You can order Doctor Who: Scourge of the Cybermen direct from Big Finish.
The amazing cover art is by Claudia Gironi. Cybermen and sunflowers - what's not to love?
Showing posts with label big finish. Show all posts
Showing posts with label big finish. Show all posts
Tuesday, April 06, 2021
Scourge of the Cybermen trailer
Saturday, January 30, 2021
Scourge of the Cybermen
Feast your eyeballs on this glorious cover by Claudia Gironi for Doctor Who and the Scourge of the Cybermen, a six-hour original audio novel I've written which will be out in July. Cybermen and sunflowers, what more could you want?
The novel is read by Jon Culshaw, with Cyber voices done by Nick Briggs. The script editor was Roland Moore and the director David Richardson.
I'm delighted that it's Jon Culshaw on this as his perfect reading of Death to The Daleks has been a big influence here - that novelisation (of a 1974 TV story) had always been one of my favourites, and I hope what I've typed has a similar feel.
Friday, January 29, 2021
Masterful and the Switching
"Yesterday there were two Time Lord prisoners on Earth - the Master in his cell, the Doctor in his exile. But today the Doctor's not quite feeling himself. Today he's seeing things from a different perspective. And today the Master's going to escape..."
I'm very fond of The Switching, which was my first professional gig as a writer of fiction, written in August and September 2002 and published in Short Trips - Zodiac at the end of that year. It was also one of the first jobs I picked up after going freelance, and I'm very grateful to editor Jacqueline Rayner for taking a punt on me, and to Jonathan Morris who read my first, clumsy draft and applied a lot of red pen.
Thursday, December 24, 2020
FREE - Santa Benny at the Bottom of the Sea
Blurb as follows:
'It will, I admit, be something of a challenge. But you thrive on challenges. And you have experience in communing with psychic populations.'
'So have you, Brax.'
'A little, yes. Bernice, this is important. And very regrettably, I don't fit the suit.'
Deep under the sea, Nessa, Freng and Strong are trying very hard to be nice. Because if they are naughty, then Santa won’t come and give them presents. And they do want presents very much. But what does Santa really want from them? And what does being nice *really* involve..?
This story comes from Bernice Summerfield: The Christmas Collection, and is offered free for a limited time only, December 2020.
Friday, October 30, 2020
Santa Benny at the Bottom of the Sea
An anthology of festive tales featuring Bernice Summerfield.
Christmas… Advent… Midwinter Festival… Spiriting… No matter what you call it on your home planet, this magical holiday at the end of the year, when the nights are dark, and the lights are sparkly, is the perfect time for telling stories...
And who doesn’t have a tale or two to tell about Christmas? Certainly not Benny.
Did she ever tell you about the time she had to escape from a herd of rampaging battle-armoured cyborg reindeer? Or the time she had to convince three tentacled young sea creatures that she was the real Santa? Or the time she nearly let an evil deity back into the world just in time for New Year…
These ten stories are collected from all across Benny’s eventful life, from St Oscar’s to the Braxiatel Collection, to Legion and even in the Unbound Universe...
The stories are:
- Collector’s Item by Eddie Robson
- Santa Benny at the Bottom of the Sea by Simon Guerrier
- Tap by Mark Clapham
- Glory to the Reborn King by Matthew Griffiths
- Signifiers of the Verphidiae by Tim Gambrell
- The Frosted Deer by Sophie Iles
- Vistavision by Victoria Simpson
- Wise Women by Q
- Null Ziet by Scott Harrison
- Bernice Summerfield and the Christmas Adventure by Xanna Eve Chown
Wednesday, September 30, 2020
Wicked Sisters cover
Big Finish have put up Tom Newsom's amazing cover art for Doctor Who - Wicked Sisters, the trilogy of audio stories I've written that is out in November.
Wicked Sisters stars Peter Davison as the Doctor, Louise Jameson as Leela, Ciara Janson as Abby and Laura Doddington as Zara, with Anjli Mohindra as Captain Riya Nehru and Dan Starkey as the Sontarans. It's directed by Lisa Bowerman and produced by Mark Wright.
ETA The Big Finish website has added a trailer for Wicked Sisters, blurbs for the three stories and a full cast list.
The Doctor is recruited by Leela for a vital mission on behalf of the Time Lords.
Together, they must track down and destroy two god-like beings whose extraordinary powers now threaten all of space and time. These beings are already known to the Doctor.
Their names are Abby and Zara...
1. The Garden of Storms
In pursuit of Abby and Zara, Leela pilots the TARDIS to the eye of a violent storm in time. Yet she and the Doctor find themselves in an idyllic garden city, the people contented and happy. They soon discover that this bliss comes at a terrible cost, and that Abby and Zara are determined to put things right… so how can Leela and the Doctor stop them?
2. The Moonrakers
Life is hard for the early pioneers building the first settlements on the Moon. The laws of Earth don’t apply here, and there are tussles over limited resources vital to survival. Arriving on the Moon, the Doctor and Zara discover that an aggressive alien species lies in wait. Yet there’s something very strange about these particular Sontarans: they refuse to fight.
3. The People Made of Smoke
Abby and Zara strive to use their powers for good but it’s clear they are damaging reality - and allowing monstrous creatures to bleed through from beyond. The Doctor knows he can only save the universe by destroying his friends. But just how much might he be willing to sacrifice if there’s a chance to save them?
Cast:
Peter Davison (The Doctor)
Louise Jameson (Leela)
Ciara Janson (Abby)
Laura Doddington (Zara)
Lisa Bowerman (Smoke Creatures)
Pandora Clifford (Zeeb / Zeet)
Paul Courtenay Hyu (Wei)
Nicky Goldie (Polk)
Tom Mahy (Brody)
Anjli Mohindra (Captain Riya Nehru)
Dan Starkey (Stent / Sontarans)
Wednesday, September 16, 2020
Doctor Who Magazine 556
The latter includes a brief word from me, as I've written a short story, Lesser Evils, and edited Master Thief by Sophie Iles. There's also stuff from me in the preview for Shadow of the Daleks. These audio adventures are all out next month.
Wednesday, September 02, 2020
Vortex 139
Lesser Evils is my contribution to the Time Lord Victorious multimedia extravaganza, while The Bookshop at the End of the World is the episode I've written of the eight-episode, eight-author Shadow of the Daleks.
Tuesday, August 11, 2020
Time Lord Victorious timeline
Among the books, comics, audio dramas, escape rooms, figurines and whatever else, there's a whole page devoted to my short story Lesser Evils, including the following sentence from the thing itself:
Death descended on the planet Alexis one bright and crisp, clear morning...
Lesser Evils is performed by Jon Culshaw and features the version of the Master originally played by Anthony Ainley. It's set on a planet I named after the amazing Alexis Deacon, author of Geis.
ETA: there's now a trailer for twin release Master Thief and Lesser Evils
Thursday, July 09, 2020
Shadow of the Daleks
Written and recorded in lockdown, the eight 25-minute episodes are each written by a different writer and using the same cast of actors in different roles: Peter Davison (as the Doctor), Nicholas Briggs (the Daleks), Dervla Kirwan, Anjli Mohindra and Jamie Parker.
The blurb for mine goes like this:
Something is very wrong. The Fifth Doctor is lost in the Time War, heading for an encounter with his oldest and deadliest enemies... the Daleks!
The Bookshop at the End of the World by Simon Guerrier
It’s very easy to forget yourself and get lost in a bookshop. But in some bookshops more than most...
See also:
Wednesday, July 08, 2020
Time Scope
My things are both off-cuts from my work for Big Finish Productions. First, there's Survivors, an initial sketch outline I wrote in December 2009 about what might happen next to companion Sara Kingdom (Jean Marsh) after the events of my trilogy of stories, Home Truths, The Drowned World and The Guardian of the Galaxy, including the incarnation of the Doctor I would have paired her up with.
Then there's the pre-title sequence I wrote for my first draft of The Mega, a six-episode story based on an original outline from 1970 by Bill Strutton (writer of 1965 TV story The Web Planet). At the time, the plan was to record The Mega using just three actors: Katy Manning (who played companion Jo Grant on
TV), Richard Franklin (who played UNIT’s Captain Yates) and John Levene (UNIT’s Sergeant Benton). Around the time I was commissioned for this, news came of the sad death of Nicholas Courtney - who'd played UNIT's Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart on TV - and in my first audio play. I wanted to acknowledge his loss as well as set up the framing of the story, so wrote this opening scene. Then things changed and it no longer fitted.
Time Scope also includes contributions from both Katy Manning and Richard Franklin, as well as a number of other cast and crew from the various decades of Doctor Who.
Wednesday, June 03, 2020
Doctor Who: Lesser Evils
"The Kotturuh have arrived on the planet Alexis to distribute the gift of the death to its inhabitants. The only person standing in their way is a renegade Time Lord, who has sworn to protect the locals. A Time Lord called the Master..."The release is paired with Master Thief by Sophie Iles, who had to suffer me as editor, and it's all part of the Time Lord Victorious cross-platform extravaganza wossname.
The Short Trips range gave me my first professional gigs as a writer of fiction, way back in 2002. Here's a list of my previous Short Trips stories. My very first one, The Switching, also features the Master and is being included in the special edition Masterful in January 2021.
Thursday, April 30, 2020
Doctor Who Magazine 551
There's also "Contact Has Been Made", in which I spoke to editorial assistant Emily Cook and Strax actor Dan Starkey about all the exciting Who-related stuff going on during lockdown. In fact, there's so much going on it was a struggle to fit it all in - and then no sooner had I delivered the feature than there was more stuff being announced.
Also in this issue, Jamie Lenman reviews Susan's War, delighted by the Robogrons in my The Uncertain Shore. He says the excellent sound design - by Howard Carter - makes the play like "Saving Private Susan", and concludes that it's, "A glorious, if faintly bewildering, runaround." Hooray!
Tuesday, April 07, 2020
Doctor Who: Wicked Sisters
It's been a thrill to reunite the Doctor with the leads from my sci-fi series Graceless, and I couldn't be happier with the result. The series stars Peter Davison, Louise Jameson, Ciara Janson and Laura Doddington - plus some amazing guest actors who will be announced in due course.
Full press release as follows:
The Fifth Doctor (Peter Davison) is on course for a reunion with some old friends when he crosses paths with sisters Abby and Zara.
Created by pan-dimensional beings the Grace to assist – and sometimes hinder – the Doctor in Big Finish’s Key 2 Time trilogy, Abby (Ciara Janson) and Zara (Laura Doddington) went on to their own time-spanning adventures in the acclaimed spin-off series, Graceless. After centuries of their own wanderings through time and space, Abby and Zara are about to meet the Time Lord again...
Doctor Who: The Fifth Doctor Adventures – Wicked Sisters is now available for pre-order, from just £16.99, and is due for release in November 2020.
The Doctor is recruited by Leela for a vital mission on behalf of the Time Lords. Together, they must track down and destroy two god-like beings whose extraordinary powers now threaten all of space and time. Their names are Abby and Zara...
This new full-cast Doctor Who audio drama box set features three linked adventures by Graceless’ creator and writer, Simon Guerrier, who wrote the very first appearance of Abby and Zara in Doctor Who: The Judgment of Iskaar.
- The Garden of Storms
- The Moonrakers
- The People Made of Smoke
Producer Mark Wright said: “It’s been ten years since we first took Abby and Zara off on their own adventures, and it’s fun to get the team that’s worked on every episode of Graceless together every couple of years.
“Simon Guerrier’s scripts always take us into unexpected territory, and Ciara Janson and Laura Doddington bring something new to their performances each time Abby and Zara are back together. As it’s been a decade since the first series of Graceless, we thought it was time to bring things full circle and take the sisters back to where it all began – with the Fifth Doctor.”
Writer Simon Guerrier added: “It’s been a thrill to write for the Fifth Doctor and Leela, and put them up against Abby and Zara. You don’t need to know anything about Graceless - that was part of the brief from my masters - but they’re sisters with extraordinary powers that threaten all of time and space.”
“They’re very different from the women the Doctor first met all those years ago when we did the Key 2 Time series. Back then, he wasn't required to kill them...
“The three days we had in studio just before Christmas were the highlight of my working year. A dream cast, a lot of laughter, and Lisa Bowerman ably marshalling everyone as we faced the collapse of the universe.”
Doctor Who: The Fifth Doctor Adventures – Wicked Sisters is now available for pre-order, exclusively at the Big Finish website from just £16.99. Monday, March 02, 2020
Vortex 133
The series is out next month: order Susan's War from the Big Finish website.
Tuesday, February 25, 2020
Susan's War cover
2. The Uncertain Shore by Simon GuerrierSusan and Commander Veklin are on the trail of a spy. Under cover on a ravaged world, they find a weary population, trapped, and waiting for the inevitable. But one among them is a traitor.Susan's War is out in April.
The Time War is coming to Florana, and Susan will face a struggle to simply survive…
Friday, January 24, 2020
Susan's War
I've written the second of the four stories, The Uncertain Shore, and the other writers are Eddie Robson, Lou Morgan and Alan Barnes.
Carole Ann Ford of course plays Susan - as she did in the very first episode of Doctor Who in 1963 - and the cast of the four stories includes William Russell as Ian Chesterton and Paul McGann as the Eighth Doctor.
Gallifrey needs every Time Lord to fight the Time War. A summons has been issued across the universe to its prodigals. Whatever their skills, the war effort can use them. Susan’s call-up papers have arrived, and, unlike her grandfather, she is willing to join her people’s battle and finally return home. Because Susan knows the Daleks, and she will do her duty...Susuan's War is released in April 2020 and available to pre-order now.
Thursday, October 17, 2019
Doctor Who Magazine 544
 |
| Doctor Who Magazine 544 |
Also in the issue is a short interview with me about my forthcoming Doctor Who audio story, The Home Guard.
Wednesday, August 07, 2019
15 years of The Coup
The Coup is available for free from the Big Finish website.
In August 2004, I'd been freelance for two years and Big Finish had published six of my short Doctor Who stories. The third of these, "An Overture Too Early", had been a last-minute replacement for someone who'd had to drop out. As a result, I got more work when things fell through or needed doing quick. Assistant producer Ian Farrington also liked the way I'd written the long-established character of Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart.
Ian was producing a Doctor Who spin-off series about UNIT, the army division that investigates weird goings on and then blows them up. He told me this series would be set in the present day with an all-new cast of characters, influenced by the then hip TV shows 24 and The West Wing. But he also wanted the Brigadier to feature in two episodes - the "pilot" episode to be given away free on a CD with Doctor Who Magazine to lure in the punters, and in the final episode of the series. I slowly realised he was suggesting I write the former.
With writers Iain McLaughlin and Claire Bartlett, Ian had devised an arc story about a rival organisation to UNIT, and he was also keen on using a character from a previous Big Finish play - Colonel Brimmicombe-Wood, played by a then up and coming actor called David Tennant. Brimmicombe-Wood had been created by writer Jonathan Clements, so Ian brought him on board too, as well as our friend Joseph Lidster. Between us, we emailed ideas back and forth and the UNIT series took shape.
CJ in The West Wing inspired our lead character, Emily Chaudhry - I borrowed the surname from an old friend of mine who I'd recently got back in touch with. Doctor Who on TV had established that UNIT covered up evidence of alien invasions, so the idea was that the cool, unflappable Emily would be the one they put in front of the cameras to give high quality bullshit. I named other characters - French, Ledger and Winnington - after old friends I'd lost contact with but who'd been into Doctor Who. There was a chance, I thought, they'd still be reading DWM - and two of them were and subsequently got in touch.
Ian and Iain gave me elements to work into my story - such as all the details about this new rival organisation to UNIT - and Ian was keen that my pilot episode should include an old monster from the TV show as an added sell. The Silurians were his suggestion. Otherwise, the plot was left up to me.
Previous CDs given away with DWM had offered small-scale comic vignettes, side-steps rather than full-on adventures. I suggested doing something bigger and more like an action movie. What crisis might flap the unflappable Chaudhry, I thought. What about if UNIT were outed and finally had to admit to the existence of aliens? That seemed to match Ian's desire to take his UNIT series somewhere new and unexpected, and the other writers seemed to agree - or, at least, not object.
So I got on with writing my episode, starting with a Silurian/UNIT battle at Potters Fields by Tower Bridge. That's the location of City Hall - as if the Silurians are attacking the Mayor of London. I chose it because Tower Bridge is a well-known landmark the listener would be able to visualise, and because I'd passed through Potters Fields each day for months on my way to work.
Writer Jonathan Morris had provided very useful notes on my first few short stories so I sent my first draft script to him, and to my friends David Darlington and Robert Dick. They all said much the same thing - that I needed to cut down my dialogue to make it pacier and more exciting. The result was that I cut back the long speeches but didn't replace it with more scenes, so the play ended up running shorter than the 25 minutes requested. I don't think I even knew then the rough word count of 4,500 words for that length of time - my version is just 3,761 words. My stage directions aren't specific enough, and there are two long speeches that have people talking over them but contain information the listener shouldn't miss. (I've included the Brigadier's full speech below.) I look back on the script now in horror at my greenness.
The version of the script I've got is dated 6 June 2004, a clean copy without notes or revisions. There were plenty of changes needed to get it to this point, but I can't remember what they were. I remember Ian being very patient and encouraging.
(ETA: Jonny Morris has kept my first draft, from 30 April 2004, which I sent to him, Matthew Griffiths, Robert Dick, Ben Woodhams and Peter Anghelides for comment. It is just over 4,000 words long - and doesn't include Orgath's speech as an appendix at the end as the later version does. Which means I cut about 1,000 words from this version!)
So, on 7 August I arrived at the studio. They'd already recorded some of the UNIT series proper that week, the series regulars established, the pronunciation of names fixed. Ian was directing my story, and I mostly sat in the background being overwhelmed. My friend Scott Andrews, who I'd written a small role for, was brave enough to ask Nicholas Courtney - the actor who played the Brigadier - if he was going to be in the new TV version of Doctor Who, the one with Christopher Eccleston which had started filming just a couple of weeks before. Nick told us he hadn't heard anything and modestly suggested he was no one important. He then asked me why, in my story, the Brigadier had a knighthood. I told him that after all the times he'd saved the Earth he deserved it, and he was rather taken by that. He asked about the origin of my surname, and got interested when Scott mentioned I'd just started freelancing for the House of Lords. We gamely discussed a new story, about the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Lethbridge-Stewart. Perhaps he'd be defending aliens from humans...
Otherwise, I remember just being awe-struck by the cast, and wishing I'd given the brilliant Sara Carver a bit more to do as Winnington. We finished at lunch-time and while the cast went to the pub - in the days before Big Finish started providing its own infamous lunches - I had to rush off to Bristol for my cousin's wedding. By coincidence, the friend I'd named Currie after was putting me up for the night.
Around this time, I was passing through Charing Cross station when someone shouted at me. "You!" said Nicholas Courtney. "You have a French name." I went over and said hello, and Nick told me he was on his way to the pub to meet Tom Baker. He asked if I'd like to join them. It was mid-morning and I was on my way to a freelance job, and anyway I thought I'd never survive a day in the pub with those two. Really, I was just in shock. I asked where they'd be and said I'd look in during my lunch hour. I did, and they weren't there.
On 23 April, Nick Courtney appeared on Doctor Who Confidential and suggested that the Brigadier might now be in the House of Lords. I emailed Ian a few days later, referring to this and suggesting a Lord Lethbridge-Stewart story for the second series of UNIT - should it happen. I had the bare bones of a plot, too. "We'll see..." said Ian, cryptically - already knowing that the chances were slim of doing more with his version of UNIT, what with David Tennant having just been cast in another role...
There wasn't a second series of UNIT, and despite my best efforts no one else took up my Lord Lethbridge-Stewart story. But when Nick Courtney was invited to reprise his role on TV, in 2008's Enemy of the Bane, the Brigadier retained his knighthood.
APPENDIX 1: BRIGADIER’S SPEECH IN FULL:
For purposes of rehearsing it and as background in Scenes 18, 20 and 22.
I doubt many of you have any idea who I am. That is just as it should be. Because of the nature of my former work, I’m not allowed to tell you either.
This country has often been faced with threats, with enemies. The forces assigned to counter those threats have been, necessarily, covert.
Though we cannot divulge details of the work we do, we are accountable. In my time as head of the UK arm of UNIT, I reported directly to the Prime Minister. That probably explains the knighthood.
Even though they do not have access to the details that we supply the Government, the general public may still know of UNIT, and have some understanding of our security remit.
As a result, significant changes such as those taking place today, need to be explained, if only to allay public concern. That is why I have been called in.
Change is good. UNIT has always known that. I hope ICIS will also be able to remember that. And to forgive me, now, for stealing their thunder.
UNIT was formed to investigate extra-terrestrial phenomenon.
In nearly forty years, it has been directly responsible for preventing more than 200 attacks by alien beings. Axons, Cybermen, Zygons, Quarks…
As a part of the United Nations, UNIT was not representing individual states or nations when it repelled these attacks. It represented humanity as a whole.
Now we’ve made contact with a species who don’t want to conquer the Earth. They want to forge diplomatic links. They’re not even from outer space.
It is therefore my considerable honour to introduce Ambassador Orgath of the Silurian people. Ambassador?
Monday, June 17, 2019
Home Guard cover
Here's Tom Webster's amazing cover for Doctor Who - The Home Guard, an audio adventure I wrote that's out in November.
"It’s the middle of the Second World War and Ben Jackson has returned to visit his married friends Polly and Jamie in their quiet English village. But they can’t quite shake the feeling that something’s not right..."
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
