Friday 15 September 2017

Kate Orman enters the Black Archive


Tomorrow I'll finally be cracking open Kate Orman's Black Archive book on Pyramids of Mars and I'm mightily looking forward to it. If you asked me for the top three most influential Doctor Who authors of my lifetime then its obviously Russell T. Davies at the top, Steven Moffat right behind and the number three spot can only be decided in a steel cage match between Paul Cornell and Kate Orman.

Cornell and Orman were both authors on the New Adventures novels which were, from 1991 to mid-1997, the only Doctor Who going. Cornell was the first new voice in the range, the first to write a second novel and very much responsible for setting the style of the line. Orman, meanwhile, was the first woman to write for the range, the first non-English author (she's Australian) and wrote a huge number of novels in the final two years of the line which was a magnificently creative period that produced some of the series' most interesting novels.

Now she's writing a book length examination of a stone cold classic... that I'm just not that sold on. I mean, it is at least one of the sacred cows you're allowed to slaughter these days and I don't imagine Orman is going to be kind to either the rushed ending or the character of Namin.

Still, she might surprise me. This series has a tendency to bring in interesting critical perspectives on the stories it examines.

Also, Orman being Orman, I'm interested to see if she can somehow slip a torture scene into an academic discussion. 

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