Queers Dig Time Lords
Aug. 1st, 2014 09:19 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
purplecatSome 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.
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.