...). There's something in this I can't quite get my head around, but I haven't quite figured out what it is, yet. One of those little alarms that says, "you're missing something"...
Enigma. This was very different; quite spooky, really, and I enjoyed the way that the listener starts to get an idea what happened, but Dorian doesn't give any clue as to whether he has figured it out or not. (But then, we have the advantage of a lot more Sci-Fi than he does, at the time it's set!!)
I agree with you about Season Five. They were all pretty anguished stories. The cleverest part, though, was how likely the development of Dorian's character was. He was more childish and thoughtless in 'Mirrors', although capable of being kind, as his sympathy towards Wilde at the end shows. The war seemed like a big joke to him at first, until he started to see that it really wasn't as time went on. He was very much the Dorian of the majority of the series during 'Valley of Nightmares'. 'Ever After' I find difficult to place - I still want to write a 'fix', especially as it played into one of my personal dislikes!
A question, though! I thought I'd ferretted out all the stories, adaptations, sequels &c. to 'Picture of Dorian Gray', but I'd not found the one you link to (thank you for that, by the way!) Do you know of any lists anywhere? I have found a couple, but that story doesn't appear on any of them.
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Post by aussiedoctorwhofan on Feb 21, 2018 7:55:12 GMT
My answer. "yes"...
I STILL haven't listened to the final season. the boxset has been sitting right in front of me on my pc desk for well close to 1 year now... I am holding off listening to it for some strange torturous reason.
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Post by Jaedan on Feb 21, 2018 17:12:57 GMT
I was going to put off 'Feast of Magog' and the 'Darkest Shadows', but I folded yesterday and bought them... then listened to them at work today. I was rather disappointed that Dorian only had a cameo on the latter, but I enjoyed 'Feast of Magog'
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Post by Zagreus on Feb 21, 2018 18:05:45 GMT
I was rather disappointed that Dorian only had a cameo on the latter Oh man, if you really want to torture yourself, go listen to The Diary of River Song Series 1, or The Lives of Captain Jack: Month 25 {Spoilers for Month 25}Though I suppose for Month 25, you could in fact do some handwaving and say that Jack is basing his disguise on Dorian
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Post by J.A. Prentice on Feb 22, 2018 1:06:01 GMT
I think my absolute favourite is "One Must Not Look At Mirrors."
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Post by Jaedan on Feb 22, 2018 16:21:39 GMT
I was rather disappointed that Dorian only had a cameo on the latter Oh man, if you really want to torture yourself, go listen to The Diary of River Song Series 1, or The Lives of Captain Jack: Month 25 I want to get some of the Torchwood series anyway (or at least Jack Harkness stuff, since I'm most interested in his character)... so I will look out for Month 25 I never intended to get anything from Riversong, though. Is that a cameo or simply a reference?
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Post by Zagreus on Feb 22, 2018 17:53:28 GMT
Oh man, if you really want to torture yourself, go listen to The Diary of River Song Series 1, or The Lives of Captain Jack: Month 25 {Spoiler} I want to get some of the Torchwood series anyway (or at least Jack Harkness stuff, since I'm most interested in his character)... so I will look out for Month 25 I never intended to get anything from Riversong, though. Is that a cameo or simply a reference? It's a bloody c***tease is what it is lol. {Spoiler}Vlahos plays a character who is should damn well be Dorian, but is instead not, and is explained away with time travel and cloning to explain how he shows up in vastly different time periods A question, though! I thought I'd ferretted out all the stories, adaptations, sequels &c. to 'Picture of Dorian Gray', but I'd not found the one you link to (thank you for that, by the way!) Do you know of any lists anywhere? I have found a couple, but that story doesn't appear on any of them. I actually stumbled across that one on Audible while looking for the BBC Picture adaption that had Geoffrey Beevers in it. Wikipedia used to have a section/page for "Dorian Gray in Popular Culture," but in the endless posturing of the power users who have nothing in their lives beyond controlling their own little circle of the online encyclopedia, the page has long since been deleted. There's still some scattered lists on wikipedia, like this page that deals with "adaptations": en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adaptations_of_The_Picture_of_Dorian_GrayAs you can see, it's not complete, though it is fairly extensive. Perhaps an enterprising fan could copy that page over to the Confessions wiki in the process of updating it? Wink wink nudge nudge?
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Post by Jaedan on Feb 22, 2018 19:40:03 GMT
Thank you so much for answering - that article isn't one I'd found and has a couple I didn't know about on it; I'm really grateful for the link. I'm building a collection I've got several books (most of which are dreadful, so far, but the one I'm currently reading is surprisingly good), and a resource from a comics website brought up a couple of graphic novels, and a few stories which feature the character, too. (Interesting that two of the comics depict him with dark hair... What is this about changing the colour of his hair? So many seem to do that!) The Confessions wiki has been terrific, too - I'm never sure I've heard names quite right, and it's been great being able to look some of them up.
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Post by anothermanicmondas on Feb 24, 2018 17:25:33 GMT
for me the highlight was the first CD of season 3 with Blank Canvas and The Needle due to a combination of the intensity of these stories and the contrast with the first 2 seasons (which I had only just finished listening to, the previous week)
Human Remains in season 4 also stood out as exceptional
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Post by Jaedan on Feb 24, 2018 17:44:57 GMT
I wasn't keen on Blank Canvas at first, but I began to appreciate it much more on my re-listen. It was an insight into Dorian. The Needle was clever - took an old trope and mixed it with intrigue that made it a good story. It was cool to find out what happened to Simon, as well. I thought Human Remains was quite funny - I thoroughly enjoyed that. Very clever; very different
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Post by Zagreus on Feb 25, 2018 6:11:17 GMT
Thank you so much for answering - that article isn't one I'd found and has a couple I didn't know about on it; I'm really grateful for the link. I'm building a collection I've got several books (most of which are dreadful, so far, but the one I'm currently reading is surprisingly good), and a resource from a comics website brought up a couple of graphic novels, and a few stories which feature the character, too. (Interesting that two of the comics depict him with dark hair... What is this about changing the colour of his hair? So many seem to do that!) The Confessions wiki has been terrific, too - I'm never sure I've heard names quite right, and it's been great being able to look some of them up. I've found that perusing the edit history of that Adaptions wiki page reveals that it also used to house a much wider array of content, such as television episodes, musical homages, and various books and such the character had shown up in or been referenced by. You might find a rather interesting wealth of material there. edit: Aha! I've found the missing link! It seem that that page houses a wealth of information from the now extinct "Dorian Gray in Popular Culture" page, which was at some point merged with "Adaptions of Dorian Gray" and then pruned down to basically just be the adaptations again without much of any of the old stuff that had been merged in Anyway, here is the last version prior to the merge and deletion of content. "Dorian" by Will Self looks like one I might have to check out. Also, if you weren't aware, there's a Dorian story in one of the King in Yellow collections, which posits the "little yellow book" that Dorian was gifted was, in fact, the eponymous play, and Henry gathers Dorians friends to put on a performance as a form of grieving for them all, with suitably disturbing results, as one might imagine. The story is called In Memoriam, and you can read about it here: kinginyellow.wikia.com/wiki/In_Memoriam
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Post by Jaedan on Feb 25, 2018 10:47:11 GMT
Wow, Zagreus - this is simply awesome! Thank you so much for helping me expand my collection like this; there are some real treasures on that page. I'm always grateful for more material, and if you'd like me to share anything I find, please just let me know Funnily enough, 'A Face Without a Heart' by Rick Reed referenced on the page is the "surprisingly good" novel I was talking about in my comment. And the Will Self novel... what can I say? It is written as a comedy and there are some genuinely funny moments in it. It captures a spirit of the '80s and '90s more than it captures the spirit of Wilde's original and the end is somewhat stretched. It's also the Henry Wotton of books, and had me laughing at things I really should NOT have been laughing about. Again, it's one of the better materials I've read so far and on balance, I would say it is worth checking out. I've also been subjected to some truly horrible self-published drivel and one trad publication (all of which are basically porn with silly storylines).
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Post by Zagreus on Mar 2, 2018 5:15:31 GMT
Wow, Zagreus - this is simply awesome! Thank you so much for helping me expand my collection like this No worries! I'm always on the lookout to expand my own as well I recently came across this trilogy: www.amazon.com/Box-Set-Wolf-Dorian-Books-ebook/dp/B078WKSX34/ref=sr_1_3The Wolf of Dorian Gray, in which the famous painting was of Dorian and a wolf, with the side-effect of turning him into a werewolf in this one. It's not the most sophisticated thing in the world, but hey you can't win em all
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Post by Jaedan on Mar 2, 2018 13:19:26 GMT
No worries! I'm always on the lookout to expand my own as well I recently came across this trilogy: www.amazon.com/Box-Set-Wolf-Dorian-Books-ebook/dp/B078WKSX34/ref=sr_1_3The Wolf of Dorian Gray, in which the famous painting was of Dorian and a wolf, with the side-effect of turning him into a werewolf in this one. It's not the most sophisticated thing in the world, but hey you can't win em all And there are days I just hate myself... (but I currently have the flu so feeling sorry for myself is taking precedence right now!) www.amazon.co.uk/Scarlet-Soul-Stories-Dorian-Gray/dp/1783800194/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1519995978&sr=8-1&keywords=scarlet+soulI did a more extensive search, since I seem to have missed a few. That might be a relief in one or two cases, since I was warned off one purchase by the subtitle "A Victorian BDSM Novel" and another two which are "The Erotic Picture of Dorian Gray I & II"... I think that I can live happily with an incomplete collection when these are the alternatives But the Wolf book link was brilliant - it's currently on offer, so I've saved a few pennies by getting it now I've never read 'werewolf fiction', so I'll be taking some of Dorian's advice and launching myself into a new experience... I don't know whether you know about a sequel written by Jeremy Reed (entitled simply 'Dorian')? There's also an alternative PoV "Gray: a Re-telling of..." by Charlie Martinsson (although I haven't got a copy of this one yet). And "The Picture of Dorian Gray: A Gay Novel" by Mark Roeder. When I get over the 'flu, I'll try and make a proper, comprehensive list of what I've found so far. With so many authors taking on Dorian Gray, I feel slightly less stupid for trying to write a sequel, myself!!
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Post by Zagreus on Feb 7, 2020 16:20:55 GMT
Any new stuff popped up in the two years since?
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