Hey, look at this. Big Finish has uploaded a webpage for Doctor Who: Short Trips - Transmissions. Due out July 31, 2008 this is a hardcover anthology of short stories featuring the 1st to 8th Doctors and having "communication" as its theme. And, not that this should cause you to rush out and buy it, but it also features my own "Generation Gap", a third Doctor and Sarah Jane story that is the first piece of fiction I've managed in about four years plus.There's actually a bit of a backstory here. Back in 1994, I used to hang out on rec.arts.drwho and made the acquaintance of a guy named Richard Salter who was trying to sell an anthology to the then-existing Virgin Books line of Doctor Who adventures. Richard sent me some of the initial stories for a look, and, unasked, I, um, edited one. Rather than telling me to F.O., he gerenously invited me to co-edit. Well, nothing came of our pitch except that I knew half a dozen Doctor Who novelists when all was said and done (including the soon-to-be-famous Paul Cornell). So a year later when I find myself living in LA, working on sets, and needing more $, I hit on the idea to pitch a Doctor Who novels feature to various SF mags. None of them bite, but the now-defunct SciFi Universe says they'll send me to a convention in Irvine that none of them want to bother with. There I meet Jean-Marc Lofficier, attached at the time as "Fan Liaison" to the forthcoming 1996 BBC/Fox co-produced Doctor Who movie (starring Paul McGann, wonderfully acted, horribly conceived). Jean-Marc then recommends me to Titan Magazines, who are looking for someone based in LA to help them with their newly launched Star Trek Monthly - which leads to 5 years and 500 articles about science fiction TV. Which leads to a gig as the editor of an online publishing site called Bookface.com, which when it goes bust, ends with my knowing a few hundred SF authors, which gets parlayed into my first few anthologies. You can probably fill in from there. Anyway, 14 or so years later, Richard has sold his anthology - this time to Big Finish - and he kindly remembered me. And it's an honor to have come full circle and finally be a part of his first Doctor Who book so many years after first being invited.
Talk about Back to the Future, huh?
4 comments:
I have never forgotten the terrific story, Time and Again, you wrote for Storm God Rising, the first of our anthology pitches to Virgin. I have also never forgotten the roasting you gave my story, which is one of the most influential writing-related wake up calls I've ever had. I learned bucket loads from your comments. I can't thank you enough for that.
So I guess this makes us even :)
You don't happen to have a copy of "Time and Again" by any chance do you? The last time I had one it was on one of those Matrix-green IBMs. I'd love to see it, since I don't remember a bit of it. I do remember Graeme Burke's first Doctor meets the Elephant Man tale though, with Sontarans, I think...
No, sorry I don't. I had a copy on my old laptop but that was stolen several years ago. Graeme's story was rejigged and eventually appeared in Myth Makers #13, DWIN's fiction fanzine.
Well, it was worth a shot and I'm happy for Graeme. Probably better I don't know - that way I can remember it as better than it was.
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