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Product Description
This volume of essays examines the abundant mythological elements underpinning the 46-year-run (and many more!) of popular BBC television series Doctor Who. Contributors include a well known Doctor Who novelist, an organizer of one of the largest Doctor Who online communities, plus several university scholars and founders of the American Northeast Tolkien Society. Explore the universe of The Doctor as seen through the eyes of myth and legend.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
2 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Having heard interesting things about this book, I was keen to get hold of a copy. I'm afraid it's shockingly bad. It's illiterate to an astonishing extent. Don't these people have an editor who speaks English? Don't they believe in reading back over what they've written?
As for the content, it's largely vacuous, verbose theorising with little attention to truth, evidence, or open-mindedness. The authors had their fixed ideas and tortured the facts (on Procrustean frames) to fit. I found it literally unreadable and ended up hurling it across the room in a rage.
If you're a sociologist you might love it. If, on the other hand, you're someone who enjoyed the Sokal Affair (the 1996 incident in which Alan Sokal easily got a deliberately nonsensical, jargon-packed paper published in Social Text, a 'cultural studies' journal), then give this book a wide berth. Or get hold of some drugs to lower your blood pressure before you read it.
It's great that people are trying to do this sort of thing with the splendid product that is Doctor Who. I just wish they were better people.
Always bear in mind that this is only one opinion and the rest of the human race may out-vote me. (Lord preserve us.)
As for the content, it's largely vacuous, verbose theorising with little attention to truth, evidence, or open-mindedness. The authors had their fixed ideas and tortured the facts (on Procrustean frames) to fit. I found it literally unreadable and ended up hurling it across the room in a rage.
If you're a sociologist you might love it. If, on the other hand, you're someone who enjoyed the Sokal Affair (the 1996 incident in which Alan Sokal easily got a deliberately nonsensical, jargon-packed paper published in Social Text, a 'cultural studies' journal), then give this book a wide berth. Or get hold of some drugs to lower your blood pressure before you read it.
It's great that people are trying to do this sort of thing with the splendid product that is Doctor Who. I just wish they were better people.
Always bear in mind that this is only one opinion and the rest of the human race may out-vote me. (Lord preserve us.)
4 of 9 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
"In a television show fandom that hoards its myths and canon tight to its chest, The Mythological Dimensions of Doctor Who is a welcome inhalation of air; examining many of the very `set in stone' beliefs that we hold true, while examining the etheric connections between a television series and some of the greatest mythological traditions of all time. A solid read."
Tony Lee
Writer of IDW Publishing's Doctor Who Ongoing
"The Mythological Dimensions of Doctor Who offers fascinating perspectives on that iconic time traveler of contemporary popular culture. The articles in this new collection successfully join Doctor Who's fan-based cultural history to well-accepted academic scholarship on mythology. From Arthurian legend and Batman to medieval Scandinavian Valkyries and modern wartime morality, the diversity of subjects and themes explored in this collection offer compelling insights on the roles mythologies, both past and present, play in contemporary consciousness. By addressing newcomers to the Doctor Who series as well as those who have followed the Doctor's multiple incarnations since the 1960s, this volume is likely to become one of those classic works that raises the bar for future study in this field."
Leslie A. Donovan
Tolkien Studies Scholar and Associate Professor at the University of New Mexico
Author of "The Valkyrie Reflex in J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings: Galadriel, Shelob, Éowyn, and Arwen
"A collection of excellent essays that is engaging for the serious fan and will deepen the interest of the new viewer. Every generation has a method of storytelling to pass its collected wisdom to the next. This book helps us connect the themes of a modern television legend to the timeless myths of the past."
Ken Deep
Co-host Doctor Who Podshock
Tony Lee
Writer of IDW Publishing's Doctor Who Ongoing
"The Mythological Dimensions of Doctor Who offers fascinating perspectives on that iconic time traveler of contemporary popular culture. The articles in this new collection successfully join Doctor Who's fan-based cultural history to well-accepted academic scholarship on mythology. From Arthurian legend and Batman to medieval Scandinavian Valkyries and modern wartime morality, the diversity of subjects and themes explored in this collection offer compelling insights on the roles mythologies, both past and present, play in contemporary consciousness. By addressing newcomers to the Doctor Who series as well as those who have followed the Doctor's multiple incarnations since the 1960s, this volume is likely to become one of those classic works that raises the bar for future study in this field."
Leslie A. Donovan
Tolkien Studies Scholar and Associate Professor at the University of New Mexico
Author of "The Valkyrie Reflex in J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings: Galadriel, Shelob, Éowyn, and Arwen
"A collection of excellent essays that is engaging for the serious fan and will deepen the interest of the new viewer. Every generation has a method of storytelling to pass its collected wisdom to the next. This book helps us connect the themes of a modern television legend to the timeless myths of the past."
Ken Deep
Co-host Doctor Who Podshock
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
5 reviews
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Myth & The Time Lord
30 May 2011
Format:Paperback
Doctor Who, from its use of myths as the basis of story's to its own internal continuity, has never shied away from mythology across its nearly fifty years of life. The question to ask might be this though: how has mythology influenced Doctor Who itself? The Mythological Dimensions Of Doctor Who explores that very question.
It does so across eleven very different essays, covering topics are as widely varied as the show itself. Quite a few of the essays cover the internal world of the series such as C.B Harvey's look at working of cannon (the series own internal mythology) within the series, Neil Clarke's look at the mythic status of the titular Time Lord from the latter stories of the old series right up to the new series, an exploration of the Doctor's morality by Melissa Beattie for example or Melody Green's fascinating exploration of self-sacrifice in the series. In particular, Green's exploration of the New Series episode Midnight might just make the reader watch that 2008 episode with a different eye. These essays that focus on the mythology within the show are
The best essays of the book, arguably, are those that look at exactly what the title says: the mythological dimensions of the series. The essays range from a fascinating look at the unlikely connections between the last of the Time Lords and the Dark Knight from Leslie McMurty, Anthony S. Burdge's essay on Tolkien influences on the series, two essays (one each by Kristine Larson and Jessica Burke) that explores the Valkyrie-esque nature of New Series companions, Vincent O'Brien's exploration of the Doctor as a post-modern Prometheus before ending with an essay by Matthew Hills exploring Doctor Who as a "mythology" show. Each of these essays explores the series through a different lens and, like looking through a kaleidoscope, gives the reader a different image of a familiar television show.
The essays cover a lot of ground and they do so splendidly. One might be concerned that the essays, due to their subject matter, might be a bit heavy for the average fan of the series to read. Thankfully the essays are written in a style that is highly accessible. Certainly one will find terms they might not understand but thankfully each of the writers takes the time to explain in terms that just about anyone should be able to comprehend. There are instances, particularity in the essay by Matthew Hills, where this doesn't quite work and the average reader might be left scratching their head a bit but for the most part the book works wonders.
The Mythological Dimensions Of Doctor Who explores just that. With the internal mythology of the series itself, the book presents an intriguing exploration of the series we know so well. Yet when the book looks at how mythology has touched the series and shaped it, the results are nothing short of intriguing with the possibilities at times being fascinating. Written in a style that is for the vast majority of the book welcoming to the average reader, the book is an intriguing look at what lies just beneath the world's longest running science fiction series.
It does so across eleven very different essays, covering topics are as widely varied as the show itself. Quite a few of the essays cover the internal world of the series such as C.B Harvey's look at working of cannon (the series own internal mythology) within the series, Neil Clarke's look at the mythic status of the titular Time Lord from the latter stories of the old series right up to the new series, an exploration of the Doctor's morality by Melissa Beattie for example or Melody Green's fascinating exploration of self-sacrifice in the series. In particular, Green's exploration of the New Series episode Midnight might just make the reader watch that 2008 episode with a different eye. These essays that focus on the mythology within the show are
The best essays of the book, arguably, are those that look at exactly what the title says: the mythological dimensions of the series. The essays range from a fascinating look at the unlikely connections between the last of the Time Lords and the Dark Knight from Leslie McMurty, Anthony S. Burdge's essay on Tolkien influences on the series, two essays (one each by Kristine Larson and Jessica Burke) that explores the Valkyrie-esque nature of New Series companions, Vincent O'Brien's exploration of the Doctor as a post-modern Prometheus before ending with an essay by Matthew Hills exploring Doctor Who as a "mythology" show. Each of these essays explores the series through a different lens and, like looking through a kaleidoscope, gives the reader a different image of a familiar television show.
The essays cover a lot of ground and they do so splendidly. One might be concerned that the essays, due to their subject matter, might be a bit heavy for the average fan of the series to read. Thankfully the essays are written in a style that is highly accessible. Certainly one will find terms they might not understand but thankfully each of the writers takes the time to explain in terms that just about anyone should be able to comprehend. There are instances, particularity in the essay by Matthew Hills, where this doesn't quite work and the average reader might be left scratching their head a bit but for the most part the book works wonders.
The Mythological Dimensions Of Doctor Who explores just that. With the internal mythology of the series itself, the book presents an intriguing exploration of the series we know so well. Yet when the book looks at how mythology has touched the series and shaped it, the results are nothing short of intriguing with the possibilities at times being fascinating. Written in a style that is for the vast majority of the book welcoming to the average reader, the book is an intriguing look at what lies just beneath the world's longest running science fiction series.
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Great fun
22 Aug 2010
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
Great fun. if you like mythology, pop psychology, C.G. Jung, etc. You'll enjoy this look at the Doctor and how he relates to the wider world of myth and archetypes. Some of the articles are more interesting than others, of course. Some are solely concerned with the reincarnation of the Doctor since 2001, others cover the entire spectrum or focus on only one of the Doctors. All of these authors seem to know far more about the series than any sane person should.
11 of 15 people found the following review helpful
Early Press Reviews
28 April 2010
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
"In a television show fandom that hoards its myths and canon tight to its chest, The Mythological Dimensions of Doctor Who is a welcome inhalation of air; examining many of the very `set in stone' beliefs that we hold true, while examining the etheric connections between a television series and some of the greatest mythological traditions of all time. A solid read."
Tony Lee
Writer of IDW Publishing's Doctor Who Ongoing
"The Mythological Dimensions of Doctor Who offers fascinating perspectives on that iconic time traveler of contemporary popular culture. The articles in this new collection successfully join Doctor Who's fan-based cultural history to well-accepted academic scholarship on mythology. From Arthurian legend and Batman to medieval Scandinavian Valkyries and modern wartime morality, the diversity of subjects and themes explored in this collection offer compelling insights on the roles mythologies, both past and present, play in contemporary consciousness. By addressing newcomers to the Doctor Who series as well as those who have followed the Doctor's multiple incarnations since the 1960s, this volume is likely to become one of those classic works that raises the bar for future study in this field."
Leslie A. Donovan
Tolkien Studies Scholar and Associate Professor at the University of New Mexico
Author of "The Valkyrie Reflex in J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings: Galadriel, Shelob, Éowyn, and Arwen
"A collection of excellent essays that is engaging for the serious fan and will deepen the interest of the new viewer. Every generation has a method of storytelling to pass its collected wisdom to the next. This book helps us connect the themes of a modern television legend to the timeless myths of the past."
Ken Deep
Co-host Doctor Who Podshock
Tony Lee
Writer of IDW Publishing's Doctor Who Ongoing
"The Mythological Dimensions of Doctor Who offers fascinating perspectives on that iconic time traveler of contemporary popular culture. The articles in this new collection successfully join Doctor Who's fan-based cultural history to well-accepted academic scholarship on mythology. From Arthurian legend and Batman to medieval Scandinavian Valkyries and modern wartime morality, the diversity of subjects and themes explored in this collection offer compelling insights on the roles mythologies, both past and present, play in contemporary consciousness. By addressing newcomers to the Doctor Who series as well as those who have followed the Doctor's multiple incarnations since the 1960s, this volume is likely to become one of those classic works that raises the bar for future study in this field."
Leslie A. Donovan
Tolkien Studies Scholar and Associate Professor at the University of New Mexico
Author of "The Valkyrie Reflex in J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings: Galadriel, Shelob, Éowyn, and Arwen
"A collection of excellent essays that is engaging for the serious fan and will deepen the interest of the new viewer. Every generation has a method of storytelling to pass its collected wisdom to the next. This book helps us connect the themes of a modern television legend to the timeless myths of the past."
Ken Deep
Co-host Doctor Who Podshock
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