Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow, by Gabrielle Zevin

Various people recommended this captivating novel in which I’ve been completely immersed. That’s fitting, because it’s all about the solace of losing ourselves in something — computer games chiefly but also fiction, imagination and friendship.

Sadie Green meets Sam Masur (later Mazur) in hospital when they’re both children. They’re each going through some horrible, serious stuff at the time but bond while playing computer games. Sadie has also not been entirely honest with Sam. Despite a falling out, they reconnect during college and collaborate on a game of their own… 

We follow them for two decades through the highs and lows of their lives, the loves and losses and games.

It’s beautifully written and wryly observed, noting changes to games and the surrounding culture over the period. It’s also full of nuance: we can see Sadie’s tutor is a manipulative predator; she learns to see that, too, but remains his friend. For all he’s a monster, he’s a person, too.

At the heart of the novel is Sam and Sadie’s sparky relationship. At best, they are funny and supportive; at worst, they are jealous or brood on perceived slights. There are several recurring jokes, such as one — based on an old computer game — that Sadie has died of dysentery, which is part of their childhood banter and then gets dropped to blinding effect again on page 440.

In fact, it is constantly smart and funny, the wit all from the perspective of particular characters so also revealing about them and their understanding of the world. For example, there’s Sam in a particular crisis wishing he could reprogram his brain in the way he might fix a game.

“Unfortunately, the human brain is every bit as closed a system as a Mac.” (p. 228)

There’s lots of telling details, too, on the games these characters play — real and imaginary — and on their respective, mixed heritage: Sam’s Korean grandparents run a pizza place in K-Town, a district Sadie has never heard of when she first meets him, though she lives in a nearby part of LA. Later, they make a game out of separate but intersecting worlds.

The novel isn’t quite in chronological order, which allows it to tease the reader with key revelations to come. We jump ahead to interviews with Sam and Sadie looking back on their life and work. Or there’s the moment on page 190 when, in a scene set in the pizza place run by Sam’s grandparents, there’s the briefest mention of a poster on the wall: a 1980s advert showing a woman drinking a Korean beer. Twelve pages later, we learn the significance of this photograph — a gut punch of a revelation.

For a book about something as apparently unserious as playing games — a viewpoint it addresses several times — it is richly profound. More than once, we see the way games help people in real-life crisis. Sometimes, games have other impacts on real life, which I won’t spoil here. But it’s all utterly compelling; I read the last 100 pages on a plane yesterday, my heart in my mouth.

On that point, I can understand why the blurb and publicity don’t make a thing about this all being about games. That might put off readers who aren’t into games (I’m not, especially) — but can still be enthralled by the story being told.

One last idle thought. In her notes and acknowledgements at the end, author Gabrielle Zevin says that in referencing life-life computer games throughout the novel,

“I chose the games that made the most sense for the story, even when the dates were slightly wrong.” (p. 481)

That may illuminate an early reference that caught my eye. We’re told that Sam’s possessions in 1995 include, 

“an aging desktop computer with a Doctor Who sticker on one side and a Dungeons and Dragons sticker on the other” (p. 67)

I wonder when Sam, aged 21 at this point, got into Doctor Who — a year before the TV movie kindled a new fandom and brought many lapsed fans back from the fray. I assume he was watching late-night on PBS. Did he find other like-minded fans, in real life or online, in the way he played Dungeons and Dragons with others? And when did his interest wane? Doctor Who never gets mentioned again.

Doctor Who: Ruby Red, by Georgia Cook

Responding to an alien distress call, the Doctor and Ruby arrive in Estonia a few days before the Battle of the Ice on 5 April 1242. 

"'Big one,' the Doctor nodded. 'Well, small in scale, but big in everything else. The final bust-up between the invading Duchy of Estonia and the republic of Novgorod. Marks the end of the Northern Crusades in this region, and cements Prince Alexander Nevsky as a national hero.'

'I've never heard of it,' said Ruby.

'Your planet's had too many wars for anyone to know them all,' said the Doctor sadly. 'Still, here we are.'" (p. 30)

The distress signal has been sent by Ranavere, a 16 year-old girl from an alien culture of warriors, who has been sent to the battle as part of a coming-of-age ritual. Ranavere doesn't to fight - but it soon turns she may not have a choice. There are other aliens on the ice, some of them more of Ranavere's warmongering people and then there's something more monstrous as well...

I really enjoyed this fast-moving, lively adventure by first-time novelist Georgia Cook (who I know a bit). It deftly captures the pace and verve of the recent TV series. In fact, it's packed with set-piece moments that would be great to be able to see. This is a book that would really suit illustration - which should come as no surprise given that the author is also a designer and artist. 

Ruby and the Doctor are captured well, and Ranavere is a character we can relate to; she and her family are well drawn. Like Ruby, I'd never heard of this moment in history but it makes for a rich, arresting backdrop. It's all great fun, not least towards the end when, after all the ice and cold, the Doctor emerges from the TARDIS with a pile of big, fluffy towels for the surviving burly warriors. Their resistance to such comfort quickly melts, in a moment that's perfectly daft, funny and true to character.

The Doctor Who Production Diary - 1. The Hartnell Years, by David Brunt

"The number of nude photos needed for the Guardroom set has increased from three to six." (p. 647)

This massive, detailed day-by-day history of the making of Doctor Who is a great nerdy joy. The first volume covers the period from Monday, 2 November 1936 (the start of the BBC's regular Television service) to Friday, 4 November 1966 (the day before Patrick Troughton made his full debut as the Second Doctor, having been glimpsed in the closing moments of the episode broadcast the previous week). 

In effect, it's a much expanded version of the 164-page production diary featured in Doctor Who: The Handbook - The First Doctor (1994) by David J Howe, Mark Stammers and Stephen James Walker. Indeed, Walker is the editor of this new volume, which is published by Howe's company, Telos. David Brunt looked again at the production files held at the BBC's Written Archives Centre used in that earlier version, and also looked more widely - there's an exhaustive list at the end of this volume of the files consulted for individual writers, actors and other personnel, as well as BBC departments.

I should probably declare an interest in that David's research at WAC overlapped my own for the biography of David Whitaker. We liaised a bit, compared notes and shared ideas, and I read a fairly early draft version of this book containing much less detail. There's plenty in the published volume that is new to me. In some instances, we looked at the same evidence and came to different conclusions. 

For example, the book says that David Whitaker "has most likely been appointed as Doctor Who's story editor" by the time of his wedding on 8 June 1963 (p. 49). My guess is that if this were case he'd have been copied into the memo dated Monday, 10 June from head of serials Donald Wilson to everyone else involved at a senior level: assistant head of drama Norman Rutherford (head of drama Sydney Newman being away), drama department organiser Ayton Whitaker (no relation), associate producer Mervyn Pinfield, acting producer Rex Tucker and incoming producer Verity Lambert (who didn't start for another week). Maybe the story editor wasn't considered sufficiently senior for inclusion in this august company, but I make the case in my book for David Whitaker being assigned to Doctor Who on Monday, 17 June.

I'm especially impressed by pp. 104-105, where the weekly cycle of rehearsals, read-throughs and technical runs is spelled out. As far as I'm aware, there's no single document detailing this sequence and it's been deduced from scattered references in myriad different sources. Understanding that schedule illuminates much that follows. We can appreciate the frustration of actor William Russell being given a new six-page scene to learn on Thursday, 20 February 1964, the day before The Wall of Lies was recorded; it's additionally frustrating when we know that after a Thursday morning run-through of an episode for the producer and senior technical crew,

"the cast will normally be free to ... leave early that day." (p. 105)

The other thing that this book illuminates is the frantic spinning of multiple plates at any one moment. Most histories of Doctor Who - in Doctor Who Magazine or the Complete History, or on the DVDs and Blu-rays - scrutinise one story at a time. The Production History lays out how studio production on one story overlapped with filming for the next, the writing and editing of the story after that and planning and budgeting for stories months ahead. At the same time, there was press and publicity, and responses to enquiries about the episodes just aired. 

Detailing the treadmill of production demonstrates, time and again, the problems caused by anyone holding things up, whether late scripts or delivery of props, or the repeated machinations of the Design Department to kill Doctor Who before it even started. It's dizzyingly, exhaustingly fraught. It's all the more impressive that Doctor Who was often so compelling and easy to see why working on this series burned through talent so quickly.

This day-by-day approach is very revealing and has made me make a whole tonne of connections. I'll give the example of one story, to show how it is in fact lots of stories and things happening at once.

On Thursday 26 May 1966, William Hartnell (Doctor Who), Michael Craze (Ben Jackson), Anneke Wills (Polly) and members of the guest cast were in Cromwell Gardens in Kensington for location filming on The War Machines. We're told that this included a high-shot filmed from upstairs at no. 50F (by arrangement with a Mrs Lessing there), and that,

"The location in Cornwall Gardens is diametrically opposite the property where Peter Purves is living at this time." (p. 603)

Hartnell spent that same morning in rehearsals on the preceding serial with Purves (Steven Taylor) and Jackie Lane (Dodo Chaplet). The Savages Episode 3 was then recorded in studio the following day. Both co-stars were being rather abruptly written out of the series, Purves the following week and Lane two weeks later in the middle of The War Machines. The prevailing atmosphere was not great, as Purves told me in 2013:

"I was very disappointed [to leave]. Later, I knew [producer] Innes [Lloyd] quite well and there was no animosity. But I didn't want to go. Bill [Hartnell] was furious. I remember him saying he'd make them change their minds. A few months later, he was gone, too." (Me, interview with Peter Purves for Doctor Who 50 Years - The Companions)

Given this, it's all the more astonishing that the production were there on Purves' doorstep, filming with his replacements.

Also present at the location filming that afternoon were William Mervyn (Sir Charles Summer), whose son Michael Pickwoad later designed more than one TARDIS and Mike Reid (uncredited soldier), later a comedian, host of Runaround and Frank Butcher in EastEnders and Dimensions in Time. There was more notable casting on this story. When the first episode of The War Machines was recorded in studio on 10 June, one of the extras in the Inferno nightclub was Alan Cassell, later the star of Australian TV's The Drifter, written by David Whitaker. Two weeks later, another extra left production during the lunch break to go for an X-ray and then didn't return for that evening's recording of Episode 3; Mike Yarwood is,

"now better known for his later TV career as an impressionist." (p. 620)

That week had been a little fraught anyway. On Monday, 20 June, the first day of rehearsals on the episode were disrupted by Hartnell "still feeling the after-effects" of filming in Cornwall the previous day for next story The Smugglers. Having completed work, he'd had a long trek back to London by train. His second-class ticket from Penzance (p. 606) seems extraordinary treatment for a veteran star of a series and came at a cost: his "travel fatigue" (as the Production Guide puts it) led to a delay in the usual schedule. On 6 July, William Mervyn wrote a letter to Lloyd suggesting that Hartnell should henceforth be transported by helicopter - for all the joking tone, it implies there had been a real problem.

Reading events day by day, I think it might have been the final straw for Lloyd. On 24 June, the day that The War Machines Episode 3 was in studio, the producer notified story editor Gerry Davis that, by arrangement with Hartnell's agent, the star would be absent from whatever episode was to be recorded on 11 February 1967 - in the event, The Moonbase Episode 2. But the problems caused to the schedule following filming in Cornwall surely affected the decision Lloyd was then involved in. On 15 July 1966, three weeks after that memo to Davis, Lloyd seems to have broken the news to Hartnell that his contract would not be extended beyond the next four-part story, The Tenth Planet. Hartnell told his wife the following day that he would be leaving Doctor Who.

I've pored over much of the original paperwork used here and thought I knew this stuff. This exhaustive diary tells a whole new story. Let's have volume 2 sharpish, please and thank you.

Uncivilised, by Subhadra Das

“The museum is a powerful and extraordinarily malleable cultural sorting house. [Museums] are places for demonstrating that the West is best, regardless of what the West has actually been up to. For example, when we hear the story of how Napoleon’s troops in Egypt at the turn of the nineteenth century resorted to using dynamite to blow up a large, basalt statute of Rameses II, we needn’t worry in the way we do about the Taliban [destroying the Bamiyan Buddhas]. Even if they did blow up the Egyptian sculptures, Napoleon’s motive was to get them into the French national collection. They would be safe there.” (p. 188).

Subtitled “Ten lies that made the West”, this insightful and often funny book is full of historical details that challenge all kinds of presumptions. The ancient Athenians, for example, wouldn’t recognise our political system as democracy. Their whole system was about governing themselves; we elect other people, usually from the elite, to do so on our behalf.

Or there’s what Magna Carta did — or rather didn’t — do to fundamental rights here and abroad. I’d never even heard of the contemporaneous Charter of the Forest, which now seems a far more radical document, providing rights for ordinary people to land and resources; some of its provisions were still in force until 1971.

Over the course of 10 chapters, Subhadra unpicks a series of assumptions about the “civilised” and the “savage”, such as the superiority of the written word over the spoken, or the roots of political frameworks or psychological insights. In doing so, she shows how art, science and history are bound up in and blinded by a constructed, self-aggrandising narrative. 

Subhadra addresses numerous elisions from the historical record that serve to feed this false story. Repeatedly, women and non-white people and cultures have been left out of the story. I was fascinated to learn that Abraham Maslow’s work on the hierarchy of needs and on self-actualisation, which I studied as part of my training to be an adoptive parent, owes a great deal to his time among the Siksiká people in Northern Alberta — now the Northern Blackfoot Confederacy. Maslow later said he’d been inspired by news of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour; Subhadra uses Maslow’s own work and accounts from women who knew him to set the record straight.

I should declare an interest in that I know Subhadra and get a credit in the acknowledgements (I had to check with her what for). The Dr is also cited as a source at one point. Some of what’s covered here I’d already heard, having seen Subhadra’s stand-up comedy act and heard her Boring Talk for the BBC on Jeremy Bentham’s “Auto-Icon”.

But there’s a great deal here that was completely new to me — a richer, stranger more diverse history than the one I thought I knew. What a delightful way to discover the myriad ways in which I’m wrong.

BSFA Award longlist

My book David Whitaker in an Exciting Adventure with Television is one of 24 titles longlisted for best non-fiction (long) in this year's British Science Fiction Association's awards. It's a thrill to be noticed, and to be included in such auspicious company - including several mates.

Voting is open to members of the BSFA, who can select up to four works per category. There will then be a shortlist, and winners announced at the Levitation Eastercon event over the weekend of 29 March - 1 April. Details and voting form at the BSFA site.

What with life and lockdown, I've been a bit out of the loop with all things BSFA, though I used to regularly review books for its magazine Vector and attend its events in London. In September 2015, I was the subject of one of those events, interviewed by Professor Edward James, who'd overseen the Masters degree in science-fiction I did 1997-98. 

Here's an on-its-side recording, from that ancient bygone age.

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 #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.

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 Magazine special edition - Guest Stars

The new special edition of Doctor Who Magazine is devoted to the subject of guest stars in the series. I've written the entries on:

• Jean Marsh (Sara Kingdom, The Daleks’ Master Plan)
• Mary Peach (Astrid Ferrier, The Enemy of the World)
• David Troughton (King Peladon, The Curse of Peladon)
• Peter Miles (Nyder, Genesis of the Daleks)
• Simon Rouse (Hindle, Kinda)
• Pauline Collins (Queen Victoria, Tooth and Claw)
• Georgia Moffett (Jenny, The Doctor’s Daughter)
• Faye Marsay (Shona, Last Christmas)

It was a fun but fiddly assignment, with just 175 words for each one - plus a sentence on other roles they might have played. The sort of thing that flexes the writing muscles.

My copy of the magazine arrived today, and flicking through I was struck by the double-page spread on  the great David Warner, acknowledging his sad death just last month. That's quick work, I thought; his funeral was held on Monday this week. What a funny, kind fellow he was, as well as such a brilliant actor, and how sorely he'll be missed.

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. 

Head of Drama, by Sydney Newman (with Graeme Burk)

Written in 1987 and published in 2017, this memoir is subtitled "The life and times of the creator of Doctor Who" - a claim Newman was, at the time he wrote the book, battling the BBC to acknowledge. My mate Graeme Burk, who edited the book and wrote the accompanying essay, explains why this credit meant so much to him then, when so much of his extraordinary work for television had been rather forgotten. 

Burk had access to the Newman archive, and I'm beside myself with envy at some of the material he's had at his fingertips. The Ur-text of all Doctor Who archaeology is the 1972 book The Making of Doctor Who by Malcolm Hulke and Terrance Dicks. According to Burk, Hulke wrote to Newman on 6 August 1971 asking him for memories of how the programme came about. On 28 September, Newman replied:

“I don't think I'm immodest in saying that it was entirely my concept, although inevitably many changes were brought about by Verity Lambert, who was its first producer. She would be the very best source of information, better than say, David Whitaker or even Donald Wilson.” (pp. 448-449)

However, by the time Newman sent this, Hulke had spoken to Donald Wilson (on 8 September) who told him what's generally considered the fact: that Doctor Who was created by Newman and Wilson.

“It was just Sydney and I together, chatting. At an early stage we discussed it with other people, but in fact the title, as I remember, I invented…” (p. 450)

Burk digs into this, citing some counterclaims, analysing the surviving paperwork from those early days and addressing the issue that some key papers appear to be missing from the archive. I've some more to add to this in my forthcoming book on story editor David Whitaker.

Anyway, Doctor Who is just one of the many, many shows Newman worked on. Head of Drama conveys the extraordinary range and impact of his work, from documentary films to opera and everything in between. There's what he learned from double-checking ticket sales in a cinema and watching the reactions of different audiences to the same film, and what working in newsreel and sport taught him about staging drama. He delights in telling us when he got something wrong - he was against employing chat-show host Ed Sullivan, tried to cancel the Daleks and resisted Donald Wilson in commissioning The Forsyte Saga. 

But time and again, Newman's instincts for what would be popular and connect with a broad audience were dead right. Just one example of his many, many insights here:

“I laid down some simple notions [while at ABC]. Some people become physically ill when they see blood, and only a fool wants an audience to puke. Ergo, show blood with care. Some in the audience are daffy with hate, so don’t show them how to make a bomb. Viewers will identify with the innocent character, so being bound and helpless and tortured becomes powerfully disturbing, and that kind of reaction is a turn off. And finally, avoid common, easily available weapons such as a kitchen knife, so as not to provoke a viewer who may be feeling momentary murderous rage to act upon it in the moment.” (p. 304)

Newman gives full credit to the many writers and producers and talented people he worked with, but he's an amazing, funny and honest storyteller. There are some amazing stories here. Just before the Second World War, he was offered a job with Disney but had to head to back to Canada to sort out a visa. On the way, a fellow passenger seems to have reported him - as being an illegal immigrant from Mexico! The result was jail and some very hairy moments, but Newman tells it all with compassion and a wry smile, tying it all into a broader theme of having always been an outsider, an exile. And then he concludes that without this sorry business and the problems of a visa, had he been able to take that Disney job, he'd have ended up drafted into the US army and killed at Iwo Jima.

He shrugs that all off and is then onto the next drama.

What Abigail Did That Summer, by Ben Aaronovitch

Oh what joy, a Rivers of London adventure we could share with the ten year-old as we drove down to my mum's for the Easter weekend. We thought we'd try it and see how he got on - and how suitable the content might be - and very quickly he was hooked.

Abigail Kamara is Peter Grant's 12 year-old cousin, as featured in several of the books about Grant, a London copper who investigates weird bollocks. This novella is what happens while Peter is away in Hereford (during the events of Foxglove Summer), looking into the disappearance of a bunch of kids her own age from Hampstead Heath. There's some suggestion this is going to riff on Pied Piper of Hamelin but it goes more The Stone Tape, but full of the usual smart, funny observation that makes the main series so compelling. There's a posh boy called Simon who prefers climbing trees to school work which particularly struck a chord.

Shvorne Marks is an excellent reader, with dour footnotes provided by Kobna Holbrook-Smith (who usually narrate's Peter's audiobook adventures). What strikes me is how easily Abigail could lead further adventures - as could many of the other rich and well-drawn characters in the series. Ben has created a whole world, one that could survive the death or retirement of its lead character. I'm all too aware off that as I begin Amongst Our Weapons...

On other titles in the series:

• Lies Sleeping
• The October Man
• False Value

The Autobiography of Mr Spock, edited by Una McCormack

My last night out in London before lockdown in 2020 was to attend a signing for my chum Una's book Picard: The Last Best Hope, which ably bridges the gap in events between the movie Star Trek: Nemesis and the TV series Star Trek: Picard. Last month, back in London for the first time in more than a year, I met up with Una and got her to sign a copy of her latest genius effort.

The Autobiography of Spock is another extraordinary thing, perfectly weaving together the different threads and revelations from a great multiplicity of texts on screen: stuff revealed about Spock's background in the original Star Trek TV series, all the stuff about his dad in Star Trek: The Next Generation, the never-previously mentioned brother in the movie Star Trek V, the never-previously mentioned sister in Star Trek: Discovery, the stuff in the 2009 reboot movie and bits gleaned from Star Trek: Picard. In the acknowledgements, Una mentions a number of Star Trek books and novels she's borrowed from, too, and the essays on Romulans by Michael Chabon and on James T Kirk by Erin Horakova. I'm sure there's more, and part of me would love to see a version of this autobiography with footnotes that cite all the sources.

But that would perhaps break the spell. Given so much material to choose from, some of it contradictory or at least inconsistent, it's remarkable how cohesive this book is. That's partly due to the structure, each chapter focused on someone that Spock loved, enabling Una to focus on particular, telling moments in the long life in which Spock prospered. Given such a famously logical, aloof character, a focus on his love life is initially surprising but it really works, in part because this is love in the broadest sense - the subjects include Spock's parents, his sparring partner Dr McCoy and even the starship Enterprise. But it also works because it's at the heart of what the book is addressing: Spock coming to accept his hybrid nature as half-human, and his emotional side. There's a lot on searching for and accepting the truth - of situations, or events, of ourselves. Spock is honest about failure, about when he's got things wrong. There are passages in this that change my sense of what's happening in the things I've seen on screen.

The point is that it doesn't feel like a jigsaw. There's fun to be had in spotting the sources - when mention is made of the expression on Kirk's face on seeing Spock mind-meld with a whale, I know exactly what that's from and exactly that expression. But this is not simply a list of references to events in episodes and movies. It's a story, Spock's story, full on fresh insight and perspective - and lots of original material. We find out what happened to other characters from these episodes and movies, the aftermath of events seen on screen. I'd love to see more of Saavik and Valeris on screen after what we're told about their later lives here.

Una says in her acknowledgements at the end that, for all the many actors who have portrayed the character,

"There would of course be no Spock without Leonard Nimoy, and I hope his voice sounds true upon these pages."

It really does, and the result is like hearing again from an old friend. In spending time inside the head of this beloved character, I've come to know him better, and to feel his loss all the more.

Blake's 7: The Terra Nostra

I've script edited one of the three Blake's 7 audio stories that make up The Terra Nostra, a new set out in January 2022 from Big Finish. It's all the wheeze of that criminal mastermind Peter Anghelides; my job was to offer notes and criticism without him having me shot.

The Long Game, by Paul Hayes

Loved this deep dive into how exactly Doctor Who came back to TV in 2005, talking to many of those involved including Julie Gardner, Jane Tranter and Lorraine Heggessey. It's a story I thought I knew pretty well but Hayes has covered all sorts of stuff that was completely new to me - not least the key role played by my old friend Daniel Judd in sorting out the issue of rights.

I especially like where Hayes presents conflicting published accounts of what happened to the people involved in an effort to get at the truth - and his acknowledgment that sometimes people remember the same events differently. He's also very good at placing Doctor Who in the wider context - of changing BBC politics, of BBC and British television more generally, and of imported drama from the US such as The X-Files and Buffy. The result is a sense of myriad separate forces all pulling in similar directions - Doctor Who was always going to come back in some form, none of the other options quite as good as what we got. There are no villains and yet it's thrilling to relive the sensation as the stars gradually align...

As Hayes says, the book seems especially timely what with the recent announcement that Gardner, Tranter and Russell T Davies are taking over Doctor Who once more. But how brilliant, how satisfying, to find an original story to tell and make the familiar new.

Oh, and joy of joys, a small-press book with an index. This is definitely a book I'll be coming back to... 

The Second World War, by Dominic Sandbrook

I raced through this enthralling, vivid account of the Second World War, part of a new series written by Dominic Sandbrook for his eight year-old son. There's a lot of pluck and excitement, largely told from the perspectives of individual eye witnesses, ordinary soldiers and civilians as well as the brass. There are accounts from children caught up in the action, from women and ethnic minorities - the war not exclusively Boy's Own.

I should declare an interest: I know Dominic a bit, have made three short documentaries with him for the Doctor Who DVDs, and his history-for-adults book White Heat was extremely useful when I wrote my book on The Evil of the Daleks and my audio play The Home Guard.

Much of his account of the war is familiar - key battles, famous speeches, the real people who inspired the movies. What really struck me is how Dominic conveys the "world" bit of the war, cutting from events in Europe to Khalkin Gol or Singapore, or how the war in the deserts of Africa differed from experience in Burma. The Nazi attack on Stalingrad, for example, feels very different in the context of everything else going on at the same time.

It's all told in a breathlessly engaging, slightly tabloid tone, all short paragraphs and direct quotations. Yet this is skilfully  peppered with nuance and an eye for historical irony. Here's Hitler touring the newly conquered Paris, having posed for photographs in front of the landmarks:

"At the chapel of Les Invalides, Hitler stood for a long time before the tomb of Napoleon, another ordinary soldier who had risen to become an all-conquering emperor. Then, without a word, he turned away.

For the man who had painted postcards [in Vienna], this bright morning in August 1940 was the greatest moment of his life. Twenty years earlier he had been a nobody. Now he was the master of Europe.

After just three hours, the trip was over. It was only 9 o'clock in the morning, but Hitler had seen all he wanted.

As they drove back the airfield, he said quietly: 'It was the dream of my life to be permitted to see Paris. I cannot say how happy I am to have that dream fulfilled today.'

At that moment, Speer glimpsed the lonely, pathetic human being behind the mask of cruelty, and felt 'something like pity' for him.

Then the mask slipped back into place, and Hitler's familiar stern expression returned. And a few minutes later, as silently as he had arrived, the dictator was gone. He never came back." (p. 128)

There are a few notable absences - such as nothing on the V2. But my only objection is the lack of an index and that Sandbrook doesn't cite his sources - "I don't have room," he tells us in his note on page 353. I find this frustrating with the Horrible Histories books too: that you can't check the claims made with such authority. "History is sources," as a former tutor used to tell us sternly. (And, ahem, it helps when I inevitably pinch bits of this to use in other things...)

Doctor Who Magazine #569

The new issue of Doctor Who Magazine includes two things by me.

First, the ingenious Gavin Rymill and Rhys Williams have reconstructed in CGI another studio floor plan from a missing episode of the series, this time the first part of The Macra Terror (1967). Rhys and I have written the accompanying words, trying to make sense of exactly how the story was realised with so little money, time and space.

Then, the latest instalment of Sufficient Data tackles the important subject of what, exactly, the Second Doctor keeps in his capacious pockets and when we first see each item. As always, the infographic is by Ben Morris but this time I shared the exhaustive research with Andrew Ledger, who undertook the extraordinary feat of rewatching every extant Troughton episode to be sure we hadn't missed anything.

On Countdown

Excitingly (and surreally), I was mentioned on today's edition of TV quiz show Countdown. Some 15 minutes in, host Nick Hewer asks Samira Ahmed - who is in Dictionary Corner this week - about being on the editorial review board of the official Doctor Who Magazine. 

You can watch the clip, but Samira replies:

"The magazine is for fans - and fans of all ages, including a lot of people who grew up watching the original run going back to the 60s. There haven't been that many new episodes over the last year or so, as you can imagine, so a lot of the magazine is doing features on the past. The idea is that you review it to make sure it's appropriate for BBC content and for its audience. What has been fascinating is that there's this whole archaeology of the old episodes. There are all these old episodes that were lost but the scripts survive or floor plans of TV Centre survive with where the cameras were. And there's been this whole thing of features by brilliant writers like Simon Guerrier where they have got together a panel of people who watched the original episode - once - when it was on TV, got them up to get their memories from when they were little children, and then worked out with the maps of the floor plan, surviving bits of scripts, and tele-snaps (which are photos people took off screen) what the plot was and what it looked like. It's like the archaeology of digging up old Anglo-Saxon hoards and reconstructing a ship, but you don't think of doing that with television. But the history of British TV is 70 years-old now or older and I just think it's been remarkable how much social history there is in reconstructing them that way. So it's been a real joy and the magazine has been such a comfort through lockdown for a lot of people. It's that escape into wild adventures in space and time."

As Samira says, I'm just one of an army of DWM archaeologists, many of them more distinguished and erudite. She's referring to the recent series of articles I've co-written with Rhys Williams, attempting to reconstruct the studio sets from a few of the 97 episodes of Doctor Who missing from the archive. The amazing CGI recreations of the are by Gavin Rymill, and so far we've covered:

• The Evil of the Daleks Episode 1 (1967) in DWM Special Edition: Production Design
• The Feast of Steven (1965 Christmas special) in DWM #559
• The Moonbase Episode 3 (1967) in DWM #562

And there is more to come...

• More by me on The Feast of Steven
• More by me on The Evil of the Daleks
• Documentaries I've made with Samira include Victorian Queens of Ancient Egypt

Stan Lee - How Marvel Changed the World, by Adrian Mackinder

"Somehow, Stan always managed to present himself as a modest egomaniac - an art in itself." (p. 168)

These words, from ex-Marvel writer John Tomlinson, come at the end of my friend Adrian Mackinder's fun, breezy and yet authoritative new biography of the great Stan Lee, writer and editor synonymous with Marvel superheroes in comics and more recently on screen.

It's an extraordinary story and there's a lot to pack in given Stan's long and busy life, but - like the best of the superhero movies - it never drags. Adrian's tone is friendly and direct, peppered with Stan-isms, addressing us as "True Believer" and concluding "Nuff Said", and there's a lot of direct quotation from Stan himself, even where his own accounts conflict.

We begin with the relatively humble early life of Stanley Martin Lieber, the son of Romanian Jewish immigrants in New York. A voracious reader, at 17 Stan got an entry-level job in the publishing company run by his cousin's husband Martin Goodman (Stan's uncle also worked there, and soon, too, would his own brother), which among its various titles had only recently begun publishing a superhero one, Marvel Comics. We're not sure exactly what lowly jobs he did, but within a year he'd published a first, text story in Captain America Comics (issue 3, cover date May 1941), and a year after that when Goodman fired star talents Joe Simon and Jack Kirby for skipping hours to work on other publishers' titles, Stan ended up as editor-in-chief, aged just 19. Yet, within months of that, he handed over responsibility to someone else and enlisted in the army.

Adrian's good on sifting the different accounts of how Kirby and Simon lost their jobs - their prior disagreements with Goodman over unpaid royalties, and the never-proven suspicion that Stan may have been involved in how they came to be fired. But it's the non-comics business that made my jaw drop: among the handful of writers Stan worked with in the USASC Army Pictorial Service during the war (Stan claimed there were "eight other men"), were director Frank Capra and artists Charles Addams - later to create The Addams Family - and Theodor Geisel, better known as Dr Seuss. Make a film out of that!

After the war, Stan returned to comics, doggedly working in the industry for more than a decade before hitting it big with the superheroes that made him famous. That success came when he was in his 40s, which I must admit is a comfort to this jaded old hack. Adrian's good at placing that success in the context of teenage baby boomers and the counterculture, so you understand why these costumed freaks caught on, and what made Marvel hold its own against or even outsell its competitors.

He's also good on the struggles to push Marvel beyond the printed page, the failed efforts to replicate the success of the Batman TV series of the 60s, Superman movie of the 70s and then Batman in the 80s. As all this was going on, Lee would go for dinner with his old schoolmate Bob Kane - a friendly rivalry between the creators of Batman and Spider-Man. The comics were making a lot of money, but the sense is one of frustration, creative spats, unfulfilled ambition. It's all very male-dominated and embittered, increasingly more so as the profits rise. Stan seems to have stayed largely out of it, or to have forced that steely grin.

I was never much of a Marvel Comics reader and much of the story is new to me, but I was surprised how much Stan and Marvel had a hand in things I did get into - the comic strip version of Star Wars, the TV series Dungeons and Dragons, even My Little Pony of which my daughter is now a devotee. There's a lot on the wider context of publishing and popular culture, even politics where it is relevant. Adrian nicely uses his own childhood experience of reading and collecting comics to explain the bursting bubble in the industry during the mid-90s - and in doing so made me understand why some of my older colleagues lost their jobs at that time. There's a warning here about saturating markets aimed solely at "collectors". It chimes, too, with the recent scandal in football, and the widening split between management and fans.

It all looks pretty gloomy at this point in the story but, like any superhero movie, there's then last-minute salvation with the success of some movies based on Marvel properties (Blade, X-men and Spider-Man) then leading to Marvel producing its own films - to extraordinary success in the last decade. I'm not sure I needed to know which ones Adrian does and doesn't like (he is wrong about Black Panther being "rather overrated"), but he's shrewd on what made the movies work when so many other superhero films didn't, what lessons might be learned from them, and also in not losing perspective.

"The truth is, only a handful of the MCU films are exceptional. Most of them are solid and a few are so-so. But none are objectively terrible." (p.163)

There's a final twist in the closing pages where Adrian addresses the scandals in Stan's closing years with those close to him accused of elder abuse and exploitation. Adrian then digs in to try and make more sense of the real Stanley Lieber rather than the "legend" Stan Lee. He cites a few examples where we get a sense of the man behind the showbiz mask - the "teeth" displayed in a contract negotiation, the sense he could sometimes be rude or have an off day. My clever old boss Ned Hartley is quoted, suggesting that "alienation" and "anxiety" evident in the comics "give a window into Stan's soul" (p. 167). 

All in all, it's an engrossing, insightful book, full of boggling detail and wise analysis. The feeling at the end, I think, is that for all Stan was in the limelight and for all he gave the world in terms of popular culture, he always held something back - and so remains a tantalising mystery.

• I used to make short films with Adrian Mackinder, including The Plotters and Wizard

The Emperor's Feast, by Jonathan Clements

About once a month from 1991 until I left home, my grandfather would treat my family to dinner at the Golden House, a Chinese restaurant a short walk from his house, on the far side of town from where I grew up. He'd usually order the same things for us all - wonton soup followed by crispy duck and pancakes - and I vividly remember the first time I was allowed a glass of beer as well, or when Grandpa made known his approval of my then girlfriend by inviting her to one of these meals.

I now think there was something else going on. Grandpa was born in Shanghai in 1914, his father a bank manager at HSBC. In a memoir he wrote for us, Grandpa remembered his parents entertaining guests there or in Hong Kong with "marrow bones wrapped in white napkins" (which he thought over-rated), and the time, "A party of officers from the 'Hawkins', then China flagship, called for tea one day with their pet honey-bear. It raised a tantrum at not being given enough cakes and swept about a dozen pots to destruction." I think taking his grandchildren for dinner recaptured some of that mayhem.

My friend Jonathan Clements begins his new book with his own childhood memories of a Chinese restaurant where his dad worked as a drummer in a band, and where impressionable young Clemmo "ate all the time." From this, he tells the history of China through its food, the impeccable research peppered with his own experience of living and working in China. It's fascinating, funny and full of great detail. The very idea is intoxicating: a nation marches on its stomach, as Napoleon didn't quite say.

A lot of the book is about authenticity - or the lack of it - in the staples we recognise: "Peking" duck really derives from Nanjing; Zuo Zongtang (1812-85),"is unlikely ever to have tasted anything like" (p. 167) the dish later named after him and known to us as "General Tso's Chicken"; "Sichuan Alligator" (p. 200) is just the most egregious example of dishes erroneously claiming links to Sichuan. In this quest for fidelity, there's plenty on the origin of names and problems of translations. For example, trying to order a Big Mac from the McDonalds at Yangyang International Plaza, Jonathan had to describe it sufficiently for his server to give him the Chinese name: "Immense Tyrant Without Compare (ju wu ba)" (p. 195).

"There was me thinking that writing a book about Chinese food would be an excuse for endless 'research' banquets. Instead, I found myself pursuing the strangest possible cul-de-sacs on menus all over the world, not least in Edinburgh, Scotland, where I felt obliged to order the Haggis Spring Rolls on the menu at Bertie's Restaurant. Much like the cheeseburger spring rolls of Detroit, they seem to me like a pointless gilding of the lily, a clickbaity tricking out of a local food purely for Instagram shares and talking points. That's the only explanation I can think of. I love haggis, and I certainly don't mind cheeseburgers, but by what perverse contrariness would you want to wrap them in pastry and deep-fry them?" Jonathan Clements, The Emperor's Feast (2021), p. 201.

Authenticity is at the heart of his compelling final chapter, charting a series of health scares and scandals involving milk powder and milk, and then food standards more generally. This leads into discussion of the supposed origins of COVID, in the "wet markets" of Wuhan, and a culture that silences whistle-blowers and complaints. That, and some thoughts on how COVID might change Chinese dining culture - and the shared plates of food - is fascinating, full of expert insight that I've not seen addressed elsewhere.

Ironically, COVID has meant Jonathan hasn't been able to dine out while writing, and his book ends with memories of his final meal in Soho just before lockdown and dreams of the Chinese restaurant from his childhood. Like him, I am haunted by thoughts of meals anywhere other than home. A particular joy of this book is that it's like dining out in his company. I'll have wonton soup to start.