Lance Parkin

Lance Parkin
Work in the DWU
Main jobs:	Writer
Career highlights
Notable non-DWU work:	Emmerdale, Beyond the Final Frontier, Secret Identities, Dark Matters, Sherlock Holmes
Official site

Lance Parkin is an author who has written professional Doctor Who fiction since the 1990s. He is one of the few authors to write for both the 1963 and 2005 version of the programme — though much of his fiction has actually been based on the 1996 iteration. Indeed, he was notably the first author to write original prose for the Eighth Doctor in The Dying Days. He was also the author chosen to deliver the nominal 35th anniversary story, The Infinity Doctors, and the final volume in the Eighth Doctor Adventures range, The Gallifrey Chronicles. More recently, he has written for the Tenth Doctor in The Eyeless.

He is further notable for his work with Big Finish Productions, where he is arguably most known for writing the Sixth Doctor adventure, Davros. He has also written most of the non-fiction book AHistory that attempts to make a consistent and linear timeline for all Doctor Who stories.

Outside of Doctor Who, he has written things like (with Mark Jones) Dark Matter, a guide to the author Philip Pullman.

Writing novels

Parkin's shortest ever pitch for a novel was, "I'll set it on Mars!", when Virgin editor Rebecca Levene said that she needed a Bernice Summerfield book in six weeks.

His final pitch to Levene was for The Dying Days and went (something like), "Twenty years ago Dan Dare discovered the truth about Mars, and Francis Urquart (the Prime Minister from the House of Cards series) put him in prison. Now he's escaped."

Parkin has noted that Just War was a reaction to Timewyrm: Exodus.

"I like the book, and at the time I was preparing the original submission (Autumn 1993), it was one of the best of the range. It's still very popular - which is why the blurb I wrote for Just War makes it sound like a sequel! There were problems, though: my main criticism being the depiction of Hitler. The frightening thing, to my mind, is that Hitler wasn't possessed by the devil or the Timewyrm; he was just an ordinary man. Steinmann is a reaction to the Exodus Hitler — a talented, intelligent, cultured man who chooses to be a Nazi. That is much scarier than the thought he's been hypnotised by aliens. ...Hitler, of course, isn't mentioned once in Just War — I wanted to try and explore the Nazi mentality without needing to refer to him.""TSV 48 Lance Parkin interview by Paul Scoones

In the three years between writing The Infinity Doctors and Father Time, Parkin worked as a storyline editor for Emmerdale. He also wrote a synopsis for a book that was to have been published in the slot that Parallel 59 occupies, known as Enemy of the Daleks.

Parkin has said that he "relies on 'continuity references' in my books, and I still do to an extent – but references to the spirit, not the letter. It's good to be looking forward, not back. It's good to have the Doctor centre stage, as the protagonist." In particular following events of The Ancestor Cell/The Burning.

On the EDAs as a whole; "I think that particularly from The Burning to, say, Time Zero, they're just about all as good as the NAs, which is about the highest praise I have for Doctor Who."

When writing The Gallifrey Chronicles he noted, "It seems absolutely bizarre to say it at this point but the BBC were keeping their options open. If Doctor Who had bombed on telly, it would have been over and done in thirteen weeks. So part of the brief was to leave things open just in case the EDAs needed to pick up just where they'd left off!" However Parkin has noted concerning The Gallifrey Chronicles and its relation to the new series

"It's not an open ending - we know what happens because we saw the result on telly. The Doctor gets his memory back, the Doctor restores Gallifrey, the Doctor wins . . . then at what must be his all time high, it's all taken from him. And it's this great big epic story full of mysteries and huge events far too grand to spell out in a book on or TV. A lot of people, wanted a book where the Doctor was led to a big glowing ball of his memories and he grabbed it with both hands and went 'Drahvins . . . Voord . . . Nimons . . . that bit in The Dæmons where Bessie's got a remote control . . . I remember it all!' and I understand that impulse, but . . . well, we know he got his memories back. We don't need to see and be spoonfed everything."

Bibliography

Novels

Virgin New Adventures

• Just War
• The Dying Days

Virgin Missing Adventures

• Cold Fusion

Virgin Bernice Summerfield New Adventures

• Beige Planet Mars (with Mark Clapham)

BBC Past Doctor Adventures

• The Infinity Doctors

BBC Eighth Doctor Adventures

• Father Time
• Trading Futures
• The Gallifrey Chronicles

BBC Tenth Doctor Adventures

• The Eyeless

Big Finish Bernice Summerfield series

• The Big Hunt

Faction Paradox

• Warlords of Utopia

Time Hunter

• The Winning Side

Short stories

Virgin Decalogs

• Secret of the Black Planet (in Decalog 4: Re:Generations)

Short Trips

• A Town Called Eternity (with Mark Clapham, in Short Trips and Side Steps)
• The Exiles (in Short Trips: A Universe of Terrors)
• Doing Time (in Short Trips: Steel Skies)
• Echo (in Short Trips: Life Science)
• Observer Effect (in Short Trips: 2040)

Big Finish Bernice Summerfield series

• Paydirt (in A Life of Surprises)
• Anightintheninthage (in Collected Works)
• A Game of Soldiers (in Secret Histories)
• Winging It (in Present Danger

Iris Wildthyme

• The Mancunian Candidate (in Wildthyme on Top)
• Lilac Mars (with Mark Clapham, in Iris Wildthyme of Mars)

Audio

Big Finish Bernice Summerfield series

• Just War (adapted by Jacqueline Rayner)
• The Extinction Event
• Venus Mantrap (with Mark Clapham)

Big Finish main range

• Primeval
• Davros
• Benny's Story

I, Davros

• Corruption

Novel Adaptations

• Cold Fusion

BBV Productions

• The Root of All Evil
• I Scream

Comics

Writer / Letterer

• Miranda

Reference books

• A History of the Universe
• AHistory

Cancelled books

• Enemy of the Daleks
• Horror of Det-Sen

External links

• Official blog
• Lance Parkin at the Faction Paradox wiki
• Official Facebook page

• Doctor Who and Mythology, by Lance Parkin
• Lance Parkin by Paul Scoones (Interview) - TSV 48
• Throwback Interview: Lance Parkin (2006)
• INTERVIEW: FTN interviews Doctor Who writer Lance Parkin
• Doc Oho's Reviews: Lance Parkin Q & A Part One
• Doc Oho's Reviews: Lance Parkin Q & A Part Two
• Unreality SF Lance Parkin interview Part 1
• Unreality SF Lance Parkin interview Part 2
• A Sci-Fi Worlds Interview with Lance Parkin
• From Books to Bernice: An Interview with Lance Parkin
• BBC.co.uk website interview with Lance Parkin, 01 January 2004
• Outpost Gallifrey - Interview: Lance Parkin (archived)