Looking for the next big nerd project

While I try to vary the type of novels that I read as much as possible, Doctor Who books have been a constant in my life for the past seven or eight years.

I've been regularly reading all the Doctor Who New Adventures books published by Virgin in the 1990s. after completing my collection of them a decade ago (after 20 years of searching). It made perfect sense to read them all in order, and actually follow the whole story across thousands and thousands of pages. It took me a while to get going, but after a while I started sticking to a schedule of reading one every month, and now I've just knocked off Bad Therapy by Matthew Jones, number 57 in the series.

There were 61 novels in all, so I am just about there. And while I am enjoying the accomplishment, the obvious question is about what to do next. What long series of novels can I spend the next few years churning though?

I was considering the Wild Cards books, about the strange world of Aces and Jokers and their superhuman wars. I read the first half dozen in the 90s, but haven't really dipped into it since then. I would have to track down at least a dozen or so books before I got into that, though, so that one might be one for later.

Maybe all the James Ellroy books - I enjoyed the fuck out of his most recent novel and have read all of them at some point of another, but never in any kind of order. I just don't think immersing myself in the headspace of his incredibly deplorable characters for a long period of time would be that healthy. 

I'm leaning towards more Doctor Who, in some form, because they've been enormously entertaining. I do have all the Bernice New Adventures books, and that could last me a couple of years. Or maybe I can time travel into the past with the Virgin Missing Adventures, although I am still maddeningly short of a full series. I could even get started on the BBC Books with the Eighth Doctor, although there are massive holes in that series.

I don't have to rush. I have longform comic things that I can get into, I recently spent weeks reading almost nothing but Garth Ennis comics about the Punisher, and still remember how a full read of Lone Wolf and Cub helped get me through two Covid lockdowns, but they usually only take a week or two. And watching a whole longform TV series might take a couple of months - I just started ripping through all the Tales of The Crypt episodes last week. 

But a series of novels can take years to get through, and that feels like something of an accomplishment. A small amount of dedication and some perseverance. That's all it takes to tackle the most massive of narratives.