Doctor Who: Terrible Lizards

I've had two Deadline Days in as many weeks (which was weird) but I've kept the second project pretty hush-hush - that is until now, as my editor has said I'm now free to tell the world about Doctor Who: Terrible Lizards!

A few years ago now I was delighted to receive a commission for my first Doctor Who book, a gamebook featuring the Tenth Doctor (as portrayed by David Tennant) entitled The Horror of Howling Hill. Well, three years on I was given the opportunity to write for the Eleventh Doctor (Matt's Smith's incarnation). But this time, it wasn't a gamebook, rather a chapter book - in other words a short novel for younger readers.

The brief for this new range of books asked that the subject matter be particularly appealing to boys. As I sat down with my jotter I started off by asking myself the question, 'What won't they be able to do on telly, due to budgetary restraints?' I came up with, filming in the Caribbean on an actual sailing ship, and dinosaurs - lots of dinosaurs. (The image of a million TARDISes also popped into my head but I couldn't work out how to fit that one into the story, so I'm putting that idea on the back-burner for now.)

So I sat down and wrote my pitch. It featured pirates, specifically Blackbeard, and a search for the Fountain of Youth in the Florida Everglades. Two topics appealing to boys. Pirates of the Caribbean meets Jurassic Park. How could it fail?

Imagine my surprise when my editor got back to me to say that they loved the idea but the pirates clashed too much with something they were doing for Series 6. Since then, of course, I've seen the pictures of the filming of a pirate epic in St Austell. Fortunately dinosaurs still seemed to be fair game.

Anyway, a nip here, a tuck there, a change of period and a few other details, and Time and Tide became Terrible Lizards. I sent off the finished manuscript last week and now anxiously await my editor's comments.

Do you like this?

And this?

And these?

And him?

And her?

And, of course, him?

Then you'll love the forthcoming Terrible Lizards!

Doctor Who: Terrible Lizards will be published this September, back-to-back with The Web in Space. And I, for one, can't wait!

Tie-in Tuesday: Terrible Lizards' not so terrible review

My Doctor Who story Terrible Lizards has been available for some time now, and I was very pleased to stumble upon this review by someone who's clearly a fan:

This is the 4th Doctor Who 2in1 books omnibus that I have read and so far this story is the best of them. The setting for Terrible Lizards is the Doctor, Amy and Rory landing on a Tramp Steamer, during the Victorian ages, that is headed to the Florida Everglades in search of the Fountain of Youth. As the Doctor, Amy and Rory join the adventurers on their travels they come across some prehistoric creatures that were extinct millions of years ago and should not exist in the time that the story is set.


So what more could you ask for in a Doctor Who book than The Doctor, Amy and Rory being chased by a T-Rex, Triceratops, and Stegosauri in Florida in the late 19th century?... The main three characters were pretty similar to the characters who appear in the TV show. And the throwaway characters in this book... were interesting enough, set the story up nicely and provided some nice little twist at the end. 

Oh, and while we're talking of Doctor Who fans and Terrible Lizards...

Happy Birthday, Jake!

Tie-in Tuesday: Terrible Lizards

Back at the start of the year, I was interviewed by Kenny Smith for The Power of 3 Podcast about my Eleventh Doctor novel Terrible Lizards.

First published in 2012 as part of Monstrous Missions, and later released as a self-contained novel for the US market in 2016, in Terrible Lizards, the Eleventh Doctor and his friends join a group of explorers on a Victorian tramp steamer in the Florida Everglades. The explorers are searching for the Fountain of Youth, but neither they nor the treasure they seek are quite what they seem...

If you are interested in peeking behind the curtain, to find out how a book comes to be, you can listen to the podcast here. And you can order pre-loved copies of the novel here.

Monstrous Missions - The Terrible Lizards are unleashed!

This arrived in the post today.

This is my third Doctor Who publication and my first novel, or chapter book if you prefer, featuring the Eleventh Doctor (as portrayed by Matt Smith), Amy Pond (Karen Gillan) and Rory Williams (Arthur Darvill).

It's been some time in the making (for one reason or another) and it's great to see it in print at long last. It wasn't an easy task, writing the book, but I had a great time putting words into the Doctor's mouth and putting the Ponds through the wringer.

Monstrous Missions, which collects my story Terrible Lizards along with Gary Russell's Horror of the Space Snakes, is officially released on Thursday 2 February but you can buy it from Amazon now. Here's the blurb from the back of the book.

In TERRIBLE LIZARDS, the Doctor and his companions join a group of explorers on a Victorian tramp steamer in the Florida Everglades. The explorers are searching for the Fountain of Youth, but neither they nor the treasure they seek are quite what they seem!

And in HORROR OF THE SPACE SNAKES, people are mysteriously disappearing on Moonbase Laika. They return with strange bite marks and no idea where they have been. Can the Doctor get to the bottom of what's going on?

Monstrous Missions is one of six such 2-in-1 titles, the others are:

Book 1 - Heart of Stone/Death Riders

Book 2 - The Good, the Bad and the Alien/System Wipe

Book 3 - Alien Adventures

Book 4 - Sightseeing in Space

Book 6 - Step Back in Time

Doctor Who: Monstrous Missions

Monstrous Missions, the Doctor Who title that features my very own Terrible Lizards, has now gone live over at the Doctor Who Children's Books website. Here's the page dedicated to the book.

You can pre-order your copy here. And if you need persuading, here's the blurb relating to my story:

The Doctor and his friends join a group of explorers on a Victorian tramp steamer in Terrible Lizards. The explorers are searching for the Fountain of Youth, but neither they nor the treasure they seek are quite what they seem!

Terrible Lizards

As fans of Doctor Who who already frequent this blog will already be aware, next year I have a book out called Terrible Lizards. I fell in love with dinosaurs as a child, and never fell out of love with them.

So if, like me, you're a fan of Jurassic Park or Primeval, then you'll probably enjoy two items of televisual entertainment that will be gracing our screens this evening.

The first is Planet Dinosaur (BBC2 8.30pm) and the second is Dinosaurs, Myths and Monsters (BBC 4 9.00pm). Click the links to find out more.

And in other news...

Just a couple of things to update you on...

1) Monstrous Missions

My Doctor Who book Terrible Lizards has been listed at last on Amazon. It's going to be published along with a second story but under one cover, the two-books-in-one being known collectively as Monstrous Missions. Here's what the blurb has to say about my offering:

Exciting action-packed new original fiction for younger Doctor Who fans, starring the Eleventh Doctor with his companions Amy Pond and Rory Williams. Double-fronted books each contain two fast-paced, fun-filled adventures!

The Doctor and his friends join a group of explorers on a Victorian tramp steamer in Terrible Lizards. The explorers are searching for the Fountain of Youth, but neither they or the treasure they seek are quite what they seem!

2) Under New Management

Jamie Fry of Fighting Fantasy Collector fame, is taking over editorship* of the official Fighting Fantasy website. I - along with many FF fans, I am sure - would like to wish him well with this venture and look forward to seeing what he has planned.

3) Forthcoming Events

It looks like I'll be attending two more events than previous years, making it one of the busiest Septembers convention-wise. Here's where I expect to be next month:

Saturday 10 September - The Asylum, Lincoln - The biggest Steampunk festival in Europe! (9-11 September 2011)

Sunday 25 September - UK Games Day - The ultimate celebration and annual showcase of all things Games Workshop. As always Black Library will be there in force with a host of activities and new releases.

Tuesday 27 September - House of Fear launch - Solaris Books are bringing the ghost story home with House of Fear, which collects some of the finest writers working in the horror genre.

Saturday 1 October - FantasyCon 2011 - Solaris Books are holding a big old party, giving away various titles including House of Fear! You'll also get to mingle with the authors of your favourite genre fiction. Maybe I'll see you there. (Royal Albion Hotel, 30 September - 2 October 2011)

4) Exclamation Mark in Space!

Oh, and two galaxies colliding in space form an enormous purple exclamation mark. Do you think that God is making a point?

* Is that the technical term?

Tie-in Tuesday: Dinosaur Day

According to Twitter, today is Dinosaur Day. My working days are filled with dinosaurs at the moment, as I'm nearing the end of writing the first draft of NEVERLAND - Here Be Monsters!

But of course it's not the first book I've written that features the terrible lizards. There's Terrible Lizards for one. There are also dinosaurs in the Fighting Fantasy gamebook Bloodbones, and the Pax Britannia novels Unnatural History and Leviathan Rising.

Like many 5 and 6 year-olds, I was obsessed by dinosaurs. I would spend hours tracing the dinosaurs in the colouring book I had, and I loved films like The Land That Time Forgot, Valley of the Gwangi, and One Million Years BC, shown on TV during the afternoon at weekends. When I was a little older, by father and I would make Airfix kits of dinosaurs together, and I have very fond memories of travelling up to London on the train with him, specifically to visit The Natural History Museum and its dinosaur collection. I even remember an English lesson, early on in Secondary School, in which we studied an extract from Ray Bradbury's A Sound of Thunder, focusing on the arrival of a T-Rex.

All of this clearly had an impact on my growing up, and I still have a passion and fascination for prehistoric life today. Last year family Green visited New York and I dragged everyone to the American Museum of Natural History, just so that I could see the dinosaur exhibits, which did not disappoint! And because it had an impact on me growing up, it has also impacted upon my writing.

But I have never explored dinosaur life in so much detail as I have in NEVERLAND - Here Be Monsters! For a start, the book includes over 30 different dinosaurs, marine reptiles, flying reptiles and other prehistoric creatures. But one of the fun things about writing the book has been coming up with new names for dinosaurs, because most of the characters in the story wouldn't have known what the nascent fossil hunters had called these primeval beasts.

I'm keen for the book to be finished and out there in readers' hands for various reasons, but one of them is to see if people can work out which dinosaur is which. Maybe I'll reveal the answers next Dinosaur Day.

Doctor Who: Terrible Lizards

More info about my new Doctor Who book is being drip-fed through the Internet. Here's the latest:

The Doctor and his friends join a group of explorers on a Victorian tramp steamer in Terrible Lizards. The explorers are searching for the Fountain of Youth, but neither they or the treasure they seek are quite what they seem!

And here's a picture from the new series, which explains why my story is not set during the 19th century rather than the 18th.

From Terrible Lizards to Tyrant Lizard

Just this week I put the finishing touches to my forthcoming Doctor Who chapter book, Terrible Lizards, giving each chapter a title before the text when off to be typeset.

I always like to name chapters and enjoy the challenge. You want to come up with something that will make the reader want to read on in the story, without giving too much away, and yet which will make sense once the reader has read that chapter.

Hence chapter titles like 'Just Add Water' and 'No More Time To Lose' might not mean much to you now, but they will once you've read the story.

And the manuscript having just whizzed off through the ether to be typeset, I come across this article online.

Tie-in Tuesday: Doctor Who - Terrible Lizards

Available now in paperback in the US and as an eBook here in the UK, my 2012 Eleventh Doctor story Terrible Lizards!

And coming soon, my brand new 2016 Twelfth Doctor adventure gamebook Night of the Kraken!

Putting Doctor Who on the map!

If you've not seen this before, and you're a fan of the eponymous Doctor as well as internationally-recognised classics of design, then you'll going to love this!

That's right, it's a Tube Map of all the Doctor's incarnations, his companions and (it claims) all his enemies. Only it doesn't include any from the original novels and the like. Hence the Triskele Grendel configuration organic construct from The Horror of Howling Hill is not on the list and neither as the [CENSORED] from my forthcoming Eleventh Doctor adventure Terrible Lizards.

Speaking of which, it's not been listed on Amazon UK yet, but it is up on Amazon Canada, slated for a late February release next year.

Tie-in Tuesday: Monstrous Missions review

Last week I came across this fantastic review of Monstrous Missions (and other Doctor Who Children's Books) from The Bolton News.

Apart from the great value – having two books in one – these publications are excellent. 

They are easy to read, thereby encouraging the age range they are aimed at to take up reading for pleasure. Plus the pace is quick throughout. 

In fact, these stories are more like the TV episodes than most of the other novels that are being issued. 

The dialogue between the characters is more accurate, making it easier for the reader to visualise the story. 

It is also nice to have the occasional tale in which the Doctor is on his own (Horror of the Space Snakes). It’s not often that the Doctor is alone and it makes a refreshing change. 

For older readers, there is the added pleasure of the odd reference to previous adventures, even a nod to Jaws*, and especially in the case of Extra Time, some excellent historical fact. 

These books are obviously targeted at promoting the joy of reading amongst the younger fans of the show, and in my opinion are very successful at doing it. 

Such is the aforementioned pacing of the action, you really don’t want to put them down. 

In a word – superb.

You can read the whole review here, and pick up a copy of Monstrous Missions here.


* That's a direct reference to my story Terrible Lizards.

Gamebook Friday: International Women's Day

This time last year, I posted about the heroines who feature in my ACE Gamebooks, concluding:

"And then there is NEVERLAND - Here Be Monsters!, which I am currently in the process of writing, and which features not one but two heroines, the Lara Croft-esque shipwreck survivor Wendy Darling, and the Sabretooth-riding heroic hunter Tiger Lily."

Well NEVERLAND - Here Be Monsters! has now gone to print, and here's how Wendy and Tiger Lily ended up in the book.

Wendy Darling

Shipwreck Survivor, The Girl Who Lived

Oldest child of George and Mary Darling, Wendy was eighteen years old when she and the rest of her family – including her younger brothers John and Michael, and their pet dog Nana – boarded the RMS Titanic at Southampton on 10^th April 1912, for the passenger liner’s maiden voyage.

She is well-educated, well-mannered, and resourceful. While at finishing school in Switzerland, as well as learning the formal rules of etiquette and improving her French, she also learnt how to fence.

Tiger Lily

Heroic Hunter, Saviour of the Accala

Daughter of Chief Great Panther of the Accala, and therefore technically a princess, Tiger Lily nonetheless dreams of being inducted into the elite warrior brotherhood of the tribe. She is already well on her way, having raised her Sabretooth steed Fang from when he was a cub, after his mother was killed while protecting him from one of the terrible lizards that dwell on the island. She is adept at using not only her flint-headed tomahawk axe but also a spear, whilst hunting with Fang.

Tiger Lily models herself on the great Warrior Queen Lai Tai’Glaa, the legendary ruler of the Accala who supposedly first brought her people to the promontory the tribe now calls home.

NEVERLAND - Here Be Monsters! goes on general release on 1st June.

Official Doctor Who Book Signing

As the (so-called) great and the good spout forth about literary fiction for World Book Night (in a most patronising manner, I might add), here's my contribution...

I popped down to Olympia Two today I catch up with the guys who were there to sign the first two Doctor Who Children's Books releases of 2011. Having met many of them over the 'net, it was great to meet them in the flesh (as it were). As well as Justin Richards (author of Death Riders), Trevor Baxendale (who's written Heart of Stone), Oli Smith (System Wipe) and Colin Brake (The Good, the Bad and the Alien), cover artist Paul Campbell was there as well, who told me that he's just started roughing out the cover for my book Terrible Lizards.

Justin Richards and Trevor Baxendale

Colin Brake and cover artist Paul Campbell. (The guy on the left's Oli Smith, by the way.)

It was also good to meet Hermione and Leanne from Penguin Books (at long last) but it seems I left before this particular guest dropped by. Good thing I met him a month ago at the SFX Weekender.

Happy 54th Birthday, Doctor Who!

It's crazy to think that since the epic 50th anniversary The Day of the Doctor event four years have passed, during which time I have had not only the Doctor Who: Time Lord Quiz Quest published but also my second Doctor Who Choose the Future gamebook, Night of the Kraken.*

          

And the most recent Doctor Who-related release that I have contributed to is Doctor Who: 100 Illustrated Adventures, which makes the perfect Christmas gift for the Doctor Who fan(s) in your family.

* Not to mention Terrible Lizards being published as a standalone story.

New Who is 10 Today!

Ten years ago today, at 7.00pm*, I sat down, like millions of other Who fans, to watch 'Rose', the first episode of the resurrected Doctor Who. Ten years on, eight series and four Doctors later, New Who is still going strong and I've written for three of those four Doctors.

My first Doctor Who book was The Horror of Howling Hill, featuring the Tenth Doctor and Martha Jones. The second was Terrible Lizards, printed as one of two stories in Monstrous Missions, and featuring the Eleventh Doctor, Amy Pond and Rory Williams. The third is... yet to be published, but here's a sneak preview...

So all that there remains for me to do is say, Happy Birthday New Who!


* Having hurriedly just put my then almost 8 month old son to bed.

EX-CEEDING-LY GOOD CAKES! EX-CEEDING-LY GOOD CAKES!

My latest Doctor Who adventure Terrible Lizards is out soon*, so I thought it would be a good time to share this with you.

* In less than a week, actually...

On Stranger Tides

Next summer, Jack Sparrow ("There should be a 'Captain' in there somewhere") will be setting sail, in search of the fabled Fountain of Youth. You can watch the first trailer for the movie here...



Next autumn, another popular hero - of the small screen this time - will also be having his own encounter with the aforementioned fountain in Terrible Lizards. Watch this space for more news as and when.

But in the meantime, if swash-buckling, zombies and desert islands are your thing, then to wile away the months between now and May 2011, why not pick up a copy of my own On Stranger Tides-inspired piratical epic, Bloodbones?

I love Doctor Who

Seeing as how it's St Valentine's Day, here's a loving homage to everyone's favourite Doctor.



Remember, you can buy my latest Doctor Who story Terrible Lizards here along with Gary Russell's Horror of the Space Snakes, as part of Monstrous Missions.