Candy Jar update: Lethbridge-Stewart, Lucy Wilson and 60 Years of Assistants!

There is two ways to look at this book; it’s either a sequel, or it’s the second part of one novel. I’m inclined to think of it as the latter, since it was initially only planned as one novel.

When I first pitched my story to Andy, it was just one book – Andy said I could go a bit longer than usual because it was the grand finale. Then I submitted it, and he said, ‘okay, not quite that long…’ I’d already cut out a bunch of bits from my outline, because I knew I was running long, but the submitted draft was about 90,000 words, where most of the Lethbridge-Stewart books were around 70,000. In passing I said ‘you know, there’s these subplots in the original outline that I left out, we could put them back in and make it two 60,000 word books…’ In my defence, I did have COVID at the time! Don’t try this at home, folks – usually you’ll be laughed at. But luckily, this helped Andy with his schedule, so he said ‘make it two 70,000 word books and you’re on’. But that meant I still had to come up with even more new material! The story split neatly in half – book one became ‘what’s going on and who’s behind it’, while book two was ‘how do we stop them, and how far are they planning to go’. If you look at the books as basically an old-style Doctor Who four-parter, the expansion was in parts two and three!”

For me, the defining note of Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart is that he’s such a conventional, upright figure – and yet he has to deal with so much interplanetary barking insanity. And as we know from the TV show, he allies himself with some weird people. His life is fundamentally strange, but he stays so normal – what does that mean about him? How can he actually do that? There’s a possible answer in here, and it’s not one the Brigadier would like… In the books he and Anne have this great personal history with the Great Intelligence and their family, this chaos lurking under the surface of their orderly lives, and they’re both going to have to face that. And for a representative of The System, he spends an awful lot of time skirting the rules; he only really seems conventional and rigid when he’s standing next to the Doctor! Here, in order to get UNIT as we know it off the ground, he’s going to have to both rebuild the system from within, and work outside it. And, without intending to, burn some crucial old bridges…

It was quite a technical exercise this one! My intention was to make the 'coins' be knocked back colour-wise to suggest movement as against solidity, and I think it works!

I’ve written a few short stories about Lucy over the years, but when Shaun asked me to write a full-length novel, I jumped at the chance!

I had to set the story in World War II London as it was such a remarkable period in history. There are so many stories to be told, but one that grabbed my attention was the time that Big Ben stopped working from June the 3rd at 10.13pm to June the 4th at 10.13am in 1941. This was due to a workman who accidentally dropped a hammer into the movement works while repairing the clock after an air raid. But then I started to think, what if it wasn’t the workman and was something else entirely?

It’s fantastic to have Cherry writing for the series. We were incredibly lucky to have the series kickstarted by Sue and I’m hoping that this will be the start of more stories by women authors.

We’ve seen Eileen quite a lot in the Lethbridge-Stewart series, due to popular demand, but this is her first appearance in Lucy Wilson. And, what’s most exciting is that the ending leaves an opening for her return in a later story.

Companions has been long out of print, and I still get fans asking when it’ll be available again. With Doctor Who recently celebrating its sixtieth anniversary, now seemed the perfect time. What’s been so amazing, though, is seeing how much extra material there’s been to cover. It’s effectively the same amount as a brand new book!

I remain incredibly proud of Companions; the reception it had made the long hours noting down every important character beat worthwhile. My edition went up to the end of The Name of the Doctor in 2013, so for this new edition, we’ve finished off Clara Oswald’s time with the Eleventh Doctor, then analysed the lives of many more companions since then like Bill Potts, Yasmin Khan, and even someone whose time on board the TARDIS we all thought was over, Donna Noble.

Andy’s tome sits on my desk, a comprehensive and fascinating guide that I can turn to whenever my memory cheats. When Shaun and Andy asked me to get on board updating it, I was understandably over the moon. It quickly dawned on me how many more adventures there were to feature, so that meant starting again from page one – checking all the information was still correct or hadn’t been contradicted, then diving into other mediums to find out how classic and new companions have had their lives explored further. And it’s been an absolute joy.

Doctor Who has a rich history and this book indulges in it. But Doctor Who is also about looking to the future, and right now, that’s Millie Gibson. So it felt only right to feature the 2024 season of the show. Plus, we get to talk more about the lovely Bonnie Langford, who returns as Mel Bush in the latest series. So this is as up-to-date and rigorous an exploration of Doctor Who as you can get!