The Disinformation War, by SJ Groenewegen

This gripping, near-future political thriller is published by Gold SF, the newish imprint of Goldsmiths Press that aims to discover and publish new intersectional feminist science-fiction. The author is a friend and I get mentioned in the acknowledgments for having been a sounding board for some of the ideas explored in the book, so I can't exactly give an objective review.

It's the story of three people: online social justice warrior Kayla who IRL struggles with social interactions; intelligence analyst Libby who has become the target of a right-wing hate campaign; and Derek, a major-general in the army who is torn by the disparity between his orders and his oath to uphold the law. They're thrown together because of a shocking new scheme developed by the Home Office and private enterprise.

It's an exciting, involving story, the early parts reminiscent - in a good way - of the bleak, near-future and political consciousness of the "War" trilogy of Doctor Who New Adventures books by Andrew Cartmel in the 1990s. But the later part of the novel is concerned with hammering out the practicalities - and clash of personalities - in agreeing exactly how to combat the sinister vested interests behind a tide of disinformation. 

Often, science-fiction presents this kind of thing as an engineering problem: it just needs someone to properly identify the fault for a solution to be found. My experience is that, even when everyone has the most well-meaning intentions, there's rarely a "Eureka" moment in politics and it's more often an uneasy, imperfect compromise. People are a bit messy.

In that sense, the latter part of this novel reminded me more of the end of John Christopher's Tripods trilogy, in which the war against the aliens is followed by a more complicated peace among humans, and our hero goes off to become a member of the new government. Except it does more than that, presenting a draft manifesto plus notes and discussions about how this work might be taken forward. It all feels very timely - a novel addressing the bleak now.

Doctor Who Magazine #595

The new issue of Doctor Who Magazine boasts an interview with Bonnie Langford, the actress who played companion Mel in 1986, 1987, 1993 and 2022 - and who will be back on screen in Doctor Who next year. As always, interviewer Benjamin Cook peppers a fun chat with new facts and revealing insight, and it's a joy to eavesdrop.

Accompanying this, there's a feature by Laurel Hart in praise of Mel. Plus there's the regular "Sufficient Data" infographic by me and Ben Morris, this time detailing Mel's myriad screams.

A few people have asked about methodology and what these things actually involve. So...

Much as I wish it had all been my idea, editor Marcus Hearn proposed an infographic based on Mel's screams to tie in with the rest of the issue, and suggested I look at waveforms and decibels. After some time trying to dig into that myself, I called in the technical genius of Nimbos who ran a spectral analysis of Mel's first three screams from the closing moments of Part Nine of The Trial of a Time Lord.

In the graph above, the vertical Y axis shows frequency in Hertz and the colour represents volume in decibels. The first scream, circled on the left, begins at about 3,000 Hz and then drops to about 2,000 Hz - roughly moving from a C note to a B. More or less the same thing happens in the second scream, circled to the right of the first scream and in the centre of the image. A third scream, circled to the right of this, seems to be a partial repeat of the second scream, presumably to extend it and added in the edit.

Below this, also circled on the right of the graph, is the start of the closing theme. At 988 Hz, this is a B, so Bonnie pitched her screams an octave above this, starting at C and then descending to B to segue neatly into the theme music, as per the instruction from director Chris Clough.

In each scream, the volume peaks at about -28 dB, though obviously volume is dependent on the setting of your speakers. But how loud a scream sounds to us can also be affected by context, and note how much other sound - or orange - there is going on at the same time: incidental music, explosions, and yet the screams are distinct.

When we compare screams from episodes, the context can be different - for example, without incidental music or explosions. That means a scream might sound very different, and yet turns out to be at a similar pitch and volume. Other factors that might affect what we're measuring include how sound was originally recorded, how that's been adjusted for the Blu-ray releases we worked from, and how the sound may be compressed or otherwise affected in undertaking this kind of analysis.

Accepting the potential margins of error, we at least had a starting point for comparison with other episodes. This, for example, is the spectrum for Mel's screams while trapped in the Rani's bubble trap in Part Two of Time and the Rani:

It comprises more but shorter screams, and the context of music and sound effects is different, so this graph is very different from the last one. Yet the screams (outlined in the green box) are all at about 2,200 Hz, and many feature the same kind of pitch shift from C to B as we saw before. The context is different in these two episodes but Mel's screams are very similar.

In fact, across her tenure in Doctor Who, Mel's screams are impressively consistent. Unfortunately for me, that means the data is not sufficiently varied to make for an interesting infographic.

While Nimbos worked diligently on this spectral analysis, I watched every one of Mel's episodes, skipping forward to the scenes in which she appeared to note the time and duration of all screams. This raised some issues over the precise criteria for defining a scream. Screams often occur right at the end of an episode and so are included in the recap at the start of the next episode - should those be counted once or twice? There are occasions when Mel cries out warnings or shouts things like "Nooo!" - but do those count as screams? There are also instances when, because of music, sound effects or other activity on screen, I couldn't be certain if Mel was screaming or not. I could identify the start and end of some screams to the accuracy of a tenth of a second but others are clouded by surrounding noise and I needed a consistent approach - ultimately deciding to round up each scream to the nearest full second.

These factors then had to be relayed in the infographic, in as few words as possible.

Having gone through the episodes twice to ensure the data was right, I then had to come up with a way to present the result visually in an engaging way, led by a new and striking illustration. It's difficult to do this until you have the data in front of you and a sense of its scale, range, peaks and troughs. 

I usually sketch some rough ideas before settling on something to include with my written-up brief for the illustrator, so that queries or objections can be raised before it gets laid out. Sometimes this takes a while - and the solution then springs to mind as I'm doing the washing up. But the way to convey this particular data set presented itself during my watch-through and I mocked up the following:

As Ben Morris worked on that, it became evident that showing both time of screams and duration made things too cluttered. That meant further revising the data set to trim down the text presented. Then assistant editor Peter Ware had to point out, with heroic tact, that I'd cut one small bit we needed. Eek!

The result seems to have gone down well. If you like this sort of thing, there's a new "Sufficient Data" infographic every four weeks in DWM. You can still buy Whographica, a book of Doctor Who infographics, by me, Steve O'Brien and Ben Morris. Steve and I also wrote a book of infographics about Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Oh, and you might like to read my own interview with Bonnie Langford for DWM in 2014.

Technology news for Infotec

 

Since April, I've been working as a journalist for technology news site Infotec.news, focused on the public sector and local government. Here are some interviews I've conducted recently:

HUG by LAUGH — the science of teddy bears for people living with dementia
A simple idea to help people living with dementia is backed by sophisticated research and technology. We spoke to managing director Dr Jac Fennell and research director Professor Cathy Treadaway at HUG by LAUGH about compassionate design and the health benefits of a good hug…

Niall Adams from cemetery and crematorium software company PlotBox
PlotBox software streamlines cemetery and crematorium management so that bereavement services can devote more time to the families who need it most. Solutions Consultant Niall Adams explains how technology can take some of the pain out of death.

Jo Lovell Director of Inclusive Communities at Cwmpas on tackling digital exclusion in Wales
It’s estimated that 180,000 people aged 16 and over in Wales, some 7% of the country, are digitally excluded. Jo Lovell at Cwmpas tells Infotec how that’s being addressed…

Rachel Van Riel and Ask For A Book
Libraries across the UK are currently piloting a new service where readers get personal book recommendations. Some ingenious, user-focused tech makes this practical for time-limited library staff. But it also depends on expert human curation, drawing on decades of experience in how people choose what to read.

AR app ‘Dorothy’ helps people living with dementia
Dr Samir Shah and Ben Williams are from the team behind the innovative, intuitive ‘Dorothy’ app that is already transforming lives, enabling those living with dementia to be more independent and supporting those who care for them.

Chris Mewse from Parish Online
Almost 3,000 town, parish and community councils now subscribe to Parish Online’s mapping technology service. It’s one of a number of initiatives from Basingstoke-based company Geoxphere. I spoke to managing director and co-owner Chris Mewse about how spatial mapping saves local councils time and money. 

Finish Big interview

Last week, I was grilled by Mark and Joe from Finish Big about a whole bunch of audio plays I've worked on for production company Big Finish - the adventures of Bernice Summerfield, the sci-fi series I created Graceless and my work on the Doctor Who Companion Chronicles. 

Now you can watch a confused old man trying to remember things and articulate some kind of cogent thought.

David Whitaker book launch - 9 November

Hooray! We'll be launching my new book David Whitaker in an Exciting Adventure with Television at the Portico Library in Manchester on the evening of 9 November 2023.

• Book tickets from Eventbrite for the launch of David Whitaker in an Exciting Adventure with Television

Full blurb as follows:

To celebrate 60 years of Doctor Who, discover the extraordinary, little-known life of one of its chief architects: David Whitaker. As the show’s first story editor, he helped to establish the compelling blend of adventure, imagination and quirky humour that made — and continues to make — Doctor Who a hit. David commissioned the first Dalek story, and fought for it to be made when his bosses didn’t like it. Regeneration, the TARDIS being alive, the idea of Doctor Who expanding to become a multimedia phenomenon in comics, books and films… David Whitaker was all over it. 

Yet very little was known about this key figure in Doctor Who history — until now. Why did he fall out with Irving Berlin? Was he really engaged to Yootha Joyce? And how did an assignment to Moscow badly affect his career? Simon Guerrier, author of a new biography of David Whitaker, will be interviewed by Carol Ann Whitehead.  Books will be on sale.

Biographies:

Simon Guerrier has written countless Doctor Who books, comics and audio plays. He’s also the author of Sherlock Holmes — The Great War and had produced a number of documentaries for BBC Radio 3 and Radio 4. 

Carol Ann Whitehead is a trustee of the Portico Library, Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts; Deputy Chair of the Chartered Management Institute Women’s Board; and a Chartered Companion. She heads the Zebra Partnership, a boutique publishing, events and campaigns agency. 

Ten Acre Films publishes a range of high-quality books on the history of TV, including, most recently, Biddy Baxter: The Woman Who Made Blue Peter and Pull to Open – 1962-1963: The Inside Story of How the BBC Created and Launched Doctor Who.

Doctor Who Magazine #594

The new issue of Doctor Who Magazine is the last under the editorship of Marcus Hearn, who has been so supportive of my efforts over the years. In fact, his (and others') work in the 1990s uncovering the early days of Doctor Who was a big influence on lots of what I do now, and Marcus has been really supportive of my various deep dives into obscure and leftfield bits of history. He commissioned a piece I pitched about Solzhenitsyn and The Ambassadors of Death, and another on the significance of The Face of Evil being the only Doctor Who story to mention 'eugenics' in dialogue (at least it was when I wrote the feature).

This new issue features the latest instalments of two regular features devised by Marcus and written by me. In All Decs on Hand (my best headline in an age), I interview assistant set decorate Verity Scott and set decorator's assistant Lois Drage. In Sufficient Data, Roger Langridge illustrates my take on the last of the reader's poll winners - this time, the winning stories of the Twelfth and Thirteenth Doctors respectively.

These features will continue under the new editor and we've also been discussing some new things. More of that to come...

By coincidence, I got home to find this new DWM waiting for me after a long drive, in which me and the children were entertained by David Tennant's reading of How to Train Your Dragon (2003) by Cressida Cowell, which was different enough from the films to keep my guessing and is full of fun twists and adventure. It's also fun to hear Tennant's skills as a storytelling with multiple characters and accents, and I quietly thrilled to him referring several times to the 'The Green Death'. But what really struck me - and Lady Vader - is the absence of female characters. A book about young Vikings from another age.

The Sandbaggers: Think of a Number, by Donald Lancaster

I've long been on the look-out for this original novel based on the ITV spy series The Sandbaggers (1978-80). A chum lent it to me last week and I've whizzed through the 125 pages. It's a pacey, gripping shocker, all gruff men being cross about their nasty, dirty world.

The plot involves a phone call from Switzerland, a Russian agent called Lekarev asking for help from SIS director of operations Neil Burnside, the central character of the TV series and a man usually behind his desk in Whitehall. Against his own better judgment, Burnside is sent out to Switzerland to meet this Russian agent who may want to defect - but who may be up to something else entirely.

It becomes clear that Lekarev is a very senior Russian agent, one of the so-called 'Numbers'. In fact, he's number 50, with responsibility for infiltrating the British Government. He knows which members of the Cabinet are actually Russian agents. Rather than allow this to come out, the Russians want him dead - and so do the British. And since Lekarev might say something to Burnside, orders are issued to kill Burnside, too. His own underling, Willie Caine, is dispatched to do the job.

But what is really motivating Lekarev and who are the third party, prepared to shoot people in broad daylight?

Over the years, I've read various reports of this novel, variously critiquing its logic or how much it matches the TV series. I think Donald Lancaster - a pseudonym for thriller writer William Marshall - has done pretty well matching the grim mood but in a location beyond the modest budget of the show. (This was my brief when I wrote a tie-in novel for Primeval.)

By sending Burnside out on a mission, Lancaster ups the stakes with the effect that this feels a bit like a series finale. Right to the end, I couldn't see how Burnside could possibly get out of his predicament - or Lancaster save him without cheating. But the solution is ingenious and I just about buy it.

What's harder to buy is the idea of a Cabinet full of Russian agents who in turn dictate the orders given to SIS. The TV show made an asset of keeping things mundane and drab and boring, tension conveyed by people anxiously waiting for telephones to ring. Think of a Number is much more in Bond territory with this high-level conspiracy. And then it does little with it: we're meant to believe that, while not part of the conspiracy, Burnside's superiors go along with their orders and the imposed death sentence. It's trying too hard; it's too daft.

Doctor Who Magazine #593

The new issue of Doctor Who Magazine boasts three new things from me.

First, in 'Snakes Alive!' (pp. 22- 25), I spoke to writer-director Pete McTighe and actors Janet Fielding and Sarah Sutton about making The Passenger, the mini-episode of Doctor Who released on YouTube just last week to promote the forthcoming Blu-ray set of the 1983 series.

Then, in 'Texting at Work' (pp. 38-39), I spoke to Sophie Cowdrey and Aled Griffiths, graphics assistants on the forthcoming new series of Doctor Who. (I previously spoke to Sophie for DWM's 2020 Yearbook and worked with her on The Women Who Lived in 2018.)

Finally, 'Sufficient Data' (p. 82) is another infographic by Roger Langridge and me, this time devoted to what readers voted as the best of the Tenth and Eleventh Doctors' best stories.

There's also a plug for Whotopia: The Ultimate Guide to the Whoniverse, the great big volume published by BBC Books in November, written by Jonathan Morris with assistance from Una McCormack and me. It's one of five books I've got out later this year, which is why I'm a bit quiet on this blog at the moment.

But I'm speaking as part of the 60 Years of Doctor Who extravaganza at this weekend's Blue Dot festival this Sunday. Eep. 

Box Tunnel Survivors' Group #20

I've been interviewed about my 2010 Being Human novel The Road by Michael from the Box Tunnel Survivors' Group podcast. 

• Box Tunnel Survivors Group on Podbean
• Box Tunnel Survivors Group on Spotify
• Box Tunnel Survivors Group on Amazon Music

That book was the result of me posting here in January 2009 after seeing a preview of the first full episode of Being Human at a BFI screening, and being fascinated by the changes made to the format since the broadcast pilot. The link I tweeted to this post was spotted by Steve Tribe at BBC Books just as plans were afoot to do novels. I didn't know any of that until two months later when Steve got in touch.

On 5 May 2009, we met with series creator Toby Whithouse and producer Rob Pursey, who gave us lots of helpful guidance, including the thing they thought worked really well for Being Human. Each episode, they said, should focus on a new character who comes into the orbit of the housemates. That became the hook for the ideas me, James Goss and Mark Michalowski pitched over the next few weeks.

Then, on 19 August, James and I were in Bristol for a set visit, and lurked in one corner of the hospital ward while Mitchell (Aiden Turner) presented Lucy (Lindsay Marshall) with a fish. Wr got to poke around the housemates' house (both the real location in Totterdown and the interior sets inside a huge warehouse). That trip was ably managed by Derek Ritchie, who went on to be a producer on Doctor Who. 

How exciting it was, working with James and Mark on those novels, threading plot elements between us, kept in line by Steve Tribe and editorial colossus Nicholas Payne.

I'd forgotten until Michael reminded me on the podcast that I went to the preview screening for the first episode of season 2 of Being Human, at the Curzon cinema in Mayfair. That was a wild night, the place packed with excited fans. A couple of weeks later Steve Tribe was back in touch about the possibility of new Being Human audio books. It never happened, sadly, but I found the three ideas I sent in, one for each of the regular cast:

• Mitchell: Higher Powers — an old friend of Mitchell’s turns up and thinks his friends a bad influence
• George: The Cure — George helps a couple of elderly Russian immigrants, one of whom has been attacked by a werewolf. It turns out they are monster hunters.
• Annie: Guardian Angel — Annie tries to help a ‘friend’ who always made life difficult when Annie was alive.

Pedro (? - 2023)

Pedro, by Nimbos

This morning, we took turns to say goodbye to Pedro, our grumpy, once-chonky cat, before the Dr escorted him away on one last trip to the vet. 

A few weeks ago we thought he'd been knackered out by the hot weather; he wasn't unhappy, just listless. When the rain and chill hit, he didn't recover his energy. Then he was losing weight. I took him to the vet last week already expecting the worst. They found him full of cancer and he went downhill quickly. We'd booked him in for a final trip to the vet later this week and this morning had to bring that forward. He didn't even need the injection - in one last, typical act of defiance, he died as they were preparing it.

Oh, that cat.

Why 'Pedro'? I've been asked this a lot over the past five years. The rescue home where we found him in the summer of 2018 had a simple labelling system; each new cat they received was given a name beginning with the next letter in the alphabet. When this scrawny character arrived at their door, they'd just had a cat given a name beginning with 'O', so next in sequence was 'P'. They already had a 'Pete', hence 'Pedro'. The home assumed we'd come up with something more suitable soon enough but seven year-old Lord of Chaos was horrified by the idea we would dare to change his name.

It was a good name for quite a character.

The first time I took Pedro to the vet, sometime soon after we adopted him, he managed to make his feelings known by spraying piss through the slots of his carrying case, soaking me in the process. He then reached out a claw and caught my arm, so I arrived at the vet covered in piss and blood.

This delighted the vet, not least because Pedro had clearly got it all out of his system. So she picked him up and made soothing noises, and he pissed all over her.

Blimey, he could sulk. Rain and snow were obviously our fault. Woe betide anyone who sat in his chair (it's my chair, where I do most of my work). Or obstructed his comfy seat on the back of another sofa, where he could half slump on top of the radiator. Or if there was anything in the way of where he liked to laze beneath the front window. He declined to use a cat flap; you'd be summoned to open the door.

His grumpiness was matched by his greed. Pedro's dinner time was 5.15 each night, so from about 2 he'd trot after you hopefully, his forlorn wail of a not-meow more fitting a cat one-third his size. But Pedro was a survivor, having lived for some time on the mean streets of Streatham before we found him at a rescue home. You could see those survival skills in his scavenging and thieving, and the way he'd go crazy at the barest sniff of a plastic box full of chow mein.

Or duck. Or tuna. Or roast dinner. Or cheap sliced ham. 

Pedro was also affectionate - and not just when we were eating. Until recently, he liked nothing better than to sleep at the end of our bed, on the Dr's feet. If it was cold, he would move gradually up the bed, sometimes reaching the pillow. When the children were away - at school or overnight somewhere - he'd often curl up in their beds. If I was watching some hokey sci-fi late at night, he'd cuddle up, particularly enamoured of the twirling coloured lights in a star field or space battle. He weathered, usually with patience, a lot of cat squeezing and love.

What a lot of love we doted on that cat.

Doctor Who Magazine #592

The new issue of Doctor Who Magazine is out today. In "Quick Draw", I spoke to storyboard artist John Erasmus about his working relationship with director Mark Tonderai. John produced storyboards for the Doctor Who episodes directed by Mark - The Ghost Monument and Rosa in 2018, and the forthcoming festive episode.

In just 800 words, there wasn't space to include all the fun stuff John has worked on, though we did talk about Wednesday and Foundation (which I love), and the Amazonas Comics project John set up with Yousaf Ali Khan to connect communities in the Amazon rainforest with to schools in the UK.

The new DWM also features another "Sufficient Data" infographic. With my long-time collaborator Ben Morris taking some take away, this one has been illustrated by Roger Langridge - the first time we've worked together, though I've admired his stuff for years.

Pieces of Eighth - Letting Go

In February, Kenny Smith interviewed me about my Doctor Who short story 'Letting Go', and you can now listen to that chat on the latest episode of the Pieces of Eighth podcast.

• Doctor Who - Pieces of Eighth: 'Letting Go' on Spotify
• Doctor Who - Pieces of Eighth: 'Letting Go' on Apple podcasts

'Letting Go' written by Simon Guerrier and read by India Fisher, is included on Doctor Who: Short Trips Volume 02, released in February 2011.

Blurb: "Charley learns a lot about the Doctor when she visits the family of a dead hero."

See also:

• Short Trips recollections - on the Doctor Who short stories I wrote
• Some notes on writing Doctor Who short stories

The Daily Doctor

Details have been announced for the book I've written with Peter Anghelides, Doctor Who: The Daily Doctor, to be published in August. Blurb as follows:

The Daily Doctor is a page-a-day guide to living your best Time Lord life. As days turn to weeks turn to months, stay serene with your daily dose of the inspirational plans, pronouncements and principles that bring order this crazy and chaotic universe.

From what it means to be human, when it's best to run and the best approach to filling your pockets, this book contains nothing less than the tao of Doctor Who - 365¼ hot tips on life and how to live it!

Publisher: Ebury Publishing 

ISBN: 9781785947988 

Number of pages: 464 

Weight: 500 g 

Dimensions: 222 x 138 x 40 mm

Whotopia

BBC Books has announced Whotopia - The Ultimate Guide to the Whoniverse will be published on 16 November. It's written by Jonathan Morris with assistance from Una McCormack and me.

Blurb as follows:

Published to coincide with three feature-length anniversary specials, the ultimate official celebration of 60 years of Doctor Who, featuring heroes, monsters, spaceships, planets and more... all as you've never seen before. Welcome to the Whoniverse. First stop- everywhere. 

Six decades may only be a handful of heartbeats to a Time Lord, but for Doctor Who it's the adventure of several lifetimes. Evolving over 60 years, the world's longest-running sci-fi TV show has gifted us a universe of menacing monsters and unforgettable heroes. You might even call it a 'Whotopia'. 

Now you can roam free through the Doctor's dimension as never before in this special commemorative book for Doctor Who's diamond anniversary. Join all the Doctors as each tells their own story. Learn about their legions of legendary allies - and hear from the monsters' own mouths about what makes them tick. Find danger on alien worlds and threats here on Earth in all eras. And explore the gadgets, robots, spaceships, computers and mind-blowing creations that crowd the never-ending corridors of Whotopia. 

Crammed with exciting new images and in full colour throughout, Whotopia- The Ultimate Guide to the Whoniverse is the essential celebration of 60 years of Doctor Who.

Publisher: Ebury Publishing 

ISBN: 9781785948299 

Number of pages: 324 

Weight: 750 g 

Dimensions: 293 x 219 x 40 mm

Doctor Who and the Ark

The Ark is now out from Big Finish. I produced this full-cast audio story starring Tom Baker and Terry Molloy. It's adapted by clever Jonathan Morris from the script by John Lucarotti - this is the original version of what became TV classic The Ark in Space.

It's a thrilling and weird adventure, especially fascinating because it adds so much insight into the creative process of that much-loved TV story. There's a particularly brilliant cliffhanger but also the character of the Doctor is like nothing we've ever seen - a kindly old man who quietly slips in to fix problems, a sort of janitor of time and space. Reading the script, I kept thinking of Mr Richardson, the gently humoured caretaker at my primary school a thousand years ago.

What a thrill to work with my childhood hero Tom Baker and to hear his own thoughts on the script and how he should play this so-very-different Doctor. What a treat to work with Terry Molloy (my daughter, who overheard some of the remote recording, referred to him as 'Scary Dude'). What a brilliant cast and crew. I'm especially grateful to director Samuel Clements, sound designer Mark Henrick and composer / exec producer Nicholas Briggs. Amazing cover artist Ryan Aplin has shared clean artwork and his process.

I've now handed on the reins of Doctor Who - The Lost Stories to another producer to be announced in due course. 

Doctor Who Magazine #591

I've a couple of things in the new issue of Doctor Who Magazine out today.

In "Location, Location, Location", assistant location manager Alex Moore tells me all about his job on the new series - which isn't all bins and car parks.

(I've been chatting to Alex anyway as his excellent article on the late director Frank Cox, published in the new issue of TARDIS (vol 7 no 5), has been very useful for my forthcoming book on The Edge of Destruction.)

I've also written the "Sufficient Data" infographic illustrated by Ben Morris looking at the winners of the readers' poll into best Fifth and Sixth Doctor stories.

And the back cover is a big ad for Daleks! Genesis of Terror which is out today. Rob Ritchie has produced the most amazing video trailer.

Trouble with Lichen, by John Wyndham

There's a masterpiece in blurbage on the back of this Penguin edition:

"It was Diana Brackley who put the milk out for the cat; who dropped a speck of lichen in it by mistake; who noticed how the lichen stopped the milk turning.

But it was Francis Saxover, the famous biochemist, who carried on from there; who developed Antigerone, the cure for ageing; who then tried to suppress a discovery which was certainly in the megaton range.

And so it was Diana Brackley who went to town with Antigerone in one of John Wyndham's gayest and most satirical forays into the fantastic.

'If even a tenth of science fiction were as good, we should be in clover' - Kingsley Amis in the Observer"

It's a remarkable feat, a big science-fiction idea about the way science can affect social change, drawing, I think from the impact of penicillin and of the Suffragette movement, and all conveyed here as light romcom. Brian Aldiss famously criticised Wyndham for writing "cosy catastrophe", but this is all-out fun. 

Antigerone slows the biological process, so those who take it do not age. The trouble of the title is that there's only enough of the lichen to make this wonder drug for at most 4,000 people. The result is lots of debate on the ethics of announcing the discovery, let alone deciding who might share its benefits. 

Diana is a brilliant character, a young, determined woman with a habit of shocking people by saying the wrong thing - or rather what she thinks. At eighteen, she's asked by a schoolteacher whether her parents are proud of her academic success. Diana responds immediately that her "Daddy's very pleased", but can't say the same for her mother.

"'She tries. She's really been awfully sweet about it,' said Diana. She fixed Miss Benbow with those eyes again. 'Why is that mothers still think it so much more respectable to be bedworthy than brainy?' she inquired. 'I mean, you'd expect it to be the other way round.'

Miss Benbow replies, carefully, that "comprehensible" might be a better word that "respectable", and suggests the possibility that, "when the daughter of a domestic-minded woman chooses to have a career she is criticising her mother by implication".

"'I hadn't looked at it that way before,' Diana admitted thoughtfully. 'You mean that, underneath, they are always hoping that their daughters will fail in their careers, and so prove that they, the mothers, I mean, were right all the time?'" (pp. 12-13)

Diana soon has a career as a brilliant scientist who also likes to look good, and sees no contradiction in using the cutting-edge science she's developed as a beauty treatment for other women. In fact, she sees how the cosmetic aspects of the new discovery can advance the feminist cause. It's not exactly what you expect from a male sci-fi writer of this vintage.

Several of the traits Diana exhibits align with what we'd now think of as autistic and it's refreshing to read a decades-old book that celebrates such diversity. They make her a better character and better person. Sadly, Saxover is less engaging and there's little to explain Diana's long-lasting attraction. His attitude to other women doesn't exactly do him any favours - over pages 25 and 26, he lists the young women who have caused chaos at his laboratory by falling for the men, the women the ones at fault.

Other things are discomforting from a modern perspective. There's a racist joke on page 196 and a general ease with the idea that resources in China should be for the exclusive use of people in the UK. This may be part of the satire. As the situation gets ever more serious, with moral quandaries leading to kidnap and murder, the lightly comic love story gets a little tangled.

"There could have been bloodshed even something like a civil war,"

says one character on page 200, justifying a rash course of action. But there has been bloodshed: this speech comes just 18 pages after an old watchman, Mr Timpson, is killed by the blow from a cosh, a man called Austin is hospitalised and Saxover barely survives a planned arson attack on his home.

I think that mismatch is down to the effort to bridge different forms: science-fiction with the satirical, fantasy on the cusp of what's credible. It's a balancing act, and one that doesn't wholly work in this instance, but it's fascinating to see tried in this way. In fact, that balance is what Wyndham talked about in a 1960 interview for the BBC magazine programme Tonight at the time of publication. How boggling to see him justify this approach and discuss the mechanics of genre on the equivalent of The One Show. 

I Used to Live Here Once, by Miranda Seymour

I've been out and about this week - to the Novel Experiences Doctor Who convention on Saturday, and then to go look at some old documents relating to David Whitaker on Monday - and have done so in the company of Diana Quick reading this new biography of Jean Rhys (1890-1979).

The title instantly won my attention: it's taken from the brilliant, unsettling short story by Rhys which has long haunted my imagination. I suspect the biography will linger, too. It's a richly detailed, very human portrait of a spiky, funny, troubled life and achieves a remarkable thing. In the final chapter, "The Old Punk Upstairs (1977-79)", an elderly Rhys is living in an upstairs room at the home of Diana and George Melly, who had it decorated on her behalf.

She was demanding to begin with, but things steadily got worse.

"The change in Rhys at this point was absolute and devastating. Her loving hosts had become the enemy. Everything they did was wrong. Nicknaming her 'Johnny Rotten' - after the punk prince of bad behaviour - was George's way of trying to dispel a darkness in which no glimmer of light appeared. All their good times had been blotted out. Rhys ranted to everybody who dared to come near her that she was a helpless victim, deserted for weeks on end by a woman who - the unkindest cut of all - produced hideous clothes which her imprisoned guest was then compelled to buy. Even now, Diana was trying to prevent her from going home. Of course, George wrote in his ruefully honest account of the debacle, the converse was true: 'Di could hardly wait.'" (p. 358, citing Melly's "The Old Punk Upstairs", Independent on Sunday, 28 October 1990.)

Throughout her life, Rhys could be rude, aggressive and violent. Yet Seymour makes us sympathetic to Rhys and to those who suffered her "crack-ups".

Of course, that Rhys spent much of her last years feeling trapped in an upstairs room is ironic given her best-known work, Wide Sargasso Sea (1966), which (along with Jane Eyre, to which it is a prequel) was one of my A-level English set texts. What will especially linger, I think, is the decades in which Rhys's novel was in gestation, and the role of actress Selma Vaz Dias (1911-77) in reviving Rhys's literary career then seeking to control it. The novel was published when Rhys was in her 70s, the work of a lifetime given the many parallels to her own life which Seymour neatly draws out. No drafts survive, and yet Seymour teases out the development, the competing influences, the story of the book.

There's something, too, in Rhys' various names. She was born Ella Gwendolyn Rees Williams, but took on a number of aliases, as a novelist, a wife and, at the end, a patient - George Melly noted that her hospital bed was labelled "Joan". All these different characters, all these different lives, all inside one person.

Daleks! Genesis of Terror

The terrific trailer for Daleks! Genesis of Terror is out now.

• Listen to the trailer for Daleks! Genesis of Terror
• Download the trailer for Daleks! Genesis of Terror

The new CD and download release is something very special - though I suppose I would say that, as producer. It features Tom Baker and a full cast performing Terry Nation's original draft of the first episode of Genesis of the Daleks, once voted the best Doctor Who story of all time by readers of Doctor Who Magazine.

I've found it fascinating to work on and hope you'll enjoy it when it's out later this month.

• Buy Daleks! Genesis of Terror from Big Finish

Blurb as follows...

In a paved garden outside time, the Doctor is presented with an awful prophecy: the conquest of all time by the Daleks. To prevent this terrible fate, the Time Lords have decided on a radical course — to weaponise time themselves, and destroy the Daleks before they were ever created. And they want the Doctor to carry out this extraordinary task!

Soon, he and his companions Sarah and Harry are on the battle-ravaged planet Skaro, where a war has been raging for centuries. The war is now waged by teenagers using the last surviving weapons. Everything is desperate. But the Kaled’s chief scientist has a new weapon that he thinks might just change everything…

Disc 1:

Full cast version of Terry Nation's first draft of episode one of Genesis of the Daleks, with Nicholas Briggs providing the stage directions, plus readings by individual cast members of the storylines for the other episodes.

Disc 2:

BBC broadcaster and journalist Samira Ahmed interviews Philip Hinchcliffe.

Cast:

• Tom Baker (The Doctor)
• Sadie Miller (Sarah Jane Smith)
• Christopher Naylor (Harry Sullivan)
• Peter Bankolé (Time Lord / General Grainer)
• Samuel Clemens (Nyder)
• Alasdair Hankinson (Ravon / Kaled Leader)
• Terry Molloy (Davros)
• James Phoon (Kaled Boy / Operator)

Crew:

• Narrated by Nicholas Briggs
• Featured Guests: Philip Hinchcliffe and Samira Ahmed
• Senior Producer: John Ainsworth
• Additional dialogue by Simon Guerrier
• Theme arranged by David Darlington
• Cover Art by Ryan Aplin
• Director: Samuel Clemens
• Executive Producers Jason Haigh-Ellery and Nicholas Briggs
• Music by Nicholas Briggs
• Producer: Simon Guerrier
• Sound Design by Jaspreet Singh
• Written by Terry Nation

Flesh and Blood, by Stephen McGann

Yesterday, I think I signed off on one of the five books I've been working on simultaneously. Work continues on the others - next week, I hope to go dig through a box of paperwork about David Whitaker that has newly come to light, in the hope I can weave it into the biography I'm well into writing up.

All this activity has meant little time for reading other than checking quotations and references. But last night I finished Flesh and Blood - A History of My Family in Seven Sicknesses by the actor Stephen McGann. He's been tracing his family history since his teens, and follows a line from the the Irish potato famine to the slums of Liverpool and then on to the present day. The Irish history is material he's already mined in the drama he produced and starred in with his three brothers, The Hanging Gale (1995), while it's easy to see how his wife Heidi Thomas has also drawn from personal experience in the series she still oversees, Call the Midwife (2012- ).

Of course, McGann plays kindly, compassionate Dr Patrick Turner in that, which means I heard a lot of the medical explanations in the book in that same warm, reassuring voice. The seven sicknesses - hunger, pestilence, exposure, trauma, breathlessness, heart problems and necrosis - are explained and contextualised in a straightforward, readily comprehensible style.

What really brings the book to life is the specific, human stories - many of which are astonishing. Stephen's great uncle, James McGann, was a fireman on the Titanic, survived the sinking and gave evidence at the enquiry that followed. As a result, his own voice is preserved in the Yorkshire Post of 23 April 1912, an eye witness to the last moments of Captain Smith.

Stephen himself witnessed the disaster at Hillsborough on 15 April 1989 - he was in attendance at the football match, along with his brother Paul. As well as his testimony of what he saw that day, I'm struck by what happened afterwards. It took hours before fans were permitted to leave the ground. And then:

"As Paul and I walked down a Sheffield backstreet, dazed by tragedy and wearing our scarves tight against the evening chill, we suddenly heard a shouted profanity above us, directed against supporters of Liverpool. Pieces of paving stone were thrown from a high balcony in our direction. Shocked out of our daze, we ran for cover." (p. 76)

There's personal tragedy, too, and lots on the mechanics and infighting when you're one of five children - which I found very easy to relate to. There's also McGann's fascination with historical documents, and the sense that going through old papers suddenly gives of your own contribution to history through the papers that bear your name. But what I especially like is how different this is from most biographies and autobiographies.

McGann tells his own and his family's history, but it's actually a history of all of us. How we live. How we sicken and die. What legacy we leave behind us.