A chat with Kate Orman
Guest Starring Jon Blum
Kate was kind enough to answer some questions with her husband Jon kindly filling in the odd gap.
Do you feel the tone of the new series was set in part by the New and Eighth Doctor Adventures?
Oh yeah - we carried on from where Cartmel left off, and the new show carries on from where we left off. :) We had an absurd amount of freedom in the NAs and EDAs, which let us try all sorts of things which the show hadn't (or could've have afforded to). After years of fake planets and plastic corridors, the McCoy stories moved back in the direction of everyday Earth (or more accurately TV England), drawing on Ace's background, doing that characteristically Doctor Who thing of mixing the familiar and the fantastic - Perivale and the Cheetah planet, a tourist pub and King Arthur, etc. Lots of NAs picked up that thread - "Timewyrm: Revelation" was the first. RTD's "Damaged Goods" included elements he'd use later on in the new show, like the council estate where impossible alien things are going on. I think that use of real-world settings is part of the new show's appeal, one reason for its absurd success with millions of viewers - which is odd, when you think the books were being written by and for a bunch of fanboys. I suppose whether you're a mad fan or the average viewer, you still crave that intrusion of the extraordinary into your life.
Are you able to discuss the current state of books currently listed on
Amazon for release later this year?
It's all still being sorted out, but I hope to have some good news soon.
The Doctor turned 1,000 during the course of your books, which is in keeping with a majority of fan opinion. How do you feel about the de-aging of the Doctor to 900ish in the New Series?
It makes a lot of sense to me - "nine hundred years old" sounds like it
could be someone's real age, where "a thousand years old" sounds like a
metaphor, or an unimaginably long time, or just incredibly old.
You wrote a few preludes and cutaways for your NA books. Would you like to see them incorporated for any future reprints?
I'd never thought of that! I think that'd be a lot of fun. Not the R-rated ones, though. >;)
We were gutted when the Room with no doors disappeared off of the pre-order lists. Are you able to discuss why that happened?
Still, So Vile a sin is still on the lists. Is it liable to remain there given the confused state of affairs that seem to exist with the Virgin books?
I strongly suspect those lists are computer-generated, which means one wrong button pushed and everyone's confused. Including me! Consider them a hopeful sign, but don't take them as gospel either way.
When you wrote The Room with no doors were you aware of Penelope's
'relationship' with the Doctor, or was that factored in later?
Lemme think... I must've had some idea about it when I changed her
name to match the "Ulysses" mentioned in the unused Doctor Who movie
script. The very first synopsis for "Room" that I submitted (April 1996) titled "All That Glitters Is Not God", only mentions an unnamed female "eccentric Victorian inventor" who falls "swooningly" in love with the Doctor, so I think we can safely assume the character wasn't his mum at that point. :) A month later (May 1996 - just after the TVM, in fact) I typed up a list of characters, in which she appears as "Penelope Sarah Gate".
name to match the "Ulysses" mentioned in the unused Doctor Who movie
script. The very first synopsis for "Room" that I submitted (April 1996) titled "All That Glitters Is Not God", only mentions an unnamed female "eccentric Victorian inventor" who falls "swooningly" in love with the Doctor, so I think we can safely assume the character wasn't his mum at that point. :) A month later (May 1996 - just after the TVM, in fact) I typed up a list of characters, in which she appears as "Penelope Sarah Gate".
Set Piece is obviously meant as a homage to Ace. Out of all the various
fates that have been depicted for her over the years which do you prefer to
take as canon?
Canon?! No such thing!
After writing Ace's first departure and then with the final fate of Roz
where you concerned you would recieve a reputation as a "Companion killer"?
Heh! No. It could've turned into a regular gig. :D
General Kramer, from Time Rift, made a cameo in Vampire Science. One of our team has made me promise to ask you to ask Jon Blum when that was getting released on DVD.
Jon Says: Well, as far as *I'm* concerned it's ready to go! I'm literally waiting
for Aaron Climas to hand me back two effects shots he asked to redo, and
then I can send the last of the stuff off to the bloke who's authoring the
DVDs.
for Aaron Climas to hand me back two effects shots he asked to redo, and
then I can send the last of the stuff off to the bloke who's authoring the
DVDs.
And still on Vampire Science, did you add the '3 year gap' knowing that other mediums might be able to make use of it?
Jon Says: Yep -- it was done knowing that "Dying Days" would probably slot in there,
plus we also knew that there would be more things like the Radio Times
comic strips.
Mainly, though, the point was just to draw a firm line under any "I've
only just regenerated" nonsense and make it clear that this Doctor was
firmly established rather than continually vague and erratic. We were doing that even back in the Grace draft, before we even knew "Eight Doctors" would be hitting that note a lot -- the dialogue about how the Doctor's three years old as opposed to 1,012 ("It's a big number, isn't it? That's why I prefer three.") was taken directly from the original Grace chapter one.
plus we also knew that there would be more things like the Radio Times
comic strips.
Mainly, though, the point was just to draw a firm line under any "I've
only just regenerated" nonsense and make it clear that this Doctor was
firmly established rather than continually vague and erratic. We were doing that even back in the Grace draft, before we even knew "Eight Doctors" would be hitting that note a lot -- the dialogue about how the Doctor's three years old as opposed to 1,012 ("It's a big number, isn't it? That's why I prefer three.") was taken directly from the original Grace chapter one.
Return of the living Dad has often been cited as inspiration for Father's
Day from the New Series. Do you see similarities between the two and did you enjoy the episode?
Blimey! Really? Once you get past the obvious point of comparison -
companion meets dad they never got to know - they haven't got much in
common. Different settings, threats, even what happens to the fathers
is very different.
My favourite stuff in "Father's Day" is the freaky Twilight Zone
touches - the phone call from Alexander Graham Bell, the empty TARDIS.
And the Doctor's "I'm the oldest thing in the building." Brrr!
companion meets dad they never got to know - they haven't got much in
common. Different settings, threats, even what happens to the fathers
is very different.
My favourite stuff in "Father's Day" is the freaky Twilight Zone
touches - the phone call from Alexander Graham Bell, the empty TARDIS.
And the Doctor's "I'm the oldest thing in the building." Brrr!
Do you ever feel like you’d like to write an episode of the new series?
Only eight or nine times an hour. Alas, I'm about as qualified to write a script for the BBC's flagship show as I am to assemble a 747. :)
A good few elements from The Infinity Doctors by Lance Parkin have found
their way into your BBC books. Do you view the Infinity Doctors as canon?
Still no such thing. :D Seriously, I don't carry a definitive version of the Doctor's life around in my head - I'm happy to use whatever material is available and seems interesting. Recently I've been poking around in Greek myth, and you don't have to dig very deep to find wildly contradictory versions of the family trees etc of the various gods and monsters, because there were lots and lots of versions of the stories around, some of which got written down at different times by different authors. These aren't real events, like history or science - they're true in other ways.
Are you optimistic about the BBC reprinting further volumes if yours prove
to be successful?
Oh yes - there's always been demand amongst fans, but with "Doctor Who" having become such an absurd success again, I think it could be a nice little earner.
If the reprints of the BBC books are successful what books from the BBC
range would you like to see reprinted next?
Ben's! He's having great success with his new novels (quite right too - I've read the first one and it's a killer), so it'd be great if his new audience had a chance to catch up with those brilliant earlier books.
Do you think that reprinting the entire NA/EDA is a practical option or is
the BBC?s current plan of reprinting selected volumes on a Print on Demand basis is the way forward?
I suppose they've got to gauge the demand before they start shooting books out at random. :)
Would the new generation of fans benefit from selected reprints of the old
books and if so what volumes in particular would you recommend?
Whether they're reprinted or not, you must track down and read everything by Lloyd Rose, Lance Parkin and Ben Aaronovitch, and when you have read those you must read also "Fear Itself" by Nick Wallace, "Alien Bodies" by Lawrence Miles, "The Turing Test" by Paul Leonard, "The Deadstone Memorial" by Trevor Baxendale, "The Scarlet Empress" by Paul Magrs, and of course Paul Cornell's "Human Nature"... my gods, there are heaps more, but that ought to keep any reader busy for a while!
So, have you been writing much Who literature recently?
Some bits and pieces for Big Finish's "Short Trips" anthologies, and soem short stories for the Torchwood magazine, which I thoroughly enjoyed. There's a Short Trips audiobook coming out in May that's got me in it:
You've stated before that you'd like to publish an original Science Fiction
Novel. Are you able to give us a taster of what you have in mind for it?
I'm currently hammering away at a full-on SF novel with space travel, colony worlds, genetic engineering, a mysterious alien threat, the works. As a teen I was an avid fan of Larry Niven's "Known Space" stuff, and more recently there's Vernor Vinge and Iain M. Banks - I'd love to give my readers the same kind of thrills, laughs, awe, and brain explosions I've got from those writers.
And finally, who should your fans be writing to have a collection of your
short stories published?
You don't need to do the writing - I do! Once I've got ten or twelve short stories which are actually worth anthologising, then it'll be time to start bugging agents and publishers. :D
