The End of an Era

I made this and, because a few people have been kind about it, I thought I'd bung it here too, just in case you read this but don't follow my Facebook and Twitter witterings. Could happen. Unlikely, but you never know. Apologies if you've seen it three times now and are heartily sick of it.

Alchemists Update

And straight after the announcement comes... announcement of postponement!
That's why I didn't give you any pre-order links the other day. Despite the cover being revealed in print a few days ago (curse magazine run-in times), we've known since just before the magazine came out that the CD now wouldn't be able to get through all the post-production, approval and manufacture mallarkey in time for July.
Nothing sinister in this, it's just our April recording date fell through, and that was really the last feasible point it could be done and still be released on time (March recording was the initial plan but dates for that proved unschedulable).

The release is now set for next year, which has a couple of bonuses for me- one, it won't now be released at the same time as the Counter-Measures box set, so I'll only have one set of reviews to deal with at once (good or bad, reviews are tricky beasts and I've yet to master indifference), and two, my story that takes place as 1933 begins and made to fit in with the TV of 1963 will come out in 2013. That's definitely tidier.

The Alchemists of Sound

This was scanned, or maybe photographed (I'll be honest, I've not asked) from the new issue of Doctor Who Magazine. It's the CD cover of a Doctor Who audio drama and if you squint you can see what might just be my name listed as the author. I've not read the accompanying text yet, snow means we've had no post so my copy's not here.

Actually the CD doesn't exist yet, and if you squint more you can see the guest cast appears to be the same as that for a story set some years after it. That's not a clue to the story, it's a clue that that part of the cover art hasn't been finalised yet! I'll tell you who the guest actor really is later, probably next month.

The story is set both in Germany in the 1930s and before the first televised Doctor Who story. The reason for the latter flows from the former. Producer David Richardson suggested putting the Doctor's granddaughter Susan in that historical setting, and I felt it would be a mistake to put her there with her TV companions, Ian and Barbara. It's a period they'd know well and there was a danger they'd end up explaining it all to the Doctor and Susan, potentially unbalancing the drama and making the story more about them than our featured star.

So there we are, this is what I was writing in January, it's set pre-Quinnis and post-Frayed if you've come across those other bits of pre-series set Who and that's probably all you need to know until it eventually comes out apart from that I'm very excited.
When we're closer to the actual release date I'll drop in links to order it and all that, but that's all a very long way off still...