Love and Monsters

Scholar and Who fan Miles Booy has written the first historical account of the public interpretation of Doctor Who. Love and Monsters begins in 1979 with the publication of ‘Doctor Who Weekly’, the magazine that would start a chain of events that would see creative fans taking control of the merchandise and even of the programme’s massively successful twenty-first century reboot. From the twilight of Tom Baker’s years to the newest Doctor, Matt Smith, Miles Booy explores the shifting meaning of Doctor Who across the years – from the Third Doctor’s suggestion that we should read the Bible, via costumed fans on television, up to the 2010 general election in Britain. This is also the story of how the ambitious producer John Nathan-Turner, assigned to the programme in 1979, produced a visually-excessive programme for a tele-literate fanbase, and how this style changed the ways in which Doctor Who could be read. The Doctor’s world has never been bigger, inside or out!