With many apologies to Lewis Christian here is my review of Celebrate, Regenerate! Apologies are due as I wrote this months ago then neglected to post it. Mea culpa!
Without further ado here is the review (and Lewis, if you’re reading this do drop me a line)
The Review
Another day, another book on Doctor Who; what makes Celebrate, Regenerate! worthy of attention? Why pick this book out of the plethora of other titles available?
Like many other titles this is produced by a fan of the show, in this case Lewis Christian. Lewis has managed, through crowd-sourcing (or should that be fan sourcing?) to produce a 300 page book in one year. The premise of Celebrate, Regenerate! is a simple one: fans write 150 – 500 words about an episode and the only rule is that they should celebrate something about the show. The net result is a fascinating and varied collection of ruminations on the show by a whole range of fan including Starburst’s own JR Southall and Nic Ford (and indeed me!)
The book covers every episode transmitted to date and some of the odds and ends such as Curse of Fatal Death. Each episode is on a page on its own and the book is stylised as though a fanzine or coffee-table book and sized for A4 – there is plenty of art-work, again all fan contributed. This is where Celebrate, Regenerate! scores; it is highly inclusive and slightly quirky: here and there Lewis drops in odd ideas such as Melanie Bush being River Song; you turn a page and get a picture of a William Hartnell cup-cake or a Nitro-9 toting Ace.
And it is not just the fans: Lewis has guest contributions from a past-companion, writers and a director.
I can be nothing but positive about this book and when you realise that it will be available for free as a download or printed via Lulu.com (covering costs only) you can do nothing but head across to the book’s website and help yourself to a slice of the fun. I do hope Lewis keeps with this and look forward to reading (and contributing to) the 60th anniversary update!
