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The first and for many years the only Australian Doctor Who fanzine, Zerinza was also the journal of the Australasian Doctor Who Fan Club (ADWFC), doing much to increase and focus Doctor Who fandom in Australia.
The fanzine was founded in 1976 in reaction to the ABC's decision that year to stop purchasing (and, by extension, broadcasting) new episodes of Doctor Who from the BBC: it was designed to serve as a focus for a nationwide pressure group advocating the return of the series and as a location for publishing news items. It also served as a focus for Australian Doctor Who fans before the ABC resumed purchasing the show in 1978.
After 1978, the ABC had a closer relationship with Zerinza and the ADWFC, publicising the fan club's address and allowing Zerinza a lengthy interview with then Doctor Tom Baker on the 1979 publicity tour of Australia.
The fanzine's style changed radically in the 1980s, when its irregular publication made it less useful as a vehicle for BBC news or programme gossip (which shifted to the new ADWFC newsletter): in addition to dropping such ephemeral content, the fanzine also reduced its quantity of fan fiction, and focused more on critical analyses of the programme.
Howe's interest in the fanzine waned after Colin Baker's first appearance as the Sixth Doctor, at which point he decryed the increasing violence of the programme and predicted that the BBC would axe it. He ceased publishing Zerinza in 1986, though the ADWFC released a few sporadic issues after that point.
The fanzine's contents were sufficiently authoritative to be cited in scholarly accounts of Doctor Who and, in some cases (particularly with cast interviews), to be republished in other collections.
Notes
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The name 'Zerinza' was apparently selected from the 'Dalek Dictionary' that appeared in The Dalek Book (1965), the first in a series of illustrated Dalek annuals published regularly during the 1960s and 1970s. The word means 'good success'.
PeriodicalNewspaper Details
Has serialised
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The Dalek Masterplan,
single work
novella
science fiction
In 1965, the ABC decided not to purchase the twelve-episode Doctor Who story 'The Daleks' Master Plan' (1965 - 1966), deeming it inappropriate for broadcast in the show's pre-7pm timeslot (a problem that also plagued numerous John Pertwee-era and Tom Baker-era stories).
Furthermore, the story was not novelised as part of Target Books' series of Doctor Who novelisations until 1989, when John Peel produced a two-volume novelisation. (Volume one novelised 'Mission to the Unknown', a one-episode introduction to 'The Daleks' Master Plan' notable for the complete absence of the primary cast, and episodes one to six of 'The Daleks' Master Plan'; volume two, published under the title The Mutation of Time, novelised episodes seven to twelve of 'The Daleks' Master Plan'.)
In 1980, therefore, Australian fans had no means of experiencing 'The Daleks' Master Plan' and no likelihood of seeing it novelised. Rosemary Howe's novelisation was designed as a means of allowing Australian fans to experience the story. Published over three issues of Zerinza, it was the first novelisation of this story. It has subsequently been reprinted several times, sold overseas, and republished in various places online.
