Factor Fiction Walking in Eternity A Collection of Short Stories

Editor	Jay Eales
Published	2002

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• A Review by John Seavey

A Review by John Seavey 10/2/03

Some might question my decision to hold Walking In Eternity up to the same standards as a professional publication. After all, these people might say, Eternity was a fan project done for charity, with the deliberate intent of having fun and pushing the envelope -- is it really fair to compare it with the professional anthologies done by Virgin, Big Finish, and the BBC?

The answer is "Probably not. But then, I'm not a fair person."

Actually, Walking In Eternity fares quite well when placed next to its "pro" counterparts. It goes for the same vibe as Short Trips and Sidesteps, the most recent BBC anthology (well, "most recent" in the sense of "last"), but succeeds far more often, mostly because it takes its mission statement of "out of continuity" stories far more seriously. We get fan-created incarnations of the Doctor, Merlin-versions, musical comedy versions, evil versions, and, of course, the Angela Lansbury Doctor. It's all tremendous fun, and the overall result trumps the official anthologies in many spots, even if it could have used an extra copy editor.

OK, just to get this off my chest, and not as a reflection of the competence of anyone involved:

"You're. A contraction of 'you are', used informally."
"Your. The possessive form of 'you', used to imply something belonging to you."

Very different.

OK, now that I'm done with that, I'll try to actually review something, here -- normally, when reviewing a short story collection, I try to say something about each story, but there's 44 of them in this one, so I'll just stick to the highlights. In general, though, let me state that the overall quality of the stories in this anthology was quite high -- just because I didn't mention a story didn't mean I didn't like it. (In actual practice, the only story that really didn't work for me was Dark Time, and even the author admits that it would have needed substantial re-working.)

The first thing that came to mind when I read it was how many stories actually seemed to fit into continuity in some way. I mean, admittedly, this is Doctor Who we're talking about, which has a continuity like an old sweater -- patched, fraying, and with more than one hole where the moths have gotten at it -- but even so, I kind of found it amusing that the "non-continuity" anthology couldn't evade seeming somewhat canonical. Stories like the excellent Analysis by Mark Clapham fit into specific points in the Doctor's history (between Casualties of War and The Turing Test, here -- I really believe that you could do a full anthology on the subject of the Eighth Doctor's century in exile); others, like Cracks In the Pavement, have less specific placing but still can fit quite easily into the Doctor's adventures. Even some of the far-stranger ones, like the editor's Bell, Book, and Candle or the dark What Does It Profit a Man? fit in somewhere (the Doctor's future in one! case, and the alternate timeline mentioned in Timewyrm: Revelation in another.)

A few, though, simply cannot fit in anywhere... and these do form some of the highlights of the anthology. Changing Rooms (With No Doors) had me actually flipping on BBCAmerica to see what the latest incarnation of the Master looked like, while Don't Mention the War!, which might have been the best of the lot, summed up my feelings on the War and its conclusion perfectly. Hanging Chads... no, wait. Hanging Chads fits just fine into Faction Paradox continuity, and I hereby dub it canonical... and the only sensible explanation of what happened in Florida in the year 2000. :) Oh, and Davros: The Early Years, while not fitting in for obvious reasons, may be the best Doctor Who comic ever.

On the whole, I'm very glad I purchased this, and while it might have needed another proof-reader, the editor did an excellent job where it counted -- selecting stories. If you can actually get ahold of a copy, pick it up.