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So what are you reading now (Part 4)?

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Christopher said:
^We already have New Frontier, SCE, Titan, Vanguard, my upcoming DTI book, and the like. Okay, the Summerfield and Wildthyme books are different in that they're creator-owned and the publishers don't need a license for Doctor Who fiction (in fact, I gather that Wildthyme was an independent character first and only later added into the Whoniverse), but otherwise, is there a great difference in content or approach?
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Star Trek fiction, whether based on the series or based on original concepts, targets the same essential audience. With Doctor Who fiction there's more variation; the official novels being published today are targeted at a roughly 12 year-old audience, while the spin-offs are targeted differently at smaller, older, more literate audiences (with some variation, depending upon which line is in question). I'd call Articles of the Federation niche-y, I have the impression that your own Department of Temporal Investigations is niche-y, but the Time Hunter novellas were way super-niche-y.

I'm curious to see what kind of reception Michael Moorcock's Doctor Who novel will receive this October, because it's an official novel but it's targeted at an audience that BBC Books hasn't tried to capture since 2005 -- and arguably even before then.
 
David Howe might try to make a case that the Telos novellas were originally aimed at the same kind of reader as the Moorcock novel, by bringing in writers like Kim Newman, Louise Cooper, and Paul McAuley, but given that they were relatively limited edition small press books, they had no chance of reaching the larger audience Moorcock's novel may attract.
 
Christopher said:
Moorcock novel? What is it, Doctor?
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Michael Moorcock has written a Doctor Who novel entitled The Coming of the Terraphiles. The Doctor and Amy become involved in the search for the Arrow of Law on the planet Miggea.

It's a high-profile release for Doctor Who fiction, much like Spock's World was for Star Trek nearly twenty-five years ago. Hardcover, dust jacket, pull quote from Neil Gaiman on the cover.
 
I'd echo what Allyn and Steve are saying, basically--the various individual licences that emerge in the Doctor Who franchise allow it to explore much smaller, more specialised niches in a sustained way.

If intellectual property worked the same way for Star Trek, we'd probably get all sort of weird offshoots like...I don't know, a direct-to-video series about the Capellans or something.

Doctor Who offshoots get to go there in a way that Star Trek generally doesn't, since any similar niche products which come out tend not to last that long. (SCE is sort of in that mold, though--take an organisation barely referenced in the franchise and create a whole spinoff around it.) Star Trek original audios never went anywhere, unlike the extremely successful Doctor Who audios (essentially a parallel series running alongside the TV series now), and I don't think any of the ST spinoffs mentioned approach the output of the Bernice Summerfield stories, or the notion that K-9 can get his own TV show.
 
TheAlmanac said:
(SCE is sort of in that mold, though--take an organisation barely referenced in the franchise and create a whole spinoff around it.)
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Yeah, what a silly idea, that would never work. On an unrelated note, everyone buy my DTI book next May! :D

...I don't think any of the ST spinoffs mentioned approach the output of the Bernice Summerfield stories, or the notion that K-9 can get his own TV show.
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(Begins developing pitch for Spot, the Shapeshifting, Hermaphroditic Pussycat. Alternate title: I Can Haz Ann Droyd?)
 
Christopher said:
Yeah, what a silly idea, that would never work. On an unrelated note, everyone buy my DTI book next May! :D
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aye! will do. always been a fan of timetravel.

(Begins developing pitch for Spot, the Shapeshifting, Hermaphroditic Pussycat. Alternate title: I Can Haz Ann Droyd?)
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dear lord. i just went blind reading that...:lol:
 
I've finally got around to reading A Study in Scarlet. Next is One Day by David Nicholls and then hopefully I'll get around to finishing Dexter By Design before Dexter is Delicious comes out.
 
Finished my rereading of "The Return" which I enjoyed. Now on a bit of a rereading buzz and considering "Raise the Titanic".
 
I finished The Sublte Knife last night, and I thought it was amazing. This one defintly get into some very interesting scientific and philosophical ideas. Although to be honest I find it hard to belive that this was actually pretty violent and philosophically complex. 9.5/10
 
I'm on the last 50 pages of Star Wars Legacy of the Force: Betrayal. I'm still not sure what I'm going to read next.
 
I finished Doctor Who: The Krillitane Storm ealier and started on a Sherlock Holmes story, The Adventure of the Red Circle.
 
JD said:
I finished The Sublte Knife last night, and I thought it was amazing. This one defintly get into some very interesting scientific and philosophical ideas. Although to be honest I find it hard to belive that this was actually pretty violent and philosophically complex. 9.5/10
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I really enjoyed this book as well. Have you started on The Amber Spyglass yet?
 
Moved from Doctor Who spinoffs to Star Wars: Triple Zero, Karen Traviss's second Republic Commando novel. I'm enjoying it so far, though I'm reminded of my reaction a few years back to her first Republic Commando novel -- she's kind of like a Diane Carey who can write recognizable English.
 
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