h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Doctor Who Magazine is great (well, that's what I think anyway - although it is somewhat expensive for it's number of pages).
Anyone who wants to talk about it should do so here. Come on! Don't be shy!

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i don't read it, so, could u tell me:

is it good?

spook

Well, it keeps you up to date with all the news, interviews, reviews all the latest books/DVDs/audios etc, contains comic strips, goes in depth behind the scenes of classic episodes etc. So if you like that, yes.

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it hasn't prhaps mentioned init recently that a new series is in production, has it?

Other than going into detail about what Big Finish are up to and info about Shada, no. But it prints all the latest rumours. And you also get a free CD with this months!

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cool!

just wondering...do u have any ideas how to increase activity in this group? i've been trying out these war games out, however, not many people have been posting to it. any ideas???

spook

The ideas I've had on trying to increase activity are pretty much the ones I've been doing - which is creating conversations for specific topics like Target Books, the DVDs or DWM and hoping that people who want to talk about the DVDs, or DWM etc. will use those conversations.

Hasn't really worked, though.

Perhaps we should try and organise a weekly column in the post each week advertising us? Containing reviews of favourite episodes etc.?

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i had that idea a long time ago with the Doctor Who Weekly Review. the page where i would like people to post their reviews to is A657308, however, i think the information around it may be on the who group page itself. the idea was that one of the members of this group would write a review of an episode, and i would put an introduction to the article each week.

spook

Wow, I thought everyone read DWM. I personally wouldn't be without it, and if my newsagent hadn't had a copy of issue 50 in stock back in May 1981 when Disney magazine got cancelled I doubt I'd be the fan I am today.

I think the problem with the review page (and with most DW stuff generally) is that people who want to read/write about it already have a lot of places they can do so (the BBC's own DW messageboards have always been quite lively).

Issue 50 was a corker, wasn't it, with that free wallchart of all the episodes.

There's a superb article by Gary Gillatt in the current issue (the one with the weird-angle photo of a dalek on the cover) about what it means to be a fan. Gary's one of the best writers around and here he's taken a really unique look at the phenomenon in the first of a three-part article. Knowing a little about what we can expect in the next two parts, it should produce some fascinating insights into both why we become fans and what the people we're fans of think of us.

Still got one somewhere - amusing to see stories with the 'old' names on them.

The fandom piece rang a lot of bells with me, especially the thing about how fans love the show but somehow aren't united by it... I mean, for every DW fan who's been a friend, I've met an equal number I've wanted to flee screaming from. Although this may just be me... the only other person I've discussed this with had a much more positive view, though his perspective may be influenced by his being a popular Virgin and BBC novelist (not to mention BF writer and friend (IIRC) of Jim Lynn's).

The latest issue is a corker- the skewed angle photo of the Dalek is excellent, and the new format is very cool- a magazine you can be proud of I think. Saying that, the recent covers have been a little lacklustre, so I hope this issue will buck that trend. I have been buying DWM since 1986- I feel so old! I still have the back issues tucked away in my guest room at home. Considering the show has been off air for 14 years, its amazing how much material they can still publish which makes the magazine still seem fresh every month.

My first one was issue 4 of the weekly, complete with transfers and a stunning pic of Tom in his Time Lord get-up (a photo that later became VERY over-used). I've still got every issue back at my parents'.

Jimster
(who, by the way, appears in a few Virgin New Adventures, including chapter one of Human Nature - http://www.bbc.co.uk/cult/doctorwho/human_nature/one/printpage.html and whose first published Doctor Who fiction appears in the new 'Short Trips' anthology 'Zodiac' - yay!)

Congratulations in getting published. And such a fine topic to write about. Which Doctor have you written for?

Funnily enough, none of 'em

What it is, the editor asked me if I'd write the linking material - a short intro for each story - as the loose connecting theme for all the stories is the Zdiac, and I have a passing interest in Astrology. The concept I came up with is that in the far future, colonists on far-flung worlds begin to rediscover the old faiths of astrology, rune-casting and all other manner of fortune-telling. One man, Kasterborus (as in the constellation where the Time Lords live) came up with a way of fudging the old star charts to make them work no matter which star your planet was circling. Many centuries after, a student comes across a load of old documents detailing the work of Kasterborus mixed in with loads of accounts of ways in which the influence of the stars can be seen (ie, the stories).

If I can get my current (non-fiction) book out of the way, I'm hoping to submit a proper short story for one of the next anthologies.

When will Peter Cushing's Doctor get a look in the anthologies? Or even a novel of his own? I quite like him.