On a Fortunate Find

I spent part of the afternoon at the storage shed. I wasn’t searching for anything in particular–I hoped to find a book on the history of astronomy I knew I owned and couldn’t find. If I didn’t find it, though, no great loss.

I went through box after box.

A book on the historical Arthur. That went in a pile of things to take home.

My Lord of the Rings tarot deck. That went in the pile of things to take home.

The other half of my Doctor Who audio collection. That definitely went in the pile of things to take home.

Some books on the history of philosophy. Those would be useful, definitely.

As I leafed through one box, I saw a book I’d become afraid I’d lost. It was called Walking in Eternity. It was a Doctor Who fanthology, a book of stories written and published to raise money for a charity in the UK. It went in the pile of things to take home, too.

I’d lost part of my library in an unfortunate mildew accident. I’d assumed that Walking in Eternity was one of those books that I simply hadn’t gotten to, that it was down in the basement and done for. I’d think about it from time to time and feel, well, sad about its loss because it’s something I know that I could never replace.

But there it was, in the box in the storage shed, safe and dry, so I had to take it home. 🙂

Walking in Eternity has a very cute story by Star Trek: Corps of Engineers cover artist Michael Collins entitled “Hall of Me.” It’s a fanwanky piece, set in something like Star Trek‘s Captain’s Table, where different incarnations of the Doctor get together and knock back a few drinks. The story has the fourth Doctor from “The Dark Dimension” (the unfilmed thirtieth-anniversary story starring the older Tom Baker as a fourth Doctor who never regenerated in “Logopolis”) meeting Jonathan Creek (revealed to be a Doctor from an alternate timeline) and Jessica B. Fletcher (also the witch from the film Bedknobs & Broomsticks and revealed to be an alternate fifth Doctor created in a timeline where the fourth Doctor destroyed the Daleks forever in “Genesis of the Daleks”). It’s cute, in that fanwankish way, and at the end there’s an appearance by Jean-Luc Picard and Benjamin Sisko who had taken a wrong turn and think the Hall is the Captain’s Table.

I’m glad I recovered the book. I’m glad it’s safe. I feel fortunate, indeed. 🙂

Published by Allyn

A writer, editor, journalist, sometimes coder, occasional historian, and all-around scholar, Allyn Gibson is the writer for Diamond Comic Distributors' monthly PREVIEWS catalog, used by comic book shops and throughout the comics industry, and the editor for its monthly order forms. In his over ten years in the industry, Allyn has interviewed comics creators and pop culture celebrities, covered conventions, analyzed industry revenue trends, and written copy for comics, toys, and other pop culture merchandise. Allyn is also known for his short fiction (including the Star Trek story "Make-Believe,"the Doctor Who short story "The Spindle of Necessity," and the ReDeus story "The Ginger Kid"). Allyn has been blogging regularly with WordPress since 2004.

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