Robot Man

Two things.

Out later this week, I think Thursday, is another Doctor Who Magazine with a couple of articles in it by me. There’s another instalment of The Blogs of Doom featuring a fan favourite character (well, a favourite character of this fan) and a brief but nevertheless in-depth article on UNIT’s place within the Who-niverse, and how it works as a storytelling device. It’s available from all good newsagents and Smiths.

Big Finish have also announced that my ‘Main Range’ story out next March is not called Empire but is, in fact, called The Kamelion Empire, featuring as it does the legendary robot Kamelion alongside the fifth Doctor, Tegan and Turlough. I am, of course, sworn to secrecy, but can say that the story was inspired by the paintings of Claude Lorrain and Pierre Patel, and that it doesn’t feature Kamelion being put in charge of Whitbury New Town Leisure Centre. For reasons that will become clear in due course it was quite a tricky story to write. I hesitate to say it’s experimental but it’s certainly not comfort zone stuff.

It has been asked elsewhere how this run of four ‘Kamelion’ stories will fit with Craig Hinton’s 1994 Doctor Who novel The Crystal Bucephalus. The simple answer is that it doesn’t. It can’t, because, as anyone who has read the novel will know, or who has simply scanned the opening and closing pages, the book doesn’t just take place in the gap between The King’s Demons and The Five Doctors, it also seals the gap, leaving no space for any other stories, as well as ruling out any further Kamelion stories after The Five Doctors.

I don’t quite know why Craig did this – I suspect he misunderstood the nature of the ‘fitting books into the gaps’ brief – but I do know, or I like to think, that he wouldn’t give a damn about some more stories coming along 25 years later and doing something different. In my mind, he would be laughing his head off at the utter silliness of it all. “Who cares, Jonny?” I can hear him saying. “Who cares?” However, I was very conscious when I was writing The Kamelion Empire that I was following in Craig’s footsteps, so to speak, and so the story is dedicated to his memory.

It can be pre-ordered here.

To Cut A Long Story Short

A brief news round-up.

Out now is a new Doctor Who Magazine bookazine, The Story of Doctor Who. It’s an introduction to the magical world of Doctor Who for the uninitiated, for any new fans that may burgeon over the next few weeks with the new series on television. I have two bits in the magazine. Firstly The Story So Far of the past fifty-five years of the television series, all in under 2000 words. As a guide, I went back and read how Terrance Dicks had summarized the first ten years of the series in the 1976 edition of The Making of Doctor Who, and aimed for a similar brevity and tone. That said, it was still one hell of a tricky task to squeeze all of Doctor Who into such a small space, and of course I had to leave so much out – I couldn’t mention all the companions, or all the monsters, and I had to focus on the stories which were significant within the progression of the series and skip over the rest. However, fortunately all that other stuff is covered elsewhere in the magazine.

My other bit in the magazine is Pages of History, a history of Doctor Who in the world of books in under 1500 words. Again, a big subject to squeeze into such a small space, and so I kind of focussed on four areas; the novelisations, the annuals, the original novels and non-fiction, plus a box-out on biographies (unfortunately Christopher Eccleston’s autobiography was announced just too late). Anyway, I tried not to leave out anything significant but there’s only so much you can fit into four pages.

In other news, a blurb has been released for my forthcoming The Diary of River Song adventure The Bekdel Test. It’s due out in January and can be pre-ordered here. You can also hear the trailer here.

Back at the start of her imprisonment, Dr Song becomes a guinea pig for an innovative new security system.

But it’s her fellow prisoners she needs to be most wary of.

Because it’s early days for Missy, too. The Doctor is dead, and she is outraged that somebody else killed him first...

There’s also a blurb for my forthcoming Missy adventure, The Belly of the Beast. It’s due out in February and can be pre-ordered here. There’s a trailer available too but it doesn’t contain any bits from my story.

Missy’s scheme nears completion. All she must do is subjugate one little planet and bend the inhabitants to her will. Not too much to ask, is it?

But slaves will keep rebelling. It’s almost as if they don’t want to unearth an ancientartefact to help her plans for universal domination.

She’ll have to do something about that.

Mostly excitingly, there’s also now a trailer available for my forthcoming story in the Doctor Who – The Early Adventures range, The Crash of the UK-201. You can listen to it here, and pre-order the story here. It’s due out in December, not long to wait.

And finally, a reading of my Doctor Who story Lant Land is now available as part of Short Trips Rarities. It’s a fifth Doctor Who story, featuring his companions Tegan and Turlough, and is read by Duncan Wisbey of Dead Ringers and The Ladies’ Bras fame. The story was originally published as part of the Short Trips: Life Science anthology way back in 2004, while this reading was originally released as a bonus thing on the story Army of Death in 2011. Now, excitingly, it has its own cover, which can be viewed below:

As it was written quite quickly, a very long time ago, I can remember virtually nothing about it. Checking through my old emails I have found an email from John Binns asking where the story is, and an email from me sending him the finished story eight days later, so that’s probably how long it took. Anyway, it can be ordered here - it's only £2.25.

Anyway, that is October’s news, so far.

Monkey Business

A few new things to plug!

The latest issue of Doctor Who Magazine, issue 530, includes another of my side-splitting Blogs of Doom. This time the subject is the villainous monks that captured fans’ hearts in the 2017 series. We know so little about them. Who are they? Where are they from? What do they want? Those are only three of the questions that my blog will endeavour to leave unanswered.

Following that, on October 5th there’s another Doctor Who Magazine bookazine, The Story of Doctor Who. It will contain a couple of articles by me, including one where I had the unenviable task of summarizing the complete history of Doctor Who in under 2000 words. I’ll blither about it properly when it comes out.

On top of that, three forthcoming Big Finish stories I’ve written have been announced. The first to be released will be The Belly of the Beast, part of the first Missy boxset. What’s that? A boxset where the antagonist is the protagonist? How does that work? Well, you’ll find out when the boxset is released in February 2019, if you pre-order it. If you wish to do so, do so here.

Following that, March 2019 will see the release of my latest story for the main Doctor Who range, which has the gnomic title Empire. It features Peter Davison as the fifth Doctor Who and Janet Fielding and Mark Strickson as his companions Tegan and Turlough respectively. That's all I can tell you for now. More details will no doubt be forthcoming, but you can already pre-order it here.

And following that, in July 2019 a boxset entitled The Legacy of Time will be released to celebrate twenty glorious years of Big Finish Doctor Who stories. Again, details are forthcoming, but I can reveal that I have written the fifth of the six stories in the set, called The Avenues of Possibility. I don’t think I can reveal which Doctor I have written for, or which companions, but some people on the forums have already worked it out. The box set is in a limited edition, and can be pre-ordered here.

I think that’s all. I have the niggling feeling there’s something I’ve forgotten. So many projects in so many pipelines, it’s hard to keep track.