kmccubbin's review
4.0
Rees' book is so thoroughly researched and so lovingly written that it is tempting to even recommend it to people who are not "Doctor Who" fans, clearly its intended audience. I might be wary of doing that, but let me make a case...
In no other genre fandom have the cart and the horse flipped so thoroughly as it did during "The Wilderness Years" - that period between the show's cancellation in 1986 and its rebirth in 2005. Through a combination of passionate fandom and a dispassionate BBC, young maverick artists like Bill Baggs, Nicholas Briggs, Keith Barnfather, Alan Stevens, Jim Smith, Fiona Moore, Lance Parkin, Mark Gatiss, Robert Shearman, David J Howe and a whole bunch of others picked the whole enterprise up, delicately, or occasionally indelicately, by the fringes of the rights they could secure, and redefined what Doctor Who was about, ultimately changing the show from that point on.
It is astonishing to read these stories of fans standing around with their heroes and somehow creating a whole new, completely unlicensed era that may, in many ways, be better than the licensed product to come.
If you're interested in the greatest era in any science fiction television show's fandom, read this book.
You won't believe how far these kids got.
In no other genre fandom have the cart and the horse flipped so thoroughly as it did during "The Wilderness Years" - that period between the show's cancellation in 1986 and its rebirth in 2005. Through a combination of passionate fandom and a dispassionate BBC, young maverick artists like Bill Baggs, Nicholas Briggs, Keith Barnfather, Alan Stevens, Jim Smith, Fiona Moore, Lance Parkin, Mark Gatiss, Robert Shearman, David J Howe and a whole bunch of others picked the whole enterprise up, delicately, or occasionally indelicately, by the fringes of the rights they could secure, and redefined what Doctor Who was about, ultimately changing the show from that point on.
It is astonishing to read these stories of fans standing around with their heroes and somehow creating a whole new, completely unlicensed era that may, in many ways, be better than the licensed product to come.
If you're interested in the greatest era in any science fiction television show's fandom, read this book.
You won't believe how far these kids got.
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