Afternoon People.
I’ve been collecting Doctor Who books on-and-off since 2018, but it was only last year that I kicked things into high gear and started pooling all my resources into my collection.
I was wondering if anyone here had any interesting stories of how they got a Doctor Who book?
Like - for example - I actually bought my copy of ‘The Well-Mannered War’ from acclaimed BigFinish writer, Joseph Lidster.
Not anything crazy but I was at an estate sale awhile ago because they had several doctor who comics and magazines and I ran into a guy who was collecting items for his antique mall store. He was very nice and gave me his business card, afterwards I decided to check it out and it turned out to be the same place I had been buying all my doctor who books from for the past couple of years! I don’t see many doctor who fans in my area either so running into him was a really fun coincidence :))
Well, mine are all acquired in normal ways - a few gifts, most bought new, others bought used, usually online.
Happy Endings is the only one I can think of with any story attached. In 1996, I took my (didn’t know it at the time but soon to be ex)wife to the U.K. for our 5th anniversary, and we took a tour that started and ended in London.
This was not planned, but we happened to be in London the same time as a signing event for the TV Movie. Well, the movie’s release was held up so it was a signing for anything.
I bought two books, The Novel of the Film and Happy Endings and Sylvester McCoy signed them. The one I gave to my friend, kept the other.
I’m not one to collect autographs, but this one is a memory of a very fun day. Sylv was very nice, plus I was the only one at the signing who had actually seen the thing, so I got a lot of attention.
I got At Childhood’s End at one of Sophie Aldred’s book signings when it came out - she was very lovely and it was extra fun because I forced a friend to watch Battlefield the night before and dragged her along too
I once got very lucky by finding a lot of VNAs, Targets and other books at an antiques store for very cheap. All of the VNAs and Targets were just £2 each while the others were no more than £5 each. At the time, I just picked up all of the VNAs, a few Targets and all of the other books, leaving most of the Targets. I was then able to go back a bit later and, luckily, none of the Targets had sold so I was able to get some more of them. It’s definetly the luckiest I’ve ever been as I now know that some of the books I got on my second trip (as well as many from my first) sell for quite a bit on eBay!
First trip:
Second trip:
Another bit of fun luck was that I was discussing how much the Faction Paradox book Warlords of Utopia costs (it normally goes for around £90) on a Discord server and someone posted an Amazon listing of it for about £6. I’ve never bought something faster.
Another Faction Paradox one: I was looking through the basement of my local comic book store (where they keep their back issues) and happened across a copy of Of the City of the Saved…. It’s not a rare one, but it caught be completely off-guard that a shop so close to me actually sold this stuff. It does make some sense, though, as the early Faction Paradox books were distributed through comic book stores. It must have been on that shelf for nearly 2 decades!
Just War for only £2 is amazing!
I know! I don’t think I will ever match that.
That’s incredible luck!! I’m quite jealous about some of those rarer reference books and the Daleks’ Master Plan Target novels!
Also that’s such a great price for those VNAs!! I got quite a few for pretty cheap but none of them that cheap, lol
I found 2 Doctor Who books at my school library in a free books section. They were previously owned by someone in the same year or a year above me. This was back in 2022 or 2023. There doesn’t seem to be a big Doctor who fan base where I’m from judging by what I’ve seen so this was a great find. Haven’t had a chance to read/finish them yet.
Dalek Generation is quite good.
Hunter’s Moon isn’t too bad.
It looks like you’ve at least tasted Hunter’s Moon. Yum! 
