Thursday, December 18, 2008

Doctor Who-The Encyclopedia


This is the kind of book that frustrates me tremendously. On the one hand the book--an early and most welcome Christmas present from friend Kim--is a marvelously put-together collection of beautiful color stills and episode frame grabs from the first three series of the RTD version of DOCTOR WHO. On the other hand...it's a reference book. It's not designed to be read but to be consulted. Every single little reference to anything from every episode is alphabetized and explained--often in great depth. This, then, would be a good book to keep alongside the couch as one watched the DVD of series three for instance. Martha might mention some alien race and you simply flip open the book and you remember where she's met them before and get tons of background on them. I actually have quite a few books like this here in the Library. It's surprising, however, just how little their use arises in real life.


The pictures, on the other hand, are quite well chosen. They're all here--Doctor # 9, Doctor # 10 (in the main, actually), Rose, Mickey, Martha, Captain Jack, Donna Noble (from the Christmas special only) even fan favorite (and mine) Sally Sparrow! Crisp, clear images wonderfully lit with bright colors and perfect lighting (it's a BBC book after all so they get access to all the good stuff). The problem is, if you try to read it in some kind of linear order you get a jumble of episode and character recaps that have no context whatsoever. I'm glad to have it but after I flip through and look at the pictures, it goes right up on the shelves. In the vast DOCTOR WHO section, of course.

1 comment:

  1. That sounds like a great book! I love these type of books! I'll have to look for it if I get a chance.

    By the by, Sally Sparrow is one of my favs as well.

    ReplyDelete