Sunday, July 29, 2007

life and death's textual highway

Read: No Future, Human Nature, Return of the Living Dad. Reading Timewyrm: Revelation.

Actually I've fallen stuck in a particular chapter of Revelation, which is why I've come to write tonight. Cautionary context: sadly my recollection of my reading of the NAs is limited, I have to rely on my instinct fed by my unconscious to make generalised statements.

one: there are four eras of the NAs.

the first - the stories are Doctor Who episodes written large, they could very well be novelisations of the TV episodes, the standard set by Ben Aaronovitch's Remembrance of the Daleks. This runs up to and including Nightshade. The main highlight is Revelation which could be described as a proto-NA.

the second - from Love and War up until Human Nature is an era of experimentation of authors writing stories working with ideas about Doctor Who and Doctor Who as literature.

the third - from Human Nature to Happy Endings - solid New Adventures with an established method and concepts, telling fantastic accomplished stories. This became a solid foundation for the next era...

the fourth
- the concepts of Doctor Who are expanded further. This includes novels such as Christmas on a Rational Planet, Return of the Living Dad, Damaged Goods.. probably So Vile a Sin and the Room with No Doors. The NAs start to approach Doctor Who in new ways, the result of which never got to be explored with the end of the NA series.

Reflecting on this last era, reading Return of the Living Dad I can't help think that this era may have served as a bible for the new series.

1 comment:

David Golding said...

I was wondering today about eras. I was thinking something slightly different to you:

First - the invention era, no one knows what the novels are going to be like, but everyone has their own idea, whether it be like the Trek novels, like the novelisations, like fan fiction, like SF novels, like literary fiction. This is up to and including The Pit.

Second - everyone knows what the New Adventures are (Timewyrm: Revelation) and wants to do one. This is up to and including Parasite.

Third - confident in their own right as novels, and everything you said, but starting with Set Piece and ending with Death and Diplomacy.

Fourth - I pretty much agree with you.