Doctor Who's AHistory: Too much universe for one book

Lance Parkin's AHistory book - a complete fictional history of the universe of Doctor Who - isn't just my ideal desert island book, I think I've been reading it constantly for a couple of decades now as it is.

I've bought every new edition since it was published in the 1990s, and I'm still one behind - the most recent edition from a year or two ago coming out as a three-column set to cover everything. But I've been chewing through the third edition for about a year now, and I'm almost up to the future time.

There is just so much in there, because it covers the whole damn thing - all the television that I've seen, and all the audios that I never could keep track of, and all the comics that I've missed and all the novels I've tried my best to keep on top of. Everywhere the Doctor ever went in his mad ramble in time and space, all the paces he visited and all the people he met.

It's an absolutely bewildering amount of information, and while useful as a reference work, is also a hell of an entertaining read. It can be a bit repetitious, with notes for every time the Doctor mentioned some historical figure he met, or some never-seen adventure that was talked about in passing, but there are strange synchronicities that pop up, and a cumulative effect that establishes the vast breadth and depth of this weird fictional universe, built up over the the decades by hundreds of mad creators.

The appeals of Dcotr Who, and the strange places that the title character goes to, are too big for one book, but Parkin and mates make a brave and admirable effort. Let's see what happens in the future.