TARDIS Eruditorum - A Critical History of Doctor Who Volume 1

This collection of essays about the Hartnell era aims to look at the episodes in their historical perspective, rather than from our modern viewpoint. It claims not to be a book of reviews, although, inevitably, it does have elements of that in it.

The essays are generally interesting and well thought-out (the author has a PhD in English), and are, I would venture, often quite controversial. He doesn't just focus on the series itself, but adds essays on other topics relevant to a '60s viewpoint, as well as on some modern novels featuring the First Doctor and his companions. There's some interesting stuff, for example, on the use of narrative collapse in “The Dalek's Masterplan”, on the inspirations for “The Web Planet”, whether it's even possible to set novels before “An Unearthly Child” and - a great one for fans of '60s TV - whether Doctor Who more closely resembles Z-Cars or Dixon of Dock Green.

The major negative has to be the poor layout and proofreading. This was clearly very much done on a shoestring, and while the essays have apparently been updated somewhat from their original incarnation on the web (where most of them are still available), there are places where that doesn't seem to have been done thoroughly enough. Most egregiously, however, there's an entire chapter missing - it was later published as an erratum in volume 2.

If you can get past that, the essays are often thought-provoking, although it's a fair bet that most readers are going to find one or two that they disagree with. Personally, I think it's well worth a read for anyone interested in this era of the show from a literary perspective.