Doctor Who News

The peeps over at the official BBC site have just posted an update:

The Oncoming Storm!
This weekend on BBC Three you can catch more of the Tenth Doctor's most spectacular adventures...

Blog of Paul Cornell - writer of Doctor Who (and other stuff, of course!)

Casual Fridays: Redux
So I felt so ill and exhausted last Friday that I let myself off the hook of doing this blog.  I don't think it was actually post-convention crud, but the downer of no longer being surrounded by lovely friends and an audience of 6000 didn't help my condition.  Now I'm feeling a lot better, but still kind of tired, after (before this week) two of the busiest work weeks I've ever had, plus the SFX Weekender.  And this week has also been huge, life-changing, in fact, in a number of ways, some of which will only become clear in the long term.  Before we get to the meat of this blog, though, with a report on the Weekender, some important announcements...

This year's Eastercon still seeks female panelists, particularly in the areas of science and comics.  Everyone should do Eastercon this year: see George R.R. Martin!  Tricia Sullivan!  Cory Doctorow!

There's a new edition of the SF Squeecast out now, without me in attendance, but with the gang discussing each other's work (including some flattering words about my stuff).  Probably a good thing I wasn't there, I'd have blushed and looked at my shoes.

Last Saturday, I popped along to Big Finish Day in Barking.  Brilliant to see such a large turn-out, to have so many BF writers in one building, and to meet Benny's new companion (well, more of a best friend really), Ayesha Antoine.  (Who is such a sweetheart, and such a geek!)  Onstage, me, Ayesha, Lisa Bowerman and Benny producers Gary Russell and Scott Handcock (hey, two out of five, close enough for Panel Parity!) talked about plans for the character's twentieth anniversary this year.  There are two special projects.  Firstly, there's a new audio adaptation of Bernice's first appearance in Love and War, with Sylvester McCoy and Sophie Aldred (here's the full cast list).  It's especially pleasing to have James Redmond (who was in some of my Casualty episodes) playing Jan.

Secondly, and this is very exciting, there's Many Happy Returns, a new Bernice audio adventure written by, and starring, every major Bernice contributor.  This is that secret project I visited the BF studios a few months ago to take part in, and it was like Bandaid, with writers and actors coming in to do their bit and hanging around in the green room to chat about old times.  We've come together in aid of Let's Do It For ME, a charity dear to all our hearts, furthering awareness of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome by funding research into this terrible condition.  We all donated our time for free (the studio included), so every penny goes to the charity.  The drama is also a proper celebration of Bernice's history, visiting every aspect of her life.  I'm very proud of my bit.  (And as you'll notice if you visit either of the BF links, Scott's even running a marathon for the cause.  Do chip in.)

In other news, The Sensible Folly, the story I had published in booklet form to support the Folly Trust in my old hometown of Faringdon, has been made into an audio book.  You can hear me talking about the project on this edition of Faringdon Local, and my whole fifteen-minute reading is here. It's a pleasure to actually record one of my own stories.  I hope I get to put my voice to similar use again sometime.

My lovely publishers, Tor Books, have a new blog, which includes a competition relevant to the interests of those of you who were at the Weekender.  I suspect as November approaches I'll be sending you in their direction often.

The latest issue of Esli, the Russian SF magazine (#228) has arrived...


Containing a translation of my Jonathan Hamilton novelette 'The Copenhagen Interpretation', with an illustration of this rather dashing 1980s-style Hamilton...


Which actor does he remind me of?

If you're a member of the British Fantasy Society (and if not, you should really think about joining), voting has started for this year's BFS Awards.  For the first time, these awards include a category, the Robert Holdstock Award, for Best Epic Fantasy Novel, a change designed to move the Society away from being a dark fantasy/horror group and embracing all kinds of fantasy.  Epic fantasy has, oddly, not many awards to its name, and I hope this one will be welcomed.

And finally, I'm proud to be one of six judges for the Sci-Fi London 48 Hour Film Challenge, which, as the title suggests, is a contest involving making a short film in two days (you need to have a representative in London to announce your work on April 14th).  If you've ever fancied getting behind the camera, this wouldn't be a bad place to start.  I look forward to seeing your entries.

Following the delivery of the novel (and how easily do I dash off that phrase now!), last week was all about Demon Knights for me, as we get to two-thirds of the way through the next arc, about which I can reveal nothing.  But there are loads of connections with the wider DC Universe becoming apparent.  And this week, I plotted out a Saucer Country arc, and went back to work on the new Hamilton story.

Last week we went to see The Phantom of the Opera, something Caroline's wanted to do for some time, and it was... okay.  Great music.  But the amount of cross-singing meant that the plot was often obscured, and... I just didn't get onside with the Phantom.  The owners of the theatre are nice guys who find themselves saddled with the mother of all health and safety issues.  ('Sir, nowhere in your bill of sale did you mention a Phantom!')  The program made much of this version of the tale getting rid of Hollywood's 'revenge on copyright thieves' motivation for the Phantom (now that I would have cheered for), and going back to the novel's approach.  But if the owners are cool, and the Phantom literally kills people just for making fun of him... why am I meant to think he's tragic and misunderstood?  I was waiting, thus, for his own opera to at least be a work of genius, but actually it's as cliched as all the others.  And the Phantom writes such dull, prosaic threatening notes.  This is quite an accurate study of the behaviour of an obsessed stalker, but... he's sort of the hero?  Is he meant to be annoying?  And the whole thing's framed as a flashback at the start... which doesn't get closed at the end.  After twenty-five years, you expect a production not to feel like a work in progress.  But I should mention the marvelous production design, and the entirely up for it cast, and again, the quality of the music.  And if this uber-Goth show had heightened its reality by just a couple more notches, I might yet have bought in to the tragedy of it all.

I went on from Phantom to Nick Harkaway's launch party for his new novel Angelmaker, a gathering which included a (real) priest with a Phantom-esque black hood over his features.  In my feverish circumstances, that rather freaked me out.  The do was held at an extraordinary Sumerian-themed nightclub in Camden (how often do you get to say that?) and it was cool to meet both Nick and Patrick Ness for the first time, and to catch up with Ellen Datlow, John Clute, Pat Cadigan, and the continuation of the Weekender social whirl.

So, yes, now we come to it, the SFX Weekender, where to begin?

I drove down to Prestatyn on the Thursday (listening to Ellen Kushner's Swordspoint), and booked in for my one-night stay in my Pontins chalet early.  Which, as it turns out, was a good idea, because soon an enormous queue built up outside reception, lashed by freezing winds like penguins in Frozen Planet.  (I think it's the temperature differential between the boiling interiors and the chill outside that creates those conditions.)   There have been some major complaints about queues and facilities and about the lack of gender equality onstage and in terms of dancers, and some of them (including all the gender parity complaints) are entirely justified.  I hope you'll forgive me if I don't go into much of that here.  The SFX gang are my friends, and I know that plans are in motion to make next year better.  And, you know, following on from my last blog, I'll be extending my year of doing that to include their next event and provide one litmus test of that change.

My own experience was: best convention ever.  A sheer joy.  It isn't just that there were so many friends present, or that there was such a big audience to perform to, but that that audience formed some sort of platonic ideal for me of what a genre audience should be.  This lot were nearly fifty per cent women, ordinary people, who regarded SF as something one could sample as part of a balanced diet.  They weren't locked inside a self-built ghetto.  They were in the world, and in SF, at the same moment.  And because they were mainstream, they were more diverse in general than the regular convention audience.

That audience showed up for authors.  So many authors, this time.  All experiencing bigger panels than they'd ever encountered in the UK.  The thematic panels did better (as 101s for newcomers) than attempts to encourage debate, because said debates were new to this audience.  Marc Gascoigne of Angry Robot books told me, in terms of book sales: 'best convention ever'.  Danie Ware at Forbidden Planet reported the same thing.  This is the Dragoncon effect at work: you put interesting books in front of a 'media' audience and they'll buy and read them.  In truckloads.  The FP stall sold out of everything of mine they'd brought along.  Several authors I knew reported the same thing.  Lavie Tidhar is a brilliant, edgy, writer who challenges mainstream thinking.  That he should get a convention book sellout is testament to the fact that this lot were here for a bit from column A, a bit from column B: some Brian Blessed; some Dan Abnett; some Lavie Tidhar.

I think I'm only going to be able to describe the weekend in snapshots.  It seems such a long time ago now.

There were a bunch of Scottish lads in the bar on the Thursday night, who were (ostensibly) there to support their fanboy mate, saying things like 'I don't know anything about sci-fi', but obviously interested, positive, and quite surprised to be in surroundings which already felt like an enormous party.  It was thanks to them, I believe, that I got lost on the way back to the chalet, and had a sudden and unfortunate encounter with a tree, which led to me sporting, for the rest of the weekend, a split lip which resembled a very small moustache.

The Tor Books 'cottage' this year, where my editor Julie Crisp and her team accommodated myself, Peter F. Hamilton, Mark Charan Newton, Adrian Tchaikovsky and China Mieville, was more of an enormous fortress.  Located on a brow several miles from the venue, it boasted an observation deck, several kitchens, and enough party space for the publisher to host the mother of all soirees on the Friday night.


(Photos of Fort Tor by Mark Charan Newton.)  I wandered from conversation to conversation with the ease of someone who looks like they've been roughed up by experts, and we finished the night with champers and my Mum's apple crumble.


We only had eyes for Julie's very small and perfect baby, who Julie and her husband had brought to her first convention.  To be honest, the party of our friendly rival publishers, on the following night, was not up to the same standard, being in Chalet 40.

A rolling game of Apples to Apples in the Queen Vic pub involved the Angry Robot drinking team (Marc and Lee), Juliet E. McKenna (whose kung fu powers allowed her to slink out of her convention wristband), Emma Newman (dressed as a Skyrim Tavern wench, with a little card indicating her allowed range of responses), and the guys from Third Row Fandom, as well as many authors who popped in for a round or two.

The Kitschies went down very well, in a packed screening area (the secondary sit down area, with pub tables, a bar, and an enormous movie screen, the most sociable hang out that weekend), with the attitude of the SFX audience being rather like that of the magazine itself: we don't know much about the books that are being feted here, but this is clearly the high end of what we're into, so we want to participate and we want to know more.  That's the lesson I think fandom always comes away from the Weekender with: the mainstream are just like us now, there's nothing to be afraid of.  I like an award that one can cuddle, and I did some of that with a Kitschie 'inky tentacle', so much so that I nearly absconded with it.

I did a really fun panel with Ben Aaronovitch, Benedict Jacka, Stacia Kane, Mark Charan Newton and Same Stone about urban fantasy.  Again, a bit of a 101, but with a big audience who were clearly up for it, and with all of us on the panel with experience of, and something to say about, the subject.  Stacia was hardcore, one of several cool authors I met for the first time this weekend, like Maria Dahvana Headley (the girl with the Horus tattoo), Sophia McDougall and David Tallerman.  One of the interesting effects of having something approaching a 50/50 gender balance in the audience is that when a female panelist makes a feminist joke, or calls out a male panelist about something (like when Jaine Fenn threatened Alastair Reynolds' gonads), there's supportive laughter and cheering.

It was also great to introduce Mark Buckingham and his wife Irma to my author friends, my comics and SF worlds meeting.  I like it when the media get along with each other, it makes it feel less like I've got one foot on one boat and one on the other.

That woman I met in Cardiff was going round, you remember, the one in the top hat who asks creators about their favourite cheeses and is compiling the results for her website.  Whenever I was in conversation with someone she hadn't 'got', she'd zoom up to my shoulder and ask for an introduction.  The world of cheese fancying benefited hugely that weekend, with input from Mark Newton (a typically connoisseur answer), Phil Ford (cheese of the people) and Lavie (five minutes about the impossibility of such a choice).

Oh, and Phil Ford, he's the man to go to if you want to share the chips of the star of the Sarah Jane Adventures.  Very welcome at that point in the evening.

There are guests to spare at the Weekender, they just show up.  Like Brian Aldiss, introduced onstage by Stephen Baxter at the Awards, there to pick up a lifetime achievement gong, and feted, absolutely feted, standing ovation from the biggest crowd he's probably ever encountered.  There, again, is one of the reasons why the Weekender is a force for good.  They can also put on an Awards ceremony where those who can't be there send videos, and those who can pop in just for the evening, so one learns to expect surprises.

I didn't see many of the actors.  I got a hug from Sophie Aldred (the world's sunniest person, whose verdict about being trapped on a train for seven hours was 'it was great, I got to read!')  I was in the Green Room with Brian Blessed, enjoying the Presence.  (He did well, as many other blogs have told you.)



So, okay, the two panel games.  These packed out their rooms.  This audience are also here for comedy.  I have never seen a Just A Minute panel that was so nervous beforehand.  But Toby, China, Sarah and Joe got into it right away, and, well, see for yourself...






One of the best, I think.  And I'm now talking to three different conventions about doing the game for them.

The other panel game was one I was taking part in, Ready Steady Flash, hosted by Lee Harris.  The idea here was to write a story in five minutes to a given title.  I was playing against Stacia Kane, Tony Lee and Juliet E. McKenna, and while we frantically wrote, the audience were kept entertained by Lee's monologues, and by comedy from Donna Scott (hey, Panel Parity again!)  I was so focused on the writing I have no idea what they said.  Here are the three titles given to us, and what I wrote for each...

The Old Gods

'My back is killing me,' said Odin, rubbing his lower spine with his Odinhands.  'Sorry, that should be my Odinback.'
     'My arms are killing me,' said Kali.
     'Well,' said Pan, 'if you have more of something, then it's bound to hurt more. I may have mentioned my own particular ache.'
     Odin glanced his Odinglance up at the clock on the wall of the Happy Cloud Rest Home for Old Gods.  'I wonder,' he said, 'what's for dinner?'
     'I hope it's not bloody Ambrosia,' said Kali.
     'We should never have got old,' said Pan.  'Why did we allow it?'
     The others looked -

And that's where that one finishes, as the five minutes were up and I had to grumpily throw down my pen.  You can see some obvious attempts at crowd pleasing smut with that one, but as you can see on her blog, it was Juliet's excellent entry that won the day.  The next title was...

The View from the Future

There was once a town called Prestatyn here, built by coal and blood and work.
     But it vanished.  It's not there any more.  And the thing that stands in its place now, well, you've seen how empty the space is, especially when you look down on it from those lookout posts on the hills, where the rich have fled.
     Prestatyn died, I'm told, in 1983.

Ouch.  I put down my pen early, very smug about that ill-advised attempt at social comment.  (I don't even know if there was coal mining in Prestatyn!)  I had my arse handed to me on that round by Tony Lee, who went for a poem about Anthony Head's absence owing to a train derailment.  Which suited the mood of the crowd perfectly.  The last title was...

Unicorn Sandwich

'I can't believe,' said Isolde, 'that you'd think I'd cheat on you, Tristan.  I am in fact still a virgin, and I will take any magical test to prove it.'
     'Well, you see,' said Tristan, 'that's why I invited you to lunch.'
     'You mean to clear the air?'
     'No, to establish your innocence.  You managed to eat the sandwich.'
     'Oh,' said Isolde, picking the horn out of her teeth.  'I thought that was unusually crunchy.'

Which was okay, I thought, until Stacia, who until this point had been hitting us with serious slices of urban fantasy, decided to take the audience to another level of smut entirely, with, well... check it out.  Lee decided that we were all the winners equally (which he told me later was because he couldn't face announcing that each of the other contestants had won a round, leaving them all the joint winners, and me... well, let's call it second).  As you'll see from the length of those entries, most of writing, even in those circumstances, is thinking.  Juliet, Tony and Stacia all made very quick and useful calculations about story shape and audience expectation.

The phrase 'unicorn sandwich' cropped up a lot after that.

I don't get Pat Sharp (we love to dance to cheese, but he plays cheese you can't dance to), but Craig Charles, showing up just to DJ, was awesome as always.  It didn't feel like a fan disco, with that tremendous release of wanting to dance but being afraid to, and then finally giving in when it feels safe.  This lot had arrived with the absolute certainty of boppage.  It was a costume ball, and there were loads of them, wall to wall, fun and well crafted and above all omnipresent.  That's another huge lesson: visible geek unity, here are our people, and they're having fun within the culture of being our people, and there are 6000 of them, and everybody's cool with that.  I wandered happily from camp to camp, just gazing around most of the time, finding groups of my friends talking in different corners.  Every conversation you came to, everyone was already smiling.  It felt like geek victory.  My wonderful agent put on a domino mask and enjoyed the romance of anonymity.  Ambassador Kosh turned out to be able to really cut a rug.  I finally drove China back to the Fort at 3am, blissed out on fan sweat.

No guest today because, hey, look how big this post is already.  But, signing off, here's another piece of my favourite music.  This time, it's Bobby Darin, with a prime piece of the theatrical in popular music.  I love how the jolly form conceals the horrifying lyric.  'We're all people of the world,' the song says, 'we're cool with how things are.  It's kind of glamorous.  Isn't it?'  And that depicts America in the early 1960s so well.



I hope to see some of you at Picocon tomorrow (just popping in, not on any panels).  Until then, Cheerio!

Not so many years ago a new Big Finish CD was pretty much the only new Who to look forward to. They've got news:

Free Doctor Who audio to download!
The very first episode of The Eighth Doctor Adventures, starring Paul McGann as the Doctor and Sheridan Smith as Lucie Miller, is available to download for free from Friday February 17 to Sunday February 19 only at www.bigfinish.com.

Blood of the Daleks â€" Part 1 pits the Eighth Doctor against his oldest enemies and also stars Hayley Atwell (Captain America), Anita Dobson (EastEnders) and Kenneth Cranham (Rome, Hot Fuzz)

The giveaway leads into a massive sale of The Eighth Doctor Adventures on CD and download, as follows

Monday 20th February â€" all eight releases of Season One are available for just £35 (US $60), or £5 each (US $9).

Tuesday 21st February â€" all eight releases of Season Two are available for just £35 (US $60), or £5 each (US $9).

Wednesday 22nd February â€" all eight releases of Season Three are available for just £35 (US $60), or £5 each (US $9),

Thursday 24th February â€" all ten releases of Season Four are available for just £40 (US $75), or £5 each (US $9).

Each season is available on sale for just one day, and only at www.bigfinish.com.

Download the Blood of the Daleks - Part 1 here
Blake's 7 - Archangel: New Book Announced!
Big Finish is proud to announce the second book in the new series of original Blake's 7 novels. Written by Scott Harrison and set between the TV stories Trial and Killer, Archangel finds the rebels trying to move on from the horrific death of crew-member Olag Gan.

When an old friend of Blake’s â€" believed to have been murdered five years earlier by the Federation â€" is discovered alive in a labour camp on Sigma Minor, the rebels decide to mount a daring rescue attempt. But the talented cybernetic engineer Blake once knew is a shadow of his former self. His memory has been wiped, his family are prisoners of the Federation, and his name is inextricably linked to a sinister project known only by a codename: Archangel.

Archangel: An ultra-secret experiment so dangerous, so horrific, so terrifying that it was shut down by the High Council and ordered never to be reopened... until now.

This time, death may be the Liberator crew’s best option.

Scott Harrison is a writer and playwright whose stage plays have been produced in both the US and the UK. As well as contributing short stories for the popular time-travelling voodoo cult Faction Paradox (originally created for the BBC Books Eighth Doctor range) and for both the Steampunk and Horror genres, he has also written comic book scripts, audio scripts and for various eBook and audiobook collections. He is range editor for the Modern Masters of Audio series (produced & directed by Neil Gardner) and is currently writing for and editing a new Steampunk anthology for Snowbooks, where he is absolutely thrilled to be working with legendary Blake’s 7 scriptwriter Tanith Lee.

Scott is thrilled to be part of this exciting new range as he has watched Blake's 7 all his life. 'I hope to make the novel as breathtakingly exciting as each of those 52 TV episodes have been for me over the past 30-plus years,' he says. 'To be invited by Big Finish to be a part of this range, particularly at its outset, is surely every writer’s dream, not to mention a huge honour.'

Archangel is available for pre-order now, along with the first book in Big Finish's Blake's 7 novel range: The Forgotten, by Mark Wright and Cavan Scott.

Hardback copies of The Forgotten are on sale from May 2012 and Archangel from November 2012

Radio Free Skaro has the kind of irrevancy that makes it an essential listen for any iPod wielding space dustbin.

Radio Free Skaro #294 - The Dog Days Are Over

The annual meet up of Doctor Who podcasters at Gallifrey One forms the backbone of this, the first of Radio Free Skaro's episodes covering the convention. Among our friends joining us is Simon Harries, late of Tachyon TV and attending his first Gally since 2010, and Josh Zimon, long time listener and now first time guest representing, along with Eric Escamilla, the Mostly Harmless Cutaway podcast. Topics discussed were the differences in popularity of Doctor Who in North America and in the UK, how Gallifrey One stands out among the many other Doctor Who conventions in the USA and in the United Kingdom, and the usual tales of ribaldry that occurs at such events and pushes the PG-13 boundaries that this podcast tries desperately to somewhat casually enforce. Enjoy, and stay tuned throughout the rest of the weekend for more episodes to come!

Check out the show notes at http://www.radiofreeskaro.com

New Doctor Who fan fiction from A Teaspoon And An Open Mind:

Applications of Simple Science by gallifreyburning [All Ages]
Everybody and their aunt has done a "Rose and TenII work things out and get together, those crazy kids" fic. This is mine.
Don't Let Go by lauraxtennant [Teen]
The Doctor couldn't believe he'd done it. He'd finally got through. And all he could think about was getting to her. His focus was single-minded and unwavering; find Rose Tyler. It was actually easier than he thought fate might make it. - Reunion fic set after Doomsday and series 3 (the events of series 4 do not apply here)
Complications and Confessions by lauraxtennant [Teen]
Excerpt: "..in one split second I was presented with a way to alleviate this, this, this thing that we have between us by inviting him, and..." Set soon after GitF.
Changing colour by CIRaccon [All Ages]
The Doctor finds the missing piece to repair the chameleon circuit, thus giving him a whole new way to impress Rose.
River Run by Jonn Wolfe [Adult]
The 'Christmas Special' of my RRAU. Keeping time on track means that Team Tardis has to ensure the different moments that 'River' popped up in the past take place. And, like with everything else, none of this is easy at all, especially with the pregnancies going on.

Bachmann 32-627 Class 221 Virgin Trains 5 Car Super Voyager Doctor Who

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DOCTOR WHO CHARACTER BUILD FIGURES 59 SEALED ITEMS SERIES 1 PLUS DISPLAY BOX

£150.00 End Date: Tuesday Feb-21-2012 14:55:40 GMT Buy It Now for only: £150.00 Buy it now | Add to watch list

Dr Who Alien Armies Panini MASTER Trading card Set.

£124.99 End Date: Friday Mar-16-2012 20:39:50 GMT Buy It Now for only: £124.99 Buy it now | Add to watch list

Not so many years ago a new Big Finish CD was pretty much the only new Who to look forward to. They've got news:

Podcast - Eighth Doctor Sale Preview - 15 February 2012
Nick Briggs just can't get enough of podcasting this week, so he's back again to tease next week's massive Eighth Doctor Adventures sale!

Starting on Monday 20th February, you'll be able to buy an entire series of Paul McGann and Sheridan Smith-starring tales every single day for £35 (the first three series) and £40 (the last series). Or, if there are gaps in your collection, you can fill them for £5 per release.

There will be daily podcasts to tease you further, but in the meantime here's an overview of the entire run and news of our other special offer: the whole of part one of Blood of the Daleks will be free to download from Friday 17th - Sunday 19th February.

Of course, if you own all the Eighth Doctor Adventures already, you can still reminisce, be inspired to listen to them again - and start telling your friends when they can buy them too for a special low price!


Download Podcast Here

Dr Doctor Who Screen Set Used Prop Money Tennant Tenth Runaway Bride Real Dalek

£19.99 End Date: Saturday Feb-25-2012 12:45:45 GMT Buy It Now for only: £19.99 Buy it now | Add to watch list

DOCTOR WHO 'MASTERS FOB WATCH' - REPLICA PROP (SEE DETAILS)

£19.99 End Date: Monday Feb-20-2012 9:26:08 GMT Buy It Now for only: £19.99 Buy it now | Add to watch list

Blog of Paul Cornell - writer of Doctor Who (and other stuff, of course!)

Panel Parity
Okay, so this was something I came up with yesterday, and it's mad, and is, frankly, a rod for my own back, but what the hell, it's going to make this coming year a lot more interesting.

I think there should be gender parity on every panel at every convention.  I'm after 50/50, all the time.  I want that in place as an expectation, as a rule.  Now, to make that happen, what really should be done is a ground-up examination of society, huge changes at the heart of things which would automatically lead to women being equally represented everywhere, not just on convention panels.  Well, we've all wanted that and worked for that for decades, especially those of us in fandom, and it just hasn't happened.  So, this year, I've decided that I'm going to approach this problem via the only moral unit I'm in charge of: me.  I'm going to approach this problem from the other end.  And this approach is going to be very much that of a blunt instrument.

If I'm on, at any convention this year, a panel that doesn't have a 50/50 gender split (I'll settle for two out of five), I'll hop off that panel, and find a woman to take my place.  

If I know of a professionally qualified woman (a fellow creator or critic or someone with specific knowledge of the subject) in the room, I'll start by inviting her up.  If there's nobody like that, I'll ask for hands up, and hope that bravery counts as virtue enough for them to hold their own on the panel.  I will ask such women that they don't spend their time on the panel criticising the convention or the companies I work for.  That would make me a very rude guest.  I will then stay in the room to listen to the panel, and then, due to the small possibility that someone might have come to the panel purely to see me, make myself available outside afterwards, so no audience member is short-changed.

On some occasions, I may be able to make the panel gender-balanced in another way, by asking more women to join in to even up the numbers.  I actually think that's much more invasive than me getting off the panel.  I've got a right, I feel, to replace myself, but not to haul lots of other people on.  (We've all been in panels where someone says 'hey, I know of some people who'd be great on this panel, you guys come on up' and the results are rarely charming.)  But sometimes when it's just a panel of mates, and we're all onboard with it, that might be possible, and I'll try it when it is.

I intend to do this is a very non-confrontational way.  I'm pointing a finger at the world, not at specific convention organisers or fandoms.  And certainly not at my friends on the panel.  I'm hoping for laughter and pleasure when I hop off a panel, a collective sigh.  I want this to be a flag that says 'we can all do better'.

I won't make arrangements with specific women beforehand.  This isn't about me picking and choosing who I think is worthy.

There are a couple of situations in which this doesn't apply.  If the panel has a very project-specific subject, such as 'meet the creators of Saucer Country' or 'here are the writers of Wild Cards', then as long as every female creator involved with that project who's in the building is on the panel, I don't feel we should pull people out of the audience to even it up.  However, I don't think this rule can be applied so widely as to cover the entire output of a major media company.  You probably won't find enough female DC Comics creators to make the panel 50/50, convention organisers, so how about some women who write about comics?  If it's just me being interviewed, I'll seek a female interviewer.  If it's just me with a microphone... I honestly don't know what would be best to do in that situation.  I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.

That last rule has been really hard to decide on, and I feel for the conventions that have got in touch, since I announced this on Twitter, saying 'but the panel is just every DC writer we have'.  I am being hard on you, and I do apologise.  But this is a blunt instrument, and if I started allowing such enormous get-outs this plan would all soon be wittled away to nothing.  I anticipate hopping off panels at conventions run by close friends, where everyone in the building is in agreement about putting more women on panels.  It's not about me getting at you.

Obviously, me doing this can't solve the problem.  But the first convention that announces they're going for 50/50, across the board, will have started to solve it.  And I'll trumpet their decision far and wide.

I'd also like to hear from other male panelists who are willing to do the same thing I'm doing.  (But I won't be finger-pointing at those who don't.  I understand that this can't be for everyone.)

50/50 will result in some horror stories in the short term.  There will be women put on panels who are obviously there just to fulfill the rule.  There will be brilliant and interesting men left in the audience.  Over time, as the expectation sets in, as the rule becomes just something our communities do, then these problems will go away, as more and more interesting and communicative women are encouraged and allowed to step up.  That virtuous circle has to start somewhere.  And it will take an entirely artificial decision to do it.  Change isn't going to happen naturally.

50/50 will be called, and is, all the following: 'positive discrimination'; 'tokenism'; 'treating the symptom, not the cause'; 'political correctness'.  Those words are just descriptions convention organisers are going to have to get used to, until the point, in a couple of decades, where 50/50 has become 'the way things have always been'.

There are all sorts of arguments I've heard from good people on the other side of this debate.  None of them will change my mind (though I'm sure I'll see some of them re-hashed again in the comments).  I'm going to do this anyway.  And I'd like to hear from a convention that responds to my plan with an announcement that they're going to achieve 50/50.  Not just on my panels: on all of them.

I'll be back on Friday with a vastly packed blog, including my long-delayed SFX Weekender report.  Until then, Cheerio!

Not so many years ago a new Big Finish CD was pretty much the only new Who to look forward to. They've got news:

Podcast - February 003: Blake's 7 Special - 14 February 2012
It's very much The David Richardson Show this week. Nick Briggs and Paul Spragg take a back seat as David waxes lyrical about Big Finish's latest acquisition: Blake's 7!

You've had a chance to listen to the first release, volume one of The Liberator Chronicles (and if you haven't, there are clips to encourage you), but now we give you the opportunity to go behind the scenes as David speaks to the key players involved. Gareth Thomas (Blake), Michael Keating (Vila) and Anthony Howell (Nyrron) discuss their roles in the three opening stories, along with director Lisa Bowerman. Plus there's a thought-lost interview with Paul 'Avon' Darrow!

So, hop aboard the Liberator and get down (and safe) with Blake and his gang of ill-fated revolutionaries, revived for your listening pleasure and available for streaming or downloading now!


Download Podcast Here

DOCTOR WHO VOL 2 ALIENS OF LONDON DVD

£2.42 End Date: Thursday Mar-15-2012 14:37:56 GMT Buy It Now for only: £2.42 Buy it now | Add to watch list

Doctor Who - The Aztecs (DVD 2002)

£1.50 (0 Bid) End Date: Tuesday Feb-21-2012 14:31:09 GMT Buy It Now for only: £3.00 Bid now | Buy it now | Add to watch list

Doctor Who - Revelation Of The Daleks (DVD)

£4.95 End Date: Tuesday Feb-21-2012 13:41:36 GMT Buy It Now for only: £4.95 Buy it now | Add to watch list

Doctor Who - The Sontaran Experiment (DVD)

£4.95 End Date: Tuesday Feb-21-2012 13:37:25 GMT Buy It Now for only: £4.95 Buy it now | Add to watch list

New Doctor Who fan fiction from A Teaspoon And An Open Mind:

Growing Pains by tenner [Adult]
Takes place in my AU which includes Need: Whispers Like Prayers and Home: The House That Jack Built. Now that Tenny is earthbound he has a lot to adjust to. These are one-shots and missing scenes that tell us how he...and everyone else...learns to cope. Features Earthbound Immortal Ten, Captain Jack Harkness and the Torchwood team with guest appearances by many characters.
The Long and Winding Road by Isilien Elenihin [Teen]
An AU retelling of season 4, beginning with "The Last of the Time Lords" in season 4.
The Banana Wars by Pondering Amelia [All Ages]
The Doctor takes Jack to pick bananas, only to find the grove on Villengard has been sabotaged.
Drabbles by AspieSays [Teen]
Small stories about the Doctor and everyone he knows that don't fit anywhere in particular.
The End of Time by srmcd1 [All Ages]
The Doctor and Donna are summoned to the Ood Sphere, where they learn that the Master is being resurrected. But that's just the tip of the iceberg - he is returning, and they are returning, and it is returning...

Not so many years ago a new Big Finish CD was pretty much the only new Who to look forward to. They've got news:

Gallifrey Convention
Firstly, a massive thank you to all those who attended Big Finish Day 2 on Saturday and made it such a massive success. It was a pleasure to see so many enthusiastic fans of Big Finish. Thanks also to all those who gave their time and energy to talk, sell, pack, unpack, cook and generally make the event the joy it was.

And now, it's on to the next event! Coming up this weekend is Gallifrey One, the longest-running annual Doctor Who convention in the world. Taking place at the Marriott Los Angeles Airport Hotel, it runs from February 17-19 and tickets are still available from the Gallifrey One website. Guests include Big Finish executive producers Jason Haigh-Ellery and Nicholas Briggs, plus writer/director Barnaby Edwards, writer Richard Dinnick and Big Finish companions Beth 'Raine' Chalmers, Lisa "Flip' Greenwood and Philip 'Hex' Olivier.

Also appearing are the Eighth Doctor himself, Paul McGann, alongside son (and audio grandson) Jake McGann, his TV movie co-stars Eric Roberts, Daphne Ashbrook and Yee Jee Tso and its producer Philip Segal, Louise 'Leela' Jameson, William 'Ian' Russell, Maureen 'Vicki' O'Brien and Camille 'Jackie' Coduri and Caitlin 'Young Amy' Blackwood from the latest incarnation of the series. For further details about the convention and its guests, visit the website.  Events will include Big Finish discussion panels and presentations - and much, much more!

Radio Free Skaro has the kind of irrevancy that makes it an essential listen for any iPod wielding space dustbin.

Radio Free Skaro #293 - Occupy Gallifrey

GALLY! It's the most wonderful time of the year once again, a glorious three-days-to-a-week where thousands of Doctor Who fans descend on the LAX Marriott in Los Angeles and bathe in glorious nerdery (and also sip a snifter of port on occasion.) 

Our annual tradition is to run through the convention schedule before we arrive, glossing over panels that we know nothing about (cosplay, crafts, Buffy fandom and  Gay Agendas) and lionizing panels we think are cool (Steve Roberts, stuff we're moderating, podcasting chinwags, and Steve Roberts.) While we strive to inform and entertain, Gally guests are well advised to check out both the website at www.gallifreyone.com and read their program guide upon arrival, which will soon become your Holy Text as you navigate past Tiki Daleks and Femmy Sixes. 

As always, the Three Who Rule will be releasing daily podcasts and interviewing many of the luminaries of new and Classic Who, but we'll also be opening the convention with our live show, "Radio Free Skaro and the World of Tomorrow" on Friday, February 17th. at 12:00 p.m. If you're going to be at #gally, we'd love for you to attend our live show for 90 minutes of fun and frivolity with Camille Coduri, Toby Haynes, Barnaby Edwards, Gary Russell and Simon Fisher-Becker. 

Gallifrey is one of the highlights of the year for the Three Who Rule and 2012 promises to be the best Gally yet. See you there!  

Checkout the show notes at http://www.radiofreeskaro.com

Not so many years ago a new Big Finish CD was pretty much the only new Who to look forward to. They've got news:

Counter-Measures - Let the Teasing Begin!
The teaser trailer for Counter-Measures, the new audio spin-off featuring characters from Remembrance of the Daleks, is now online.

The series is out in July and stars Pamela Salem as Rachel Jensen, Simon Williams as Group Captain Gilmore, Karen Gledhill as Allison Williams and Hugh Ross as Toby Kinsella - the crack team who investigate strange technologies and alien incursions in London, 1964.

The four stories are written by Paul Finch, Matt Fitton, Ian Potter and Justin Richards and feature a haunted factory, an artificial intelligence, a mysterious new town and an attempt to unseat the government.

Counter-Measures is available for pre-order on CD and as a download.

New Doctor Who fan fiction from A Teaspoon And An Open Mind:

The Trial of Ten by Gentlehobbit [Teen]
When the Metacrisis Doctor returns with Rose from the other universe, he is captured and put on trial for various crimes including genocide. Can Rose and Eleven save him? How does the case affect Eleven who is also, in effect, on trial? How does the unexpected return to the Tardis and to the original Doctor affect Rose?
Impracticalities (Dinner and Dancing) by agapi42 [All Ages]
Narvin thinks the world is back to normal. Romana disagrees. In which there is no dinner and little dancing, depending on your definition, but they do get talked about.
Drabbles by AspieSays [Teen]
Small stories about the Doctor and everyone he knows that don't fit anywhere in particular.
Comfortably Numb by K9118 [All Ages]
The Doctor wakes up in a mental institution that is staffed by aged versions of his past selves.
Message received from the Doctor II by AspieSays [Teen]
AU. Featuring many including Ten, Eleven, Jack, Rory, Donna and Martha (and sometimes a telepathic lizard and a bored Koschei, minus drumming). Texts to and from, Instant Messaging in all its glory, and random messages the Doctor leaves about. Teen for sexual themes.