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Publication Dates: 1970's to Present About the books: Back in 1963, some writers at the BBC came up with the idea to produce a family-oriented science fiction TV series about a mysterious elderly gentleman who traveled through time and space in a blue police box called the TARDIS. He was accompanied by his granddaughter and two of her schoolteachers. Visiting strange planets and exciting moments in history, the show was immediately embraced by the U.K. viewing public and later by fans worldwide. Though the face of this mysterious gentleman, known simply as "The Doctor", and his companions changed through more than 25 years of televised adventures, the character and his friends and foes made an indelible impression on science fiction fandom, to the point that, when the show went off the air in 1989, the stories were taken up by a new generation of writers, who through various publishers have continued the Doctor's adventures through literally hundreds of books. The current publisher of Doctor Who novels is the BBC's own imprint. However, all of the television adventures were first novelized (predominantly by series script editor Terrance Dicks) and published by Target Books in the 1970's and '80's. These books are currently out of print, but can often be found in used bookstores. The 1990's brought what many believe to be the height of the Doctor Who novel range with two lines of books published by Virgin, generally referred to as the "Missing Adventures" or "MA's" and the "New Adventures" or "NA's". Many of these books were written by authors who grew up as fans of the series when they were children and young adults. The Missing Adventures featured stories about the first six incarnations of the Doctor. The New Adventures featured stories about the seventh (and to date, last regular TV version) of the Doctor. These books are all out of print and some fetch very high amounts of money on the second-hand market. The late 1990's saw the attempt at an 'Americanized' re-introduction of the Doctor in a Made-For-TV movie starring Paul McGann in the lead role. While this TV Movie did not lead to a resurgence of the series, it did change the tide for the direction of the novels. The BBC took over publication of the Doctor's adventures and introduced its own two book lines, generally referred to as the "Past Doctor Adventures" or "PDA's" and the "Eighth Doctor Adventures" or "EDA's". Due to North American distribution problems, earlier titles in these lines are becoming harder and harder to find. Of the currently in print BBC books, while the PDA's can be read in any order, the EDA's contain various multi-year, multi-book, multi-character story arcs and should be read chronologically, if at all possible. One of the more recent story arcs began with the book "The Burning" and the WriterGroupie thinks that is an excellent, accessible place to start reading this line of books. Recently two other additions have been made to the Doctor Who storyline: Telos Publishing was
granted the license to publish high-end hardcover Doctor Who novellas. These have a limited
publishing run and some are beginning to go out of print. The WriterGroupie suggests buying these
while they are still available. They are well regarded in the Doctor Who reading community. Also,
a company called Big Finish is now producing Doctor Who audio books/adventures. These are often
written by people involved with the various novel lines and are well worth picking up.
The WriterGroupie collects and enjoys reading all the various Doctor Who novels, though she
finds keeping up with the plethora of printed material available a definite challenge!
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