Refracted Lives - Bernice Summerfield fanzine

I've been sent printed versions of the extraordinary Bernice Summerfield fanzine Refracted Lives which is otherwise available for free online as a PDF. It's a beautiful thing, made to an extremely high standard and everyone involved should be justly proud. Ivq, who kindly sent me this package, also included various other bits of fan-made merchandise including art cards and key rings, which my daughter has already nicked.

The fanzine was produced to mark 25 years since space archaeologist Bernice Summerfield began her adventures on audio, and in so doing created the multi tentacular monster that is Big Finish.

In the late 1990s, I contributed to the first ever Benny fanzine, Oh Yes It Is! and in 2003 got to write for a Benny in a short story anthology edited by her creator, Paul Cornell. The following year I was commissioned for an audio play, to edit an anthology of my own (the first time my name appeared on the cover of a book) and ended up being script editor and producer. It still seems completely nuts and impossible, and I'll always be grateful to star Lisa Bowerman, creator Paul Cornell, big bosses Gary Russell and Jason Haigh-Ellery, and all the other brilliant people I worked with.

Also, it is somehow coming up 15 years since the Inside Story. I need a small lie down.

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.

Drunk on All Your Strange New Words, by Eddie Robson

Lydia is a translator for Fitz, an alien cultural attache, but translating his psychically spoken thoughts into English has an effect like drinking alcohol. As a result, Lydia causes an embarrassing scene at an official function and thinks of quitting her job in New York to go home to Halifax (in Yorkshire, in the future). Then suddenly there's a murder and Lydia is a suspect...

This is a typically imaginative, clever and often funny novel by my mate Eddie Robson. It rattles along but the settings, characters and big ideas all really stick in the mind. Amy Scanlon reads the audiobook version very well - there are a lot of characters and accents, but she makes individuals distinct so we know exactly who is speaking when there is dialogue. A real pleasure of a novel.

I've been puzzling over what it reminded me of. Lydia is, I think, the latest in a line of klutzy, plucky young women Eddie tells stories about. In fact, the first chapter put me in mind of the relationship between Katrina and the alien Uljabaan in Eddie's sci-fi sitcom Welcome to Our Village, Please Invade Carefully. And that, in turn, had something of the feel of Paul Cornell's Happy Endings, in which all sorts of aliens descend on a village to attend the wedding of plucky, klutzy Bernice Summerfield - another young woman in a complex relationship with an alien being.

Lydia isn't Bernice and Fitz isn't Dr. Who, but there's an echo of the New Adventures Doctor Who books here - that mix of boggling sci-fi concepts with the ordinary domestic, the wit of it, the boozing (even if it's not exactly boozing). The result is at once dizzyingly original and comfortingly familiar. Loved it. 

FREE - Santa Benny at the Bottom of the Sea

That splendid lot at Big Finish have a special Christmas present for you all - a free download of Dame Lisa Bowerman reading my new short story, "Santa Benny at the Bottom of the Sea". Merry Christmas!

• Free download of 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.

Santa Benny at the Bottom of the Sea

"Santa Benny at the Bottom of the Sea" is a new, festive science-fiction short story by me, to be featured in Bernice Summerfield: The Christmas Collection in December. The audiobook is narrated by Lisa Bowerman and the blurb goes like this:

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 

Bernice Summerfield - in Time

The Time Ladies and Big Finish have announced a thrillingly thrilling short story competition for the Bernice Summerfield range.

The winning story will be published in Bernice Summerfield: in Time, a new anthology edited by Xanna Eve Chown and to be published in December - part of the glut of fun stuff to mark 20 years of Big Finish producing Benny's adventures. The anthology will include a short story by me (which I haven't started writing yet), related to my forthcoming audio play, Braxiatel in Love.

A long time ago, I was in charge of judging Benny short story competitions, and a Doctor Who one, too. Here's some general feedback from the 2006-7 Doctor Who short story competition that might be of use to anyone entering this new contest. Good luck!

Bernice Summerfield - Braxiatel in Love

Later this year there will be a thrilling range of releases to mark two decades of Bernice Summerfield's audio adventures - including something by me. It's a delight to be back.

For those who might not know...

Benny, a passionate, waspish, brilliant space archaeologist, was created by Paul Cornell and made her debut in Doctor Who Magazine in September 1992, in a preview of Paul's original Doctor Who novel Love and War, published the following month. She accompanied the Doctor through most of the New Adventures books, largely overseen by editor Rebecca Levene. In 1997, the publishers' licence for Doctor Who was not renewed but the New Adventures, and Benny, continued without him, starting with Cornell's Oh No It Isn't!

On 25 and 26 June 1998, in the basement of Intergalactic Arts Studios, 31 Morecombe Street SE17, recording took place on an audio adaptation of Oh No It Isn't - not just the first Benny audio play but the first Big Finish production. Adapted by Jacqueline Rayner, directed by Nicholas Briggs and starring Lisa Bowerman as Benny, the cast included Nicholas Courtney (the Brigadier from Doctor Who), Jo Castleton and Mark Gatiss.

A second adaptation, Beyond the Sun, was recorded in August - written by Matt Jones from his own novel and directed by Gary Russell, this time at Crosstown Studios in Fulham. Both Benny plays went on sale in September 1998, and more followed. The quality of them convinced the BBC to give Big Finish a licence to produce original Doctor Who plays, which began in 1999.

That same year, the New Adventures range of novels ended, and that might have been the end of Benny. But Big Finish stuck by her, and in 2000 began to produce original Benny plays - not adapations - and also their own range of Benny books.

You can skip the next bit because it's all about me...

I first wrote for Benny in Life During Wartime, a prose anthology edited by Cornell and published in 2003. In 2004, I edited the anthology A Life Worth Living and was commissioned for my first Benny play - The Lost Museum, released in 2005. In October 2005, Gary Russell appointed me script editor on the series, and in the summer of 2006, when he left Big Finish to be a script editor on TV Doctor Who, I became producer of Benny, overseeing the 12 plays and six books released between then and January 2008.

I also wrote Bernice Summerfield: The Inside Story - a history of Benny, and of Big Finish and the period that Doctor Who wasn't on TV - published in 2009. I wrote a story for 2010 anthology Present Danger, a single scene for the audio play Many Happy Returns from 2012, and continue to work with Lisa Bowerman regularly when she directs my other work for Big Finish. But it's been more than 10 years since I wrote a Benny play - until now.

Braxiatel in Love is directed by Scott Handcock and released in September as part of Bernice Summerfield: The Story So Far volume 1, alongside a new play about Bernice in her youth by range producer James Goss, and The Grel Invasion of Earth by Jacqueline Rayner. The blurb for my one goes like this:

"Irving Braxiatel likes to collect things, and when he gains a fiancee, Bernice Summerfield can't help but be suspicious. What are her mysterious employer's motives? It can't just be love, can it? Nothing on the Braxiatel Collection is ever that simple. Not even love."

Doctor Who: 1995

After episode 695 (Survival, part 3)
Up Above the Gods, published in Doctor Who Magazine #227 (cover dated 5 July 1995)
<< back to 1994

Up Above the Gods
Art by Lee Sullivan
via TARDIS data core

It's just so majestically wrong: Davros, dad of the Daleks, parked inside the TARDIS, having a chat with the Doctor. That mad juxtaposition - things together that shouldn't be - makes for a brilliant hook into the story, but one aimed squarely at fans.

Up Above The Gods is a single-episode, seven-page comic-strip from Doctor Who Magazine. It a smart, sophisticated story, the Doctor and Davros debating ethics and trying to outwit one another. It's written and drawn superbly, but a big part of the appeal is how much more you get from it if you know your Doctor Who.

Davros isn't just in any part of the TARDIS but the ivy-strewn cloister room last seen in the fourth Doctor story Logopolis. But instead of the fourth Doctor here, it's the sixth. If you know the room, and that the wrong Doctor's in it, there's an extra thrill.

The story itself is a follow-up to a Doctor Who Magazine comic strip from two years previously (Emperor of the Daleks). It sets up events in the TV stories Planet of the Daleks and Remembrance of the Daleks, while it would also help to know the events of Revelation of the Daleks and Logopolis. The title is from a discussion between the Doctor and Davros in Genesis of the Daleks. Yes, all in seven pages.

That's not to say it's impenetrable to more casual fans. All those TV stories had been repeated on BBC Two in 1993 except Remembrance (released on VHS in 1993) and Logopolis (on VHS in 1992). But it rather assumes that the magazine's readers are fully engaged in repeats and releases from two years previously: it assumes a dedicated following.

You can see that, too, in the New Adventures books. Human Nature (published May 1995, and later voted the best of the range) is about the Doctor living as an ordinary human. John Smith is still a kind, brave and clever man, but when aliens attack he can't save the day. The emotional impact of the book hinges on our understanding of what the Doctor is and needs to be - again, knowing Doctor Who makes it more effective.

(That's why it could be adapted for the third series of the TV show, but wouldn't have worked so well in the first.)

Now, it might be argued that it made sense for Doctor Who Magazine to produce comic strips directed at the attentive fan. But it's striking, look back, how inaccessible Doctor Who was in 1995 to newcomers - younger ones, especially. The 1996 television movie was in pre-production at this time, cramming a script full of continuity references that would please the fans. In the first scene after the opening titles, it assumes viewers already know that the huge control room manned by Sylvester McCoy is housed inside the small police box. For a pilot for a new series, there's no concession to those not already in on the secret. (It also features the cloister room.)

But, again in 1995, one clever fellow dared ask if children might yet watch Doctor Who. You can read Gary Gillatt's adventure with Class 4G and the Zygons on his website.

"Today, with Doctor Who a TV powerhouse, we hear young voices much more frequently. But I think Class 4G had some profound things to say about what Doctor Who's priorities should be, and those observations are as true today as they ever were..."

Next episode: 1996

Doctor Who: 1994

After episode 695 (Survival, part 3)
Shakedown - Return of the Sontarans, premiered 1 December 1994
<< back to 1993

Susan and Ace?
Shakedown (1994)

Earlier this month, TV Choice gave a special award to Doctor Who for reaching 50. Peter Davison made a short speech:

"When Doctor Who was taken off the air in 1989, it seemed unlikely it would ever return - but we had forgotten about the fans, the people who had grown up watching and being inspired by the show."

A few years ago, I traced one thread of how that happened - starting in 1994.

Five years after the last episode had been broadcast, there was still no prospect of new Doctor Who on TV. Yet there was an audience for books, videos and magazines - a grown-up audience with disposable income. The Dreamwatch convention even produced its own original straight-to-video adventure, Shakedown  - which my friend Jason Haigh-Ellery worked on.

"‘Keith Barnfather had been offering [the convention] Downtime,’ says Haigh-Ellery. The script for this was by Marc Platt, and reunited several of the Doctor’s companions – a major selling point for fans. ‘But it just wasn’t ever going to get off the ground,’ Haigh-Ellery remembers. ‘That was nothing to do with rights but the availability of the actors. Kevin Davies heard about this, and said, “I’ve got this idea for a Sontarans story.”’

... The Sontarans would be just one way of drawing the fans to Shakedown, as the project was christened. The script would be by veteran Doctor Who writer Terrance Dicks and the production could also use ‘name’ actors when casting its several human characters. Because these were new roles, actor availability was no longer a problem – if one former Doctor Who star could not make the proposed shooting dates, they could go to another. The new roles also appealed to the actors.

Me, Bernice Summerfield - The Inside Story (2009), pp. 95-6.

"Directed by Kevin Davies, Shakedown was shot on location at HMS Belfast, a former frigate docked on the south bank of the Thames, in the summer of 1994. The cast was largely culled from Doctor Who and Blake’s 7, and included Ace-actress Sophie Aldred in the role of Mari. The bitchy, cowardly character was specifically written to be a million miles from Ace.

‘It’s always lovely to be given something different to do,’ says Aldred. ‘Ace had been going a long time even then, and there’s only so much you can dig into her past. She’s had everything analysed, every part of her. So actually to play a different part and confound audience expectation is fantastic. I think that’s really a kind of carry-on from the TV series, where people like Sheila Hancock and Dinsdale Landen completely relished play baddies. It’s always more fun to play the baddie, let’s face it.’"

Ibid., p. 56.

"The project got moving quickly. ‘Within a couple of weeks,’ says Haigh-Ellery, ‘everything was signed, sealed and delivered. It was that fast.’ Gary Leigh was executive producer, with director Kevin Davies and composer Mark Ayres also producing. How did Haigh-Ellery get involved? ‘I’d done productions, I was really keen to do it and also I’m a businessman. I’d worked with Gary on his magazine so he trusted me. He said, “Can you help me out?” So I came in as associate producer.’ What is the role of an associate producer? ‘As I discovered on that shoot, it was to stop the executive producer from killing the director! It was quite fraught, as we were all very honest about in the Making of Shakedown video. I think the film is great, don’t get me wrong. We were doing a Terrance Dicks Doctor Who script by any other name!’

The production went over budget, but by this point Haigh-Ellery had got the family business into much healthier shape. ‘I was able to say to Gary Leigh, “Don’t worry, I’ll cover it.” It was good I had the money to do that.’ Yet it had been a long slog to reach this point. ‘That two weeks filming on Shakedown was my first holiday since 1988,’ he says. ‘You wouldn’t think it was a holiday, but I did.’

How successful was Shakedown? ‘It made its money back and it’s still earning money today,’ says Haigh-Ellery. He was keen to start work on a follow-up project, but others did not share his enthusiasm. ‘Gary Leigh will say himself that he found Shakedown quite difficult,’ he continues. ‘We talked about Shakedown 2, and Gary was like, “Yeah, but I’m not doing it now.”’"

Ibid., p. 96

So Haigh-Ellery went it alone, commissioning Paul Cornell to write an original science-fiction drama, Phoneix Ryan, that he hoped would star Sophie Aldred. He was in negotiations with the Sci-Fi Channel to co-fund the project (as they had done on the PROBE series written by Mark Gatiss, which also starred characters and actors from Doctor Who).

Phoenix Ryan didn't happen, but as part of the negotiations Haigh-Ellery was required to set up a production company. So, on 21 June 1996 he formally registered company 03217457 - Big Finish Productions Limited.

We will speak more of Big Finish later.

Next episode: 1995

Doctor Who: 1991

After episode 695 (Survival, part 3)
Timewyrm: Revelation, first published December 1991
<< back to 1990

Andrew Skilleter's cover art for
Timewyrm: Revelation by Paul Cornell

Who was Doctor Who for?

I argued last time that in 1990 Doctor Who had stopped being for children. That fact was self-evident to Peter Darvill-Evans, who in 1991 was editor of the long-running Doctor Who novelisations. I spoke to him in 2006 about it:

‘It was quite obvious,’ says Darvill-Evans, ‘that Doctor Who fans had grown up, particularly as the viewing figures were relatively low towards the end of the 1980s. It meant that the vast influx of Doctor Who fans had been teenagers during the 70s and early 80s, and they were now growing up. It was a bit absurd to be producing children’s books for them.’

John Freeman could also see this on Doctor Who Magazine: ‘Our readership was late teen and getting older by the issue.’

Me, Bernice Summerfield: The Inside Story (Big Finish: 2009), p. 10.

Both men tailored their publications to suit this older, more dedicated audience - and that's probably how Doctor Who Magazine and the books survived the long period without Doctor Who on TV. DWM studied and analysed the show in ever greater depth. The New Adventures books featured adult themes - sex and swearing, drugs and psychedelia, and an awful lot of references to then-current indie bands.

At the time, I was just the right age to embrace this more mature Doctor Who (the first of the New Adventures was published just as I turned 15). Now it seems incredible that the range would purposefully exclude child readers. This, though, was very much of the time - I argued before that Doctor Who was just one of a number of well-known heroes being reinvented in a darker, more violent form. (In 1989, I'd been furious that the new James Bond film was a certificate 15 as I wasn't old enough to see it; and I felt terribly grown-up getting into see Batman, the first ever certificate 12.)

But it wasn't the adult tone of the Doctor Who books that especially hooked me so much as the sense of community they engendered. That community was down to two factors that made the New Adventures very different from most other ranges. First, there was something in the contracts that Darvill-Evans drew up for the authors.

"We had to put into our contracts with authors that these characters and the TARDIS and so on were owned by the BBC, therefore they couldn’t use them without our permission. I also put into the author contracts a clause which said that any character that the authors created remained theirs but that they, by signing the contract, granted Virgin Publishing the right to use those characters in other people’s books. It meant that any character or creation, or anything created in a New Adventure, could be used by any other New Adventures author."

Ibid., p.9.

As a result, authors developed characters and settings from previous books, creating a vividly detailed history of the future, full of recognisable friends and enemies. The more you, as a reader, kept up with the series, the more rewarding this development would be.

But there was something else profoundly important. Darvill-Evans had spotted what he called,

"a huge untapped and rather frustrated pool of talent amongst Doctor Who fandom".

Ibid., p. 11.

The press release announcing the New Adventures, dated 27 June 1990, said the range was open to submissions from previously unpublished authors. This was an unprecedented step: reading the 'slush pile' of unsolicited manuscripts can be arduous work. Yet the Doctor Who books quickly struck gold.

Paul Cornell was the first to be accepted. His first novel, Timewyrm: Revelation, was the fourth New Adventure, published in December 1991. It was an extraordinary, strange and rich debut - I received it as a Christmas present and read it from cover to cover that very afternoon.

Paul was followed by more first-time authors, among them Mark Gatiss and Gareth Roberts (who, like Paul, would write for the TV series when it returned); Justin Richards (now in charge of the Doctor Who books); and Andy Lane (now the bestselling author of the Young Sherlock Holmes books). That was just in the first couple of years: Doctor Who books continued to offer opportunties to first-time authors.

Not only were the books developing a shared universe but anyone could be part of it. I sent my first submission in to the editors in 1994. You can read it here (it's not very good) and see the response I got from editorial assistant Andy Bodle (which was amazing). Even though I was rejected, the kind response and the invitation to try again kept me avidly reading the series, and it kept me writing.

(I was finally commissioned to write a Doctor Who novel in 2004 - 10 years after my first attempt. I owe my career as an author to that initial, kind rejection.)

So, as I said at the start, who was Doctor Who for?

Watching telly is a largely passive experience. It might make us laugh or cry, we might shout at the screen, but (unlike theatre, for example) our responses don't shape or affect those telling the story. Our role is simply to watch. There are shows that want us to write letters or ring in, or - these days - Tweet along. But, especially with drama, the audience mostly takes what it's given.

Fandom - any kind of fandom - is about being involved. Dressing up, writing our own stories, discussing the production of the show in depth - all fan activity - is about taking an active part. It's sometimes said as a criticism that fans have a sense of entitlement, but that's exactly what being a fan is (though that doesn't excuse bad behaviour).

For a brief and thrilling time when Doctor Who wasn't on TV, fans could participate in the creation of new Doctor Who. Not on TV and not for children, but a Doctor Who of the fans by the fans for the fans.

But how did it look to anyone else?

Next episode: 1992

Digging the Past: Archaeology on TV - BFI 19 January

The Dr has been helping the splendid fellows at the British Film Institute with an event on 19 January where you can watch a load of old telly about archaeology. There now follows a short public service announcement:

DIGGING THE PAST: ARCHAEOLOGY ON TV 
Date: 19 January 2013 | Time: 4pm | Location: BFI Southbank, NFT2, Belverdere Road, London SE1 8XT | Price: Non BFI members £10 (£6.75- concessions) | Age group: ANY |
In association with the Institute of Archaeology and the British Film Institute, the Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology presents three sessions looking at the way television has portrayed archaeology. Starting with early televised newsreels of excavations and discoveries including footage from 1949 taken in Cairo to more recent programmes including the controversial Romer's Egypt. The presentations cover the often eccentric characters including the legendary Mortimer Wheeler and an interview with Dorothy Eady otherwise known as Omm Seti. The end session focuses on ancient Egypt as seen by TV fiction writers with something to please everybody from the BBC's Cleopatras to Doctor Who.
020 7679 4138 | Booking through BFI box office www.bfi.org.uk or tel 0330 333 7878

Of particular excitement to me is the stuff with Mortimer Wheeler - "Archaeologist and Man of Action" as I blogged last year.

Incidentally, Wheeler also makes a brief appearance in the bit I wrote for Many Happy Returns, a special 20th anniversary adventure for space archaeologist Bernice Summerfield, all the proceeds of which go to charity. Producer / Evil Genius Scott Handcock has also tumblred credits as to who wrote what.

Reel time

You Tube now boasts a new show reel by Alex Mallinson showing his CGI skillz.

It includes clips from Alex's amazing Bernice Summerfield "Dead and Buried" cartoon (also available in full), the Cyberman DVD documentary he did for me and the brother, and some sneaky peeks at our short film, Cleaning Up.

Alex is also after your face for the cover of Graceless 2.

Some photos

Four images for your delight and excitement.

1. Bernice Summerfield toy

A fantastic surprise present from Monster Maker yesterday, a custom-made toy of Bernice Summerfield in the cat-suit she wears when drawn by the splendid Adrian Salmon.

Benny's creator, Paul Cornell, is also in receipt of a more old-skool Benny, as off the cover of the novel Love and War. Apparently, there is also a toy of her in Frontier in Space style shoulder pads.

2. Moo

Nimbos has been raving about the glories of online printer Moo.com for some time, and I've envied his collection of prettily printed, prettily packaged cards and stickers. So, with permission from Red Scharlach for the use of her picture of Archibald the space-pirate badger, I have got some new business cards done. And they are a magnificence of beautiful, tactile coolitude. I want to hug them and squeeze them and call them George.

3. The Guardian

You can now order my Doctor Who story The Guardian of the Solar System, out in July. And this is the magnificent artwork by Simon Holub.

4. Acrostic apostles


And the church down the road has new signage.

All clear?

To the National Theatre last night with N. for a “An Evening with Private Eye”, at which Ian Hislop, Harry Enfield, John Sessions, Lewis Macleod, Katy Brand, Richard Ingrams and Craig Brown performed bits from the magazine. A fun evening, and then afterwards I got plus-oned into N.'s work party and had fine salmon and liver and bacon. Latest and liveliest I've been out in weeks.

Excitingly, the kidney infection seems to be done with – though I've a doctor's appointment this afternoon where I'm hoping to get the all clear. Still battered and tired and stuff, but a whole lot less bleurgh than I was.

Am catching up on things needing to be writ. The Novel now stands at 15,000 words which I'm mostly happy with. Have a script to write by the end of the month, and trying to do bits of the Novel around it. Also got to rewrite some of the Short Film – which includes adding in a whole new character – and perhaps add one last piece of cleverness to a thing we're recording next week. None of which means anything to you, but will be of fascination to me when I look back from the future.

Now some fun free stuff:

The first of Big Finish's festive podcasts includes a competition in which you – yes YOU – might win a copy of the exceedingly fancy Bernice Summerfield – the Inside Story, what I wrote. There are plenty of other things in the competition, too, plus trailers and foolishness from the boys. More podcasts and competitions in the next few days.

(Looking forward to Saturday, too, when the Big Finish luminaries will be at the Corner Store in Covent Garden, flogging copies of Rob Shearman's splendid “Love Songs for the Shy and Cynical” between 12 and 5. Do come along if you can.)

Paul Cornell is also running up to Christmas with festive blogs, and I was enthralled by his new Doctor Who short story, “The Last Doctor”, which is hardcore, old-skool Cornell with its mad sf ideas and woman vicar and beating heart on its sleeve. Sadly, there are no owls.

Surfacing

Just raising my head from an ocean of exciting, unannounced work things to say hello. Hello.

Also, I'll be in Swansea this weekend for the Regenerations convention, where I'm on the same bill as Sir Derek Jacobi. Mostly, I'll be in the dealers room flogging copies of the Inside Story of Bernice Summerfield (a book which features more than a third of the convention's guests, as it happens). I'll also be in the bar. Do come say "Hi", "I read your blog," and "What would you like to drink?"

Oh, and on 29 September I'll be speaking on the use and abuse of science in Doctor Who at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich. If you're coming along, please don't throw things.

pp. 50-51

The Inside Story of Benny is beginning to push its way through people's letterboxes - hooray! And the fellows at Kasterborous have an exclusive PDF of pages 50 and 51.

The excerpt covers Human Nature, a 1995 novel by Paul Cornell featuring the seventh Doctor and Benny - adapted into two TV episodes in 2007 featuring the tenth Doctor and Martha Jones.

It lives!

To my amazement, and some four years after I started work on it, The Inside Story of Bernice Summerfield exists. For those who've not been paying attention, it's a 320-page, 300,000 word history of the character created by Paul Cornell in 1991 as a friend for Doctor Who in some books, who's been having adventures in novels, audio plays, short stories and comic strips ever since.

Benny herself - Lisa Bowerman - and I spent the day in a top secret location in darkest Maidenhead signing hundreds of pre-ordered copies, which people ought to receive next week.

It's just so thrilling to actually see the thing real, after all the false starts and delays. It looks absolutely gorgeous - thanks to the amazing work of designer Alex Mallinson, whom every one of you reading this should buy some Lego. It's huge, it's heavy and the writing is sort of okay.

I'd not been to the Big Finish warehouse before, and it's sort of like the one at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark, only with cardboard boxes not crates. They're stacked tight and to the ceiling, crammed into every nook, every available inch filled with books and CDs. My face ached from gleeful grinning. Just so much lovely *stuff*. I wanted to build a nest and live there.

Guardian of this treasure trove was Gary Atterton, who showed us round, gave us our contributor copies and generally looked after us, while also running round fulfilling orders, answering queries and making it all work. The team have been run off his feet recently 'cos of the various offers and deals, and we watched the system working in awe. Though the only coffee they had was de-caff.

To celebrate the launch of the book, I bribed the astoundingly clever Red Scharlach with CDs and pancake, and she's created a world of Benny icons.

Hmm... Now having thoughts of badges...

Just quickly

The new - free! - Big Finish podcast is a Bernice Summerfield special. David Richardson and Lisa Bowerman discuss all things Benny and, briefly, say how clever I am. Hooray!

Working manically on a few exciting things right this second. Wish I could say more. Soon. Oh yes, soon...

Inside out!

Big Finish have announced that my book, Bernice Summerfield - The Inside Story, will be out in August. Pre-order it NOW and get your copy signed by me and Lisa Bowerman.

I've been working on the thing since 2005, so its a great relief and excitement to send it off be published. Kudos to Alex Mallinson, whose design work is utterly splendid. And thanks to everyone who helped to make it happen.

Professor Bernice Surprise Summerfield (2540- ) made her debut at the end of September 1992 in the pages of Doctor Who Magazine #192. The issue included a two-page prelude by Paul Cornell for his original novel, Love and War:

Benny swung her satchel into her tent, and took a deep breath of the morning air. She was pretty, in a sharp sort of way, as Clive had often realised but never quite got round to expressing. Short black hair cut so that strands of it hung over her brow, emphasising her mobile eyebrows and ironic eyes. Her mouth could purse in self-mockery, but there was something about the curve of it that rather hurt. English hurt, like there were things she’d rather not talk about.

Love and War was published two weeks’ later on Thursday 15 October. That same issue of Doctor Who Magazine also included Cornell’s notes on the character and Gary Russell’s glowing review of the novel. ‘Miss it at your peril!’ he enthused. ‘Probably the most mature and intelligent of the run [of New Adventures novels] so far.’

‘Benny looks set to make a refreshing and interesting companion to this darker Doctor,’ he said of the new companion. ‘So long as other writers cope with her as well as Cornell has - and the indications are that they have - I think Bernice could soon become as popular as Ace.’

So how was Bernice created? And how has she changed in the years since that debut?

The Inside Story talks to those involved in her development. Find out how she came to be, how she was developed and where she’s going next. See the stories that almost-got-told, and listen in on the creative battles, personality clashes and very, very bad jokes.

With exclusive access to more than 100 writers, editors, producers and illustrators, it’s as wild, exciting and unlikely a journey as any Benny has made herself.

Includes a Foreword by Benny’s creator, Paul Cornell, and an Afterword by Lisa Bowerman, who plays Benny in the Big Finish audio dramas.

Primeval competition

Those nice people at Titan Books are offering YOU a chance to win a copy of my forthcoming Primeval novel Fire and Water plus some Primeval toys. The competition is only open to those in the UK and closes on 7 May.

It also includes the new blurb for the book - at least, I've not seen it out in public before:

When strange anomalies in time start to appear Professor Cutter and his team have to help track down and capture a multitude of dangerous prehistoric creatures from Earth's distant past and terrifying future...

At a safari park in South Africa, rangers are disappearing and strange creatures have been seen battling with lions and rhinos. As the team investigates they are drawn into a dark conspiracy which could have terrible consequences... Back at home as torrential rain pours down over the city, an enormous anomaly opens up in East London...

In this brand new original never-seen-on-TV Primeval adventure the team confront anomaly crises both in rain-swept London and on the hot South African plains...

(I'm also reliably informed by Nimbos that the toy of Helen Cutter works well as a Bernice Summerfield.)