 |
| Proceed calmly to the exit, Paul. |
I
am, admittedly, exaggerating for effect here but the judgement does
seem to have been passed down. For the longest time there I thought
that Doctor Who's wilderness years were just going to be forgotten. I
suppose we all told ourselves, even if we were enormous fans of the
novels, as I was, that they were just to kill time until the “proper”
series came back. When it did, as it did, the books would go out of
print, some of the truly exceptional ideas and material would make
its way into the series in some form and the rest would be gradually
forgotten by fandom at large. Its a process I fully expect to see
repeated with with the Star Wars expanded universe over the next few
years.
Then
something happened: the wilderness years books started getting
revisited. Big Finish have adapted Love And War and The Highest
Science with Damaged Goods, The Romance Of Crime, The English Way Of
Death and The Well-Mannered War coming this year. BBC Audio,
meanwhile, are doing unabridged talking books of Past Doctor books.
The
Eighth Doctor books, meanwhile? They've been included in a few
reprint series but only when they had to be to get every Doctor in.
Projects that require effort like audio, however, omit them entirely.
And
honestly? I can't blame them. There were some good books in the
series but I don't know if I could even pick out ten I'd genuinely
recommend without severe qualification. The series was confused from
day one with no real sense of direction; the authors had no idea who
their main character was meant to be and couldn't co-ordinate with
each other worth a damn; and the series tried its audience's patience
far too damn much with extended and over-complicated story arcs. It
was not a good moment in Doctor Who's history, let's just say.
I
can't say a part of me isn't sad, though. Those books were a big part
of my youth and for the longest time they were the nearest thing we
as fans had to an ongoing series. Naturally there's an investment
there.
At
the very least they could do a talking book of Alien Bodies, that was
a good one.
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