Gav Rymill and I have written a history of the changing look of the Cybermen, with a double-page spread devoted to each of 20 iterations from their first appearance in The Tenth Planet (1966) to their last TV story to date, The Power of the Doctor (2022). These are accompanied by new CG illustrations by Anthony Lamb — and Gav, too.
There is plenty of new information in what we’ve written, let alone among all the other stuff by other people. If you like Cybermen, you will like this. And if you don’t, it will convince you.
Is there really more to say about Cybermen, or Doctor Who in general?
Well, last night, I was in Liverpool to meet John Higgs for the first time and hear him talk about his brilliant new book Exterminate, Regenerate. He was interviewed / chatted with the music journalist and novelist David Keenan, who also has a book out, his a collection of writings about the weird fringes of culture while John maps something more mainstream.
But David said he got into all this weird, edge-of-culture stuff in the first place by, as a kid, reading Doctor Who novelisations by Terrance Dicks. Doctor Who changed the way he looked at things, and the things he looked for. It made the mainstream more rich and strange — and involving.
He also used the word “unfathomable” to describe Doctor Who. Whereas a murder mystery has a solution, or a romantic story ends with a couple getting together — or not — Doctor Who keeps going on and on. That means that, no matter how deeply we dive into it, we will never reach the bottom.
I’m really taken with that idea, Doctor Who as abyss into which I can’t stop staring.
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