Four novels, four linked stories in a shared Northern landscape, playing variations on a theme of flawed good versus complex evil. Though it was never my intention, some were inclined to read it as a deliberate move to leave my horror/fantasy roots behind and claim a piece of the mainstream. It wasn’t, but no matter.…

Last week I heard a story of an American producer looking to recruit a European writer to work on their project, taking care to disguise its origins but betrayed by their email address. Duh. On this International Day of Solidarity, here’s a blog post that I wrote back in November 2007 during the last WGA…

Here’s the cover for July’s Target volume. It will comprise the restored text of the Warriors Gate novelisation (previously exclusive to audio), the continuing story of Romana and Laszlo in The Kairos Ring (first time in print), concluding with a new piece The Little Book of Fate. More on the background to the project in…

Classy and approachable, it was actor, theatre director and TV continuity anchor Charles Foster who kickstarted my career. When I joined Granada in 1975 he was already one of the station’s defining voices and within a couple of years, as the Presentation Department moved to in-vision links and local news, he became one of the…

None of this was supposed to happen; it was a two-season gig nearly four decades ago, on a show that didn’t get a lot of love from the organisation that was making it. On the other hand, the show was DoctorWho. So here we are. For someone who’s never gone back and banged on the…

When I blogged about Network’s launch of their Blu Ray boxed set of remastered Supercar episodes, I mentioned a childhood memory of a scaled-up, ‘life sized’ vehicle making an appearance at a curtain call of ITV’s Sunday Night at the London Palladium. At the end of the weekly variety show all the acts would stand…

The standalone, retro-styled edition of The Babylon Run is now available to order. The guide price of 9.99 is driven by the print cost; it’s hard to find a printer who’ll handle low quantities of the old pocketbook format, once the standard, now rarely seen. And let’s face it, this was always going to be…

Ok, it’s out. Some of—most of—my very earliest published work, brought to closure after four decades during which I was off doing other things. I’ve given the background elsewhere, and for a long time I didn’t even consider bringing the material back to light. Not least because, for much of that time, the technology that…

Through the 60s and into the 70s, the single play was regarded as apex TV. Though I was mainly a series-addicted kid I did see a few of them, my most vivid of those early memories being of the first broadcast of Cathy Come Home. Back then there were just the three channels and you…

My thanks to Mark Lynch for spotting that Blackwells currently offer the lowest UK price on Comparative Anatomy and include free delivery. It’s not cheap but at 566 pages it’s a lot of book. Spooks, strangeness, mysteries, and a bit of heartbreak. I recommend it as the perfect Christmas gift. But then I would, wouldn’t…