Courtland Lewis is a lifelong Doctor Who fan and a doctoral candidate in philosophy at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. Paula Smithka is the coeditor of Community, Diversity, and Difference: Implications for Peace. She is also an associate professor of philosophy at The University of Southern Mississippi in Hattiesburg.
Reviews
"Opening this book is like opening the door to the TARDIS: we get to spend time with our favorite incarnations of the Doctor whether the First, the Fourth, the Eleventh, or Doctor-Donna, and ponder what it means to travel through time, grow a new personality, fall in love, sacrifice for a greater good, and experience the cosmos for all the wonder it is. Really, "Doctor Who and Philosophy" is even better than a Sonic Screwdriver." --JOSEF STEIFF, Professor of Film at Columbia College Chicago and author of "The Complete Idiot's Guide to Independent Filmmaking"
"This dimensionally transcendental volume explains what the Doctor never gets around to until later: the basics of Gallifreyan philosophy and ethics, as translated through Earth's philosophers. A fun, informative volume for folks interested in an introduction to philosophy through the vortex of Doctor Who." --LYNNE M. THOMAS, co-editor of "Chicks Dig Time Lords: A Celebration of Doctor Who by the Women Who Love It"
"Lewis and Smithka have done all sapient species a brilliant service by introducing "Doctor Who and Philosophy" into the time continuum. Like the Doctor's human companions, we get to travel through a universe of Big Ideas with a caring, clever, and, yes, conflicted friend. Next to a real TARDIS swooping down and carrying us off, nothing could beat the experience of reading this book." --PATRICK D. HOPKINS, editor of "Sex/Machine"
"Doctor Who and Philosophy makes you want to go right back to episodes like 'Robot' and 'The Brain of Morbius' so you can watch them again, now that you know what they're really about. No series in the entire history of television has lit up all the beacons of classic philosophy like Doctor Who, and this brilliant book is chock full of Time Lord enlightenment." --ROB ARP, Consulting Ontologist and author of "Scenario Visualization: An Evolutionary Account of Creative Problem Solving"
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Reviews
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Let's start off by saying that I'm a relatively new Doctor Who fan - I've only seen the Ninth Doctors onwards. That being said, I'm in love with the show and when I saw this book, immediately wanted it for Christmas. It's a great book and definitely the best of the 'X and Philosophy' series, and would definitely recommend it to Doctor Who fans. Here's a short list of the pros and cons that I jotted down while reading this book:
Pros:
* Almost all the chapters put forward an interesting premise and follow it through to satisfaction.
* Older Doctor Who material is pulled in and explained well to newcomers: there's definitely a lot of catching up that I have to do now thanks to this book, and now I know exactly what I want to check out.
* A few chapters really stand out as being great - the authors' chapters in particular are extremely well written, as well as "Chapter 22: Overcoming Evil, and Spite, and Resentment, and Revenge" and "Chapter 29: The Evil of the Daleks."
Cons:
* The Eleventh Doctor (Matt Smith) is on the cover of the book, but there's only one or two really short references to him throughout the entire book. As the book is published in December 2010 and the Fifth Series ends in June 2010, it seems like just long enough to either include him in or cut him from the cover. It's especially odd to leave him on the cover since the Fifth Series has a number of interesting time-travel-related questions in it that I was really looking forward to seeing here.
* While it may be forgivable that the Eleventh Doctor is missing in action here, it's strange that 99% of the discussion stops at the end of Series Four, at "Journey's End." This means we don't get to even see the end of the Tenth Doctor (David Tennant) at "The End of Time" (with two minor exceptions) and once again, we're missing out on a ton of great material by not getting really any coverage of it or "The Waters of Mars".
* Although many of the chapters are distinct from each other, the most prevalent question by far is "is the Doctor still the same person before and after regenerations?" This would be fine, but since this shows up for at least six chapters of the book (four of which are in a row), this means you'll become very familiar with Locke's theory of memory continuity very quickly, and unfortunately, you'll become bored of it very quickly.
The pros really add up and make it worth the inexpensive selling price, but the cons stop it from being what I would call perfection. So now that you know what you're getting into, Doctor Who fans, pick up this book and get reading!
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