Re: reviews and the writers of books/audios reading these reviews – I had Nick Griffiths, the writer of the book Dalek I Loved You subscribe (possibly just to a single issue) to TSV off the basis of it having a review of his book that I had written (really enjoyed his book too BTW).

Adam decided not to include it, along with a number of other reviews I had done which was a little disappointing. I understand that editorial decisions of this nature need to be taken, but it would be nice to know, rather than TSV arriving and realising ‘Oh, they’re not here…’

Oh well, Nick did say that he enjoyed TSV anyway, and that’s what is important!

As for TSV being passed about UK fans, prehaps we should have a marketing campaign – “TSV, it’s even cheaper in pounds”

I too felt a twinge of awkwardness from time to time with reviewing items written by people who subscribed to TSV. I didn’t let it guide my views though.

It wasn’t just the subscribers either; I discovered that TSV got passed around a bit in UK fandom so even some writers who weren’t on the mailing list knew what was being said in the zine about their work. One writer once brought up in conversation at the Fitzroy a negative review I’d written of one of his books. That was an awkward moment, until he told me that he appreciated getting an honest opinion and that he thought the NZ wrtiters made better reviewers because they were removed from the bias of the UK fandom social set.

As for the departure after a bad review – I hope it wasn’t one of mine…

And they give the illusion of currency to print media, which is a weak illusion in an age of file sharing and online forums.

When we ruled out interviews we suddenly had so much more space and writers who had other interesting strings to their bow.

3. The supplement was initiated and independently produced by myself and Jono. Especially Jono.

1. Re: Pleasing the suppliers through positive reviews. It’s not something I was conscious of in TSV personally, outside of a certain interviewee connected with a product range who insisted as a condition of his interview that no reviews overly critical of his work should appear in that issue. On the other hand it was something discussed between Dave and I on a number of occasions that [my words] the distance one required for reviewing anything made by a fan-done-well shortened when you realised said fan was also a TSV subscriber. That wasn’t a house rule or anything, just a ‘cringe’ I felt from time to time.

2. Re: Review copies. This is something you may recall we discussed with relation to Telos. In its short life (and a credit to the then very young Jono’s negotiation skills) Telos received copies of books and videos from Roadshow and Hodder Moa Beckett for the purpose of reviews and promotion. These were subsequently offered through the zine as competition prizes or [occasionally] offered to the reviewers for their efforts, both of which I was greatly supportive.

Thanks again for the kind comments!

Your reasons for not featuring reviews begs the question, when you were reviewing for TSV were you writing to please distributors and creators? Were you aware of others doing so? Most items of reviewed merchandise in TSV, including all Big Finish audios, BBC novels and DVDs, were not provided free by the distributors and had to be purchased.

Your line about ‘quietly leaving the party just before the zine’s debut as a TSV supplement’ might be misconstrued as indicating that Zeus Plug was somehow absorbed or subsumed by TSV, so it’s therefore worth clarifying that the supplement was initiated and independently produced by yourself and Jono.