What's Another Year

Below is a little video of edited highlights of things I've written that were released in 2012. My favourite bits, basically. I realise this is a bit of a voyage around my own ego but if you can't toot your trumpet at the end of the year when can you toot it? All use of artwork and noises is for promotional purposes only (and based on what I have available, so no colour artwork for Do Not Go Gentle...).

 All audio adventures are currently available from www.bigfinish.com and The Child Of Time graphic novel is available from amazon and all good booksellers.

Everywhere It's Christmas

Johnny Remember Me

And he’s back.

After what I am sure has been a welcome respite, I’ve decided to start doing the blog again. For two reasons. One, for the first time in months I’m not filling every waking minute typing three different things on three different keyboards at once like Bruno from Fame. Honestly, I’ve been up til three o’clock some nights, and once even ‘pulled an all-nighter’.

And secondly, I have things coming out to promote, which is more or less this blog’s raison d’être. And if by some unfortunate oversight a day passes in this month without me having something to plug, well, I’ve accumulated all sorts of things to talk about over the past months. Films and plays and pop concerts I’ve attended, albums I’ve bought, books I’ve read, TV programmes I’ve slept through, holidays I’ve been on, exhibitions I've visited. I even went to a Doctor Who convention and had a story broadcast on Radio 4 Extra. It was very exciting.

The main thing I’ll be plugging this month is my new Doctor Who novel, Touched By An Angel, available now from amazon.co.uk, amazon.com, or, if you are a burglar, a medium-sized cardboard box in my office.

I’ll also be plugging my new comic strip in the Doctor Who Magazine, and my Big Finish audios, Doctor Who: Tales From The Vault and Dark Shadows: The Blind Painter. And a Doctor Who documentary DVD extra. Plus there are some book signings and conventions I'll be attending.

And, in the absurdly unlikely event that this blog isn’t enough for you, and my wittering on twitter hasn’t driven you to distraction, I’ll also be plugging some interviews I’ve done; at the moment I seem to do as many interviews about writing as I do the actual thing.

The one other thing I’ll be doing is trying to stick to the 300 word limit.

Take That Look Off Your Face

Quick update. Too busy to blog.

Here’s the cover of my forthcoming Dark Shadows dramatic reading, The Blind Painter.



You can order it and hear the trailer here. I've blogged about it in a little more detail here.

The new issue of Doctor Who Magazine, out Thursday 10 March, features a comic strip written by me called Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night. It features some quite fabulous artwork by the legendary David A Roach – who is legendary for doing the artwork for Judge Anderson, amongst other things – and it’s beautifully coloured by James Offredi. I think it may be my favourite one so far, it starts spooky and ends up somewhere else entirely. It reminds me of the old Sapphire & Steel comic strips from Look-In and I’m not hinting or anything Steven but it’s a story that could be done on television very, very cheaply. And it features Amy dressed as a nurse.

Scream Thy Last Scream

Plug time. And it’s a three-in-one.

Plug one. The second series of Jago & Litefoot has been released by Big Finish. It comes as a box-set featuring four adventures with the Victorian Investigators of Infernal Incidents, as so splendidly portrayed by Christopher Benjamin and Trevor Baxter. The box-set comprises of the adventures Litefoot And Sanders by Justin Richards, The Necropolis Express by Mark Morris (no relation), The Theatre Of Dreams by me, and The Ruthven Inheritance by Andy Lane. I’ve given my story a listen and can assure you that it maintains the extremely high standards of production of the first series and that I am absolutely delighted with it. If it goes down well, who knows, maybe they’ll ask me back to write another one. Order it here.


Plug two: The 430rd issue of Doctor Who Magazine is hitting newsstands. It features part one of a two-part comic strip written by me called The Screams Of Death and drawn by the marvellous Dan McDaid. It looks absolutely stunning, all terribly atmospheric; it’s set in 19th century Paris and is a more-or-less traditional gothic story. I daresay I’ll witter on about the themes and inspirations at some later date. Suffice it to say there’s a fair old whack of Trilby by George Du Maurier in there, along with one or two or maybe even three references to Tintin. Buy it and be chilled to the core.


Plug three: The Big Finish website has just announced the forthcoming release of my Dark Shadows audio adventure, The Blind Painter, starring Roger Davis as Charles Delaware Tate and Nicola Bryant as Eloise. I’ll be plugging it again nearer the time. The story is a spooky character piece. Dark Shadows, if you’re not aware of it, was a supernatural soap opera broadcast in the US during the late 1960s, the sort of show destined to become a cult. What it lacked in production values it more than made up for with spooky thrills and some outrageous plots; an average episode is liable to feature ghosts, vampires, werewolves, warlocks, witches, time-travel, parallel universes and gypsy curses. Order The Blind Painter here.

Plug four. My next Doctor Who audio play, The Crimes Of Thomas Brewster, will be out later this month... oh, I did promise I’d only do three plugs. Maybe some other time.