In this unofficial guide to the Doctor Who universe, writer Lance Parkin has attempted to throw his net wider than most.
Not only has he drawn from televised events seen on the BBC, but he has weaved in details from the K-9 television series, spin-off video productions and even included information from the wider worlds of comics, books, audio plays, novels, short stories and even stage plays.
Whoniverse is structured into sections, first the universe itself, then Earth and her solar system, before covering Time Lord, Dalek and Cybermen planets. Each featured planet has an introduction and a timeline, with events chronicled in an anti-clockwise swirl around a police box. Events are tagged with a small graphic denoting the source format, as well as the Doctor featured and the story’s author.
Unfortunately, this has the effect of making many pages look the same and as we progressed, we felt that the timeline format was too rigid. Placing events by their story’s broadcast or publication dates, rather than when they occurred within the fiction, makes for some confusing results. Also, on countless occasions, all events on a timeline hailed from the same story, so it simply becomes a page devoted to a short precis of the storyline for that one tale.
Elsewhere, a fact file box is used instead, although this has problems too; the box for Tara, location for Season 16’s ‘The Androids of Tara’ contains seven entries which each carry the same heading – that of the story title. The same labelling issue hobbles the Galactic Federation star map for the Peladon tales.
With such a wide range of planets to choose from, Parkin seems to cover all the major bases. Some choices we loved, such as the decision to roll with the events of ‘Kill the Moon’, by splitting lunar history either side of the infamous hatching. Others were more dubious, like trying to weave a cohesive history of the Cybermen which tolerates both the ‘Spare Parts’ genesis audio tale as well as the comic story ‘The World Shapers’, which has Mondas being the same place as Marinus.
The book uses a wide range of images, from comic excerpts to full page illustrations and novel and CD covers. Many are glorious, but some are just strange (like the close up shot of a model Terileptil). Also, it is odd to find publicity photos in the mix and occasionally they just do not work, with the actors posed distinctly out of character, or are just not terribly well linked to the planet in question.
With a much wider scope that many Doctor Who reference books, Whoniverse may act as a great jumping on point for those who want to dip their toe outside the confines of the television series.
However, in its ambition to be a sort of universal guide book, we would suggest it fails and ultimately it is more akin to a Wiki given physical form – useful to a point, but potentially confusing (if pretty to look at.)
Published on 22 October 2015 by Aurum Press.
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