Thursday, May 31, 2007

don't forget to catch me, notes on human nature I

Prologue - a great example of Benny's diary and the post it notes that cover them. Note: Bernice Summerfield.

p4 - God I was being careful of his feelings. Note: Bernice Summerfield.

p19 - on the statue Old Meg Good to be remembered ... for something everyday and difficult. Note: Human Nature the details.

rights of women to vote

p30 I heard that you wrote... Note: NAs as novel. Note: The Doctor as author.

more to come...

Tuesday, May 29, 2007

notes expanded

NAs and continuity
Continuity in the following sense: the main characters reflect on past adventures, often the reason behind their mood, attitude, behaviour and actions. There is a connection between novels and each character is contiguous having a life that develops and reflects over the course of the New Adventures.

NAs as novel
What does the literary form mean for all the regular Doctor Who questions? What is the nature of the character of the Doctor and companions? or with boring things like canon and continuity (traditional sense)? Even for those ideas that binds Doctor Who as legend and myth, within its own history or culture (if only extending into fandom)? Or that odd undefined thing which I can only name as Doctor Whoness?

This is not just about the space to do things - to go on Virgin's mantra of deeper and bolder, but more to do with the form allowing to do things like continuity (as above) and internal lives. Can we call this the novelness of Doctor Who?

So this could just mean the traditional ideas about the literary form, not just the stories are bigger but that just the idea of word and sentence having value. There is here a Modernist method of abstraction from visual forms on a television screen to a life of words.

A question to ask our authors: Did they write what they visualised?

NA writers as authors and fans
Fans who write or writers who are fans? Both.

This must be like the films of writers and directors who grew up with Star Wars making their stories. Though film has a long history of this. French New Wave directors came out from Cahiers du Cinema such as Godard and Truffaut. They developed their own language of cinema.

The Cahiers du Cinema critics had championed auteur theory and I assume that's how they made films, but they also made films with a vast knowledge and love of cinema. I can imagine they are not too different from the NA fan/writers. The biographies of the New Wave directors might be worth following up on for points of difference/similarity with the NA writers.

Knowledge, theory, love? Perhaps that is how the New Adventures developed its new language? Whereas the new series developed its language after a combination of time passing (16 years) and because contemporary times demands a new language. What is this new language thing, see this post.

Sunday, May 27, 2007

Project

I'm starting to form the the plan of novels I want to re-read and develop ideas from.

Damaged Goods - of course, but I'll leave this for last.

Two Cornell novels...
No Future - Read, and I'm interested in looking at the other alternate universe books... but perhaps a better track would be looking at the other Cornell novels.

Human Nature - Halfway through, some really great ideas from here, trying not to consider how this plays with the adaptation, not until much later. But i can't... Love and Pain!

If I have time, I would also go with Timewyrm: Revelation and Love and War. In light of Father Day's I keep seeing death/Death as a common thread in Paul's work. He has a yin for the big sleep. I think it would be worth exploring, and I've got Orpheus as a mythic frame to discuss this, I'd even think it would be a great opportunity to throw Buffy in.

Two Orman and two Aaronovich novels... I thought Return of the Living Dad - here would be able to explore ideas of family and home in comparison with the new series... perhaps a comparison with Father's Day.

Either The Left-Handed Hummingbird, The Room with No Doors or So Vile A Sin

This would be good to read in conjunction with two Aaronovitch Transit and The Also People. So Vile a Sin also looks at themes of family and as the battleground for modern politics - its an important theme to explore, one which the new series was very conscious of.

Tuesday, May 22, 2007

notes for the new adventures

To recap the notes from no future.

Writing
NAs as novel
NA authors as writers and fans
NAs and continuity

Themes and imagery
The Ace question
NAs and sexual content/innuendo
NAs and the Doctor's view of humanity
NAs and Religion/mysticism

Cultural context
NAs and graphic novels
NAs and popular culture
NAs as a product of its time
America in the UK

Point of Difference
NAs and old TV series
NAs and Buffy

Tuesday, May 15, 2007

notes for no future

p13 Doctor reflects on recent adventures, (alternate universe cycle) Note NAs and continuity (see also p191 below)

p13 He'd felt his handwriting stretching across the universe. Cornell refers to the Doctor's plotting as Time's Champion. As it is here and on p84 (see below) there's is a link of the defining characteristic of the seventh Doctor to Doctor Who in novel form.

I wonder if there has been discussion or analysis of this... what meaningful ideas exist because Doctor Who is in the form of the New Adventures? As a fanzine Broadsword knew the political ones as far as fandom was concerned. Virgin always referred to bigger and broader Doctor Who? Note NAs as novel.

p27 Broadsword definition. "... and a Broadsword unit is doing ... what ever weird stuff those guys do."

p30 Big Ben V for Vendetta - Note NAs and graphic novels.

p34 Danny sees Black Star in line with the Situationist - sparks questions on terrorism - good to ask a UK bod about terrorism in the time of IRA compared to WTC, Bali, Madrid and London transport bombing. Note NAs - a product of its time?

p45 Broadsword definition.

p 48 V for Vendetta - Note NAs and graphic novels.

p35 fractals now a blink - Note NAs a product of its time.

p35 sparks the question about what Ace's character had become in the New Adventures becoming a soldier as a result of Love and War.

I used to ask How (authors, editors) could that have done that to her?
I think I understand now, because its the wrong question, How else could the Doctor have behaved? Note the Ace question

Note unaware of the human experience

Note america in the uk

p46 ladborke grove

p84 'This is just the start. Right now you're a person. Soon you'll be just one of his characters.' The 7th Doctor's plotting is like writing a novel - a story with characters doing the right thing at the right time. Note NAs as novel

p101 Broadsword definition.

p107 a Buddhist mapping of the Doctor. Note NAs and Religion/mysticism

p132 discipline - kinky. Note NAs and sexual content/innuendo

p140 Cornell's love of music. Note NAs and popular culture - a desire for contemporary Doctor Who?

p146 But we all want to be the hero

p155 meaningless violence of their own, that childish thrashing of each other. Note NAs and the Doctor's view of humanity

p156 Cornell's awareness of the Doctor's methods and making the Doctor aware of this. Note NA authors as writers and fans.

p187 Benny considers the Doctor's morality.

p188-9 Saving people from monsters./ People and rabbits. Broadsword definition, Note Point of difference - NAs and Buffy.

p191 Benny reflects on events in Love and War This is one of many recollections of Ace, Benny and the Doctor in this novel. Note Continuity with characters. Reflection of past experiences in previous NAs. esp Love and War. Note NAs and continuity.

p35 and p191 - Love and War... This is a crucible for Ace and Benny. This is Benny's birth into the NAs. This is Ace's death in the NAs. Note the Ace question.

p191 What a chronovore is - this is an appeal for the mystical. Note NAs and Religion/mysticism.

Chapter 16 - The Capture of Artemis - mysticism vs the mediasphere.

Is our history and our human consciousness the sum of our technology/television? Is it techonlogy - CDs and VCRs etc (anachronisms the monk introduced) or is it the TV shows? Note Point of Difference - NAs and old TV series

The Monk embraces both the mystical and technological as does the Doctor (though i don't think embrace is the right word for the Doctor).

Mysticism - Brigadier, Artemis, Stonehenge etc Though isn't the idea of the mystical in the Doctor Who universe an anathema? Note NAs and Religion/mysticism.

This is not particular to the NAs, but for a novel to use TV as a character - then that is something particular, especially in a novel that likens the central character more to literary concepts. Note NAs as novel.

p262 'It'll get worse,' the Doctor told Yates. 'But one day, perhaps, it'll get better.' Note NAs a product of its time.

p266 Ace goes through an Orpheus thing... No Future is where Ace comes to a point of rest about Jan.