About a week and a half ago, I was browsing through the comics section of NetGalley, as I do every few weeks. I came across IDW’s forthcoming Doctor Who: Prisoners of Time, Vol. 1 and downloaded it IMMEDIATELY.
Cos, um…Doctor Who, dur.
Because I always look up the ISBNs of things I’m going to post about (I know, I’m weird like that), I was surprised to find out that the Galley was missing a little over 40 pages. I’m assuming this is because we’re only treated to the first three issues, instead of the five that will be published under this name.
So, I was already a little annoyed, realizing that I’d be missing out on the Tom Baker and Davison stories and emailed Tarah (the NetGalley concierge, who was THE MOST HELPFUL), but she wasn’t able to give me any more information.
I can’t review 3/5 of a book, and even if I wanted to, I’d still be upset with the publisher. Apparently they believe reviewers are a bunch of filthy lying cheats, so in addition to being DRMed up the wazoo (meaning I couldn’t even open a PDF in Adobe Reader, I had to use ADE [seriously, useless - no zoom or anything] which is the NetGalley standard unless the publisher chooses to make their galleys DRM-free [but my issues with DRM would be a WHOLE 'NOTHER POST]) there was a GIGANTIC watermark across the center of EVERY PAGE. If it was a subtle watermark, that would have been one thing, but no. It was a huge IN YOUR FACE watermark, making it difficult to even READ the damn thing.
There are several pages where I couldn’t tell you WHAT was supposed to be happening because I couldn’t read them through the stupid watermark.
I get that they’re worried about the book being released early/pirated/whatever, but dude. Seriously? If you put something up for review, shouldn’t you make sure that your reviewers can READ IT? And shouldn’t you make sure that they ACTUALLY GET THE WHOLE THING?
Apparently not. Sorry, sir.
How are we supposed to review a little over half of a book? And when half of THAT half is ALMOST unreadable because of your huge page obscuring watermark, what are we supposed to do?
I really hate not reviewing books I request, but damn. You guys are making my not-job really difficult.
(I’d really like to show you all the huge watermark, but since it says in GIANT LETTERS not to distribute, I’m kind of paranoid about posting it here.)
Anyway, of the 3 issues I was able to read, the Troughton was my favourite. I heart Zoe and Jamie, plus this one had the added bonus of all kinds of Classic Who Creatures.
Basically we should be expecting a new issue each month (some unknown foe is travelling through time to steal the Doctor’s companions in each iteration), one for each incarnation of the Doctor. I really wanted to read the Tom Baker and Davison issues, but now I’ll have to wait.
I’m only slightly bitter.
Only slightly.
New episodes of Doctor Who are as exciting as Christmas in this house. My two oldest boys (almost 13 and 6) have been talking about it for WEEKS, bugging the crap out of me “WHEN IS NEW DOCTOR WHO, MOMMY? MOMMY! MOMMY! WHEN IS NEW DOCTOR WHO?!” So when we found out the date, I had to write it on the calendar, and they’ve been counting down the days since then.
