More War

As promised... hints and teasers for each story in the Seasons of War anthology...

Preface - Nick Briggs pays tribute to the late Paul Spragg, who played a key role in the anthology coming together

Epilogue - Warsmiths by Matt Fitton - Where else does a book about a war that's scrambled time start? Two Time Lords meet in a bleak, lonely place and replay a dilemma from the Doctor's past. Featuring an unnamed cameo from a Big Finish character...

I. Karn by Declan May - What happened after the regeneration we saw in Night of the Doctor? And just how different from the old Doctor is this new incarnation?

Crowsnest Past by Warren Frey - Strange creatures lurk in the land around a lonely Canadian town. Can the Doctor discover what they want? And can he learn how to shotgun?

The Eight Minute War by Lee Rawlings - The story of the Doctor's army.  But has he overestimated his own capabilities?  Featuring the finest use of Louis Armstrong in a story in many a year.

Everything In Its Right Place by J.R. Southall - Who is Alice? And what's this place where the Earth should be?

II. Corsair by Declan May - Meet the Corsair, the Doctor's old friend as mentioned in The Doctor's Wife.

The Ambassador from Wolf-Rayet 134 - The Lobopods have an ability that might turn the course of the War. But first the ambassadors of two worlds must come to an understanding...

The Amber Room by Simon Brett and John Davies - Leo Dunning is in his last tour of duty.  Or he was until he found himself in the company of Dave who's telling him that his world never existed...

The Celephas Gift by Andrew Smith - The Doctor crashlands on Muranius, a brutal, repressed world where he must unravel the secrets of a Gift visited upon the planet from the skies...

The Girl With Purple Hair (in three parts) by Declan May and John Davies -Who is Jenny Shirt?  And what fate awaits her?

An Historical Curiosity by Matthew Sweet - The Doctor meets Shakespeare.  And wins.

Here Comes the Doctor by Christopher Bryant  - Doctor no more, now a Patient.  What secrets lie in the depths of The Hospital? And what will be the consequences of their discovery?

Your Move by John Peel - The Daleks have wiped out the Movellans to stop anyone using their great War Computer against them. Now they want to destroy the Computer too.  And a certain Gallifreyan wants to help them...

III. Sonnet by Jenny Colgan - Does exactly what it says on the tin.

Disjecta Membra by Elton Townend-Jones - Who is the mysterious man Cass keeps glimpsing in the corner of her eye?

IV. Loop by Declan May - A young man meets his older self.

The Holdover by Daniel Wealands - The Holdover: A safe haven for refugees from the Time War.  Or is it?

Climbing the Mountain by Lance Parkin - Countless worlds burn in the flames of the Time War.  Can a former Doctor perform triage to save worlds?

Gardening by Sami Kelsh - There are places of beauty and tranquility, delicately balanced.  But the War must touch even those...

Sleepwalking to Paradise by Dan Barratt - A Coma Ship lies on a temporal fault line.  Can the Time Lord solve the mystery of the faultline and save the ship from the Daleks?

Guerre by Alan P Jack and Declan May - John Smith finds himself in France during the First World War.  But this war is about to be invaded by an even greater one...

V, Lady Leela by Declan May - A Time War.  A warrior of the Sevateem.  What can she do but fight?

Making Endings by Nick Mellish - A man haunted by his past life finds himself hunted by the Sentimonocks.  Can an old man write him a happy ending?

The Book of Dead Time by David Carrington -  Jenny Shirt's old friend takes her to a most unusual library in search of a book that the Daleks might decimate the planet to possess...

Driftwood by Simon Brett - Gabrielle lives on a world where much of the debris of the Time War washes up with her grandfather and a most unusual friend.  Why does Azrael want a teacup so badly?

The Ingenious Gentleman by Alan Ronald - "In which a man striving to become worthy of a title, meets a man who no longer is."

Fall by Matt Barber -  The Doctor has a problem, one he can only solve by calling on one of his oldest friends.

Always Face the Curtain with a Bow by Jon Arnold -  This'll be me then... The Daleks need information from their old nemesis, and they've set up a most unusual prison to get it.  But will their prisoner give them the information they want?  I'll blog about this story at some point soon, but suffice to say I'm deeply proud of it.

Help A Stranded Time Traveller by Matthew Sylvester - The Seller has been commissioned to find the TARDIS.  But a tired old tramp doesn't want him to get it.

Storage Wars by Paul Driscoll - Samuel Stockton has won a lorryload of old treasures from an old scrapyard in Shoreditch on the TV show Storage Wars.  One of which is of intense interest to an old vagrant...

The Postman by John Davies - Even in a Time War letters must go to the families of the bereaved.  The Postman is taking a break from the War to deliver these letters.  But in a war of confused chronology, do the letters always arrive at the right time?

The Thief of All Ways by Elliot Thorpe - Why is Claudia being hunted by an old man?  And what has it to do with a Dalek superweapon?

The Time Lord Who Came To Tea by Paul Driscoll - Wartime can inflict horrific degradations on some places.  Jericho is sacrificing everything so that Arcadia may live... what can you eat when supplies run low?

The Nightmare Child by Declan May - The Doctor seeks out Davros in the womb of the dread Nightmare Child...

Meals On Wheels by Paul Magrs  -Volunteering to deliver Meals on Wheels Jackie Tyler meets a most cantankerous and unusual old man...

Time Enough For War by Jim Mortimore and Simon Brett- What is the ultimate weapon?

Doctor Death by Barnaby Eaton-Jones -  Jenny Shirt meets the Doctor for one last adventure.

The Beach by Gary Russell - On an Australian beach a most unusual deal comes to its conclusion.

The Moments In Between by George Mann - What does a TARDIS do when it disapproves of its owner's actions?  Featuring Cinder from Engines of War.

Prologue - The Horde of Travesties by Declan May - And the mangled chronologies end at a beginning where the Doctor is haunted by a deal he had to make...

The Director's Tale - Andy Robinson recounts how he came to direct a film that went from promo to a fully fledged story in its own right.

So what are you waiting for?  Go donate to a fine and worthy cause here and get yourself a free copy!

We Want War!

Seasons of War to be specific.

Just in case you need background here:  This all begins in the last moments of the finale of Doctor Who's 2013 run, the back end of the split seventh season.  In the last few moments of The Name of the Doctor, with Clara having rescued the Doctor from the Great Intelligence's attempt to destroy his timeline, the Doctor rescues Clara herself from his own collapsing timeline. But there they see a mysterious figure, the 'one who broke the promise'. An old man who did what he did 'in the name of peace and sanity'.  But not in the name of the Doctor...

It introduced the War Doctor; the Doctor who fought in the Time War.  A man the Doctor deliberately tried to forget.  In reality the character's an elegant solution to the problem of Christopher Eccleston not wanting to appear in the 50th anniversary special - in actuality it's far more than that given they got one of the finest actors on this or any other planet, John Hurt, to play him.  It was a memorable appearance, Hurt playing off David Tennant and Matt Smith as the exasperated older brother quite wonderfully and switching from witty banter to gravitas in a heartbeat.  Or couple of heartbeats.  The War Doctor was to reappear just once more, in George Mann's novel Engines of War which details the incident leading up to the events seen in Day of the Doctor.

Such a waste.

Cue Declan May, looking for a way to raise money for a charity which had helped his family and many other families, Caudwell Children. The exuberant and talented Mr May hit upon the idea of telling stories of the Time War, tales of this Doctor we'd barely seen.  And so, after chats with Paul Spragg of Big Finish he embarked upon a quest to find the writers to make it all happen, by hook, by crook and by an open submissions process.

I had the fortune to be involved with a much smaller scale project with Declan in late 2013, the Twelve Doctors of Christmas. Declan wrote an extraordinary story re-creating the dash and wit of the year Douglas Adams script-edited the series, I came up with a vignette for the Christopher Eccleston's incarnation.  It was an immensely fun project which made us both a whole lot of new friends of extraorindary creativity - John Davies, Simon Brett, Lee Rawlings, Dan Barratt and others... and we agreed to be involved in the new anthology.  Who wouldn't want to? The chance to play with a new toy in the Doctor Who sandbox?  And for charity?  Sign us up!

Along the way the project expanded hugely, ending up spiralling from the original planned dozen stories to nearly 40.  And it acquired a film to go with it.  And a comic strip from Who novelist Jim Mortimore.  And contributions from Who luminaries such as Jenny Colgan, Lance Parkin, John Peel, Gary Russell, Andrew Smith and Paul Magrs.  It's ended up just under 400 pages and, as I type just over two weeks after release has raised £5,740.82 on ebook downloads alone. I've read every story and frankly it's a wonderful piece of work packed with imaginative stories, many of which couldn't be done with any other Doctor.  I'm deeply proud to have been involved.  To download it, go to Declan's Just Giving page, donate what you can and you should receive an email with a link to download it.  Or, if you're more into the hardcopy side of things, a paperback's due out sometime around April.

And if that still doesn't convince you, I'll be putting up a post with teasers for each story very soon (no spoilers though, obviously, because I'm not an utter bastard).