Doctor Who: The Fan Show

This week I was a guest on Doctor Who: The Fan Show, which is made for the young people on YouTube. By popular request (there was a vote and everything) we were discussing the 1970 story Doctor Who and the Silurians. This delights an Old Silurian in his dotage...



Afterwards, I also answered some quick questions, what you can see here:

Cornell Collective

I'm a guest on episode 9 of Paul Cornell's podcast, the Cornell Collective, recorded at the magnificent GallifreyOne convention in Los Angeles. It's a special Doctor Who edition.

Warning: the podcast is sweary, rude and ridiculous, and shows a bit too much that when Paul sent me his list of questions in advance I did a lot of preparation. It was also recorded at 11.30 at night, and we were given cocktails.

The other guests are comics artist Christopher Jones, comedian Joseph Scrimshaw, and podcaster and editor Deborah Stanish.

The Artificial Bees

Excitement! I have an original science-fiction story, The Artificial Bees, published in issue #9 of Uncanny - out on 1 March. On the right is the amazing cover by clever Katy Shuttleworth, but alas (because she's brilliant) not showing nowt from my story.

You can - and ought to - buy Uncanny #9 right this minute, but due to the magnanimous munificence of the editors my story and an interview with me by Deborah Stanish will also be put online for free in May. 

Whographica

I have a new book out in September. According to the press release, Whographica is "a journey through the Doctor Who universe by Steve O'Brien and Simon Guerrier, with infographics and visualisations from Ben Morris."

As part of the research, I got Dr Christopher Naunton, director of the Egypt Exploration Society, identifying the year in which the Daleks visit the pyramids, as seen in The Daleks' Master Plan (1965-6).

In other news, out in December is The Sontarans, an audio adventure I've written in which the First Doctor meets... well, guess.

"It was established in 1974's The Time Warrior that the Doctor had encountered the Sontarans before," says producer David Richardson in the announcement. "That line of dialogue fired up our imaginations, and Simon's thrilling script is the result - a full-blooded war story set in deep space."

Peter Purves plays Steven and the Doctor, Jean Marsh is back as Space Security Agent Sara Kingdom while Dan Starkey plays the Sontarans.

Dan Dare

Sci-Fi Bulletin reports on a new audio version of Dan Dare, Pilot of the Future, and says I am writing one of the stories.

I'm adapting "Reign of the Robots", originally by Frank Hampson and Don Harley, and which ran in the Eagle comic from 22 February 1957 to 24 January 1958. It seems to have been a big influence on The Dalek Invasion of Earth (1964). Most exciting.