"I like big books and I cannot lie.You other readers can’t deny
That when a kid walks in with "The Name of the Wind"
Like a hardbound brick of win. Story bling...."
by Jim C. Hines
(with apologies to Sir Mixalot)
I can remember the very first "BIG" Doctor Who book that I possessed as a fan of the series. (We're defining Big as a book that is less for reading and more for battering small animals to death with.) It was a remaindered (or possibly second-hand) copy of Peter Haining's "25 Glorious Years."
It purported to give an overview and insight into the history of Doctor Who between its birth in 1963 and the silver anniversary year of 1988. The background to the shows production was still relatively new to me at the time. I'd just started reading Doctor Who Magazine and I was slowly picking up the Target novelisations here and there, so names like Verity Lambert and Sydney Newman were fresh discoveries. The gospel according to Peter Haining (because that's what it felt like, a holy book) was an easy read and had lots of pictorial material to break up the text. I can't remember how many times I read and re-read that book, losing myself in the wonder at what a (for want of a better word) big subject it was. In later years "25 Glorious Years" was joined by many similar books, alot of them written by Peter Haining, and to be honest as I got older I realised they weren't very good. It turned out that Haining wasn't a fountain of knowledge. He was a 'gun-for-hire' who could make a living out of churning out these books which weren't strictly accurate in places. He was eventually supplanted by other books from other writers like David J. Howe and Gary Russell. (Keep an eye on that second name, we'll come back to him later.) Writers who actually did proper research and had a true love of the series legacy. And I bought them too.
But I still remember the first Big book...
A breakdown of the story accompanies the runners and riders and where you've seen them before plus for the stats freaks there are plenty of numbers about each episode to keep you going. Favourite scenes, deleted scenes, and fantastic facts are present to cover everything you are likely to need to know about the episode in question. Highlights from the additional material include a factual page on former President Richard "Tricky Dicky" Nixon (reminiscent of the attempts at such items in Doctor Who annuals of old, only accurate), a comic strip adaptation of Neil Gaiman's unused opening scene for "The Doctors Wife" (Revealing Rory is a big fan of The Beatles) and a guide to "The Changing Hats of Doctor Who" (from Hartnell's Astrakhan to Matt Smith's cowboy hat.) I confidently predict the line "I wear a stovepipe. Stovepipe hats are cool" next year.
Each episode also comes complete with a piece of art by Lee Johnson which are reminiscent of the glory days of Andrew Skilleter and Alister Pearson's covers for the BBC Videos and novelisatons. Slickly presented, wittily written, by turns informative and entertaining it's everything Doctor Who should be. Only shame is that it's shrunk in size so it no longer sits comfortably alongside the aforementioned old annuals (or for that matter its own predecessor). Minor gripe, but you know how anal some fans can be.
And speaking of anal fans, have you ever thought about what we used to do in the days before Wikipedia and the internet? What did we do if we had a burning need to find out the answer to a particular question? (Which planet did Captain Cook find Mags the werewolf on in "The Greatest Show in the Galaxy?" Vulpana. Easy!) Reference bricks like "The Universal Databank" and the unfinished multi-volume "Encyclopaedia of the Worlds of Doctor Who" spring to mind, but is there a place for that sort of book in the modern era?
BBC Books and Gary Russell (There's that name again) certainly think so with the latest edition of "Doctor Who: The Encyclopaedia." Four years on from the last edition (as Gary points out in the introduction) and thats a great deal of new Who to fit into the book, but fit it he does, covering all free-to-air Doctor Who between "Rose" and "The Wedding of River Song" taking in "Attack of the Graske", the animated specials, The Adventure Games and special charity episodes from ABADDON to ZYGONS.
Given the nature of the book it's obviously not something you'ss spend time sitting down and reading from cover to cover. It's big (400 pages), it's chunky, it's full of lovely images spread throughout the last 6 seasons of Doctor Who, but it will only be something that you dip into from time to time when you want to know an answer or feel a compelling urge to read up on the full history of a particular character. (Amy rates a whole two pages to herself while Rose only manages one-and-a-half.)
My favourite entry filed under "I did not know that" indicates that Bowie Base One from "The Waters of Mars" was built in Liverpool (Given my blog name, it's a given I'd check for any Merseyside references.) I'm pretty observant, but that one completely passed me by which proves just how much work will have gone into making this book as detailed and comprehensive as possible. Gary Russell himself has expressed an interest in a 'classic' Who volume of the encyclopaedia and if the level of quality displayed here can be kept up then I would support the idea.
In closing, I do wonder if today's new generation of fans will remember their first big books in the same way. They're still published. They're shinier. Prettier. Definitely more accurate. Will they hold the same level of fascination?
Doctor Who: The Brilliant Book 2012. Edited by Clayton Hickman. Published by BBC Books. RRP £12.99
Doctor Who: The Encyclopaedia by Gary Russell. Published by BBC Books. RRP £25.00
Doctor Who: The Brilliant Book 2012. Edited by Clayton Hickman. Published by BBC Books. RRP £12.99
Doctor Who: The Encyclopaedia by Gary Russell. Published by BBC Books. RRP £25.00
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