The Reference Book Wars: pt 8

[SiHart]

Here we are then, 23rd of Novermber and it's time to play off some more refereence books against each other.

People giving their opinions on Doctor Who is nothing new. I bet they were doing it in the playground in 1964, saying how the Daleks had ruined the purity of the Doctor Who concept as seen in An Unearthly Child or something. Anyway, this week we're looking at some of the authours who've given us their opinions on the show, story by story...

Your choices are:













VOTE NOW!

Si xx

[Andrew Curnow]

I've only read The Discontinuity Guide, so that would get my vote anyway, but it is a good old read anyway, so probably deserves it. Some of it's outdated now, or at least proven to be wildly inaccurate, but its assessment of certain stories (hello City of Death) is wonderful.

[Jon Masters]

Obviously "Through Time " should win this round because it was written by one of the greatest people ever to have been associated with the show, rather than a bunch of bitter, fan wanabee writers who just wish they could have written for the original series.

Sadly my argument doesn't convince even me so I went for DG.

[Stuart Wallis]

I'm not familiar with Through Time or About Time, other than I'd heard that the former is biased against anything broadcast prior to the authors time on the show, and that the latter is at times wildly inaccurate. As for the rest: I, Who is good for those who like the MAs, PDAs etc.; and Pocket Essentials and Who's Next largely cover ground that the DG and other publications have covered already. DG is often referred to by me, if only for a good laugh at the continuity errors, naff lines and technobabble.

[Fatso the wombat]

Has to be The Discontinuity Guide, for a couple of reasons; firstly, it's a cracking read. Secondly, it's one of the few DW reference-type books that I always make sure is close by, and not stuffed in a box in the garage or something. My copy is very well thumbed.

That "Pocket Essentials" loses points for it's defeatist "face it, Dr Who is NEVER coming back" intro, as well as some severe wrongness...

I've only got two of the About Time books (the Sixties ones) and they're not bad, just not great. Tat & Larry did at least do some things different to the usual episode guidey books, though.

The others I've never felt the inclination to buy; so if I can't even summon up the will to buy them...

[Rob McCow]

I've gone for The About Time series, simply because they're huge, readable and literate. They're reasonably balanced in their views and only occasionally bloody annoying.

I don't 'get' The Discontinuity Guide at all. I didn't find it funny.

[Dirk Gently]

What Steve said.

[Dave Lewis]

The only thing worse than the Pocket Essentials book is the second, post-Eccleston, edition; where the ("thanks, Jesus") author takes credit for the programme's return; he's partly joking but you can see that at the same time he really means it.

The Discontinuity Guide is the outright winner; it's the only Who non-fiction book on my shelves.

[Dave Lewis]

Except, after looking, I've realised that there is one other one on there...

Pocket Essentials by Mark Campbell.

[Lord President]

DG!

It is an excellent read, a copy should be in every toilet in the country!

[Jonno]

I've only got/read two of these - Discontinuity and Pocket E's. The latter was an OK cheapish purchase but is obviously quite threadbare and the author had some bizarre rankings on certain stories, lots of 5s and 0s as I recall.

DG though has been much thumbed and is one of a series of similar books I've got, such as Blackadder, The Avengers, ST:TNG and The James Bond Files. An easy vote winner here for me!

[Dave Tudor]

Since it's the only one I've read, I've had to go for Pocket Essentials by default, even, though, as Jonno says, he does give some unusual ratings, and appears to give low marks to normally highly-regarded stories just for the sake of being different.

[SiHart]

Although The Discontinuity Guide is a fantastic book to dip in and out of, I've goven my vote to the About Time series, because over this last year I've got an inordinate amount of pleasure from reading them. No I don't agree with everything they say, yes they've made a number of glaring of factual errrors (fancy thinking Chris Achilleos designed the neon logo!) the opinionated reviews of the stories are very entertaining and the essays are worth the price of the books (almost) on their own.

Si xx

[Pip Madeley]

I hate that Pocket Essentials book - it's amusing in that somewhere in the first edition the guy says Doctor Who shouldn't be revived...

I voted for 'The Discontinuity Guide' because it makes the source material interesting.

[Phillip Culley]

The one thing I like about the Pocket Essentials book is that it had some opinions that differ from the norm - such as (IIRC) giving Paradise Towers a 4/5.

Then there are the times it got it spot on, like giving Ghost Light 0/5

However, I know it doesn't deserve a vote, so I'm abstaining again...