New Kickstarter Stretch Goal, And a Thing in Chicago This Weekend (EDIT: Plus a Big Finish sale)
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| It’s time for this to become the second best Doctor Who/Blake crossover book ever published. |
I know, I’d been going to shut up until Wednesday. But this is cool and I want to get the word out.
I’ve just opened a new stretch goal on Kickstarter – an ambitious one for if we can reach $15,000. A number that seemed unthinkable two weeks ago, but now seems ever so slightly possible. In the same vein as the Logopolis volume, a stand-alone version of my essay on The Three Doctors. You may remember that essay as the sprawling William Blake-style analysis of the story.
And so, of course, the book will be William Blake-style – an oversized, full colour book featuring, as its centerpiece, the Three Doctors essay done in the style of a Blake illuminated manuscript. It’ll also include some new explanatory essays, including one that actually explains the essay instead of that gently mocks the very idea of explaining it.
I’ve also opened up a new way to increase your rewards – the $10 TARDIS Eruditorum Starter Pack, in which you get all three existing volumes for $10, delivered as soon as the Kickstarter ends, and then, for good measure, get the revised Hartnell volume when it comes out. That’s available as a standalone pledge level, or can be added to any existing pledge for $10. So if you’ve not actually bought the books yet, here’s your opportunity to, in effect, buy two and get the third one for free.
You can give me your money here.
Also! I should have mentioned this much earlier, but this Saturday, May 4th, I’ll be appearing at a one-day colloquium at DePaul University in Chicago, IL. I’m on roundtable panels at 10am and 11am, but far more interesting people than I, namely Rob Shearman, will also be there, at one point giving a live commentary track on Dalek while I frantically rewrite my post on it.
The webpage for that event is here. If you’re in the area, I hope you can make it by and say hi. To Rob, of course.
EDIT: If any of the coverage of Big Finish during the Wilderness Years (or elsewhere) has intrigued you and you want to check it out, Big Finish is holding a 10% off sale on their entire stock for May 1st. Details are here.
I assure you, there’s stuff there worth spending money on. In particular check out any of Rob Shearman’s stuff, Marc Platt’s divine Spare Parts, the much-loved Doctor Who and the Pirates, the wonderful Companion Chronicle Find and Replace (featuring Jo Grant and Iris Wildthyme), and probably loads of other stuff people will point out in the comments as particularly good. (Josh Marsfelder, for instance, will tell you to buy Robophobia.)
April 30, 2013 @ 4:40 pm
I check the ratings and reviews at http://www.thetimescales.com/ to sort out which Big Finish audios I want to get.
April 30, 2013 @ 7:50 pm
just a quick note, I just upped my kickstarter from $15 to $30 to be included on the Logopolis book, but there really isn't a check box for that upgrade. perhaps you might wish to add one?
April 30, 2013 @ 7:52 pm
Wait, there are upgrade checkboxes? Have I been doing this wrong? I thought I just sorted it out myself when I went through who pledged what at the end.
April 30, 2013 @ 8:21 pm
Ah. I was going to ask a similar question, I had bounced my pledge by 15 for the Logopolis book as well, but wasn't sure how you would tell that from, say, the e-book starter pack (which I don't need, since I have the e-books already).
On the latest stretch goal: You already have everything I can earmark for the project pledged at this point. But I'll be early in line to buy the book if/when it exists. Just don't forget with all these awesome stretch goals to allow for your profit, as well!
April 30, 2013 @ 8:24 pm
I don't know if you can add extra check-boxes, but that would be helpful. I too put myself in for the Logopolis book, if only to get the accompanying explanatory essay.
April 30, 2013 @ 8:28 pm
On another note, can I suggest an additional page to this website, Phil? A glossary.
You tend to use some interesting words (I'm the guy with the nursing degree, remember) and even tend to invent some of your own at times. As you are trying to make the Rose post get out there and capture new audience, the FIRST word to put on the Glossary would be
EMBOIT (ED/MENT): A term from the French, it essentially means "putting inside a box." Most often spelled "emboitement," it refers specifically to a discredited belief in biology that a given organism contains within it the seeds of all future life, supposing a sort of infinitely fractal geometry of life itself.
(First used on the blog here: http://www.philipsandifer.com/2012/02/recursive-occlusion-logopolis.html)
So that people can catch up on the language we longer term readers are used to around here. Other suggested terms:
BATHOS
REITHIAN
QLIPPOTHIC
…
April 30, 2013 @ 8:50 pm
Or, since we're 42 years of material now, a TABLE of CONTENTS.
When I want to find a particular post, I use a Google site search. Which I'm well able to do, but I probably miss out on some of the neat interstitial stuff since I'm only looking for specific episodes or novels as they strike my fancy. I suppose that's why I buy the books, but still would be useful. More importantly…
The blog would be far more friendly — important with the anticipated new clientele! — with a table of contents.
April 30, 2013 @ 9:58 pm
Glarg, I've been wanting to donate to this for days because I WANT LOGOPOLIS BOOK LIKE CRAZY… so of course this is the time my paycheck is 10 days late and counting…
April 30, 2013 @ 10:21 pm
I will think about it, though I admit to a fondness for the basic structure of expecting people to look things they don't understand up. Or, equally validly, to not worry about it and read on. As I've said, if it looks like it makes sense, that's basically the same thing as actually making sense.
Put another way, yes, the Rose post is intended in part to capture a new audience, but I'd hate to mislead that audience as to the nature of the blog. I mean, if I was going for accessibility, I probably should have thought better of it somewhere before word 13,000. 🙂
As for a table of contents, I'm not sure I understand. The posts are linearly organized in the archive. A ToC would amount to the exact same list as the archive, only without collapsibility. I mean, I've contemplated going through and implementing post tagging.
April 30, 2013 @ 10:42 pm
The problem with the Archive (which also affects the Kindle version's pull-down table of contents) – is that if you're looking for "The Dalek Invasion of Earth" entry by name, you'll miss it because all you can see is:
"They Always Survive, While I Lose Everything: The …"
April 30, 2013 @ 11:08 pm
Table of contents by episode title – Yes. I often find it difficult to locate a specific post for the reasons ferret details above.
May I also suggest, as you often make reference to them in regard to contemporary events etc. clarifying posts by categorising them also by Doctor/Era. eg. Fourth Doctor/Hinchcliffe Era, Fifth Doctor/JNT Era etc. A lot of the new readers which I hope you attract may not be familiar with the way these eras unfold chronologically
Glossary – No need. There are online dictionaries and/or google/Wiki.
April 30, 2013 @ 11:33 pm
Recommendations for Big Finish stories you haven't covered:
Anything by Nev Fountain — The Kingmaker, Omega, and especially the Companion Chronicle Peri And The Piscon Paradox, which is the single best thing Big Finish have ever done, and which any assessment of the Colin Baker years needs in order to be complete.
The Game
Anything by Paul Magrs
Bernice Summerfield Series 9 (which contains Lawrence Miles' most recent piece of professional writing — essentially a story about sky-Silurians — as well as a lovely Holmes pastiche which is a sly crossover with both the NAs and the Faction Paradox-verse).
Anything by Jac Rayner, possibly the most underrated writer in the history of Doctor Who
May 1, 2013 @ 2:38 am
Kickstarter doesn't collect money until the campaign ends. You don't need money now, but you'll need it later.
May 1, 2013 @ 1:40 pm
Caveat emptor on the Magrs recommendation. I bought and listened to "The Stones of Venice" after reading its entry and found it a lot less interesting than it had sounded. I'd also bought "The Horror of Glam Rock" without having noticed it was Magrs, and found it pretty dull as well. I bought The Scarlet Empress before I heard these, and now I'm worried that when I get around to reading it I'll be just as let down.
I might be in a tiny minority of people who think Magrs sounds fabulous AND discover his reputation exceeds him, though. I would just recommend that people maybe not splash out on all his Big Finishes today, but just try one first.
Lisa Bowerman, on the other hand, might be the Big Finish analogue of Matt Smith — she can make anything listenable. I'll gladly take your Benny recommendation; I even managed to enjoy Oh No, It Isn't! with her voice bringing it to life.
May 1, 2013 @ 8:21 pm
Agree with this, especially the second paragraph.
A basic, painfully pedantic, question about the Logopolis book: from the video on the Kickstarter, it looks like the existing volumes have non-period high-gloss covers. I presume this is a function of the POD service, and not the sort of thing you have any control over; since the Logopolis book is effectively being pre-ordered (and a different trim size), is there going to be the option for you to have it conventionally printed and with a less-glossy stock, to recall with more synaesthetic nostalgia the experience of a classic Choose Your Own Adventure?
(The Colin-era Make Your Own Adventure books had glossier coating IIRC; however their design was so inelegant that I wouldn’t assume you’d want to ape that over CYOA…)
May 1, 2013 @ 9:12 pm
Createspace, the POD service I use, doesn't give any options in that direction. I will look into putting it out through a couple of other PoD services to see if I can find one that can better replicate the paperstock.
May 2, 2013 @ 7:43 am
Agreed with ferret — one of the reasons I use the Google site search.
The titles are great, but associating them with the episode can be difficult.
May 2, 2013 @ 8:13 am
I've just done the same (though $20 in my case, being in Britain) – I won my ESA appeal yesterday, so it was sort of in celebration.
May 2, 2013 @ 8:32 am
encyclops, you're not the only one who has trouble with Magrs – generally I admire the ideas and don't enjoy the story that much. Sick Building is my next-to-least favourite NSA, saved from being last only by decent prose. He's written a few audios I've rated a little above average (Ringpullworld, Find and Replace, The Zygon Who Fell to Earth), but no real classics.
It's a bit of a shame since all the cool folks seem to adore him, but there you go – we'll have to look in on that group from the outside. 😉
May 2, 2013 @ 8:38 am
Oh, and I agree wholeheartedly with the Nev Fountain recommendation – he and Marc Platt are the only writers to get two audios in my top 20, and Fountain's the more consistent. (Jac Rayner and Rob Shearman both have an entry).
May 2, 2013 @ 4:49 pm
Fingers crossed!
Now, each copy of the Blake/Three Doctors volume will be hand-painted, right?
May 15, 2015 @ 6:59 am
Thanks for sharing the information! Nice post <3
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