Queers Dig Time Lords

[purplecat]

Some of you may recall Chicks Dig Time Lords which I found a lot less compelling than everyone else, it seems, since it went on to win a Hugo. It's not terribly surprising that there have been several follow-ups including Queers Dig Time Lords.

My main criticism of Chicks Dig Time Lords was that it didn't feel to me to be much about being a woman who likes Doctor Who so much as being about being a woman who goes to the Chicago Tardis convention. With one or two exceptions I found the contributions to be, ultimately, a bit repetitive.

Thankfully Queers Dig Time Lords doesn't suffer from this nearly so much. It has contributions from a much wider spread of fans, both geographically and in terms of when and how they became engaged by the series. There is also a much wider set of takes on the subject matter. Chicks Dig Time Lords was mostly in the form of memoirs - "this is how I got into Doctor Who and this is the fannish thing I do now". While Queers Dig Time Lords has several of these, it also has several essays which focus much more upon the show itself, whether it be simply celebrating some aspect of it that the writer felt particular did (or did not) resonate with their own queerness, essays that seek to understand what it is that particular attracts QUILTBAG people to the show, and a couple that challenge the assumptions that there are a lot of gay men in Doctor Who, or indeed that the show (in either of its incarnations) has been particularly queer-friendly.

There are a lot of essays in the book and so, inevitably a certain amount of repetition and some misses, but it is well worth a look. I wish Chicks Dig Time Lords had been as diverse and interesting as this.

Comments

[magister]

One essay in this - Susan Jane Bigelow’s “Same Old Me, Different Face: Transition, Regeneration, and Change” - I thought was quite brilliant. One of the best things I've ever read on the series.

[purplecat]

Oh yes, that one was great!

I also love Hal Duncan's prose in "The Doctor: A Strange Love, Or: How I Learned to stop Hating and Love the Who" even though I thought his thesis was utterly wrong. However I'm tempted to check out his novels on the strength of his writing. Nigel Fairs' memoir of his friending with Louise Jameson was great too and Brit Mandelo's piece on the campness of Torchwood... I could go on.

[sir_guinglain]

I must get this in hard copy. I was sent a pdf at some point but it's not the same...

[purplecat]

Until pdfs work better on readers certainly...

[magister]

There was, in short, a hell of a lot of good stuff in there, but it was really overshadowed by that one piece which - well put it this way, it's about the only thing I've ever read that I wrote a fan letter about.

[lukadreaming.livejournal.com]

I was hugely disappointed with Chicks Dig Time Lords. It lacked any academic rigour, and just seemed to be a bunch of mates repeating their favourite stories. Ethnography has its place - but not when it's all the damn same and needs editing!

I bought Queers Dig Time Lords a while ago but haven't read it yet - I suspect I was worried that it would also be poor. But I shall promote it up my TBR mountain!

[purplecat]

Well it's still not an academic book by any stretch of the imagination - they clearly just found a bunch of queer people who were Who fans and asked them to write a couple of thousand words - but there is a much greater diversity of voices and backgrounds and I think that leads to a more illuminating read.

I'd say it was more at the level of good fanzine writing (mostly).