Chicks Dig Time Lords (among others!)

One of the more interesting Doctor Who non-fiction books to come out in a long time is Chicks Dig Time Lords: A Celebration of Doctor Who by the Women Who Love It.

What makes this book very exciting is not just a book that proves that Doctor Who has female fans -- this has always been true in my experience -- but that it proves how varied Doctor Who fandom really is. It is especially nice to see stories about American fandom -- my Doctor Who story sits right besides Kathy Sullivan's and Jennifer Adams Kelley's. But there are also stories about UK fandom, Canadian fandom, and Australian fandom.

This book also isn't just covering Doctor Who fans that have discovered Doctor Who in its latest incarnation, but fans from the "Wilderness Years" and during the original run.

This is a book that feels free to be critical about Doctor Who, but in the way that only fans can be.

I like this book not just for Doctor Who fans, but anyone interested in understanding fandom in all of its complexity and diversity. Definitely recommended!

The Writer's Tale

I picked up Doctor Who: The Writer's Tale over the weekend at Chicago TARDIS and I devoured it almost immediately. It's an incredibly detailed look at the creation of the fourth series of Doctor Who through a series of e-mails between Russell and Ben Cook.

There are a lot of things that you realize very quickly -- first of all, that yes, the complete set of departures and gap year have all been part of the plan for quite some time -- down to even Tennant's departure. It felt that way when you watched Series Four -- it felt like RTD had wrapped up almost everything that started all the way back in 'Rose', after all.

You also get a feeling for the insecurities of Russell T Davies -- and how it people that focus on how the "other" writers are better than Russell miss the point -- Russell rewrites almost everyone, and his fingerprints are all over the series as a whole. There's a notable piece where Russell feels sorry for himself for people not giving him any credit for his work on Human Nature, when he certainly helped on it. (Paul, in fact, has mentioned Russell's contributions.) That doesn't discredit that Human Nature is fundamentally Paul's story -- the novel, after all, is proof of that.

One of the best things is that part of Russell's strategy is clear -- there is certainly a risk that the new Doctor Who became so strongly associated with Russell, or the current cast, that when they inevitably leave, the show can continue -- but even that, it's part of the set up that the show may go away for a year or two -- but then will come back. Doctor Who becomes something that comes back; so we'll have Doctor Who now, and there will be Doctor Who for the fiftieth anniversary, and it will come back and regenerate itself again, and again.

And one part of the Writer's Tale is that it's part of one very strong strand of Doctor Who history. One of the reasons why Doctor Who was successfully revived is that people like Russell T Davies, David Tennant, and Steven Moffat learned about how televison was made by reading old Doctor Who magazines or books like 'The Making of Doctor Who'. This book will be read by people who will write for Doctor Who twenty years from now. They'll write other things as well -- just like RTD and Moffat have written wonderful things like Bob & Rose and Coupling -- but future writers will also continue to contribute to their favorite television show; the reason why they got into the business to begin with.

I can't recommend the book enough. It is a fascinating insight into this era of Doctor Who, and the writing process of Russell T Davies. It's accompanied by some wonderful sketches -- I'd love read a full Russell T Davies Doctor Who comic strip as well.

About Time

I have enjoyed the About Time series published by Mad Norwegian Press from the beginning and have commented on it before.

One of the interesting things is watching the book series evolve along with the new television series -- one thinks that there is nothing new to be said about classic Doctor Who, but this book is identifiably of its time. You can tell -- while reading it -- that the book was finished between The Last of the Time Lords and Time Crash.

The volume that just came out -- Volume Six -- is about the end of the classic series. One change with this book -- as opposed to the others co-written with Lawrence Miles -- is that by having only one voice, it is much more one person's view. And with the end years of John Nathan-Turner on the line, that is definitely something that this volume lacks -- though they try to recover with Rob Shearman rising to the defence of The Two Doctors.

One of my other complaints is that in Tat Wood's desire to demonstrate how much Americans don't know about the UK, he also frequently shows a lack of understanding about the USA. It's a bit odd for a series that was published by a company in the middle of America --- but perhaps that is why this is so present in the book. For example, it was perfectly logical for the producers of the TV Movie to assume that the FOX movie of the week audience wouldn't be familiar with Doctor Who.

Of course, many of the problems with the TV Movie are still very well identified -- and the TV Movie is interesting in so far as it influenced the new series; both in "this is what you do now" -- romantic tension between the leads is more or less inevitable now -- but in also all of the ways that the new series avoided the traps of the TV Movie.

One of the nice things about the new TV series being such a massive success is that both the final phases of the JN-T era and the TV Movie can now be looked at with some perspective -- neither are "the end" of Doctor Who. And this book takes advantage of that perspective -- you can see it pointed out how much the last era of the classic series was struggling to become something not at all unlike the television series made in Cardiff today. While the TV Movie is slated in About Time, I think it shares with the Cartmel era that sort of struggle -- of trying how to make a "modern" Doctor Who series.

One of the things with the modern era of television commentary is that we're of course already seeing loads of commentary on the new series. But the really relevant commentary about the Russell T Davies era of Doctor Who will come when we move on to the next era. I suspect we'll start to see the first works covering multiple years of the new series era after Series Four, or perhaps after the specials to follow. It certainly feels like we'd be moving to a new era after that point, even if both Russell T Davies and David Tennant stay on past the specials.

Human Nature

Well, it seems Human Nature is living up to the very highest of expectations.

I loved the book when I devoured it in a day over a decade ago [some book spoilers in the review].

Made of Steel

It's excellent to see that Terrance Dicks is writing one of the new series books. Terrance is one of Doctor Who's elder statesmen, especially from the creative perspective and it is nice to see his name show up underneath the new logo. I can't really see him writing a new television episode -- but this should be fun.

About Time

One of my favorite series of books about Doctor Who has been Lawrence Miles and Tat Wood's About Time series. I don't always agree with their opinions about the series, and I don't really need another book of Doctor Who facts. But the commentary throughout the series is fascinating -- for example, discussing where and when Gallifrey was, or why it's not at all uncommon for two people in the Doctor Who universe to have the same physical appearance, or connecting the trends in British society and our favorite television series.

I had a chance to briefly page through proofs of the volume that is coming out that primarily covers the Second Doctor's era, and it looked to be as fascinating as the already released volumes.

One of the other things that is also interesting to start to see how the new series has impacted the commentary and views of the classic series. My example (though this volume of About Time isn't out yet) is that a story like Delta and the Bannermen begins to look like a template for the new series, with a higher awareness of romantic issues, Welsh accents, and a rock and roll soundtrack.

But you've got to wonder about stories like The Ark and Frontios after seeing The End of the World. And finding a time for a story like The Satan Pit makes sense when you here that the relationship between the Ood and the Sensorites might be something similar to those from Raxacoricofallapatorius and the Abzorbaloff from Clom.

One of my favorite things about the entire series is seeing "patterns that aren't there" -- making connections between stories that might not be intentional, but looking at the entire series as a puzzle to a fictional universe that hasn't been entirely locked down.

Craig Hinton

I'm sad and shocked to hear reports about Doctor Who fan and author Craig Hinton's passing. I had met him a couple of times at Gallifrey, and had been involved with some of the same forums online throughout the years as well.

I have positive recollections of the Doctor Who novels he wrote for Virgin, and I believe that his work with Millennial Rites started the rehabilitation trend of both Colin Baker's Doctor and Bonnie Langford's Melanie that continued throughout the novels and audios. And while The Crystal Bucephalus wasn't the only place to foreshadow Gallifrey's destruction, it was certainly one of the most memorable early examples.

I remember that Craig was always straight forward about his work -- he happily pieced together the pieces of Doctor Who mythology, in a fashion that wasn't always fashionable amongst the hard core -- he was the first to describe what he did as "fanwank", after all. But I think that showed how much he enjoyed the mythology and made his work fun for fans to read.

My thoughts go out to all of Craig's friends and family.