Lawrence Miles
Lawrence Miles wrote several Doctor Who and Bernice Summerfield New Adventures novels.
He created the Faction Paradox and the Future War that the Time Lords were going to have. He said when he started the war in Alien Bodies, it was "never supposed to be a big murder-mystery type of thing, with this huge question hovering over it", and was going to reveal the identity of the Enemy in his next book after Bodies, which Stephen Cole stopped him from doing.[1]
He is known among some fan circles [which?] as "Mad Larry" for his often controversial ideas and comments. He frequently posts such views (often in essay form) of the most recent episodes of the new series on The Beasthouse (Lawrence Miles' blog).
Miles is also known for attempting to set the BBC Books Doctor Who novels apart from the Virgin novels, claiming the BBC Books novels were "weak when they're pretending to be the Virgin books", specifically pointing out Vampire Science as suffering from this.[1]
Miles has particular views and understandings [statement unclear] of Doctor Who, as shown in his About Time series. [which?]
He is very passionate about certain elements of Doctor Who, calling Anji Kapoor someone who would have been treated "as a piece of self-obsessed parasitic vermin" because of her job in the City of London in the Virgin New Adventures, explaining it wasn't the job itself but that she was proud of it; something he considered so "mean-spirited and trivial".[2]
In a 2000 interview he said he didn't like Lance Parkin's work, but he was one of the writers still talking to him.[1]
He called Gary Russell's work "crap", saying he wrote the lowest-rated Doctor Who book "on the rankings chart" at the time of the interview, Divided Loyalties. He also disagreed with Russell "taking over as much as fandom as possible", a fandom which according to Miles was gaining younger fans that "actually wants to go somewhere" at the time, but also one which "the Gary Mafia at DWM seem[ed] to be doing everything it [could] to make sure it all [got] fucked up".[1]
Miles, by his own admission, had "slagged off" BBC Books novels he hadn't written which had used Faction Paradox.[2]
Miles considered Roz Forrester a "genuine character in a way that Bernice and Anji aren't" because "apart from her overall grumpiness she had nothing in common with the people who wrote her or the people who read about her". He also mentioned that her background was so apart from that of the readers that her writers had to try "bloody hard" to make her understandable."[2]
Miles is noted for creating Sabbath (another recurring concept/villain) in the Eighth Doctor Adventures. He said that Justin Richards wanted Sabbath as a recurring character from the synopsis alone, at which point Miles didn't even know he was going to be like.[2]
Bibliography
Doctor Who
Virgin New Adventures
BBC Eighth Doctor Adventures
- Alien Bodies
- Interference - Book One: Shock Tactic
- Interference - Book Two: The Hour of the Geek
- The Adventuress of Henrietta Street
