Richard Wright

Honestly.  This is your very last chance to take a Short Trip.  On the first of January 2010, Big Finish lose the right not only to publish, but also to sell, their Short Trips range of hardback Doctor Who anthologies, featuring various original adventures of the first eight incarnations of Doctor Who.  Basically, the BBC have not renewed Big Finish’s licence to produce these collections based on the suddenly-successful-all-over-again science fiction character (they issued the licence back when there was no new Doctor Who being produced for television, before the current revival).  It’s pure speculation on my part, but I guess this is because they plan to do some of their own story collections through their own publishing wing.

This is important to you, potentially, because it’s the last chance you have of being able to read my short story ‘Lonely’, featuring the Eighth Doctor (Paul McGann, on the tellybox and radiophone), an Internet chatroom, and the lost and lonely souls who wander in there.  The story was first published in the anthology Short Trips – Transmissions, and this year was reprinted in Big Finish’s final Short Trips book, which gathered the best tales in the range into one massive volume called Short Trips – Re:Collections.

Short Trips – Transmissions is probably the better of the two books.  Twenty-fifth in the Short Trips range, it’s among the best the series produced, thanks to the careful thought editor Richard Salter puts into the theme (communication) and the resultant selection of stories.  It hangs together really well, basically, and contains several stories which stand out as excellent bits of storytelling, in any genre.  At the moment, you can get it on sale direct from Big Finish, for a fiver.

Short Trips – Re:Collections collects the ‘best’ story from each of the previous twenty-eight volumes in the range (as chosen by the editor of each book) in a frankly massive volume.  The stories are individually excellent, as you’d hope, but the book perhaps hangs a little awkwardly together.  You do get a lot for your money though, and will enjoy what you find in there.  At the moment, this one is on sale too, for a tenner.

Last chance.  These books are about to become much harder to find, on the secondary market, where they’ll probably sell for increasingly silly amounts of money when you can find them at all.  Buy them now instead, while they’re cheap.  Get them for your Doctor Who loving loved one.  As I’ve said before, I won’t be able to resell my story ‘Lonely’, because the BBC owns the character, not me.

Last chance.  Buy it now.  Don’t decide you want it in eighteen months time, when you can’t find a copy for love nor sensible amounts of money, and then say I didn’t warn you.  That’s what I’m doing here, you see?

You know what you must do.

The astute among you will have already noticed that I’ve now updated my website with the full details and ordering in for the for The Anthology of Dark Wisdom.  The book isn’t actually released for another week yet, but as that’s going to overlap with the flight to India, after which I don’t know how long it will take to get regular web access again, I thought I’d better jump the gun by a few days.  Feel free to order now, and your copy will be with you presently.  Oh, if the cover style looks vaguely familiar, it’s because it’s by the fabulous Malcolm McClinton, creator of the definitive Hiram Grange look…

The antho collects a handful of the best stories previously printed in the (highly regarded) Dark Wisdom magazine, mixed in with stories bought specifically for the book.  I fall into the latter category with my original story ‘Mopleoli’, about a university lecturer whose specialism comes back to haunt him in the least expected way.  Other contributors include Peter Straub, Alan Dean Foster, Tom Piccirilli, John Pelan, Richard A. Lupoff, John Shirley, Patricia Lee Macomber, David Niall Wilson, and many others.  Names I’m excited to appear alongside (Straub, for feck’s sake!), and others I’m looking forward to reading for the first time.  I don’t think this is a book that will disappoint.

In other news, with the wedding over, Kirsty and I are devoting our time to pulling our life in the UK apart, choosing what to keep and what to toss.  We have a lot more life than I had previously thought.

My contributor copy of the (massive) Short Trips Re:Collections turned up the other day, and looks very smart indeed. It’s supposed to present some of the best Doctor Who short fiction published in the Short Trips range since 2002 (which must be a pool of three or four hundred tales, at least, and includes my own contribution ‘Lonely’. Lovely looking book, and I’m looking forward to reading the other twenty-seven stories while I’m stuck in hotels over the next few weeks. If you haven’t already done so, you can grab a copy from the publisher right now, and I’m sure it will turn up on Amazon and the usual outlets shortly.

I can also now look forward to wading through William Shatner’s memoir Up Till Now, presented to me by a proud daughter this morning for Father’s Day. I’m quite looking forward to it, although I feel strongly that a better title would simply have been SHAT! He’s a curious fellow, so I’m looking forward to being entertained.

But today, I’m on the move again, packing up for the first of three weeks of hotel living in the South. It’s quite a nice hotel, but as it’s day job stuff instead of a vacation, that’s the best I can say about what awaits. If I have wi-fi in my room, I may be in touch, but if you’re waiting for emails, that will be the reason for any delays.

News is piling up, all unannounced, so a quick blog is called for…

Firstly, issue five of Shroud magazine, the Hiram Grange special edition, is now shipping. It features a hefty and exclusive excerpt from my forthcoming novella Hiram Grange and the Nymphs of Krakow. If you pre-ordered a copy, you should be receiving it soon, but Shroud warn that orders are a little backed up, and there may be a small delay getting it to you (I’m waiting for mine… pesky Atlantic ocean). If you do have it, what do you think? If you’re tempted to dip into Hiram’s world ahead of the novella series, this is where you need to go.

Secondly, Short Trips – Re:Collections, the new Doctor Who anthology from Big Finish, licenced by the BBC, is also now shipping. It reprints some of the very best of the short stories featured in the previous twenty-eight volumes in the Short Trips range, including my tale ‘Lonely’ (dead chuffed to have made that cut). Since announcing that this will be the final such anthology, Big Finish seem to have been swamped with orders for the whole range, and so are also reporting shipping delays. Again, if you pre-ordered but haven’t seen the book yet, bear with them, it will be with you soon. I’m in the same boat, having not yet seen a contributor’s copy. No special privileges for authors, I’m afraid. If you haven’t ordered a copy yet, go here and do so. It’s a bumper crop of great stories, all with the Doctor in them. Can’t say fairer than that.

It’s May. That means you can grab the hardback anthology Short Trips: Transmissions for half the cover price, £7.50, direct from the publisher. It contains my story ‘Lonely’, and is just about to go out of print – the sale runs for exactly as long as stocks last. Don’t hang about, if you want one.

It won’t be the very last appearance of the story, as it’s been selected to appear in the ‘Best Of’ final volume of the Short Trips range later this month, cover price £20. After that though… well, because I don’t own the rights to Doctor Who, I won’t be able to publish the story anywhere else. Read it in one of these books, or be left forever wondering what I did to the Eighth Doctor in a chatroom…

Go on. You know you want to.