L. M. Myles

https://nwhyte.livejournal.com/3792884.html

It's not my favourite story, but Myles successfully persuades me that there is quite a lot going on here, with chapters on:
* the opening titles, which have a unique-for-Old-Who pre-title sequence and a musical sting for the words "OF DEATH";
* the triple Doctor/Brigadier/Liz dynamic;
* the Doctor/Brigadier relationship;
* the Doctor/Liz relationship;
* the villainy or not of the three main guest characters, Reegan, Cornish and Carrington;
* the fact that there are no women apart from Liz;
* the problem of UNIT;
* fictional and real British space programmes;
* class divisions, especially Sir James Quinlan;
* the problem of the Ambassadors themselves;
* the problem of the absent TARDIS (though actually this does explain for me the silly time-travel bit in the first episode);
* the CSO special effects;
* the genre shading into spy adventure and crime-fighting;
* a note on Quatermass;
* a conclusion. "Ambassadors has been my favourite of season seven since I first watched it, and putting it under such close scrutiny has only increased my admiration and love for it. It’s a complicated, nuanced story that explores humanity’s conflicted, messy reactions to the unknown, and comes down firmly on the side of patience, knowledge, curiosity and trust."

As is probably clear, I don't go all the way with Myles on this - the internal inconsistencies annoy me too much - but it's still nice to read someone else's appreciation, even for something I don't like as much as she does.… (lisätietoja)

A collection of essays examining the many and various companions that have traveled with the Doctor over the years.

I read the earlier collection, Chicks Dig Time Lords and really enjoyed it so I was happy to get my hands on this one and it did not disappoint.
I have to admit I am a Classic Who fan and not a New Who fan at all, so I found the older companions much easier and interesting to read about but all of the essays were well written and make interesting points. Some covered the same companions but from a different perspective and it was fun and informative seeing how two different people could form such radically different opinions about the same companion or even the same costumes.

To me there seemed to be a fair coverage between New Who and Classic Who companions, so there should be plenty for fans of each and no companion seemed to be lost in the shuffle.

A must read for Doctor Who fans.… (lisätietoja)

http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/2530005.html

This is the sixth of the Geek Girl Chronicles, and the third of them to collect essays by women about Doctor Who (following on from Chicks Dig Time Lords and Chicks Unravel Time). Published earlier this year, it is eligible for next year's Hugo nominations as Best Related Work; the first in the series won that category in 2011, and Mad Norwegian Press has had three more nominations since (Chicks Unravel Time, Chicks Dig Gaming and Queers Dig Time Lords).

Obviously this is mainly going to appeal to Who fans with a decent knowledge of both Old and New Who, but I commend it to the rest of you anyway. I think the weakest essay here is better than the weakest ones in the two previous volumes; I think that there are a couple of really standout pieces; and I think that the best of them relate the ongoing story of Doctor Who to wider cultural and literary trends in a way that should be relevant to anyone with an interest in the genre.… (lisätietoja)

With the 50th anniversary of Doctor Who just around the corner and the celebrations already well underway, this seemed like the perfect time to pull this book off the shelf. It's actually a follow-up volume of sorts to Chicks Dig Time Lords, a collection of personal essays by female Doctor Who fans. This one also features essays by women, but this time each one focuses on a particular season of the show, covering the entire span of Whovian history.

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.… (lisätietoja)