Gaze not into the abyss lest you accidentally write a book

Skip to content

Elizabeth Sandifer

Elizabeth Sandifer created Eruditorum Press. She’s not really sure why she did that, and she apologizes for the inconvenience. She currently writes Last War in Albion, a history of the magical war between Alan Moore and Grant Morrison. She used to write TARDIS Eruditorum, a history of Britain told through the lens of a ropey sci-fi series. She also wrote Neoreaction a Basilisk, writes comics these days, and has ADHD so will probably just randomly write some other shit sooner or later. Support Elizabeth on Patreon.

8 Comments

  1. BatmanAoD
    April 20, 2011 @ 7:59 pm

    Speaking of novelizations, you should include some links to them on Amazon.

    Reply

  2. Aaron
    April 20, 2011 @ 8:45 pm

    Out of curiosity, Phil, what are you going to do when you get to the NAs? Do them all, do only the notable ones, smash a whole bunch into the same article so as to cover them all but not spend an inordinate amount of time on them? Part of me really wishes you'll go through all of them. And this seems like a possibility, since you seem to hold them in very high regard as the actual television show during the wilderness years (which I think is the right way to think of the NAs). On the other hand, if you did that with the NAs and the EDAs, this blog at that point would turn into basically a book blog, since there are almost as much NAs and EDAs as television episodes. And what are you going to do with audios?

    Reply

  3. Elizabeth Sandifer
    April 21, 2011 @ 7:08 am

    Yes. I plan to cover highlights, but a lot of highlights – probably between 1/3 and 1/2 of the NAs, and 1/4 to 1/3 of the EDAs. They're essential, to my mind, to get from Survival to Rose in a way that makes sense, and I'll be mixing them with "Pop Between Realities" entries on major genre television (both American and British) of the sixteen years, as well as stuff on British television in general during those sixteen years.

    In the end, my feeling is that the NAs/EDAs represent a huge chunk of important Doctor Who history. I mean, they were the only game in town for most of sixteen years. 1989-2005 is as big a chunk of Doctor Who history as everything from An Unearthly Child to The Armageddon Factor.

    Now in practice, it's a less important chunk than all of seasons 1-16, but I'd gladly argue that the NAs and EDAs as a whole are each as important as any of the major eras of classic Doctor Who. In fact, comparing the impact of the NAs to the Letts or Hinchcliffe eras seems pretty accurate to me.

    As for the audios, my plan is to, depending on the quality and timing of the announced Tom Baker Big Finish stories, introduce those with the 4th or 5th Doctor and treat them the same as the MAs/PDAs – one or two from that line for each Doctor. I'm going to do Companion Chronicles for 1-3, but those are going to be extras in the POD book version. When we get to McGann, I'll do a stretch of them, probably focusing on the area immediately around Zagreus, but I'm inclined to treat the EDAs as the "main" series for Paul McGann and the audios as secondary to his era.

    Reply

    • ladysugarquill
      July 3, 2017 @ 1:34 pm

      I’m not sure if it’d been released at the time of writing, but in terms of canon (as in, the things that actually happened to the Doctor) Night of the Doctor made the audios broadly canon, and therefore the EDAs non-canon. I’m sure there’s enough timey-wimey in them to somehow squish them into the same continuity, but iirc they’re often mutually exclusive, and Neverland at least estabishes that the EDAs and the Eighth Doctor comics are alternate universes in relation to the main Doctor Who universe.

      Reply

  4. Aaron
    April 21, 2011 @ 7:20 am

    That sounds like the best plan all around. Can't wait!

    Reply

  5. JJ
    April 21, 2011 @ 9:44 am

    Another excellent review!

    I happen to like The Smugglers, though not overmuch. It's doesn't aim very high, yes, but it hits the target it's aiming at, and is modestly entertaining television (and a small step up from much of the latter half of season 3).

    Hartnell comes across as quite lively, at least in the audio; you wouldn't know he was becoming too ill to continue the show from this story.

    Reply

  6. Seeing_I
    August 10, 2011 @ 6:07 am

    So I have the audio CD of this, and made a copy for a friend, with a rather sloppy hand-written label. He looked at it with confusion, and said "Doctor Who and The Snugglers??" This is now the official name of this serial. Take that, "Tribe of Gum"!

    Reply

  7. Josiah Rowe
    January 29, 2013 @ 8:44 pm

    Didn't I lend you that CD, Martin?

    Reply

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Discover more from Eruditorum Press

Subscribe now to keep reading and get access to the full archive.

Continue reading