Forum:What are the 'New Series Adventures'?

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Opening post

The BBC New Series Adventures page is a mess, featuring several disparate ranges.

There are the standard releases, released in batches of 3. There are the 'special' releases, released individually and in a different format. There are the audio releases. There are anthologies, some by BBC Books and some by BBC Children's Books. There are e-book tie-ins. There are the 2 in 1 books. And there are novels featuring classic series Doctors.

All of these, I'd argue, are completely separate ranges and should not be on the same page. There is already a section linking to "other New Series ranges", but for some reason all the above don't qualify as other ranges?

It's worth noting that the name 'New Series Adventures' does not come from official sources. The term comes from wikis and fan sites, dating back to 2006 when the first Tenth Doctor novels were released. Up until that point, fans had referred to the range as the 'NDAs' or 'Ninth Doctor Adventures', as a parallel to the BBC Eighth Doctor Adventures. But when the range continued with the Tenth Doctor, and the spines retained continuous numbering (a feature which, perhaps notably, stopped when the range was redesigned for the Eleventh Doctor novels), a new name was required and fans seemed to settle on 'New Series Adventures'. This name has never been used officially. (aside from a brief mention in an online 'Fact File' for the episode The Long Game, which can be found on the BBC website here, almost certainly derived from a wiki or fansite.)

But if this is purely a fan term, then we as fans need to then discern what 'counts' under this term. The term is vague, and could refer to literally any 'adventure' released by the BBC pertaining to the 'New Series', but I believe it should only refer to the series of novels released by BBC Books featuring the incumbent Doctor at time of publishing, released in sets of three (originally simultaneously, lightly-spaced out as of 2018) and aimed at all-ages readers. This would include only the 65 novels in the main table of the article.

Perhaps, being lenient, the 31 audio exclusive releases listed under Audiobooks could be included too, as they follow a similar format in terms of cover art, age range, and use of the incumbent Doctor. (It's also perhaps worth noting that these audiobooks are being officially branded as 'Doctor Tales', and the audiobooks of the standard novels are being officially branded as 'Doctor Novels', and it may be worth adopting this official nomenclature universally, but that's beyond the scope of this proposal.)

Everything else should be moved to separate articles, and not be listed as part of the 'New Series Adventures' series. At the very least, things like the 2 in 1 Books and the various anthologies published by BBC Children's Books should not be listed on the page. BBC Children's Books is a completely separate imprint to BBC Books, and thus they are unarguably not part of the same range.

I also believe that the Past Doctors New Novels (also a blatant fan term) releases should be moved, and possibly even merged with the releases currently listed as Specials, as they share many similarities in format - being more premium, hardcover releases aimed at older readers, and often featuring previous Doctors and big name 'guest' authors.

These changes should not only be reflected on the New Series Adventures page itself, but also throughout the wiki on the pages of the many releases themselves, categories, infoboxes, lists, etc.

My suggestion can be summarized as follows:

• BBC New Series Adventures should ONLY refer to the (currently) 65 releases in the main table of the article as present, and perhaps the 31 releases under Audiobooks.
• The releases currently listed as Specials, and those listed as Past Doctors New Novels, should be combined and moved to a new article, perhaps titled BBC Books Special Releases. The releases currently listed as tie-in e-books might also fit on this new page. These should not 'count' as New Series Adventures releases, and not be listed nor numbered as such.
• The releases currently listed as Anthologies should be moved into two new articles, BBC Books anthologies and BBC Children's Books anthologies. These should not 'count' as New Series Adventures releases, and not be listed nor numbered as such.
• The releases currently listed as 2 in 1 Books should be moved into a new article, 2 in 1 Books. These should not 'count' as New Series Adventures releases, and not be listed nor numbered as such.
• These new articles should all be linked on the BBC New Series Adventures article under a section titled Related ranges, similarly to how the current page has an Other "New Series" ranges section.

NOTE: This forum post effectively serves as continuation of the topic raised on the Talk Page of the BBC New Series Adventures article itself, that topic can be found here.

Shnupbups ☎ 02:16, 28 June 2024 (UTC)

Discussion

I will craft a full reply to this (extremely thorough and commendable) post at a later date when my brain is behaving itself more satisfactorily, but I do want to dispute the claim that 'New Series Adventures' is "purely" a fan nickname. By your own fact-finding efforts, it has been used in BBC-approved material. Just the once, and in a fairly obscure source, it is true; but that is, to my mind, sufficient to acknowledge it as de facto an official name, albeit one with roots in fan terminology. Of course, if Doctor Novels is used more prominently for the same thing, then it ought perhaps to be made a mere redirect — but if we lack for a name altogether, then that single source, albeit obscure, should be good enough. (Do you have the exact quote? Does it, in any way, pin down what books are meant to be covered under that umbrella?) --Scrooge MacDuck ☎ 03:07, 28 June 2024 (UTC)

I think the general thrust of the OP is in the right spirit, if perhaps the name is up for debate, at the very least I support the commendable effort to make the New Series Adventures page make more sense and be less of a convoluted mess of an article. I was thinking about this myself having started reading Ruby Red (novel) and other NSA novels. Whatever title we go with, I think restricting it to the current doctor + companion as detailed above is the smart and logical decision to make for a wiki. Forgottrek ☎ 03:26, 28 June 2024 (UTC)

The quote from the Fact File on the BBC website is simply "[Kronkburgers] also get a name check in the New Series Adventures novel The Resurrection Casket.". This can be found in the link given in the original post, and does little to indicate what 'counts' at all. Not to mention the Fact File itself seems to have been slapped together from trivia sourced all over the place, perhaps this very wiki (or rather its prior incarnation), well after the term was coined by unofficial sources. This is, again, the only place I've been able to find that uses the term in a capacity that could be considered 'official', though perhaps it could be worth scouring Doctor Who Magazines, which I only briefly searched through. Shnupbups ☎ 11:34, 28 June 2024 (UTC)

As mentioned in the Talk:BBC New Series Adventures, User:Bongolium500 is currently going through the books to determine the defining features of an NSA. I think any decision on the exact future layout of the page should wait until Bongo can give his thoughts.

In the meantime, I've assembled at User:Danochy/Sandbox6 a proposed method of organising the entire output of BBC expanded media. The general idea is based on the principal of the page BBC Doctor Who audio stories (of which I did a significant rework of a while back). My ideal here is to have a set of parent pages from which a reader can reach every BBC Books series, or every BBC Children's Books series. This is akin to your proposal with regards to anthologies, but I'd propose the same for novels.

With respect to the so-called "Special Releases" (and "Past Doctors New Novels"), I'd argue for their abolition entirely (except for those that Bongo finds something linking them to the NSAs) and just having a "miscellaneous" section on a proposed BBC Books novels page. Danochy ☎ 07:26, 29 June 2024 (UTC)