Doctor Who_ The King of Terror - Keith Topping [118]
The genesis of The King of Terror goes back to February 1998 and my first visit to the West Coast of the USA for the ‘Nine Lives of Gallifrey’ convention. Many of those I met (then and on two subsequent trips) contributed ideas, thoughts and comments that have found their way into this book including: Gary Akers, Robbie Bourget, Suze Campagna, Steve Cole, Paul and Wendy Comeau, Robert Franks, Elsa Frohman ( told you it’d be a Fifth Doctor novel), Gary Gillatt, Judi Grant, Alryssa and Tom Kelly, Jane and Tony Kenealy, Theresa Lambert, Michael Lee, Shaun Lyon, Christian McGuire, Mark McHugh, Charles and Heather Martin, Jon Miller, Ingrid Oliansky, Felicia O’Sullivan (who got me into Delerium), Lars Pearson, Bruce Robinson, Gary Russell, Rhonda Scar-borough, Jill Sherwin, Trina Short (for giving me some delicious ideas on what to do with Turlough), Paul Steib and Wendy Wiseman, Kathy Sullivan, Mike Tucker and Michelle Wolf. Not forgetting the great Nick Courtney (whom I consulted on the Brigadier’s retirement whilst sitting by a swimming pool in Van Nuys) and the great Terrance Dicks (who graciously allowed me to put his ‘mission statement’ into the novel). And many more too numerous to list.
Susannah Tiller created the character of Jacqueline Maguire and she has my eternal gratitude for allowing me to use her creation in a throwaway line.
Similarly Paul Cornell helped to make sure that The King of Terror didn’t contradict the Brigadier’s future in The Shadows Of Avalon. Respect is also due to Dan Ben-Zvi, Chris Cornwell, Andy Cowper, the God-like genius of Jeff Hart, Special K and the ’93 Promotion Possé (for all those happy away-days), Mick Lovell my English and history teacher at Walker Comprehensive (a school that did as much for my personal education as myxomatosis does for the average rabbit), my agent John McLaughlin, Mark Phippen at Perfect Timing, 227
Steve Purcell (and the legendary Ted Butler), Paul Simpson and all of those fanzine editors who let me write fiction for them when I couldn’t get arrested elsewhere. And especially Rob Francis and Jackie Marshall who were instrumental in my early work reaching a wider audience. Not forgetting those five little words on rec.arts.drwho that inspired this novel: ‘On your own? Yeah.
Sure.’
Thanks also to Peter Davison, Janet Fielding and Mark Strickson whose performances on Doctor Who in the early 1980s made me want to become a writer and put my words into their mouths. And, as ever, to my family for being there when I needed them. Also an indulgent, but necessary, thank you to two of my favourite British pop groups, james and Cast whom I saw live during a period when my inspiration juices were at their lowest. That night in December 1999 fired me up and gave me a soundtrack for the rest of the book. Nice one. Top.
I consulted several twentieth-century translations of Nostradamus’s prophecies when researching this hook, but the bewildering array of opinions on what they actually say (let alone what they mean) finally led me to do my own (extremely bad) translations. Which is, I suppose, the whole point of this novel. That, depending on your agenda, words can be twisted to say whatever you want them to say.
Scarily, in a novel that concerns predictions and prophecies, at almost exactly the same moment that I was writing the beginning of Chapter Seven, about a minor earthquake hitting Los Angeles, a major real-life one was happening 100 miles east of the city. If the rest of the book has come true by the time it’s published, I apologise in advance to everyone on the planet.
Keith Topping.
His Gaff.
Merrie Albion.
The Year 2000 (Common Era)