Review Doctor Who in Print!

Doctor Omega said:

I loved the back up comic strips in the earlier issues featuring the more iconic monsters in solo tales....

I wish that they would publish them in an omnibus volume. I think it is copyright issues that have prevented this so far...

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Snap. It was nice to see them carrying on the way they normally do for the 99.9 per cent of the time when the Doctor isn't around. I found many of those secondary comic strips so much more satisfying than the main comic strips featuring the Doctor.

Then there were the black and white reprints of Marvel Classic Adaptions in the early weeklies....

and that awesome issue where "Peter Davidson" became the Doctor!

Not the greatest era of the Who comic.

But perhaps one of the most charming, where continuity was an unknown word.

I also love that the McGann Doctor revisited it in his comic strip era.....

Your thoughts and views on your favourite and not so favourite Doctor Who spin off Novels and fiction.


Do you even read them?

Did you love them?

Or did you have a problem with some or all of them?

And. ultimately, should they be counted as canon?

Anybody collect these?

What were your favourites?

it all became a bit much for me over the years - and I would like to discount every book in every one of the ranges. Except the TARGET books, of course.

However, when I see that Uncle Terrance and a few other Classic scribes have contributed to the ranges, I am tempted to think that I should count those titles, out of respect to my literary heroes and discount the vast majority, which are either written by super-fans, who like to mess with the mythos (because they know how to and can) - or struggling authors who take one of their unpublished novels and shoehorn the Doctor and co into it in order to sell it!

Truth be told, I don't know where I am with any of the novel ranges anymore, having been swamped by their excessive number over time.

What does anyone else think?

I take the attitude with the novels (and Big Finish) that individuals can pick and choose what they want to include as canon. Although that can be difficult when the tv series ends up contradicting a novel (but as the series itself has proved over the years its not impossible to reconcile contradictory canon).

Got the whole set. Including filling out the gaps with the more recently published Shada and City of Death, and some fan produced novelisations of the remaining un-novelised stories.

Post and discuss your favourite factual books and publications about the programme over the years here.....

I guess it all started here, for a lot of people years ago.....








or here,depending upon which edition you bought.....





But at least we had our first episode guides in full

and then there was this, of course.....

I always enjoy working through the 7 volume Handbook series which took a look at each of the 7 classic Doctors (and Paul McGann lumped in at the end of Sylvester McCoy. A bit of information on the actor (largely through quotes from interviews from themselves or others involved in the production), casting process, production, and a section working through each story with some interesting trivia, quotes, and analysis.



It's a shame that no one has followed on with this title for the new series in the same format.

A good friend of mine, and fellow writer for the now defunct Shadowlocked, wrote an excellent tome on the series. When our site was still up, he did a comprehensive review of every episode. Great writer.

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/263760

Yep, I loved the Handbook series too, especially the Colin Baker one.

They eventually compiled them all into two volumes last August, on kindle only.





https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B01KCY7M1I/ref=series_rw_dp_sw






https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B01KCY7MF4/ref=series_rw_dp_sw

Then there were these, just as Tom Baker was leaving....

This went through reprints, eventually become an omnibus single volume....

and somebody has now done a New Who version......

Then there were those DOCTOR WHO DISCOVERS books that sold like....

Well, I don't think they did much.

JNT didn't waste any time starting to promote himself....

When Terrance Dicks wasn't churning out thin novelisations, he also threw out the odd "special" book, such as these on K9 and the Daleks. Terry Nation had to have his name plastered over the Dalek one of course.....

and there was a second, much smaller Monster book, of course....