Doctor Who Storybook 2008

[purplecat]

Its sort of customary to start reviews of the Dr Who storybooks by mentioning the totally bonkers Dr Who annuals of the 1970s but I figure most people reading here either know all about them or aren't terribly interested. Suffice it to say the storybooks are their successors both in content and, in some cases, bonkersness although the storybooks are bonkers (when they are bonkers) in a canonical way while the 70s Who annuals were mostly just bonkers.


The storybooks are really pretty decent stocking filler material and the 2008 version is no exception. The 2008 cover is by Alister Pearson, a frequently maligned Who artist of whose work I'm rather fond. Maybe I'm shallow but I've nothing against photo-realistic painting done well. I wasn't so fond of the artwork by Andy Walker for two of the internal stories and, I would judge on style, the contents page in which the Doctor is quite clearly making the most of a dramatic escape in order to cop a feel of Martha's breasts - I mean I know the current Doctor is inclined to snog his companions at the slightest pretence but this seemed a little... off... to me. However I liked the other illustrations, particularly Ben Willisher's bold and colourful pages for Paul Magrs frankly rather disappointing zombie tale. Its a perfectly good story, its just the last Paul Magrs book I read had talking poodles as villains, the Doctor's life was complicated by Noel Coward and his time travelling pinking shears and contained a scene where Ray Harryhausen tortures George Lucas with animated plasticene gorgons. It's called Mad Dogs and Englishmen but I don't recommend it to anyone who likes Tolkein. Zombie Motel is distinctly pedestrian by comparison although I guess if the editors were worrying about all those reviews which would start "In the 1970s the Dr Who annuals..." they may have warned Magrs off any temptation to introduce talking poodles. Actually, Tom MacRae's Cats and Dogs features a talking poodle so it must have been Noel Coward they were worried about.

The 2006 storybook gave us the original Sally Sparrow short story - which was as good as Blink though very different in most ways beyond the central conceit. There isn't anything as good here. The Box under the Tree by Rob Shearman probably comes closest in terms of clever ideas but it can't quite explain how it all links up with Dr Who as we know it. The best story, I thought, was Kiss of Life by the, in my opinion, much under-rated Justin Richards, telling a clever crossover between Cinderella and The Little Mermaid in a Doctor Who context. The worst was The Iron Circle by Nicholas Briggs (who gets to be the voice of the Daleks these days though I first encountered him playing the Doctor in a series of rather good fan produced audio adventures many of which have now been rewritten beyond recognition into Big Finish audio plays) which, among other things, is anxious to suggest that the Isle of Wight is the sort of place where in-bred natives wonder around saying "are you local?" or, at the very least, that mainlanders are better of in Burton-upon-Trent. I did mention, didn't I, that the storybooks are continuing the tradition of bonkersness.

Comments

[parrot-knight.livejournal.com]

I think Paul Magrs included Philip Pullman and C.S. Lewis among his targets too in Mad Dogs..., which I think was the last BBC Book I bought before The Gallifrey Chronicles. The whole thing seemed like a sideswipe against a tradition which isn't actually there, on behalf of magic realism. I've enjoyed the non-Who Magrs books which I've read, though; he spoke at the 2004 conference in Manchester and came across as both gentle and thoughtful.

[purplecat]

He's a schizophrenic writer to be sure and, as you say, its hard to discern what his target actually is in Mad Dogs, beyond some vague old vs. new, its certainly his most venemous book. Like you I've preferred, in general, his non-Who work. Of his Who books I like the Earth-based half of the Blue Angel best, and the Star Trek Parody half least...

Re: Storybook

[(Anonymous)]

Thanks for the review! (There aren't many of them about, and I've been wanting to hear some feedback...!)

Out of curiosity, how does my story not tie up with Doctor Who as we know it? I was a little concerned to read that!

Best wishes

Rob Shearman

Re: Storybook

[purplecat]

NB. Spoilers here if anyone reads else reads this far...

I read a review of the Buffy episode where the question is asked "is Buffy just hallucinating all this" which criticised it on the grounds that the viewer is already invested in the idea that the Buffy universe is real (within the fiction) so it is in fact a non-question. I actually didn't have a problem with that episode since it seemed quite an interesting context in which to explore "is this all a dream" themes.

The Box Under the Tree implicitly (or at least as I read it) implies that the Doctor and Martha, along with the Xarantharax and the Iska'lanz'rm were in some sense summoned into existence by Harry's imagination. So my problem with this is that I'm already invested in the idea that the Doctor and Martha are real (within the fiction) so my gut reaction was "well obviously they were not summoned into existence by Harry's imagination". I think I'd have been more satisfied if either the story had been in some way able to signify itself as an alternative origin story (and I've no idea how it might have done that) or had been able to suggest that the Doctor and Martha already existed but weren't really able to get involved with Harry until he had written them into the story (again I've no real idea how that could have been accomplished) or I suppose, in the nature of the Buffy episode, had been used to in some way to push an "are we all fiction?" theme (probably inappropriate given the nature of the storybooks). As it was I thought it was a clever story but was left somehow dissatisfied with the way it all came together at the end.

Re: Storybook

[(Anonymous)]

Oh, okay. I see what you mean.

I did give some thought to that. There's an ambiguity to the story about how much the Doctor is actually real, or just a figment of the child's imagination. But I do rather like ambiguity, really - and since it's a story which is supposed to *celebrate* that imagination, I think it'd have been somehow churlish to have reined it in in that way. The ultimate conclusion that Harry must draw is that he'll never precisely know just how much of his little childhood adventure was real, and how much he created himself. In the same way, that when I was a child, the most potent memories I have had that same ambiguity. There's so much I only *think* I remember - which, years later, seem so extraordinary and wonderful that they couldn't entirely have been true. (Could they?)

It's a story for eight year olds. It's a story designed to let eight year olds think that, if they let their imaginations run just that little bit more wild, they too can blur the line between Coherent Reality and Wild Fantasy. There obviously *is* a line, somewhere - there obviously is a place where Harry's encounter with the Doctor is real (in fictive terms!) and where it isn't. But the magic of it is that it's an impossible line to see. I think if I had, it'd have made everything I wrote rather trite.

(Although, I dare say, to an adult reader, it might all be trite anyway! But this was very much intended as a children's tale. And, in all honesty, the children I know and have been told about who have read it seemed to get the trick...)

Ultimately, the idea of it all being an 'origin' story, or whatever, reduces the intention a bit, codifies it, and puts it into a continuity that ties in with the Doctor Who Series Canon TM. Just for once, having written stories in different media for Doctor Who over the years that always can be slotted into 'canon', I just wanted to write a story about kids writing stories. Like all the ones I visit at schools actually *do*. Maybe that's the limitation of writing for Doctor Who, though. Maybe we shouldn't attempt stories which don't give much of a fig for the wider picture, and just selfishly follow their own mandate. (I mean that. Maybe we shouldn't! I really don't know. The only thing I know is that I had more fun writing this than - say - a TV episode about a Dalek. It's just more personal. And I'd hope that even a story for pre-teens in a Doctor Who storybook might have room for something a *little* personal...!)

Thanks for your input, though! And for your (many) kind words, both in your review, and in your patient response. I think we may be coming at the story from different and irreconcileable angles. And that's great - it's what it's all about! And thanks for letting me do that Pompous Writer Thing and witter on about it all. I haven't had much opportunity to get my thoughts about it in order!

Re: Storybook

[purplecat]

I didn't think the story you wrote was trite and I loved the idea and I liked the "hey just imagine stuff" message. And I have to agree that I can't see a way to implement my suggestions that wouldn't make the story trite. But I didn't get a "that all worked in a really cool way" feeling at the end which I felt, somehow, it should have done and that feeling stemmed from a dissatisfaction about the way the Doctor and Martha fitted in (though I'm not sure whether I wanted them to be more clearly fictious, more clearly real, or more heavily signposted ambiguity or what) but I'd hate that to be read as a plea that writers stop trying to be adventurous or personal.

The 1970s annuals are kind of special in a bizarre way but I'd hate to see the writing in these storybooks descend to the rather unadventurous, by the numbers writing I recall from a lot of the TV tie-in annuals I remember from my childhood (or don't remember the stories from, which is more damning in a way).

... and thanks for dropping by to write a comment, one of the reasons I write reviews is because I want to discuss the stories, the opportunity to discuss it with the author is an added bonus.

Re: Storybook

[(Anonymous)]

And thank you for writing a review which made me want to comment in the first place! It's a funny feeling with Who, ever since the new series came along - almost anything tangential to the televised episodes is sent out before the audience, but rarely merits more than the most cursory of mentions!

And I think you may be right about those problems at the heart of my story. The very first draft of it involved the Doctor and Martha getting trapped in a child's story, and only by tapping into his imagination (becoming Santa, or the shop assistant, in his memories) could they lead him to the TARDIS so he could rescue them. It was all quite nice and sweet, but (as happened in true crisis style with a few stories in this year's annual!) the BBC got concerned because it all seemed a bit too similar to the forthcoming episode in series three. (The irony being that Steven hadn't actually written Blink at that point - but it all seemed worryingly close to the bone of his proposal!) So to keep the story, I scuppered the entire second half, around from the time Harry gets into the TARDIS, and played up the ambiguity instead. I wonder now, from your comments, whether I'd really filled the hole that I'd created by removing that plot point after all...! Oh well. Never mind!

Thanks again for the constructive comments!