Dr Who in fan-verse??
Arguably the most literary of science fiction shows, Dr Who has adapted its time lords and cast of companions and alien threats to audiences across the globe for more than 50 years.
In Time Lords Remixed unapologetic Whovian and digital artist David P. Reiter reimagines the voices of time lords, especially Peter Capaldi and Jodie Whittaker, through a poetic and image remix that spans 50 episodes and includes associative internet links that build on his Western Australian Premier’s Award-winning title Timelord Dreaming.
Read, view, and, via the digital edition, listen, interact – and be amazed!
Sample selections from the book in David’s 75 for the 75th Selected 2002-2022.
IP (Interactive Publications Pty Ltd) –
Here we have a satirical, surreal and insightful narrative that invites readers to click through, look up, chuckle and question everything. In this complex world of prokaryotic spiders, robots, Light Eaters and other science fiction treats, readers encounter poetry that serves as its own Tardis. Using the persona of Dr Who, Reiter warps dimensions and definitions. All is not as it seems though. Beyond the sci-fi fandom and miscellany is a distilled and vital poetry that deserves multiple readings.
– Jayne Fenton Keane, author of The Transparent Lung
IP (Interactive Publications Pty Ltd) –
Whether you’re a proper Whovian or someone who’s never encountered the Doctor before, you’re going to find plenty in Time Lords Remixed to intrigue, entertain and surprise you. David Reiter’s cunning, elegant poetic recaps of several seasons’ worth of Doctor Who take the Doctor through the most significant regeneration yet: from him to her, from Peter Capaldi’s practitioner of the midlife crisis to Jodie Whittaker’s lighter and more optimistic touch. David Reiter skilfully captures this change in voices, while bringing along for the ride all manner of companions, adversaries, monsters, and recurring characters and themes. Time Lords Remixed is bigger on the inside: climb in.
– Tim Jones, author, and co-editor of The Stars Like Sand
IP (Interactive Publications Pty Ltd) –
Time Lords Remixed is a collection of poems for Whovians or whoever likes their poetry fast-paced and clever (but not smart-arsed). It’s one for disciples of the time lords, but written by a poet who can turn a tercet or two. Reiter wants to know what makes a good man (it comes up more than once):
I realise I’m
not a good man, or a general, or even
President of the Earth, but an idiot
– (from Death in Heaven)
Why do people talk aloud
when they know they’re alone,
skipping heartbeats in the dark?
– (from Listen)
Sometimes you think you’re in a surrealist dream (also in the manner of the Doctor):
Reality has a glitch in it
as you watch for the trap street
There are only two
ways to escape a quantum shade:
undo your tell-tale tattoo or
unplug the raven’s death counter
– (from Face the Raven)
Time Lords Remixed stitches in references to just about everything (in the manner of the series) from Christie, to Dickens via Valhalla and the rest with a short salute to politics and more deeply to current eternal issues:
At what point does migration become
invasion? The trick is to go opaque,
shapeshift your skin or better yet
your small talk. And fine-tune your grammar
to the edge of visibility. I consider these portals
as I saunter through “Amazing Grace”
– (from The Zygon Invasion)
which feels very much like the life of a poet (or is that just me?).
Inevitably physics comes into it:
How can you doubt that poetry and physics
are the same? They almost rhyme except
when they don’t but even then their tune
begs to be discovered. Most people
frown when they don’t understand,
– (from The Pilot)
There were many things I didn’t understand because I’m not a Whovian, but there was much I did and all of it was interesting. And there are references which can be followed (I did sometimes). You could spend days inside this world if you wanted to. Whatever a day might mean in this world.
Time Lords Remixed is confident. It moves with assurance and intelligence and has something to say, then enacts it:
Trust nothing.
Interrogate everything.
There are some things we should never
proxy to our dreams.
– (from Last Christmas)
– Chris Mansell, author, and publisher of PressPress