Thursday, March 11, 2021
Cinema Limbo: Smoke (1995)
Friday, March 05, 2021
Doctor Who Magazine #562
First, in "Moonbase 3" Rhys Williams and I have scrutinised recently discovered studio floor plans for 1967 story The Moonbase, focused on the ingenious way designer Colin Shaw maximised limited space. The CGI recreations of the studio set-up for episode 3 are by clever Gav Rymill. I also got some insight into the kind of person Colin Shaw was from his friend and colleague (and my old boss) John Ainsworth. Thanks to researcher Richard Bignell for alerting me to the discovery of the floor plans and helping my poor old brain make some kind of sense of them.
Secondly, "Sufficient Data" is a new regular column by me (and, from next issue, Steve O'Brien) illustrated by Ben Morris and exploring numbers and concepts in Doctor Who in what we hope will be a fun and surprising way. This issue we're all about the number 13. Steve, Ben and I previously worked together on the book Whographica, which is still available in bookshops.
Thursday, March 04, 2021
Tintin - The Complete Companion, by Michael Farr
"As the first Tintin adventure since Cigars of the Pharaoh [serialised 1932-34] to have kept unequivocally clear of politics, it posed no problem for the Nazi censor. However, years after the war when the question of its distribution in the United States arose, it fell foul of American censors who objected to Haddock's alcoholism and the presence of blacks--mixing races was deemed unsuitable in children's books." (p. 96)In responding to this, as Farr says, Herge replaced a black gang member with one of "arab appearance" (sic), though the original dialogue remained, Haddock still referring to him as a "negro". Farr is good at detailing Herge's own developing consciousness and regret about the racism in his books, and provides some nuanced and fascinating context, but it doesn't really excuse things to say that other people were worse. My sense is there's a fan's instinctive response here, defending a text so cherished from childhood rather than acknowledging inherent problems.
"The character of Red Rackham [the pirate] came to Herge from a page of Dimanche-Illustre of November 27, 1938, which told the steamy story of the English "femmes pirates" (women pirates) Marie Read (born 1680) and Anne Bonny, and their compatriot Jean Rackam (sic), pirate captain and scourge of the merchant marine and the high seas. Rackam flew a Jolly Roger depicting a skeleton brandishing a cutlass in one hand, a bottle of rum in the other, striking terror in the hearts of his victims."According to Maurice Keroul's torrid tales, Bonny, despite being Rackam's mistress, falls dangerously and hopelessly in love with Read who had joined the pirate band in the guise of a man. Read in turn is attracted to Rackam. Before the complicated triangular relationship resolves itself, the pirates are finally cornered, outnumbered, defeated and captured. They are all sentenced to hang. However, Marie Read has her sentence commuted to life imprisonment. On November 20, 1720, Rackam and Bonny are strung up on the yard-arm of their ship in Port Royal, Jamaica. A few days later Read commits suicide." (pp. 108-9)
Tuesday, February 23, 2021
Doctor Who Chronicles: 1965
I spoke to Jennings' daughter Celia, while Bob Corn of the Eagle Society was extremely generous in helping to dig out details of Jennings' life and work more generally. Thanks also to Colin Brockhurst of the fanzine Vworp Vworp! for sharing his research.
The sumptuous new collected edition of the TV Century 21 Daleks strip is still available. In DWM issues 558 and 559 last year, I argued that Jennings was an integral part of the sprawling, multimedia Dalek empire - his opulent artwork feeding into the movies, merchandise and back into the TV show.
Friday, February 19, 2021
Sherlock Holmes - The Great War
I'm currently in the midst of writing Sherlock Holmes - The Great War, an original novel for Titan Books. More details soon but here's the exciting cover...
![]() |
Sherlock Holmes - The Great War |
Thursday, February 04, 2021
Doctor Who Magazine #561
It's been a thrill to read advance copies of those three books, having grown up on Target. I'm also very much looking forward to next month's release of the 1971 series of Doctor Who on Blu-ray, which includes the documentary by Frank Skinner and my mate Chris Chapman about the great Terrance Dicks - author of more Target books than anyone else. Dicks helped created Doctor Who's best enemy, the Master; I'm increasingly of the opinion that Dicks was the Master all the time.
- Scourge of the Cybermen - an original audio novel by me, in a Target style
- The Target Storybook - an anthology, including a story by me
- Escape to Danger - my pal Jim Sangster works his way through the Target novelisations
- Backlisted podcast on the novelisation of The Brain of Morbius, with Drs Una McCormack and Matthew Sweet
Saturday, January 30, 2021
Scourge of the Cybermen
Friday, January 29, 2021
Masterful and the Switching
"Yesterday there were two Time Lord prisoners on Earth - the Master in his cell, the Doctor in his exile. But today the Doctor's not quite feeling himself. Today he's seeing things from a different perspective. And today the Master's going to escape..."
I'm very fond of The Switching, which was my first professional gig as a writer of fiction, written in August and September 2002 and published in Short Trips - Zodiac at the end of that year. It was also one of the first jobs I picked up after going freelance, and I'm very grateful to editor Jacqueline Rayner for taking a punt on me, and to Jonathan Morris who read my first, clumsy draft and applied a lot of red pen.
Saturday, January 16, 2021
TARDIS 17.2
Among the treats, there's me on the writing of my 2007 Doctor Who novel The Pirate Loop.
Thursday, December 31, 2020
Cinema Limbo: Highlander II
We've previously discussed Ryan's Daughter and the 1976 version of King Kong.
And here's me in more positive form on some of amazing non-Bond films starring Sean Connery.
Thursday, December 24, 2020
FREE - Santa Benny at the Bottom of the Sea
Blurb as follows:
'It will, I admit, be something of a challenge. But you thrive on challenges. And you have experience in communing with psychic populations.'
'So have you, Brax.'
'A little, yes. Bernice, this is important. And very regrettably, I don't fit the suit.'
Deep under the sea, Nessa, Freng and Strong are trying very hard to be nice. Because if they are naughty, then Santa won’t come and give them presents. And they do want presents very much. But what does Santa really want from them? And what does being nice *really* involve..?
This story comes from Bernice Summerfield: The Christmas Collection, and is offered free for a limited time only, December 2020.
Wednesday, December 23, 2020
Happy Times and Places
![]() |
Waaah! |
You may like to now that I wrote a book about The Evil of the Daleks, and we recreated the sets of episode 1 for Doctor Who Magazine's recent production design special.
Thursday, December 10, 2020
Doctor Who Magazine 559
The new issue of Doctor Who Magazine is full of festive treats. Rhys Williams, Gavin Rymill and I have attempted to recreate the studio sets of missing 1965 Christmas special The Feast of Steven by exhaustively picking over photographs and production paperwork, and interviewing production assistant Michael E Briant and fans Jeremy Bentham, Ian McLachlan and Marc Platt who watched it go out. Some archive interviews and Ian Levine's diaries also came into play. It has been quite the endeavour...
(Inevitably, the day the issue is released, a new photograph turns up with some additional clues, including traces of fake snow. But anyway...)
There's also the second part of my feature on David Whitaker's contributions to the early history of the Daleks.
Saturday, November 21, 2020
World-Building: How Science Sculpts Science Fiction
![]() |
It me |
The time difference meant that the panel started at 1 am for me - so, rather fittingly, I was calling in from the future.
Thanks to Dr. Jessie Christiansen for inviting me and the expert team who put it all together.
Friday, November 13, 2020
Doctor Who Magazine 558
The article coincides with a beautiful new edition of the Dalek comic strips from the mid-1960s that Whitaker probably wrote most of, and the brand new Daleks! animated series that takes many of its cues from that strip.
Saturday, November 07, 2020
Dad
It has been a fraught week, trying to anticipate changes to lockdown rules relating to funerals - whether we could go, whether I could stay over or would have to drive a 370-mile round trip in one day, whether we could get childcare so the Dr could come too. On Thursday morning, there were police outside the children's school checking that everyone socially distanced and did not mix households, and so I made sure I had the order of service printed and in the car in case I got stopped on the way down.
But we got there, and on a sunny, cold hillside just outside Winchester we gathered with family and a few friends. It was odd being with people anyway - the small gathering still the largest group I've been in since the beginning of March. And it was unsettling, being with family and Dad's friends but him not being there. I kept glancing round, expecting to see him.
Dad wasn't religious but a former bishop presided, an old friend of my parents' who nicely judged the God stuff. I read a short thing of Dad's various catchphrases which, to my surprise, got a lot of laughs. My elder brother read an email from Dad's brother stuck in the US, and my baby brother followed with a reading that Dad had read at his own father's funeral in 2002. There were other bits and pieces, and we ended with a bluetooth speaker playing Bach's Toccata, Adagio and Fugue in C - the music Dad had played in the church while waiting for Mum to arrive for their wedding. That music was the only thing Dad had asked for when my elder brother asked him what he might want. Otherwise, he'd not been very helpful on that score. "I won't be there," he'd said.
It was exhausting and emotional, and I stumbled through the business of speaking to people. The rules don't allow a wake but we managed to have lunch and raise a glass of fizz, and then toasted the new grandchild Dad sadly missed by a couple of weeks. And then another cheer at the news Biden was ahead in Pennsylvania...
I made myself go into the room where he spent his last days, where we'd tended to him, where he died. Mum gave me the book Dad had clung to during his last stay in hospital and then when he'd come home, the last book he (re)read - HV Morton's In Search of England, a battered, cherished copy that Dad's mum bought Dad's Dad for Christmas 1936, when they were courting. It seems to be a book all about a lost but almost tangible past... I've also got one of his bright, colourful ties because he didn't want us wearing black at the funeral, and a couple of plants from the garden.
And then a long drive home through an extraordinary sunset, the last few miles down deserted roads as if it were the dead of night not early evening. There were fireworks all around as I got out of the car, defiant celebration that played havoc with the children's bedtime. So it was straight into that and emails and the various bits of work I'm late on. And so it goes. "It's just we've started a new chapter," as Dad would have said.
He was always keen on meeting bad news with something positive, and we've set up a memorial fund in his name with proceeds going to the charity Sense, whose work he knew first-hand:
Monday, November 02, 2020
Bookshop
Bookshop.org, which launched int the UK this morning, is an online bookshop "with a mission to financially support local, independent bookshops", according to the blurb. That seems like a good idea.
Friday, October 30, 2020
Santa Benny at the Bottom of the Sea
An anthology of festive tales featuring Bernice Summerfield.
Christmas… Advent… Midwinter Festival… Spiriting… No matter what you call it on your home planet, this magical holiday at the end of the year, when the nights are dark, and the lights are sparkly, is the perfect time for telling stories...
And who doesn’t have a tale or two to tell about Christmas? Certainly not Benny.
Did she ever tell you about the time she had to escape from a herd of rampaging battle-armoured cyborg reindeer? Or the time she had to convince three tentacled young sea creatures that she was the real Santa? Or the time she nearly let an evil deity back into the world just in time for New Year…
These ten stories are collected from all across Benny’s eventful life, from St Oscar’s to the Braxiatel Collection, to Legion and even in the Unbound Universe...
The stories are:
- Collector’s Item by Eddie Robson
- Santa Benny at the Bottom of the Sea by Simon Guerrier
- Tap by Mark Clapham
- Glory to the Reborn King by Matthew Griffiths
- Signifiers of the Verphidiae by Tim Gambrell
- The Frosted Deer by Sophie Iles
- Vistavision by Victoria Simpson
- Wise Women by Q
- Null Ziet by Scott Harrison
- Bernice Summerfield and the Christmas Adventure by Xanna Eve Chown
Friday, October 16, 2020
Doctor Who Magazine 557
I'm in it, too, talking to Dan Tostevin about my forthcoming audio trilogy, Wicked Sisters. And I'm busy on a fun thing for next issue...
Saturday, October 03, 2020
Threading the Labyrinth, by Tiffani Angus
Threading the Labyrinth is the debut novel by my friend Tiffani Angus, published by Unsung Stories whose books I've followed closely. It's a strange and compelling story, as Toni - and we - learns the story of the house and gardens through the lives of the people who've tended them. We cut away to four stories from the past - in the 1770s, the early 1600s, the Second World War and then the 1860s. There are mysteries to unpick - the identity of spectres, the links between different generations - and it's never quite as simple as first appears. It's rich and vivid, full of characters who feel rounded and real.
Toni is an American in England for the first time, a little out of her depth and overwhelmed by the cultural differences. But Tiffani the author feels utterly at home in the English past, her characters and their worldviews all utterly convincing. Many of them share a love of the gardens, of grubbing in the soil, and that work compensating somehow for frustrated hopes and desires. It's a strange, unsettling ghost story, less about what is lost in the remains but how the past threads through us.