Vinyl countdown

A beautifully designed collectible version of my Tenth Doctor and Donna story Pest Control has been announced. What a treat now that David Tennant and Catherine Tate are returning this month to TV Doctor Who.

Demon Records, a subsidiary of BBC Studios, have put together a six LP release of my story Pest Control, read by David Tennant, along with Dan Abnett’s story The Forever Trap, read by Catherine Tate.

Dan and I have each written a new introduction to our stories, reflecting on how we went about the original commissions and what it means to us today.

You can see more details of the specifications in the official BBC announcement. The artwork and design is by Sam Goddard of Oink Creative, and Michael Stevens coordinated the project. And you can preorder from a variety of retailers here.

These two audio stories were the first that the actors performed in role as original stories outside the TV series. That was always the hope when I was writing the script, though it wasn’t until after I had delivered my manuscript that David was confirmed as the reader of mine.

Four Doctors

The Big Finish news pages have revealed that I have written the Christmas release for their main Doctor Who audios range. I wrote it some time ago, but they’ve only just made the info public.

It features the four main Doctors in the Big Finish range — Peter Davison, Colin Baker, Sylvester McCoy, and Paul McGann. I’ve written audios for two of them in the past: I wrote “Bounty” for the  BBC audio book Earth & Beyond, which was Paul McGann’s first new story after the TV Movie; and The Chaos Pool was my conclusion of the Big Finish Key 2 Time trilogy, starring Peter Davison.

It was great fun to script this special set of episodes, which also (hurrah!) gave me a chance to do something exciting with the Daleks, too. The episodes are available exclusively to people who take out a subscription to Big Finish’s splendid monthly series of audio adventures.

I suppose I have now created adventures for eight of the eleven Doctors to date, if you count short story collections (second and third Doctors) and audio (tenth Doctor). If you’re counting on your fingers, you’ll realise that tots up to seven… I haven’t mentioned one of the remaining Doctors, because I only just signed the contract for that, and so an official announcement is still to come.

In other news, my two Torchwood novels are now available for the Kindle. This is very prompt, because I only signed the contract for that very recently.

Check out Another Life and Pack Animals at Amazon’s Kindle Store, from where you can get them “auto delivered wirelessly”. How can you resist?

As Random House (the latest owners of the BBC Books imprint) still have the rights to publish my previous Doctor Who novels, perhaps they will also recognise that they have a back catalogue of material that they could release as eBooks — and not just my novels, either, but lots of others that are either out of print or hard to obtain these days.

I suppose that will depend on whether they not only have the publishing rights but also the original text or print files.

But I think know someone who can help them with that if they really need it.

I’m free

The Guardian reports that the ASA admonished the Sunday Telegraph for its giveaway of my audio CD Pest Control. The adjudication is here. Thank you to m’colleague Oli Smith who drew my attention to this, and warned me that BBC Watchdog were going to camp on my doorstep and demand an explanation.

I waited until Anne Robinson shouted through my letterbox and then poked her with a sharpened pencil through the open flap. When you next see her on TV, you may notice she has an awkward tic in one eye.

Alas, one complainant felt misled that the audiobook was in two parts and only one was attached to the paper. Another complainant didn’t think the redeemable vouchers made the audiobook “free” from WH Smith because they didn’t live near a store, and therefore had to stump up nearly thirteen quid for all the CDs.

If it’s any consolation, I spent a quid to get my free Pest Control Part 1 CD in the Sunday Telegraph, and then forgot to get the Monday Daily Telegraph paper altogether. Oli Smith’s audio (free the previous day) was good, though. BBC Audio (or possibly AudioGo) plan to issue it officially at a later date with music and sound effects.  That cover mount was the first time Oli had heard the final version — he got up at 7 a.m. on the Saturday to buy the paper and listen to his CD.

Actually, you can still get both Pest Control CDs in a nice box with a booklet for a mere six quid from Amazon. Or for listeners in the US, for less than $20 here.

Covermount update

The Daily Telegraph has now provided fuller details of the audios that they are giving away free from next weekend. Details here.

Saturday 24th:  The Runaway Train, read by the new Doctor, Matt Smith (and written by Oli Smith)

Sunday 25th: Part One of Pest Control, read by David Tennant

Monday 26th: Get a voucher that you can redeem in WHSmith for Part Two of Pest Control.

Tuesday 26th: Voucher for Slipback, starring Colin Baker and Nicola Bryant

Wednesday 27th: Voucher for Exploration Earth starring Tom Baker and Sarah Jane Smith

Thursday 28th: Voucher for Genesis of the Daleks, abridged novelisation narrated by  Tom Baker

Friday 29th: Voucher for Mission to the Unknown, original soundtrack with narration by Peter Purves

Telegraph covermount

The Daily Telegraph is going to covermount a set of audios as a “Doctor Who Collection”. I’m particularly pleased, because they’re including my audio Pest Control (read by David Tennant) on Sunday 25th and Monday 26th April.

Before that, readers will be able to get new Doctor Matt Smith reading The Runaway Train, which is a bit of a scoop. After Pest Control, the Collection will contain Slipback featuring Colin Baker, Genesis of the Daleks and Exploration Earth featuring Tom Baker and Elisabeth Sladen, and finally Mission to the Unknown, the soundtrack recording of the single-episode Hartnell-era story that (uniquely) doesn’t feature the Doctor or any of his companions. It’s a Marc Cory Story.

“It’s a thrilling collection of unique original audio stories, rarely-heard radio adventures and classic TV soundtracks,” says Commissioning Editor of BBC Audiobooks, Michael Stevens, “featuring the voices of much-loved Doctors, companions and monsters – including the brand new current Doctor, Matt Smith!”

Updated: corrected the dates and the reference about “Mission…” It’s the soundtrack, not the novelisation.

Audio therapy

The “Alpha Mummy” blog in The Times today made me smile. The author’s daughter was bereft at losing David Tennant in the recent Doctor Who finale, and even reading Doctor Who Magazine was insufficient consolation. So the clever father “downloaded a Doctor Who audiobook, read out by Tennant”. And by 11:30 p.m. their daughter was fast asleep.

I like to imagine that “at least one more David Tennant adventure”  means it was an audio original, and specifically Pest Control. Have I mentioned that audio on this blog?  It’s still available for download in the UK and the US and from other fine retailers around the world. Please don’t download an illegal torrent of it, because the author doesn’t get any royalties for those, and that’s how I’m paid for writing it, and not getting royalties makes me weep like a bereft girl.

Well, I like to imagine that the parents downloaded my audio. But perhaps it was Simon Messingham’s Day of the Troll instead. Find that here, if you must.

And for those of you as excited as I am about the forthcoming Eleventh Doctor, check out the preview on the BBC website here (UK only, I’m afraid).

Update: my wife asks, “Was the girl in a coma? After listening to your audio, I mean?”

Top Tennant

News just in… well, it was news to me, thanks to David Darlington, who sent me the December newsletter from the Audiobook Publishing Association.

The announcement actually happened two months ago at the Chiswick Book Festival. The competition was announced in July, as I may have mentioned. And there was also an article in The Independent about the nominations here.

Anyway, thanks to participating members of the public, Pest Control was voted in the Top Ten. Thank you voters! Fellow nominees who didn’t make the Top Ten were Cormack McCarthy, Julian Fellowes, Duncan Bannatyne, the late E M Forster, Barack Obama, and Paddington Bear.

There were three categories – fiction, non-fiction, and children’s. About four and a half thousand members of the public voted on a list of twenty titles that had been selected from over one hundred titles entered by audio publishers. The panel’s selections were based on excellence in several criteria: quality of literary content, abridgement, reading, production value and sound quality.

The winner of the fiction category was Tea Time for the Traditionally Built by Alexander McCall Smith, read by Adjoa Andoh (published by Hachette). Neil Gaiman’s The Graveyard Book (Bloomsbury) topped the children’s chart. And the overall winner was Dear Fatty, the audiobook of Dawn French’s autobiography, read by Liza Tarbuck and published by Random House.

Full results:

• Dear Fatty by Dawn French read by Liza Tarbuck (Random House) – Overall Winner
• The Graveyard Book written and read by Neil Gaiman (Bloomsbury) – Children’s Winner
• Tea Time for the Traditionally Built by Alexander McCall Smith read by Adjoa Andoh (Hachette Digital) – Fiction Winner
• Doctor Who : Pest Control by Peter Anghelides read by David Tennant (BBC Audio)
• Devil May Care by Sebastian Faulks read by Jeremy Northam (Penguin)
• A Room with a View by E M Forster read by Juliet Stevenson (CSA Word)
• Slumdog Millionaire by Vikas Swarup read by Kerry Shale (Harper Collins)
• The Last Fighting Tommy by Harry Patch read by Alan Howard (Hachette Digital)
• The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga read by Kerry Shale (Orion)
• The Road by Cormac McCarthy read by Rupert Degas (Naxos)

Before I get too excited, I should note that this inaugural award was initiated by Agile Marketing, and featured “the very best in audio publishing from January 2008 – March 2009”. But it’s always lovely to have recognition for something I’ve written, and I’m grateful therefore to my publishers for nominating me, the judging panel for shortlisting me, and the public for voting.

Pest in show?

I was very flattered to learn recently that Doctor Who: Pest Control is one of the nominations for the Best Audiobook of the Year. If you liked it, you can vote here. Or if you prefer something else, you can vote for that instead.

The site also links to snippets from each audio. For mine, it’s an exciting action sequence narrated by David Tennant.

There’s also an article in The Independent about the nominations here. Even better, it shows the cover of my audiobook on the front page.

Fellow “best audio” names include Sebastian Faulks, Neil Gaiman, Alexander McCall Smith, Cormack McCarthy, Julian Fellowes, Duncan Bannatyne, Harry Patch, Dawn French, the late E M Forster, Barack Obama, and Paddington Bear.