Jason Loborik

I got this book for Christmas, and once I finished the new series Doctor Who encyclopedia, this became my nightstand read, as I did about ten pages a night. I got this book for two reasons: the TARDIS interior cutaway and the Dalek Emperor's flagship cutaway, and both are awesome. Unfortunately, the rest of the book is somewhat lacking. The selected photos are neither unique or stunning, and does anyone really need a callout on Rose informing us that she buys her clothes with a Henrik's show more employee discount? I suppose that the grounded ordinariness of some aspects of Doctor Who makes a compelling visual dictionary difficult to create: you can't make up exciting new information about Rose Tyler's backstory like you can General Grievous's. It also didn't help that the callouts were peppered with errors here and there, such as indicating that the robotic Santas in "The Christmas Invasion" and "The Runaway Bride" were mercenaries. (Though I was interested to learn that Jackie is an at-home hair dresser, since what exactly she did for money after Pete passed away has been bothering me for a while.) show less

A visual companion to the new Doctor Who series, up through the end of the Eleventh Doctor's first season. The brief chunks of text aren't particularly impressive, even given that they're undoubtedly written to be accessible to children, but visually it's pretty spiffy. I wouldn't exactly call it a must-have reference for the Who fan, although I suppose folks who do costuming might find it useful. But it is fun to browse through, and it certainly reminds me just how much I love this show more ridiculous, wacky, wonderful show. show less

Although there’s not a lot of new information for a Whovian, this book is still a must-have for all the beautiful pictures and the thorough run-down of the last three Doctors’ toys, tools, and friends and foes. It would have been great to have a detailed entry covering all of the Doctor’s regenerations, but the pre-Russell T. Davies crowd is not the intended audience here, so we get most coverage on the 11th Doctor, some on the 10th and mere mentions of the others.

Kind of a tough call. On the one hand, it is useful to be able to look up someone and answer questions. And, it was a pleasant way to pass time. But a number of the entries seemed spoiler-y to me, and the costuming comments seemed odd: why would one draw a box around the observation that a companion's clothes were colorful? Do3esn't that seem like something the full-color photograph would cover? Since I'm not at all up on the first thirty years of the Doctor, it was helpful to learn about show more the companions and bad guys, and it was fun seeing all the Doctors in a row.

Ultimately I'm going to go with a fun thing for a newer fan to flip through, but not a book recommended for anyone desiring depth.

Library copy. show less