Dr Who and the Ice Men from Mars
Obverse Books charity novel
Dr Who arrives in the future to find that the Earth is now gripped in a new ice age. As the deadly ice spreads south, it brings with it a threat from the past…and from a distant world…
The Ice Warriors have laid claim to the Earth.
Notes:
Once the decision was made to move into the realms of "What if Peter Cushing had played Dr Who in more than just two films?" there were a lot of decisions to be made. Should I just do a version of The Chase or The Daleks' Masterplan and carry on with Dr Who battling the Daleks or should I try something else? It seemed to me a lot more interesting to put Cushing's Dr Who against other monsters from the TV series. The Cybermen were the obvious choice but the Ice Warriors were worth a thought, too.
This was where I started wondering about what Amicus might have been thinking, and from there I started wondering about the whole situation surrounding the films. Would it have been Amicus? Could they have sold their rights? What if Hammer bought the rights? What if the two rivals went into partnership? That's where the introduction pieces came from. I sat down and wrote a fake history of the third film (I think I wrote it on the way to the Scottish Association of Writers annual convention), which Stu suggested putting into the book as an introduction. He also came up with the title From Shepperton to Skaro. These introductions led to me casting the films with actors from that era and that acted as a short-cut for getting readers to really visualise these films that never were. That's kind of something that's really important with these books. I want the readers to almost remember seeing them. They'll have memories of the originals from TV, and if I can feed enough information into the introduction pieces and get the casting right, that should influence how they imagine the books... just enough for that almost-memory.
From the title and the cover you can see I chose the Ice Warriors for the third film. It was the behind the scenes section that actually decided that for me, with the Cybermen saved for the fourth film.
The Ice Warriors have laid claim to the Earth.
Notes:
Once the decision was made to move into the realms of "What if Peter Cushing had played Dr Who in more than just two films?" there were a lot of decisions to be made. Should I just do a version of The Chase or The Daleks' Masterplan and carry on with Dr Who battling the Daleks or should I try something else? It seemed to me a lot more interesting to put Cushing's Dr Who against other monsters from the TV series. The Cybermen were the obvious choice but the Ice Warriors were worth a thought, too.
This was where I started wondering about what Amicus might have been thinking, and from there I started wondering about the whole situation surrounding the films. Would it have been Amicus? Could they have sold their rights? What if Hammer bought the rights? What if the two rivals went into partnership? That's where the introduction pieces came from. I sat down and wrote a fake history of the third film (I think I wrote it on the way to the Scottish Association of Writers annual convention), which Stu suggested putting into the book as an introduction. He also came up with the title From Shepperton to Skaro. These introductions led to me casting the films with actors from that era and that acted as a short-cut for getting readers to really visualise these films that never were. That's kind of something that's really important with these books. I want the readers to almost remember seeing them. They'll have memories of the originals from TV, and if I can feed enough information into the introduction pieces and get the casting right, that should influence how they imagine the books... just enough for that almost-memory.
From the title and the cover you can see I chose the Ice Warriors for the third film. It was the behind the scenes section that actually decided that for me, with the Cybermen saved for the fourth film.