Doctor Who books (fiction, nonfiction, nonfact)

[jaime]

14 year old me still can't get over Mel becoming one of the most important DW characters everbut anyway, Bonnie has written* a Doctor-less Mel and Sabalom Glitz novel to be published in August.

https://www.doctorwho.tv/news-and-f...octor-who-murder-mystery-with-bonnie-langford

*Or provided the story anyway. Looks like Jacqueline Rayner is the actual writer.

Wish I knew where my action figure was. I remember having to glue her arms back together, but like most of that 25th anniversary box set (they hadn’t released Ace yet…) I fear I have lost it to the winds of time.
Shame, maybe she’s worth something on eBay…

 

[Christopher]

14 year old me still can't get over Mel becoming one of the most important DW characters ever but anyway, Bonnie has written* a Doctor-less Mel and Sabalom Glitz novel to be published in August.

https://www.doctorwho.tv/news-and-f...octor-who-murder-mystery-with-bonnie-langford

"A Melanie Bush Mystery?" Looks like they're hoping to start a series. I'm reminded of when Pocket Books' Star Trek novel line did a Perry Mason pastiche with Samuel T. Cogley from "Court Martial."

*Or provided the story anyway. Looks like Jacqueline Rayner is the actual writer.

Or a co-writer. Sometimes these things are ghostwritten, sometimes they're true collaborations.

 

[Allyn Gibson]

Or a co-writer. Sometimes these things are ghostwritten, sometimes they're true collaborations.

The Tom Baker and Alex Kingston novels had almost no input from the credited authors. Ian Marter and Colin Baker, on the other hand, were capable of writing fiction by themselves. I'd like to read the short stories Matt Smith wrote as preparation for the role.

 

[Christopher]

The Tom Baker and Alex Kingston novels had almost no input from the credited authors. Ian Marter and Colin Baker, on the other hand, were capable of writing fiction by themselves. I'd like to read the short stories Matt Smith wrote as preparation for the role.

I know Ian Marter wrote a number of the Target novelizations as well as Harry Sullivan's War. I didn't know about the others.

 

[jaime]

I know Ian Marter wrote a number of the Target novelizations as well as Harry Sullivan's War. I didn't know about the others.

Colin did a comic book for DWM back in the day (nineties) including some poetry that referred back to when his Doctor was the incumbent in the DWM strip, so he possibly also read them.

 

[jaime]

The Tom Baker and Alex Kingston novels had almost no input from the credited authors. Ian Marter and Colin Baker, on the other hand, were capable of writing fiction by themselves. I'd like to read the short stories Matt Smith wrote as preparation for the role.

I presume Tom at least had his notes from when he was Co-writing — with Ian — scratchman though? (I remember it being talked about in the old Peter Haining non-fiction books, so it’s been knocking around a while.)

 

[Allyn Gibson]

I know Ian Marter wrote a number of the Target novelizations as well as Harry Sullivan's War. I didn't know about the others.

Colin Baker wrote a comic book for Doctor Who Magazine back in the day, and he wrote a short story for The Target Storybook a few years ago. (Matthew Waterhouse also wrote a story for that collection.)

The story I've heard on Alex Kingston's River Song novel is that reading the audiobook was her first encounter with the text and that she had no idea where it was going.

I presume Tom at least had his notes from when he was Co-writing — with Ian — scratchman though? (I remember it being talked about in the old Peter Haining non-fiction books, so it’s been knocking around a while.)

James Goss had access to what Baker and Marter had written for Scratchman forty-five years ago. And Baker obviously wrote the acknowledgements, where he describes Marter as "a good egg." Otherwise, it's a James Goss book, which BBC Books went to extreme lengths to hide in the run-up to release.

 

[Rich Watson]

Waterhouse has written a lot for BF too, so definitely goes in the Ian Marter category.

 

[Christopher]

Waterhouse has written a lot for BF too, so definitely goes in the Ian Marter category.

So I guess he finally knows if he was (a) write(r).

 

[JD]

The story I've heard on Alex Kingston's River Song novel is that reading the audiobook was her first encounter with the text and that she had no idea where it was going.

So if she didn't write it, and didn't even know the story, then why is she credited as it's author?
I'm assuming Baker was credited for Scratchman because he worked on the original script.

 

[Christopher]

So if she didn't write it, and didn't even know the story, then why is she credited as it's author?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghostwriter

 

[JD]

I know what ghostwriters are, but I thought they usually worked closely with the person who was actually credited with whatever they were working.

 

[Christopher]

I know what ghostwriters are, but I thought they usually worked closely with the person who was actually credited with whatever they were working.

Sometimes, not always. I'd say working closely with the ghostwriter is more the exception than the rule, since the whole reason people hire ghostwriters is that they don't have the time, talent, or willingness to write a book themselves. But it runs the gamut from full collaboration to loose oversight to simply being a famous name on the cover to sell books.

 

[JD]

Oh, OK.

 

[JD]

I started the Last of the Gaderene this morning. This will be my first Classic Doctor Who novel, and I've liked a lot of Mark Gattis's TV work, so I'm curious to see what a novel by him is like.

 

[Steve Roby]

I remember that one as being very faithful to the era of the show. Some of the Third Doctor novels go for a very different approach, like Rags by Mick Lewis or Verdigris by Paul Magrs, which put the Third Doctor into very different types of story. Basically, Gatiss’s stuff was generally trad, whereas Lewis and Magrs were rad (though hardly in the same way).

 

[JD]

I finished up The Last of the Gaderene last night, and I really enjoyed it. I'd read anything by Mark Gattis before, and really liked it, he's just as talented a prose writer as he is a TV writer. I thought he did a really good job of capturing the tone and style of this era of the series, I could have easily seen this fit right in there with Third Doctor/UNIT stories.

 

[Allyn Gibson]

I finished up The Last of the Gaderene last night, and I really enjoyed it. I'd read anything by Mark Gattis before, and really liked it, he's just as talented a prose writer as he is a TV writer. I thought he did a really good job of capturing the tone and style of this era of the series, I could have easily seen this fit right in there with Third Doctor/UNIT stories.

It's not Doctor Who, but I recommend Gatiss' Lucifer Box novels, beginning with The Vesuvius Club. The series predates Torchwood by a few years, yet my elevator pitch on them would be, "What if Torchwood Captain Jack were James Bond?" The first book takes places in the 1890s, the second in the 1930s, and the third in the 1950s.

 

[JD]

I saw those when I was looking through Gatiss's credits, I might have to check them out.
Anybody else here read the Titan Comics series? I'm gonna be sticking with my Third Doctor watch and read, and will be reading their Third Doctor miniseries next.

 

[Allyn Gibson]

Anybody else here read the Titan Comics series? I'm gonna be sticking with my Third Doctor watch and read, and will be reading their Third Doctor miniseries next.

I remember that. It was fine. There's a fun twist in it, though you may have been spoiled on it already.