Status
Call number
Genres
Collection
Publication
Description
The sister book to the 2011 Hugo Award-winning Chicks Dig Time Lords In Chicks Unravel Time , editors Deborah Stanish ( Whedonistas) and L.M. Myles bring together a host of award-winning female writers, media professionals, scientists and more to examine each season of new and classic Doctor Who from their unique perspectives. Diana Gabaldon discusses how Jamie McCrimmon inspired her best-selling Outlander series, and Barbara Hambly (the Benjamin January Mysteries, Star Wars: Children of the Jedi) examines the delicate balance of rebooting a series. Seanan McGuire (the Toby Daye series, Discount Armageddon) reveals the power and pain of waiting in Series Five, and Una McCormack (The King's Dragon) defends her claim that Sylvester McCoy's final year of Doctor Who is the show's best season ever. Other contributors include Juliet E. McKenna (Einarrin series), Tansy Rayner Roberts (Power and Majesty), Sarah Lotz (The Mall, Exhibit A), Martha Wells (The Cloud Roads), Joan Frances Turner (Dust), Rachel Swirsky (Fields of Gold), Aliette de Bodard (Obsidian and Blood series) and Amal El-Mohtar (The Honey Month).… (more)
User reviews
I was impressed with
My one and only quibble with this book is that I wish they had organized the essays in order of the seasons they covered. I feel it would have been interesting to see the essays as a progression through the series but that is such a small thing and ultimately their order didn’t really detract from my enjoyment of reading them so I don’t really hold it against the book.
If you are a fan of Doctor Who, especially if you are a fan of the classic Doctor Who series this is a fun book that makes you think and look a bit differently at a beloved series and it made me want to invest in a regionless DVD player so I can get as many of the surviving episodes as I can.
You'd probably expect such a collection to take a linear approach, starting with season one and working its way up through the most recent episodes of the new series, but instead these essays are in no discernible order at all. It's an odd choice, but appropriate for a show that describes time as a "big ball of wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey stuff," and it works surprisingly well.
The essays themselves range from unabashed fangirling to careful analysis of thematic elements, which considerably more of the latter than the former. Perhaps unsurprisingly, a great many of them deal with gender issues in one form or another, but the writers seem to have been left free to focus on whatever aspects of their individual season they like, and there's a fair amount of variety as a result.
I don't know that there's anything here that strikes me as extremely memorable or insightful, but almost all of these pieces are thoughtful and reasonably interesting, and it's rather nice to see such a diversity of perspectives on the show. I'm also quite impressed by the balanced way in which almost all these authors manage to embrace both a deep affection for the series and a willingness to accept and analyze its faults. Far too often, fans seem to exhibit either the kind of love that regards any criticism as a personal attack or the kind of bitter hate that leads to wails of "Now they've completely gone and ruined it!", and it's always a relief to be reminded that there are people perfectly capable of inhabiting a middle ground between the two.
I should probably note that this is definitely a book aimed at hardcore Who fans, as it often tends to assume that you're familiar with the episodes and characters and ideas it's referencing. While I wouldn't exactly call it essential reading, even for said hardcore fans, it is interesting enough to be worth a look for Whovians of any gender.
Awards
Original publication date
Local notes
DDC/MDS
| Fic SF Stanish |