I'm posting this in SF/F rather than in Doctor Who since there may be Douglas Adams fans who don't frequent the DW board so might not know this is coming. Mods, please don't move it - thanks!
Shada was a 6-episode Doctor Who storyline Douglas Adams wrote in 1979 when he was story editor for Doctor Who. This was around the same time Hitchhiker's Guide was taking off. They only filmed about 1/3 of the story before a strike forced it to be cancelled. Attempts to get Adams to write a novelisation of his story never bore fruit and Adams later recycled some elements of the story into his Dirk Gently novels.
Following some unofficial fan-written adaptations, an official novelisation of Adams' original teleplay, written by Gareth Roberts, will be published on March 15 though it'll be available at London's Forbidden Planet store on the 14th at a signing. (An audio version read by Lalla Ward is also coming out.)
Details for those who might be interested:
http://www.doctorwhonews.net/2012/02/dwn130212150008-shada.html
For those keeping score, even though Adams didn't write the book it is based on his script, so that's 6 major SF authors snagged by the Who franchise in the last couple years: Michael Moorcock, Brian Aldiss (for a short story in the 2011 Brilliant Book of Doctor Who), Dan Abnett (he's done several), Stephen Baxter (novel coming out later this year), Alistair Reynolds (novel coming out in 2013), and Adams. Oh and that Neil Gaiman fella on TV too, I guess...
Alex
Shada was a 6-episode Doctor Who storyline Douglas Adams wrote in 1979 when he was story editor for Doctor Who. This was around the same time Hitchhiker's Guide was taking off. They only filmed about 1/3 of the story before a strike forced it to be cancelled. Attempts to get Adams to write a novelisation of his story never bore fruit and Adams later recycled some elements of the story into his Dirk Gently novels.
Following some unofficial fan-written adaptations, an official novelisation of Adams' original teleplay, written by Gareth Roberts, will be published on March 15 though it'll be available at London's Forbidden Planet store on the 14th at a signing. (An audio version read by Lalla Ward is also coming out.)
Details for those who might be interested:
http://www.doctorwhonews.net/2012/02/dwn130212150008-shada.html
For those keeping score, even though Adams didn't write the book it is based on his script, so that's 6 major SF authors snagged by the Who franchise in the last couple years: Michael Moorcock, Brian Aldiss (for a short story in the 2011 Brilliant Book of Doctor Who), Dan Abnett (he's done several), Stephen Baxter (novel coming out later this year), Alistair Reynolds (novel coming out in 2013), and Adams. Oh and that Neil Gaiman fella on TV too, I guess...
Alex