38 Weeks to 50: Poll-of-Polls Countdown: Father Time

[hammard]

Continuing my 50th Anniversary countdown of aggregated poll results for Doctor Who Books, TV Serials & Audio Dramas, with number 38:

Comments

[hammard]

Most of those you list do have at least one appearance, though I can see why they don't get more as they all have their own writing styles which will not appeal to everyone (Roberts is Silly, Cornell is glacial, Russell is fannish, Orman won't really write in character, and Miles is batsh*t crazy) but it's true a number of them do tend to annoy fans.
Of the ones you do mention that don't make it in to the top 50, Kate Orman's best loved writings are Seeing I (#122) and Left-Handed Hummingbird (#124). Though most of her works are in the same vicinity (Fallen Gods (#136), Year of Intelligent Tigers (#151), Room With No Doors (#167), Set Piece (#186), Vampire Science (#206), So Vile A Sin (#210), Unnatural History (#224), Blue Box (#234)). Which probably means those that like her writing, like most of them and those that don't like very few of them. Gary Russell's best loved work is actually from the new series era, with Beautiful Chaos at (#146). He does also have the rather dubious honour of having one of the least loved Doctor Who books with Divided Loyalties right down at #812.
And yeah Mark Gatiss' writing is usually a disappointment. After the rather good Nightshade (his best loved book at #133) St. Anthony's Fire, Roundheads and Last of the Gadarene are all forgettable (though the last two are at least more readable than most 2nd and 3rd Doctor books), whist his audio and TV works have never been among my favourites.

And ah yes, Mr Moffat getting drunk and saying all the B&W stories were awful. Doctor Who writers did have a tendancy to just be dismissive of all that had gone before and p*ss people off.

[jjpor]

It were the drink talking! The number of times that one hasn't worked for me... ;D

Good points regarding the writing styles, and after all fifty slots isn't that many, not when it's books, TV stories and audios all together. I wonder whether Alien Bodies made it into the top 50 (don't tell me...!), because for my money it's the real deal as far as Who novels go, even if deliberately somewhat off the wall. And I wonder about Timewyrm: Revelation, because still one of my top Who books after all these years, and perhaps the first NA that really took advantage of the medium and without falling into the darker-n-edgier excesses that came a bit later.

And I also wonder (why I'm wondering) about Target books - okay, most of them were just straight no-frills adaptations of TV stories, but at least a couple of them had literary ambitions (I'm thinking particularly of some of the Seven-era ones that have been described as "dress rehearsals for the NAs" - some of those are among my favourite Who books still, but I genuinely wonder if they're even on fandom's radar any more, even to the extent that the NAs/EDAs still are).

I think Mark Gatiss's tragedy (although that's putting it a bit strongly) is that all of his real triumphs as a writer and performer (and it's not as if he hasn't had them) are outside of the field of Doctor Who, whereas perhaps he would like it to be otherwise. I certainly don't doubt his sincerity as a fan or indeed as seemingly an all-round good egg in rl - I have high hopes for his making-of-Doctor-Who drama thing that's being made for the 50th. Nightshade is great, even if like many early NAs it seems to be treading water with regards to Ace's character development and her relationship with Seven (by which I mean going over ground things like Ghost Light and Curse of Fenric had already gone over perfectly adequately), but a good, atmospheric story nonetheless. And Last of the Gadarene and Roundheads are just like Target novelisations of non-existent TV stories, and there's nowt wrong with that. ;)