Shelf Life

DECEMBER 2008

(SHORT STORIES, DRABBLES & EPHEMERA)

Factor Fiction’s Shelf Life anthology is a release that I have been quite keyed up about for some time now. July 2008’s Time’s Champion, a fellow charity release, was by

far and away my favourite Doctor Who novel of the year; and with some of the same names behind Shelf Life, my hopes for it were very high indeed.

Admittedly, I was predisposed towards liking Shelf

Life long before I began reading it. Dedicated to the memory of Craig Hinton, the anthology is an eclectic mix of short stories, drabbles and other ephemera, the vast majority of which are abounding with what Hinton infamously termed ‘fanwank’. And I am not talking about stories that have had a glut of continuity refer-ences shoehorned into them just for the hell of it. I am talking about proper ‘fanwank’ - stories that are grown out of continuity black holes and gaps in the mythology; stories that celebrate and expand upon every distant corner of the Whoniverse. Lost as we are in days where even the slightest whiff of continuity is heavily frowned upon, Shelf Life comes as a real breath of fresh air.

What really sets Shelf Life apart though is its diversity. As editors Jay Eales, David A McIntee and Adrian Middleton say in the letter that accompanies the vol-ume, they made “a pretty radical decision to accept every proposal received from Craig’s friends and fans”, but to me it appears to have all the hallmarks of being a pretty radical decision that paid off. Housed within the overwhelming 624 pages are contributions from names that I do not rec-ognise and names that I do, as well as names that have not seen sitting next to the title of a Doctor Who story for far too long.

And I think it’s a testament to the hard work of all those involved that the quality of the stories is remarkably consistent throughout, the contributions of new writers blending in seamlessly  with those of the old guard. With breaking into writing for Doctor Who under any of its ausp-ices harder than ever, it is great to see new writers being taken on and natured in this way. From what is said by his friends here in relation to his attitude towards new writers, it also seems fitting that Hinton’s memory is honoured in this very special way.

Take Chris McKeon, for example. In my view this is the man to carry the fanwank torch into the next generation. Those that have read Time’s Champion, which McKeon completed in Hinton’s memory, will probably have had as hard a time as me in working out where Hinton ended and McKeon began (perhaps the greatest complement that I could pay to the fellow), and they will also be familiar with some of his more outlandish spins on the mythology. When I reviewed Time’s Champion, I was critical of McKeon’s contention that the War Chief is the Master but, I do have to say, having now read Third Eye View in conjunction with some of his (as yet) unpublished stories (please see the site’s Fan Fiction section should you wish to read some of these), that I’m actually warming to the idea…

  “When the Doctor entered the home of Dr. Quinn, he could not help but sense a familiar

   presence in the air, but failed to notice that the home’s lovely old grandfather clock had

   mysteriously vanished.

            He never learned why the Silurian seemed so afraid.” 

That said, Third Eye View, as well as Time’s Champion for that matter, will not be to every-body’s taste. I think it’s fair to say though that if you liked the type of stories that Hinton used to tell, then you are likely to enjoy those of his protégé.

I was also pleased to see The History of the Doctor’s own Daniel Tessier’s name amongst the contributors. His first story in print, Auld Lang Syne, sees the amnesiac eighth Doctor of the BBC Books face to face with the enigmatic Mr Pendragon… or is that Ripper… or Valeyard? Like Hinton, who was reportedly a huge fan of the Valeyard, I adore the character, and even after the relative finality of Time’s Champion I am all for bringing him back whenever possible, particularly when he is portrayed as fascinatingly as he is here. Those that enjoyed Auld Lang Syne, I would urge to check out Tessier’s contributions to the site’s Fan Fiction section, particularly his jovial little drabble The Gift of the Garb, which is well worth a read if you have a spare seventeen seconds.

My favourite story of the anthology though is, rather fittingly, one of Hinton’s. The wonderfully indulgent A Meeting of Minds sees the TARDIS herself lock horns with, and ultimately get the better of, the Dalek Emperor. It’s like Ben Aaronovitch with the volume turned up to eleven and the continuity filter off!

Better yet, Shelf Life contains all manner of Hinton ephemera, including some delightfully retro alternative covers for his novels, and his notes on the higher beings in the Whoniverse, which I understand were prepared in readiness for pitching my favourite of all his novels,

The Quantum Archangel, to BBC Books. These notes are worth the purchase price alone

in my view.

The Shelf Life book itself is every bit as special as the content that it houses. Whilst money raised from sales of the PDF files will also end up in the charity pot, you really have got to buy the actual book. It is a bona fide limited edition (my copy is hand-stamped ‘82’, where as my “limited edition” Key to Time DVD box set, for instance, has a factory-printed sticker saying ‘10,897 of 15,000’ slapped on it!), not to mention stylistically unique. Beautifully bound in hardback, the book is illustrated throughout with some striking greyscale images that really evoke that ‘Target’ feel which so many Doctor Who readers unwittingly long for. Only one or two relatively low-res images (out of about fifty in all), and of course the notable (but understandable) absence of the Doctor Who logo, flag this one up as being a charity

release as opposed to a commercial one.

At the end of the day, given that the money raised by Shelf Life will go to the British Heart Foundation, even had I been disappointed with the book I would probably have given it a half-hearted and vague thumbs up, but thankfully it actually exceeded even my quite lofty expectations. And whilst I didn’t know Hinton, after reading what many of his friends have had to say about him, I now feel like I did, and as such I am confident that he would have loved Shelf Life too.

If you purchase just one Doctor Who book this year, do yourself a favour and make it this

one, because Shelf Life is not just something for the collector; it is something for the conn-oisseur…

Copyright © E.G. Wolverson 2009

E.G. Wolverson has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.

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