"Licence Denied" recently showed up in American bookstores, so of course I went and picked up a copy. I think it is an interesting book -- if Fandom is at war, "Licence Denied" is a major piece of artillery.
To start out with, I think the fairest thing to do is to say what Licence Denied is -- it is Paul Cornell's fanzine. It is not a survey of Doctor Who fandom from an outsider's view, or a survey of all of fandom. It is a survey of Paul Cornell's "New" fandom. Even examples that are outside of that -- the infamous DWAS review of "Deadly Assassin" -- are included to contrast that New Fandom is much more open than the old to change.
If you enjoy a good argument (and if you don't, fandom will not always be a fun place for you :) there are a lot of good things to discuss and argue. I'm sure there will be any number of conversations over beers at conventions about what is inside LICENCE DENIED, and I think that will make it fun.
Of course, besides Paul's linking bits -- which, as you probably already know if you've been following the discussions on all of the lists and radw, are the most controversial thing to come along since John Peel decided to bring back Skaro. Cornell says that one should "make one's excuses" if you, as a fan who likes Graham Williams and JNT, encounter a Pertwee one. Or that "most interesting Who is gay". This sort of divisiveness in my mind only brings the worst out of both sides of the equation, as we've seen on radw on more than one occasion.
I would have been also interested in seeing more of a justification on why American fandom is so different from Australian fandom and UK fandom. My two sarcastic remarks are that a) since most of the writers in the book also went on to write New Adventures or work for DWM, Jon Blum didn't have anything to include or b) we aren't gay enough. (I think the differences between American and British fandom are interesting -- because I'm not really sure what they are, or why they occurred.)
I think it's unfortunate that the book only contained a few examples of "Traditional" fandom -- especially since even most *modern* "Traditional" fans would disagree with the "Deadly Assassin" review as much as any "New" fan -- and more than a few reviews of "War of the Daleks" are nearly identical to the "Deadly Assassin" ones, in tone... WHAT HAS HAPPENED TO THE MAGIC OF DOCTOR WHO?
Other interesting controversial points -- the idea that the TV Movie has some "unpleasant homophobic subtext" made "even more disturbing by the Doctor's newly acquired virile interest in girls." by Daniel O'Mahony. While I don't think the Doctor's interest is quite as newly acquired as it may appear -- and as other articles mentioning Romana and Tegan, among others, happily point out. And the Doctor *does* have a granddaughter, after all. The rest of the article -- primarily on why the Master is the worst villain in Doctor Who history -- is quite interesting as well.. [and the ideas also showed up in a recent DWM]
I find it interesting that I recall no positive references to the TV Movie in the book, and the implication that aren't *any* new books at all being written. New Fandom is perhaps getting Older every day.
I thought the "revisted" TRIAL OF A TIME LORD by John Binns was quite good -- as were the Tat Wood articles, especially the one where you could "score" how likely it was you could convert a non-fan into one.
Licence Denied is hopefully not the last word on DOCTOR WHO fandom -- and it's not even close to being definitive, as it focuses primarily on recent history. I would have perhaps aimed for a more chronological ordering, and not one based around a few primary topics. And I would have perhaps attempted more breadth -- made sure that I had one article detailing the virtues of *each* Doctor Who era -- have reasons why the Pertwee era was enjoyable, or the Colin Baker era was enjoyable. A positive review of the TV Movie. If "Doctor Who is big enough to contain everything" -- I would have liked to see more examples of how big it really is.
But perhaps that would have been boring.
I'd certainly recommend reading "Licence Denied" -- and then I'd recommend getting into a good argument about it and what it contains at the next convention you go to. I'm sure I will. :)