Customer Reviews

Chicks Dig Time Lords: A Celebration of Doctor Who by the Women Who Love It

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is a slim collection of essays documenting the female experience in Doctor Who fandom. These range from origin stories -- "how DW came to be part of my life" -- to essays exploring specific fannish activities, to what we on the intertubes would call meta about specific characters and themes. There are also a handful of interviews with actresses.

The first category dominates, and unfortunately, it's the weakest. Many are essentially variations on the same story ("I was watching PBS, for I, like all people in fandom, am American. And there was a peculiar British show which both scared and thrilled me"), which quickly grew repetitive. The highlight was Liz Myles's essay, which initially covered her introduction to Who-dom at her mother's hands, and then looked at the revival of Classic Who fandom from late 2005 onwards. Let me tell you, that warmed my black heart -- as did "Two Generations of Fangirls in America" by Amy Fritsch, about watching DW as a child, then introducing it to her daughter, and the thrill when their respective favourite companions -- Sarah Jane for the mother, Rose for the five-year-old -- met. The worst of this lot is Carole Barrowman's entry, which briefly touches on the surreal aspect of going from fangirl to family-of-actor, but says very little of substance.

Much more enjoyable are the essays about specific fannish activities. The obvious stand-out is the cartoon-format story behind Torchwood Babiez, which is funny, endearing, well-told and well-drawn. And it contains a chibi!Gary Russell, which is so cute, I would not be surprised to learn that the original version of "The End of Time" involved the Master turning all of humanity into chibi!Gary Russells, purely so that all of mankind could squee itself into oblivion. (Hey, this makes at least as much sense as anything else.) But I really loved all of these essays -- they include costuming, fan films, Tara O'Shea's adventures running the green room at ChicagoTARDIS (if that's not a fannish activity, I don't know what is!) and the zine scene. I would have liked to have seen something specifically about the craft of fic writing, but so many authors already have space in the book, and that sort of thing can so easily end in self-indulgence.

Then there's the meta, which ranges from a lovely piece about the author's love for Nyssa ("Girl Genius: Nyssa of Traken" by Francesca Coppa) to not one, but three essays about The Problem of Rose. The best is "What's A Girl To Do?" by Lloyd Rose, which is considered, well-written and contains ideas that haven't been beaten to death by fandom. The worst is "Two Steps Forward, One Step Back: Have We Really Come That Far?" by Shoshana Magnet and Robert Smith?, which makes a whole heap of really good points about a whole lot of things, but shoots itself in the foot by dividing female characters into categories of Having Worth (older, professional women), Marginal Cases (women in caregiving professions) and Don't Count (flight attendants, shop assistants, temps). This is a particular shame, because it also makes excellent and under-considered points about Jack Harkness as the acceptable queer (he's from the future, so it's okay, but don't let any of that gayness touch the Doctor!) and the problem of the black companions being the least loved.

But the meta I most loved was K. Tempest Bradford's "Martha Jones: Fangirl Blues", which utterly glows with its love for Martha, and its rage at the unfolding of her story. Reading it made me want to dance, first with the book, and then with my Martha doll. That alone was worth what I paid for the book.

The weakest essay overall was Kate Orman's "If I Can't Squee, I Don't Want To Be Part Of Your Revolution: Crone-ology of an Aging Fangirl", with its tendency to rewrite history and obsession with gendered behaviour (her tendency to become embroiled in fandom arguments is because she communicates LIKE A MAN, BABY, and not, say, because she created an anti-racism sidejournal that was not explicitly exclusive to white people, it just started out as explicitly unwelcoming to People of Colour, and currently it only frames itself as a non-safe space for PoC, so that's all right then). That is snarky, so here is a direct quote as evidence:

"So it's not hard to see why so much Internet discussion was (and is) "masculine" in nature: confrontational, brusque, concerned with winning the argument rather than with group bonding or soothing ruffled feathers. In turn, that helps to explain the grinding of gears that's happened so often when I've interacted with majority-female fandom: my learned "masculine" style of bluntly disagreeing and baldly arguing sends others into "face-saving" defensiveness ... So my bluntness shuts down some discussion..."

Yes, well. The essay ends with mention of dedicated forums for anonymous feminine with a dire warning that sooner or later, someone will Get Hurt. By this point, I was desperately sorry I'd read the essay at all; it lowers the whole tone of the book, and rather poisoned the remaining essays. It was a sad come-down after Liz Myles's essay, and rather depressing overall.

In short, would I recommend CDTL? With due respect to the contributers among my friends, I think it's one to get from the library. But I'm glad it exists, and I hope it doesn't mark the beginning and the end for female-oriented Doctor Who related titles.

As a chick who digs Time Lords, getting this book was a no brainer for me. I saw it for sale in the dealers room at the 2010 Gallifrey One convention and thought to myself, "I'll come back and grab a copy later". Of course, they promptly sold out of it. Thanks Amazon!

As I read through the book, I was reminded of Confessions of a Part-time Sorceress: A Girl's Guide to the D&D Game (Dungeons & Dragons), which is another book that deals with a female's perspective of what is considered to be a male dominated area. I say "a female's perspective" rather then "a female perspective" because that book is one woman's experience, just as "Chicks Dig..." contains a collection of perspectives from a collection of individual females. In both books the reader comes to realize that, vocabulary aside, the experience of enjoying something or coming to enjoy something you previously knew nothing about, isn't so much about gender. There could just as easily be a book called "American's Dig time Lords", "People Who Don't Normally Like Sci Fi Dig Time Lords", etc, etc, etc, and so on and so forth.

Yes the word "chicks" in the title, and all but one of the contributors are female (aside from an appearance by Garry Russell in cartoon form), but the book isn't just about women who are fans of Doctor Who. It's about fans of Doctor Who, period. And in a broader sense, you could say it's about the nature of being a fan. What draws a person to be a fan of something, what they get out of it and the community of other fans (or people who actively dislike the thing the person is a fan of) and how they relate to those people.

In Moths Ate My 'Doctor Who' Scarf, Toby Hadoke mentions how one of the reasons he was drawn to the character of the Doctor was the fact the character is more likely to use his brain then to fight back with direct physical violence. As a kid who couldn't physically match his class bullies, the ability to get through a situation with words rather then blows not only appealed to him but worked when applied in real life. Similar "identifying with the brainy character" can be found in "Chicks Dig..."

I wish I had something really profound to end this review on, but all I can say is this...

If you're curious about people who are obsessed with making costumes, knitting obscenely long scarves, posting to live journal pretending to be a fictional character, writing fan fic, building full sized replicas of police boxes, watching 30+ years of television or just about human nature in general?

You'll like this book.

I picked this book up at Gallifrey One and read the first 6 essays in a matter of a day. That is how enthralling this book is! The essays are all intelligent and very well written and flow together smoothly. The interviews fit in well between essays (I especially enjoyed the interview with Sophie Aldred). Most are touching and all are hillarious. My favourite is probably "Mathematical Excellence: A Documentary", and the essays by Lynne M. Thomas (Marrying into the TARDIS Tribe) and Tara O'Shea (The Tea Lady) were EXCELLENT (they most obviously had a passion for this project)! I found this book to be accessible and very positive. Also recommended is the essay by Lloyd Rose (her book "Algebra of Ice" s a cracking readDoctor Who: The Algebra Of Ice (Doctor Who S.) ) . Truly, whether you are a Die-hard Wholigan, a casual viewer, are looking for a good gift for or just trying to FIGURE OUT the Wholigan in your life, this is a definite must-read. Buy it, give it, read it, enjoy it!

Let me just start off here by saying that I am a fan of Doctor Who, but not a fan to the extent that the word generally implies. Perhaps, if I understand the term correctly, it would be more accurate to say that I am a fan, not a fanboy. My interest in the show is intense but it is focused almost entirely on the show itself. I have never been to a convention, read fan fiction, or a Doctor Who novel. (I do, however, still have my 17-foot long scarf and piles of VHS tapes on which I recorded the show off the TV. And I love to discuss the quality of various episodes of the show.) So, much of the stuff I read here was eye-opening to me.

One of my biggest responses on completing this book was: where were these girls when I was in school? No one else I went to high school with had any interest in Doctor Who, certainly not the girls. And yet, according to what I've read here, there was a much larger female fan base here in America than there was in the UK. Where were you when I need you?

As for the essays themselves, like all collections with a mix of authors, my responses were mixed. I particularly enjoyed "Hopelessly Devoted to Who" by Jody Lynn Nye because so much of her experience of getting involved in the show seemed to mirror mine. "Two Generations of Fangirls in America" by Amy Fritsch is another of my favorites as she talks about bringing her daughter into the love of Who, something I hope to do with my own daughter and son. (Though, for a male perspective, Michael Chabon's is probably closer to mine--see Manhood for Amateurs.) I also admired Francesca Coppa's admiration of Nyssa, and I enjoyed inside views of the show itself from people like Sophie Aldred.

Sometimes I thought an author went a little bit overboard with the things they take from the show. Getting analysis of the various female companions from Jo and Sarah Jane to Rose, Martha, and Donna from a female perspective was great, though I sometimes felt that too much was expected from what is meant to be an entertainment. Still, I can appreciate the points being made.

I'm also not into things beyond the show itself. In particular, I'm not much interested in the radio shows or the fan fiction. Again, I can respect the fact that someone like Doctor Who erotica--I can't deny that my teenage self kept a close eye out for Leela's and Peri's cleavage--but I don't follow it. (That said, I did check out "Torchwood Babiez" and had a laugh.)

Still, in the end, this book has a lot going for it. For a mixed bag, the quality of the writing was generally very high and my interest never really waned. Anyone wanting some interesting views on the world of Doctor Who can certainly find them here.

Awesome book if you are interested in the influence that Doctor Who has had on the fan community. The book is a very quick read, and interesting in the breadth that it has in who has written a quick 1000 word essay on how the good Doctor has influenced women and the fans community. The most brilliant part of the book is the Torchwood Babiez mini comic, with some interesting commentary from science fiction authors Elizabeth Bear and Jody Lynn Nye (who has written some of the best sci-fi in partnership with Anne McCaffery) who are authors I deeply respect for their fantasy and science fiction works.

Depending on how you relate to Doctor Who, and who your "doctor is" (mine will always be Tom Baker), this is an interesting view into the Doctor Who fan community above all. Not just from a geeky viewpoint but from the viewpoint that Doctor Who has had as a role model for women. The influence of this show from the multiple author viewpoints is something to not just notice, but also celebrate along the way. Rated 5 of 5 stars, this is a quick read and interesting. Provides some interesting viewpoints into not just the fans that go to Gallifrey One, but to the many other Doctor Who based fan communities. Well worth reading for anyone who is interested in the Doctor Who community, what they are about, and what the influence has been for the entire Doctor Who series.

This is such a fun book for anyone involved in early Dr Who fandom (Squee! I was at a few conventions that were mentioned in the book!), or for anyone interested in Dr Who fandom. Don't think it's only for chicks, but definitely written from a female perspective. Full of essays from a good, diverse group of women about how they got involved in this crazy tribe, it's a good read.

I was lucky enough to pick up an early copy at the Gallifrey One Doctor Who convention in LA in February, and I completely devoured the book on my flight back home to Seattle. As my tweet on way back home said, "Just finished reading Chicks Dig Time Lords [...] on trip back from #gally and it was great! Recommend for any fan (M or F)"

Not by looking at the female fan culture from across "time and space," it also comments on fan culture of the time. It is interesting to learn about how different the same fandom in the US is from the one in the UK. Being in the middle of it we often forget how different we are.

Also the history Torchwood Babiez strip is hilarious and is placed at the perfect location in the collection.

I hope to see more books cover fandom the way this one has in the future.

Great essays, wonderful premise, good feel. Nothing really gender-specific other than the writers' points of view, so don't let the title scare anyone off. Guys will still be manly (if geeky -- in a good way) when seen reading this book.

You have to take this book's title literally because it isn't much beyond personal stories celebrating Doctor Who. I was hoping for a little more insight and depth from the authors--maybe a bit more academic consideration given to the subject of female fandom, and particularly how it differs from male fandom. Most of this book is anecdotal, and although it's pleasing to read essays from super fans, there is very little to either bring the essays together or give a clearer picture about the differing arenas for female fandom and what other commonalities those groups may have besides a love of Doctor Who. I think the book could have been organized in such a way as to make it more objective and relatable, as well as informative, rather than just a mutual admiration society of fellow fans. It's always fun to hear others' "my first Doctor" stories, but as a book, I think it could have served even a non-Who loving audience by offering a little more insight into the sociology of female Who fandom.

A host of talented female writers articulate their love for the weird, wonderful and wacky BBC series Doctor Who. A must read for all Doctor Who fans, this book goes a long way to redressing the idea that science fiction is an all-male affair.