Hamster Book Club podcast interview

The Hamster Book Club podcast, devoted to Doctor Who books, has posted a big long interview with me, covering my books The Time Travellers, The Pirate Loop and the short-story anthologies I edited for Big Finish. 

We also cover my non-fiction work including Bernice Summerfield - The Inside Story, and biographies David Whitaker in an Exciting Adventure with Television and the forthcoming Written by Terrance Dicks.

Doctor Who Magazine #626

The new issue of Doctor Who Magazine is out now. I've a couple of pieces in it.

pp. 12-15 "I name you, Sea Devils"

Palaeontologist Dr Dave Hone, who was scientific advisor on The War Between the Land and the Sea, tells me how he came up with Latin names for three distinct classes of Sea-Silurian. 

(I previously interviewed Dave about what he thought of Invasion of the Dinosaurs for The Essential Doctor Who: Invasions of Earth (2016).)

pp. 32-37 "Doctor Where [2025]"

Exactly where and when do the Doctor's adventures take place? I look for clues we can use to set the TARDIS co-ordinates...

Steering the Craft, by Ursula le Guin

Dr Una McCormack recommended me this brilliant book on the craft of writing. The title is a pun, the idea being that a piece of writing — a story, a novel, a work of non-fiction — is like a boat on the water, making for a destination. What can be done to guide it?

Other guides to writing, such as Screenplay by Syd Field, approach this kind of thing like we’re building a house. You work out the frame of your story, put up the scaffolding and then fill in the gaps. 

The danger of that, I think, is that it often becomes a kind of prescribed blueprint, the way screenplays must be constructed. You end up with vast estates of near-identical houses, all achingly by-the-numbers. Sometimes, I watch the first few minutes of a movie, or even the trailer, and know exactly how the thing will play out. 

Le Guin is on to this:

“Plot is so much discussed in literature and writing courses, and action is so highly valued, that I want to put in a counterweight opinion. A story that has nothing but action and plot is a pretty poor affair; and some great stories have neither. To my mind, plot is merely one way of telling a story, by connecting the happenings tightly, usually through causal chains. Plot is a marvellous device.

But it’s not superior to story, and not even necessary to it. As for action, indeed a story must move, something must happen: but the action can be nothing more than a letter sent that doesn’t arrive, a thought unspoken, the passage of a summer day. Unceasing violent action is usually a sign that in fact no story is being told.” (p. 83)

She comes at things from the opposite direction. Rather than start with the structure then fill in the gaps, her focus is on what you put in each sentence. Start with ensuring you have the right tools and know how to use them. To switch analogies, the effect of the book is like sharpening one’s knives before starting to cook.

The chapters cover the sound of your writing spoken aloud, punctuation and grammar, sentence length, the use of repetition, adjectives and adverbs, using verbs to express person and tense, point of view, indirect narration and what she calls “crowding and leaping” — when to provide lots of detail and where to skip through it. 

Each chapter contains examples, either from works of classic (ie out-of-copyright) literature or stuff specially written by le Guin. This stuff is illuminating and fun. 

For example, le Guin quotes the opening paragraphs of the first three chapters of Bleak House by Charles Dickens (1852). The first two are in what she calls the “involved authorial voice” — she objects to the term “omniscient” narrator as judgmental (p. 57) — and then it switches to first person, past tense, from the POV of Esther Summerson. Le Guin comments afterwards:

“Bleak House is a powerful novel, and some of its dramatic power may come from this highly artificial alternation and contrast of voices. But the transition from Dickens to Esther is always a jolt. And the twenty-year-old girl sometimes begins to sound awfully like the middle-aged novelist, which is implausible (though rather a relief, because Esther is given to tiresome fits of self-depreciation, and Dickens isn’t). Dickens was well aware of the dangers of his narrative strategy; the narrating author never overlaps with the observer-narrator, never enters Esther’s mind, never even sees her. The two narratives remain separate. The plot unites them but they never touch. It is an odd device.” (p. 75)

This stuff about different kinds of narrator has been really useful in clarifying my thoughts about what Terrance Dicks was doing as he novelised Doctor Who stories. Le Guin details several different kinds of narrator, with the same scene related in each different mode so we can see the effect. She differentiates between first person, limited third person (ie in the head of one character), involved author, detached author, and observer-narrator (both first and third person).

For example:

“Detached Author (‘Fly on the Wall’, ‘Camera Eye’, Objective Narrator’)

There is no viewpoint character. The narrator is not one of the characters and can say of the characters only what a totally neutral observer (an intelligent fly on the wall) might infer of them from behaviour and speech. The author never enters a character’s mind. People and places may be exactly described, but values and judgements can only be implied indirectly. A popular voice around 1900 and in ‘minimalist’ and ‘brand-name’ fiction, it is the least overtly, most covertly manipulative of the points of view.” (pp. 58-59).

I can see why this mode would suit “brand-name” fiction. If you’re writing a novelisation of a TV show or film, the source takes that point of view anyway — because the viewer is effectively the fly on the wall, and all pertinent information must be relayed by what we see or characters say. Even if you write an original Doctor Who novel — or Star Trek or Star Wars — you’re still often in that mode. Make it read like something we’re watching, and it will feel more authentic.

If you want a novel to feel more novelistic, you do something else. In the very first Doctor Who novelisation, Doctor Who in an Exciting Adventure with the Daleks (1964), writer David Whitaker used first person, relaying events originally seen on screen through the perspective of one of the lead characters. On screen, a lot of the mood is created by visual design, effects and music. On the page, the tone is set by a narrator sharing his feelings.

In 1990, when editor Peter Darvill Evans established a range of original Doctor Who novels aimed at adult readers, he wanted “stories too broad and deep for the small screen” — a claim printed on the backs of the books. One way he achieved this richness was to insist that books were written from multiple points of view, strictly marshalled.

As per the guidelines sent out to prospective authors, each distinct section of a chapter was to be told in limited third person, the events as seen and understood by one character. If the writer wanted to change perspective, they needed to start a new section. They were also not to relay information from the perspective of the Doctor, so that he’d remain alien and mysterious.

I’ve seen some correspondence from editor Peter Darvill-Evans to Terrance Dicks, insisting on this approach for the novel that became Timewyrm: Exodus (1991). After 64 novelisations of TV Doctor Who stories, Terrance had developed a very different method for writing Doctor Who — but not as detached author.

He’ll tell us, for example, that the Doctor brooding at the start of Doctor Who and the Pyramids of Mars (1976) is not his usual, cheery disposition. That’s not the Doctor’s point of view, or that of companion Sarah; it is Terrance as author. He tells us where Sarah picked up her knowledge of ancient Egypt, or what the letters in TARDIS stand for. He’s an involved author, putting out sign-posts to guide the reader.

Within the same section, Terrance might change POV or jump in space and time, but it’s never confusing — we know exactly where we are. Le Guin gives an example of another writer doing the same thing. In To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf (1927), we move back and forth between the perspectives of Mrs Ramsay and her husband. Le Guins provides a long example, then says:

“Notice how Woolf makes the transitions effortlessly but perfectly clearly. … The paragraph indent is the signal for the switch back to Mrs Ramsay. What are the next switches and how are they signalled?” (p. 80)

That’s not to suggest that Terrance Dicks was consciously following the example of Virginia Woolf; it’s just that she, via le Guin, opened up for me what he was doing. Note also that le Guin doesn’t simply tell us what’s being done. She prompts us to read the example again and puzzle out its workings for ourselves.

Each chapter includes writing exercises aimed at writing groups of at least six people to prompt discussion and reflection. The point is not to prescribe a method of writing but to suggest things to think about and try.

In that sense, this book reminded me of “Politics and the English language”, the essay by George Orwell about conveying meaning in a plain style to maximise the chances of being understood, which I found so useful when I worked in the press office of a government department, and which I think still influences a lot of what I write. Orwell lays out a series of rules, then tells us to break them if needed.

In the same way, Steering the Craft is a practical and pragmatic guide for writers, and has really helped me this week on something I’m writing as yet unannounced. It meant a switch of perspective, too. Oh, I realised, as the problem I’d been wrestling with suddenly resolved, I’m the one being steered.

See also:

• Me on The Wizard of Earthsea, The Tombs of Atuan and The Farthest Shore by Ursula le Guin

DWM The Yearbook 2026

The latest Doctor Who Magazine special edition is out today, The Yearbook 2026. Among its wonders is something by me:

How You Watch Who (pp. 46-50)

Simulcasts on iPlayer and spoilers on social media have changed the way we watch and engage with Doctor Who - but how? Simon Guerrier investigates...

For this, I spoke to several different fans: 26 year-old Erica Tucker (watching since Rose in 2005); Sam Ripley, Luc Fawcett, Alfie Giffen and Charlie Gaskin from Warwick University's Who Soc; his great eminence Jeremy Bentham; and 9 year-old Olivia who has been watching since The Church on Ruby Road in 2023.

Jeremy boggled my mind by telling me that there are only four episodes of Doctor Who he's not seen - ones he missed on original transmission that are now among the 97 episodes currently missing from the archive. I list what those four are in the article. 

But since then I've spoken to someone who has seen every episode of Doctor Who. Yes, I am arranging for the preservation / scanning of their brain...

Box of Delights, by Richard Marson

I’ve greatly enjoyed this enormous, 540-page oral history of children’s television on the BBC between 1967 and 1997, published by Ten Acre Books (who also publish me).

A lot of the people and shows referenced here are very familiar; this is the TV output on which I grew up. It’s a thrill to find out what went on behind the scenes of Blue Peter, Newsround and Jackanory and dramas such as Grange Hill and The Box of Delights, not least when what we’re told is a bit salacious. The job tended to involve long hours and lots of chain-smoking for not much money. There was an enviable degree of creative freedom, but some extraordinary clashes of ego and personality, and occasional bust-ups. 

While much of it is about the practicalities of making television for a mass audience, it’s really the story of the people involved. Several of the many contributors are unguarded in what they say about former colleagues, particular shows and even the children who took part. We learn, for example, that one girl looked like a hippo on screen and that a particular group of children who appeared on The Really Wild Show smelled so strongly of cannabis that it confused a sniffer dog.

One constant theme, I think, is the sink-or-swim method of recruitment. The process of finding presenters and child actors often involved people already know to the producers: relatives, colleagues working in the office, people they happened to meet during filming (an example of the latter: Blue Peter presenter Simon Groom). Yes, there was some auditioning, too, but it all feels a bit haphazard, with a tendency to cast particular “types”. Once they’d got the job, some onscreen personalities were clearly not well supported, either. There was not much duty of care.

Some stories here are shocking, such as the claim that no women wanted to work with Rod Hull and Emu as he/they would assault them, or the account of one (former) child actor who almost drowned while filming. I had no idea that Blue Peter presenter Diane Louise Jordan faced so many challenges, in part because of things going on in her life off-screen. And there’s something a bit sacrilegious about some colleagues airing their dislike of Floella Benjamin (pp. 281-2).

A few things prompted me to look up further detail. For example, the book details the impact on the cast and crew of Record Breakers when presenter Ross McWhirter was murdered, but doesn’t tell us why the IRA targeted him. Reading up on McWhirter’s political views and associates only makes it more extraordinary that he and his twin brother Norris were fixtures of children’s TV.

Inevitably, I think, some of the later material here hit less hard as it concerns shows and personalities whose names I didn’t recognise, from a time long after I’d outgrown children’s TV and had not even a passing acquaintance with what was on. It’s all good material, just without the same emotive impact for this particular reader. I suspect different parts of the book will hit differently, depending on the reader’s age.

This isn’t meant as criticism; it’s just that this book has made me think about my own relationship with and response to all the culture spawned from the BBC’s East Tower. The book is just as rich and varied and nuts.

*

For my own purposes, researching the life and career of Terrance Dicks, it was interesting to see what the book says about The Bagthorpe Saga, a six-part dramatisation “completed … for transmission” by Christmas 1980 and broadcast between 25 March to 29 April 1981.

“The first two novels in Helen Creswell’s The Bagthorpe Saga — a humorous series about an eccentric and dysfunctional family living in the country — were adapted by James Andrew Hall. Andrew (as he was known) was a writer then very much in vogue. In the spring of 1979, he had generated a good deal of publicity with his controversial and autobiographical Play for Today, Coming Out [tx 10 April 1979], the angsty story of a homosexual writer and the various men in his life. He was also a regular contributor to the Sunday classic serials. ‘I enjoy writing for kids,’ he said. ‘I think it helps that I haven’t got any of my own. I’ve never really grown up in some respects. When I’m working on an adaptation, [it’s] with a mental note to be true to the other writer’s work, which is always difficult — don’t impose too much of yourself on it, which is not always easy. I just type everything out — tippy tap tip tip tip.” p. 236.

This is welcome detail as I’m currently a bit short on material related to James Andrew Hall; last summer, the BBC’s Written Archives Centre declined me permission to go through the files they hold on him. 

But I know he and Terrance enjoyed a successful collaboration over several years. Terrance inherited him (and Alexander Baron) on the Sunday classic serials. Hall had been working in television since the mid 1960s, while also publishing novels. But he’d only recently worked on the Sunday classic, dramatising The Mill on the Floss (1978-79) and The History of Mr Polly (1980), both produced by Barry Letts. He must have followed Bagthorpe with his 13-part dramatisation of Great Expectations, which began broadcast on 4 October 1981 and was the first of the classics script edited by Terrance. 

Hall went on to dramatise Dombey & Son (1983), The Invisible Man and The Prisoner of Zenda (both 1984) for Barry and Terrance. Then, when Terrance took over as producer, Hall dramatised Brat Farrar and David Copperfield (both 1986), as well as The Franchise Affair (1988). The latter was Terrance’s final production and the last Sunday classic serial produced by the drama department.

In some sense, he was victim of a coup. Two weeks after The Franchise Affair concluded, the same Sunday evening slot boasted the first episode of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. As Marson says in his book, this was the first Sunday serial made by the children’s department since 1962 (p. 410). I wonder how long the coup lasted. There were more Chronicles of Narnia in 1989 and 1990 but did children’s continue to make Sunday classics beyond that? I need to investigate…

While his regular gig on the Sunday classics came to an end, James Andrew Hall continued to work for the children’s department; Marson says his scripts for the dramatisation of Black Hearts in Battersea (1995-96) by Joan Aiken under-ran (p. 504).

Richard has been very helpful in answering my various questions about aspects of all of this; more to follow in my own book.

LokI: A Bad God's Guide 5, by Louie Stowell

The latest instalment in Louie Stowell's Loki series, A Bad God's Guide to Causing Chaos, is great fun, though the nine year-old Lady Vader was ahead of the game and told me what was going on before the big reveal.

As with the earlier books, tricky Norse god Loki has finally gone too far with his mischief and is sentenced to a terrible fate. He must live as an ordinary schoolboy in the present day, under the name Thomas. Worse, he must live as part of a family of other transformed gods, include his jock half-brother Thor. Loki details his exploits in a daily diary manifested by the all-father Odin, who offers wry commentary and scores Loki's efforts to be good.

In this instalment, the closest friends turn on one another and sworn enemies become best pals. There are some great gags, though perhaps there is less sense of existential peril than in previous books, where we're left wondering how Loki can possibly get out of the ever-mounting calamity. But it is also quite emotional, with a fair bit on the bonds between these characters we have now got to know so well.

The audiobook is narrated by Ben Willbond, ably bringing to life the varied cast.

Blake's 7 in the Telegraph

I've written a piece for the Telegraph about Blake's 7 (£), in response to yesterday's story in Deadline about a new reboot which is being led by directors Peter Hoar and Michael Bouch, and my friend / sometime boss Jason Haigh-Ellery from Big Finish.

The editor thought better of my original title, "We can dance again."

ETA, the piece was also published in the print version of the Daily Telegraph on 24 January under the title "My open letter to the makers of the new Blake's 7 reboot" (Review, pp. 8-9.

In 2008-09, I was partly involved in a previous effort to reboot Blake's 7, and wrote The Dust Run and The Trial, a two-part audio story that starred Carrie Dobro and Benedict Cumberbatch. 

Since then, I've written and script-edited a number of Blake's 7 audio plays for Big Finish, featuring cast members from the original TV series. Here is the full list:

• The Dust Run and The Trial (B7 Media, 2009), later broadcast on BBC Radio 4 Extra and released as part of A Rebellion Reborn (Big Finish, 2013)
• The Turing Test, featured in The Liberator Chronicles Volume 1 (Big Finish, 2012) 
• The Magnificent Four, featured in The Liberator Chronicles Volume 2 (Big Finish, 2012)
• Logic, featured in The Liberator Chronicles Volume 5 (Big Finish, 2013)
• Spy, featured in The Liberator Chronicles Volume 7 (Big Finish, 2014)
• President, featured in The Liberator Chronicles Volume 8 (Big Finish, 2014)
• Remnants (Big Finish, 2015)
• The Offer (as script editor), featured in The Terra Nostra (Big Finish, 2022)
• No Name, featured in Allies and Enemies (Big Finish Productions, 2022)

We could be heroes. Or villains.