I’ve just been listening to my Missy story, The Belly of the Beast. I think it’s
turned out rather well, so, as usual, it’s a mixture of pride and relief and
having got away with it again.
I don’t think I’ve ever said where I got the idea for the
story from. Well, back when I was doing a Doctor
Who Magazine ‘Fact of Fiction’ on The
Macra Terror, I remembered that noted critic and broadcaster Matthew Sweet
was convinced – or at least had a theory – that Ian Stuart Black was inspired
by the play The Cities and the Plain by
Alex Comfort. Being a diligent researcher, I checked this out, but couldn’t
really see any similarity beyond the fact that they both concerned miners. But
when it came to coming up with The
Belly of the Beast I thought back and wondered – what if Matthew had been
right? What would a Doctor Who story
based on The Cities and the Plain have
been like? So that’s why there a couple of nods to The Macra Terror, in recognition of its origins. It would, however,
be wrong to say The Macra Terror was
an inspiration; it was more of an unspiration, as I was doing everything
differently! But now there are two DoctorWho audios inspired by the work of Alex Comfort, so there’s a thing.
In other news, there’s now a cover for my forthcoming Black Archive book on The Dalek Invasion of Earth.
Amongst other things, it contains:
Amongst other things, it contains:
A detailed scene-by-scene look at Terry Nation's first draft!
A detailed scene-by-scene look at the camera script and its
realisation on screen, including deleted scenes!
At last, after 55 years, an explanation for the episode
title 'The Waking Ally'!
How The Dalek Invasion
of Earth inspired Terry Nation’s series Survivors!
How Terrance Dicks wrote the novelisation!
And perhaps, most exciting of all:
And perhaps, most exciting of all:
Milton Subotsky's working draft of Daleks - Invasion Earth 2150 AD. An entirely different version
of the story that has never been documented in Doctor Who Magazine or anywhere else... until now.