Fanzines Reviewing Fanzines - TSV #54

TSV #54 (March 1998)

Ahhh, the bonus copy. A bloody good interview with David J. Howe is the highlight that immediately springs to mind. "Confessions of a Melaphile", while well written and interesting, failed to win me over to the 'Mel' side, entirely because of my own stubborness! "By Any Other Name" — I was NOT going to read this (over 25 pages) just to flesh out the review ‚ I'm sure it's very good, but I'm also sure my extremely short attention span wouldn't have handled it either! In my opinion "The Karkus" in this issue was nowhere near as good as the previous, but "Whispers" by far makes up for it. A bit too much story potential for its actual size, it possibly could have done with a few more pages and being split into two parts. As a final point, "Why Paul McGann is the Best Doctor" is inspiring, enough so to make me write my own version on a difference line from David Lawrence's, and Wade Campbell's "Eight Doctor's New Home". Come on down TSV #55 ...

- Matt Kamstra

Fanzines Reviewing Fanzines - TSV #74

From the latest issue, a review of the recent issue of TSV ...

TSV #74 (April 2007)

A new issue of TSV, hooray! The last issue clocked in almost a year ago and much has changed since then. The issue marks the first time that the fanzine has gone without a news section, meaning that it jumps straight in with the main stuff. In the process though the letters page seems to have gone missing and I have to ponder if that is another sign of the apathy that is creeping into fandom.

If you ignore the Series 2 review section then the reviews part of the fanzine seems much more restrained which is great (although rather hypocritically the latest issue of RTP! (#24) has probably the biggest review section ever to date!) This should leave space for other things, but for whatever reason the issue feels a tad on the empty side. I’ve no idea what gives me that feeling, nor how it could be remedied but it is there.

Of the material that does fill out the issue, David Lawrence’s herculean effort with the EDAs stands out as a very readable slog through books I’ve never read (except for Father Time). The article works and remains interesting and informative despite no real knowledge of the books and that is a testament to David’s writing.

Jamas Enright’s ‘Drabble Challenge’ is hugely amusing and he easily sums up each era, hitting the right quirks in order to sell each piece effectively. A very amusing romp through a series of never-quite-happened adventures. New regular artist Amy Mebberson livens up the issue with her chumblie pic and the interview with Jon Older (a slightly more obscure member of the Doctor Who production team) proves to have some interesting nuggets in it.

All in all it does feel like Adam has really begun to get a grip on the fanzine and make it his own. Issue 74 feels far smoother and refined as the previous couple of issues have done, and bodes well for the future of the fanzine. With the new series in a third season already and TSV back in its stride once more, we can look forward to great things from future issues under Adam’s tenure as editor.

Now all it needs is to deal with that perennial bugbear of all fanzines—more contributors to help give each issue a little more variety. Still, let’s hope that TSV continues to hang around to serve NZ fandom as well as it has always done.

- Alexander Ballingall

Read another review of the same issue here.