Alan Stevens (1)
Author of Liberation: The Unofficial and Unauthorised Guide to Blake's 7
For other authors named Alan Stevens, see the disambiguation page.
Series
Works by Alan Stevens
By Your Command: The Unofficial and Unauthorised Guide to Battlestar Galactica, Volume 1: The Original Series and Galactica 1980 (2012) 5 copies
By Your Command: The Unofficial and Unauthorised Guide to Battlestar Galactica, Volume 2: The Reimagined Series (2015) 4 copies
The Mechanical Planet (A Tale from the Dalek Chronicles) — Translator; Director — 1 copy
Associated Works
Time and Relative Dissertations in Space: Critical Perspectives on Doctor Who (2007) — Contributor — 48 copies, 4 reviews
Body Politic — Director — 4 copies
Words From Nine Divinities — Director — 4 copies
Ship of a Billion Years — Director — 4 copies
The Judgement of Sutekh — Director — 3 copies
In●Vision: Time and the Rani (2000) — Contributor "The Proof of the Pumpkin is in the Squeezing" — 2 copies
In●Vision: Remembrance of the Daleks (2001) — Contributor "A Nice Day Out at the Cemetary" and "The Evil of the Doctor" — 2 copies
In●Vision: The Trial of a Time Lord — Parts 1 - 4 — The Mysterious Planet (1999) — Contributor — 2 copies
In●Vision: The Trial of a Time Lord — Parts 13 - 14 — The Ultimate Foe (2000) — Contributor — 2 copies
In●Vision: The Trial of a Time Lord — Parts 9 - 12 — Terror of the Vervoids (2000) — Contributor — 2 copies
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Birthdate
- 20th Century
- Gender
- male
- Occupations
- writer
producer - Short biography
- [from Amazon website]
Alan Stevens has written, edited and developed numerous publications on telefantasy series, including Doctor Who, Blake's 7 and The Prisoner (notably Liberation: the Unofficial and Unauthorised Guide to Blake's 7 and Fall Out: The Unofficial and Unauthorised Guide to The Prisoner, both for Telos). Since the early 1990s, he has produced a number of documentaries, serials and dramas for radio and independent audio release, including the Blake's 7/Doctor Who spin-off series Kaldor City and the Gothic horror time-travelling adventure Faction Paradox. He is currently based in the South East of England, where he runs his own audio production company, Magic Bullet Productions (kaldorcity.com). - Nationality
- UK
- Places of residence
- England, UK
- Associated Place (for map)
- England, UK
Members
Reviews
I'd seen several episodes of the classic 60s TV series The Prisoner in the past, and had formed a vague impression of it as interesting, but sort of pointlessly weird. A recent, much more attentive viewing of the whole series quickly convinced me that it's nothing of the sort. It's intelligent and subtle, strange and surreal, and at times maddeningly obscure, but "pointless" is the one thing it clearly isn't. After I finished, I was immediately curious as to what other people might have to show more say about the show and its meaning(s), and this book proved to be exactly what I was looking for. It goes through the show episode by episode (including episodes that were never filmed and even spinoff books), analyzing its recurring themes and motifs. It does so without using any lit-crit jargon, and -- very wisely in my opinion -- without ever attempting to push any specific theories or to claim any particular interpretation as the obvious "truth." The authors have quite a few very insightful things to say, and even when I happen to think that they're stretching a point or dwelling too much on a detail, their analysis is always thought-provoking. Definitely recommended for those with an interest in the show. show less
I needed this book. It's 1) from Telos 2) by the pair behind an excellent series of articles on Doctor Who, classic and new and 3) about The Prisoner, the show that needs a guidebook if any ever did. What can I say, beyond the fact that it's an excellent guidebook, focusing more on analyzing the series than factualizing it. You might be tempted to accuse the authors of overanalysis, but if there's any television series where it's warranted, it's this one. They even cover the spinoff novels show more and comics with as much depth as the original series, which is fairly novel in any television guidebook. I'd like to watch the show again now, but the Region 1 DVD boxset was made by idiots, which makes me reluctant to either buy or Netflix it. show less
https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/liberation-the-unoffical-and-unauthorised-guide-...
A comprehensive episode-by-episode guide to Blake’s 7, with each season introduced with notes on the overall production context, and clear opinions about which are the best and worst stories. Originally published in 2003, so before Big Finish started to produce audios featuring the surviving members of the original crew (and then their replacements), but an appendix covers the spinoff novels, plays and show more audios up to that point. I don’t agree with all the judgements – I have a sneaking affection, for instance, for “City at the Edge of the World”, while on the other hand I found the skeevy gender politics of the three episodes by Ben Steed unredeemable. However it’s good to have a chunky reference volume to pore over. show less
A comprehensive episode-by-episode guide to Blake’s 7, with each season introduced with notes on the overall production context, and clear opinions about which are the best and worst stories. Originally published in 2003, so before Big Finish started to produce audios featuring the surviving members of the original crew (and then their replacements), but an appendix covers the spinoff novels, plays and show more audios up to that point. I don’t agree with all the judgements – I have a sneaking affection, for instance, for “City at the Edge of the World”, while on the other hand I found the skeevy gender politics of the three episodes by Ben Steed unredeemable. However it’s good to have a chunky reference volume to pore over. show less
Having enjoyed Fall Out, Stevens and Moore's guide to The Prisoner, I decided to pick up their Blake's 7 book and watch it alongside the parent show during the third and fourth seasons, going back to read the entries for earlier ones as I did. The book is necessarily less detailed than Fall Out (The Prisoner ran seventeen episodes to Blake's 7's fifty-two), but suffers more in that, when it comes down to it, I like Blake's 7 a whole lot less than The Prisoner. I think that there's a huge show more disconnect between the show Blake's 7 thought it was (a hard-hitting drama about revolutionaries) and the one it actually was (a show by Terry Nation). So a lot of their analyses just engendered eye-rolling in me, especially when they refer to episodes building on each others' themes when in fact they mean that the show recycles a lot of plots. But it's not all the book's fault; I felt the same way reading the Telos guide to Torchwood, a show I also don't like very much. That said, they are good at teasing out more subtle moments, and they can often build compelling arguments for interesting interpretations-- such as with the hidden backstory of Gan, who the show never did much with. On the other hand, sometimes they feel like they're reaching; when Series Three's inconsistent about the details of the war that happened just before it, it's probably because of bad writing, not that there were two wars. And sometimes their reviews are just weird, such as one that tells you an episode is primarily worthwhile for the draft scripts that reveal the original setup for Series Four. Only to those of us who sit around with draft scripts of Blake's 7 episodes; the rest of us had to suffer through "Traitor"! Their list of shows inspired by Blake's 7 are a stretch, too-- Farscape, I believe; Red Dwarf, not so much.
The thing that aggravates me most is that the appendix covering spin-offs has no room for officially-sanctioned comics... but plenty of room for the fan audios made by co-author Alan Stevens. Really? I'd stick to The Anorak Zone; even if the website is gone, you can still access its much-less-serious reviews of Blake's 7 on the Wayback Machine. He, at least, can admit that the show actually had flaws. show less
The thing that aggravates me most is that the appendix covering spin-offs has no room for officially-sanctioned comics... but plenty of room for the fan audios made by co-author Alan Stevens. Really? I'd stick to The Anorak Zone; even if the website is gone, you can still access its much-less-serious reviews of Blake's 7 on the Wayback Machine. He, at least, can admit that the show actually had flaws. show less
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Associated Authors
Statistics
- Works
- 10
- Also by
- 21
- Members
- 91
- Popularity
- #204,135
- Rating
- 3.9
- Reviews
- 9
- ISBNs
- 55
- Languages
- 4