In a heavily illustrated volume - more of a "coffee table book" than anything - author David J. Howe traces both the fictional mythos and (in much more cursory detail) the production history of legendary BBC SF series Doctor Who. In addition to celebrating three decades of the show itself, Timeframe also celebrates - with a wide variety of original cover artwork - two decades of the publishing program of novelizations printed by Target Books and others.

At the time of its publication, Timeframe's nicest feature was its attempt to provide a handy chronology, in broadcast/publication order, of the show's fictional events. Though later books, the TV movie, and the audio plays have since rendered Timeframe obsolete as a reference, it was a nice try at the time - and a canny choice, since so many books (quite a few of them written or co-written by Timeframe author David J. Howe) had already told the story of the factual events behind the scenes.

The book cover artwork, which takes up easily half of Timeframe, is a real treat. Despite the beauty of the photorealistic style of Andrew Skilleter and especially Alister Pearson in the late 80s and early 90s, there's something captivating about Chris Achilleos' ultra-colorful cover art from the 70s (with the possible exception of that Doctor Who And The Loch Ness Monster cover, whose background almost screams for the Looney Tunes theme music). There are also plenty of unused covers as well, some of which one can see why they were rejected (I'm thinking of the Doctor Who And The Visitation cover here, which manages to make the fifth Doctor look almost, but perhaps not entirely, unlike Peter Davison), and others which are a bit of a curiosity.

There's also a healthy smattering of newspaper clippings, Radio Times covers, and other memorabilia related to the show, which are always interesting to see. This idea was carried much further in Howe's Transcendental Toybox, a book devoted entirely to Doctor Who merchandise.

I'll cop to it being thin on actual text, but perhaps the appeal of Timeframe is that it's the closest we've come to an entire book on the rich body of artwork generated in support of the world's longest-running science fiction series.

Reviewed by Earl Green
theLogBook.com webmaster

• Year: 1993
• Author: David J. Howe
• Genre: franchise science fiction

• Length: 128 pages
• Publisher: Virgin Books