Spored.



Books Find above the customary author interview/hostage video for the new Puffin Doctor Who ebook release, with Alex Scarrow talking about his Eighth Doctor story, Spore. For anyone with even a passing knowledge of the wilderness years, it's curious document as Scarrow repeats his suggestion that the reason he chose to write for the Eighth Doctor because "we haven't seen much of him and because it would give me more wiggle room to come up with more character, to put more flesh on those bones."

What we could ask is what his research consisted of, because googling Eighth Doctor brings us to the Wikipedia page and the TARDIS datacore pages both of which are full of the mythology. So either he doesn't know this stuff exists for whatever reason or has been told to deny its existence because of licensing issues and because the presumed target audience of the the ebooks which presumably skews lower than the age range Alien Bodies or Scherzo are aimed at.

Much of the rest is clips from the TV movie and Scarrow explaining his creative choices in a way which is probably best left skipped until after reading the story, that is until the bizarre moment at the end when he seems to also not have noticed the existence of The Deadly Assassin, The Five Doctors or Arc of Infinity, let alone Neverland, Lungbarrow or Gridlock as he says we've never learnt his name (Theta Sigma), who is family were (Susan), what it was like to live on Gallifrey, what there whole culture is like (see above).

Bless.  As I've said before, I'll reserve judgement until I've read it and that's probably fine.  For all we know it could be a massive bluff and within its electronic pages there are references to the Faction Paradox, Divergent Universe and Destrii.  But it is a shame that somewhat as expected someone who isn't so obviously a fan of this version of the character is writing it rather than someone who seems, judging by this video, to be treating it as more of an intellectual exercise.  I'll let you know.

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