I meant to say that the book was good in covering many of the different ways of being a fan and that is certainly true.
I suspect that the editors' search for breadth was focused on that aspect without realising that the formative experiences of these women were, in fact, very similar. To someone outside of that sub-community their similarities were far more pronounced than their differences. That may have been an editorial steer, possibly if the accounts had focused more on their fanworks, and less on the story of how they encountered Doctor Who, and the progress of their involvement, then the diversity would have been more obvious than the homogeneity though I think they would always have been ham-strung by recruiting contributors predominantly from the same sub-community.
I don't think it's a bad book. It wasn't what I expected and I guess, at my particular point in my involvement with fandom it didn't have much to say to me that I didn't know, or hadn't read already. What it did have to say that was new to me, was repeated too many times to really hold my interest. It felt like it was a book for someone else, I suppose.
no subject
I suspect that the editors' search for breadth was focused on that aspect without realising that the formative experiences of these women were, in fact, very similar. To someone outside of that sub-community their similarities were far more pronounced than their differences. That may have been an editorial steer, possibly if the accounts had focused more on their fanworks, and less on the story of how they encountered Doctor Who, and the progress of their involvement, then the diversity would have been more obvious than the homogeneity though I think they would always have been ham-strung by recruiting contributors predominantly from the same sub-community.
I don't think it's a bad book. It wasn't what I expected and I guess, at my particular point in my involvement with fandom it didn't have much to say to me that I didn't know, or hadn't read already. What it did have to say that was new to me, was repeated too many times to really hold my interest. It felt like it was a book for someone else, I suppose.