The Attic Inside Out Inside Out - Time Unincorporated 3 (ed Graeme Burk

Something slightly different here. I think it'd be ever so slightly pointless to review a work I'd contributed to; naturally I'm going to tell you it's seven shades of wonderful and recommend you but a copy at the first available opportunity (even though I can declare makes no financial difference to me as to how many copies it sells). I'd tell you that if I wasn't in it given Instead I thought I'd discuss the piece I wrote for it, The Attic Inside Out about The Sarah Jane Adventures; a 'Making Of' feature for the never-likely-to- exist DVD of my life.

There's no real unconventional story as to how it all came about. I've known the editors of the book for the better part of a decade, although I tended to see either of them at most once a year at the Gallifrey convention in Los Angeles. And I'd been writing for fanzine for a long while though I hadn't done anything more than dabble until I started writing for Shooty Dog Thing.

It pretty much started for me at the beginning of 2010. Graeme asked me to write an article for the fanzine he'd been editing for ten years, Enlightenment. He needed a thousand word article about the Beginnings box set, which had won the DWIN best DVD poll, inside three days before the issue went to press. So a quick rewatch of the special features as many episodes as I could fit in later I sent the article over. Graeme returned it with some excellent notes and I rewrote and resubmitted it as quickly as possible. Ten years as an editor meant that Graeme's very perceptive about what works, what doesn't and what was needed to make sure it fitted the brief he'd given me that I'd omitted. It was a brief but throughly enjoyable experience and, as Graeme was departing the fanzine, I thought no more of it.

And then six weeks later I got another message from Graeme. He was putting together Time Unincorporated 3, a collection of fanzine writings on the new series and as the numeral on the end might suggest, the third in the series. He asked if I'd be interested in writing about the Doctor Who spin-off The Sarah Jane Adventures - everybody else writing in the spin-off section had chosen to write about Torchwood and though there were articles about the Who spin-offs in general, there was nothing specific about The Sarah Jane Adventures in there. Since I happen to enjoy The Sarah Jane Advenutures far more than I do Torchwood, this wasn't a problem.

So given I had a free hand, what exactly should I write about? I had a look around to see what critical writing was out there to check I wasn't stepping on anyone's toes. There are a lot of excellent reviews, both of individual stories and seasons, but very little general critical writing on aspects of the show. But then given that this is a children's show why should there necessarily be? With the lack of general writing on the show and fact that this would be the sole SJA focused essay in the volume I thought I'd try as much of an overview of the show as 2,500 words would allow. Not a basic introduction - I was writing for a fan audience who knew what this show was. Instead I thought I'd try and explain why I thought it was so remarkable that the series was even being made and why it was worth investing 25 minutes each week to follow it. I'll tap dance past the next piece as it's the dull research stuff, which essentially involved watching a lot of Sarah Jane episodes (and when I say Sarah Jane episodes I include Sarah Jane episodes of Doctor Who in that). I say dull, dull in terms of process of sitting watching episodes with a pen and notebook in hand, not in terms of the episodes themselves. Not to put any prospective writers off but in terms of research you can't really bypass that. Years of Doctor Who and Sarah Jane watching had given me a head start but it didn't give me a free pass.

And then I sat down, and tried to fit everything I'd loved about the show into 2,500 words and make it coherent. And after the usual hammer and tongs of writing, after several drafts and finding the opening hook and closing line I wanted it was ready to deliver. And so began the editing process, where the editors asked for nips, tucks and additions and very generously allowed me to exceed the original word count. Dangerous thing to let a writer do, so I was conscious of the need to make every extra word worth it. And after a couple of weeks Graeme and Robert declared themselves happy with it. Mad Norwegian announced that it would be available in the summer of 2011 and I thought no more of it until Gallifrey next year when I got to spend quality time with Graeme, Robert and a lot of fellow contributors to the book. Oh, and rather excitingly got to sit on the book launch panel. It's damn good for the ego to sit on a panel with a lot of very talented writers with plenty to say.

But there was one last pre-publication twist. On 19th April, unexpectedly, Lis Sladen died. It was the second death in a few months of a fan favourite and someone who gave plenty to fandom as well as the show. It was the kind of moment that you remember vividly, watching the news suddenly breaking across Twitter, then Facebook, then the BBC News... it even made the BB's main news broadcast at ten o'clock. Unthinkable even five years earlier, before Russell T Davies revived the character with characteristic verve and flair and made everyone fall in love with her all over again. If you want your heart broken, you can see how deeply a new generation of fans fell in love with her. I'm heading downhill to 40 and even I had a tear in my eye reading all that, even more so because my three year old son was insisting on watching School Reunion a lot. There's a whole new bittersweet beauty to watching that story now, particularly in the Doctor's speeches about everything having an end. Thematically, and just as a damn great story, it's a perfect celebration of her and the Doctor.

And I was glad I'd had the chance to pay a small tribute to her, however small. Thanks Lis.

Digging Your Scene - Chicks Dig Time Lords ed Lynne M Thomas and Tara O'Shea

Frankly Doctor Who publishing's been dominated by the fanboys for far too long. And I say that as one who's (admittedly only of late) been part of that. We grew up with it, stole it back and made our own stories up when the BBC stopped making it, researched it to within a millimetre of its existence (I wouldn't be surprised to find a fanboy had designed a time machine simply to be in on those early meetings), snarked, analysed, debated and, in the end, played a major part in the revival. One of us even got to live the dream and be the Doctor. We've said a hell of a lot down the years. And given the old show had - still has - an overwhelmingly male fandom (in the UK at least) we've said plenty.

And then, to paraphrase a related show, everything changed. Eccleston and Piper played out the first Doctor-companion relationship with an openly emotional charge (there are moments in the old series, most obviously The Green Death Episode 6, but they never get in the way of Exciting Adventures). And then we got the first overtly Sexy Doctor in David Tennant. All of a sudden there were a hell of a lot more women around, particularly at cons and online. It might be a temporary shift, but fandom changed. And naturally some of the old guard weren't happy, abhorring the cosplaying, slashing and squeeing and generally being like Monty Python's Four Yorkshiremen (which they could probably quote verbatim) about it all. They wanted fandom on their terms, the new breed of fans barely even recognised that those terms existed. Me? I love it, new blood and new, different ways of being a fan are essential if your fandom's going to survive. Vive la difference, baby. There is no right way to be a fan, you can love and celebrate the show however you want (well, within legal boundaries...). Chicks Dig Time Lords is a celebration of all that.

There's so much adorable about the book that it's difficult to know where to start. The broadness of subject matter and approach is breathtaking. You've got academic approaches jostling with reminiscences, interviews and even an original comic strip from the creators of Torchwood Babies (the penultimate panel on page 89 has the most sublime Rob Shearman gag). Contributors aren't always singing from the same hymn sheet (the best example being the two essays which largely deal with Martha), so unlike s lot of the Doctor Who literature of the 80s and 90s there's never a sense that these are rigidly proscribed views. And while there might be passionate disagreements, which there will be when you have intelligent people with emotional investiture in topics, you get the impression that these are people you could arrive at a consensus with. It's certainly not the usual entrenched close minded rock-throwing that passes for internet debate. And like Shooty Dog Thing it's broad minded about what constitutes Doctor Who. Quite wonderfully, there's no consideration of the ever anal (and mainly male driven) canon debate and space is devoted to books, audios and spin-offs. You may not be a fan in the way these women (and one man) are, but read with an open mind and you'll understand the way they enjoy the show (and fandom) better, whether it be cosplaying, socialising, slashing, making fan films, fanzine writing, fan fic-ing, squeeing, affectionately mocking or coming up with a genius comic strip that the production crew of the show love. Or any combination of the above.

This is a series of snapshots from the smarter, creative end of Doctor Who fandom. You might not love all of it, given the breadth of subject matter, it's unlikely. But, equally, it hugely unlikely that you won't find a lot here to interest you, and maybe even broaden your mind. Chicks is exuberant, refreshing, stimulating and never dull. There's a good reason for it being so popular at Gallifrey One that the entire stock Mad Norwegian brought sold out quickly. It celebrates all the things I love about fans and being a fan. And yeah, I'll cop to having at least socialised with a fair few of the contributors here (hell, I'm namechecked once), but that's mostly down to their sharing a similar mindset. These chicks are the sort of people who make it great to be a fan. And this book will let you in on the reasons why, which is why it should be on every Who fan's required reading list. Or preferably beamed directly into their brains, thereby bringing miraculous world peace to fandom.

Guess who's back, back again...

Yeah, I let it slide for the last twelve months again... oops. I'll import a few reviews I'd put up on Librarything before trying it all again.

Of course, there was good reason for it. If there's anyone out there and they're remotely curious, head to Hirst Books to find out where most of my writing for last year has ended up, or check out two other fine Doctor Who fanzines, DWIN's Enlightenment (issue 155) and Bob Funnell's Whotopia (issue 18), which should be available soon, if they aren't already.