A Pirate's History of Doctor Who

Book excerpt: Welcome to the first (but not the last) Pirate's History of Doctor Who. What's a Pirate's History, you ask? Well, there's the official, sanitized, orderly histories that are approved by and all about the powers that be. Then there are the Pirate's histories, the things that they don't want you to know about, or that they don't care about, things that are great and marvellous and intriguing... but unapproved. It's a history of secret and forgotten corners of the Whoniverse. Thrill to the story of the first Woman Doctor, Barbara Benedetti, whose four adventures during the end of the Colin Baker era and the start of the McCoy reign, rivalled the official BBC in quality, and launched an entire series of women Doctors, Sharon Horton, Lily Daniels, Krystal Moore, thirty years before Jody Whittaker. Or how about BBC's attempt to kill Doctor Who in 1984, the fan campaign that saved the show, the hiatus, and the slow secret war the BBC waged to end one of its most popular shows. There's the tragic tale of the decline and fall of John Nathan-Turner. There's a history that includes a fan group's attempt to create a feature length Doctor Who movie with Super 8 cameras in the 70s, and a whole lost generation of fans and films. Here's the story of the explosion of Doctor Who in the 80s, the emergence of fan culture, and the rise of fan films, beginning with the woman Doctor. As Doctor Who was driven into oblivion by the BBC, it was fans who stepped up, creating their own stories, building their own adventures, creating Daleks and Cybermen, producing parodies, and even re-creating the show that the BBC had abandoned with astonishingly professional productions. Here are the tales of stories and adventures aspiring to, and sometimes rivalling the classic series, Wrath of Eukor, Visions of Utomu, Ocean in the Sky, Regenesis, Phase Four, Spectre from the Past, the Experiment, the Chronotron Effect, Resurrection of Evil, Time and Again and others. Subsequent volumes will explore Doctor Who's history of stage plays; the recreation and resurrection by fans of Lost stories in every way, from pioneers audio-recording the entire series, to fan artists and animators re-creating the episodes, to the astonishing diversity and imagination of fan art. Witness the creation of audio Who universes, or the stories of fans who figured out how to make legal films and videos in the Doctor Who universe, whether the BBC approved. We'll bring you adventures and epics you've never heard of and never dreamed of, open new worlds in time and space, show how the fans creativity and accomplishments, often against the BBC's wishes, opened up creative possibilities for the show. And how people driven by nothing more than sheer love, were inspired to create amazing and wonderful works. You may think you know Doctor Who, but we'll show you places in the Whoniverse that you never dreamed of.