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Preview: Time's Champion Time’s Champion details the last adventure of the Sixth Doctor’s life, and finally reveals how he becomes Time’s Champion: the role the Seventh Doctor was hinted to hold during his television and New Adventures era. The basic plot is as follows: In 2008, Mr. Benton, from the UNIT era of the series, is celebrating his seventieth birthday and he’s invited many old friends, including the Doctor, Mel and Paul and Arlene Kairos (characters from Craig’s Past Doctor Adventure The Quantum Archangel). Arlene is very pregnant, and worries that her child’s birth may face complications, as Paul is in fact a creation of the late Kronos (from The Time Monster and Quantum Arcahngel). After the Doctor and Mel arrive, Arlene’s fears come true as she enters premature labour, and time begins to shatter. Mel, Paul and Arlene find themselves thrown back to the house as it was in 1908, then-now owned by the mysterious Madame Clacice Beauvier, who may know more about her unexpected guests than she cares to tell. But what is her interest in George Mackenzie-Trench, a writer and guest at the house; and why is he so determined to finish his magnum opus, Time’s Champion? And what will Paul be willing to sacrifice to save his wife and unborn child? Meanwhile, the Doctor realizes that only the Time Lords can help him, but he quickly discovers that Gallifrey has its own problems: shortly after he and Benton arrive, a computer virus, Abbadon, invades the Matrix, and the Keeper of the Matrix may know more about the situation that he wishes to tell. With the planet under siege from its own history and President Romana helpless, the Doctor, the Keeper and Benton rush to track Abbadon to its point of origin: the planet Caliban in 9908, a planet under attack by the Cybermen. But who exactly is that world’s religious leader, Cardinal Leofric Grandier, what dark secrets does he hide, and what is his connection to Abbadon’s creator, Governor George Mackenzie-Trench? As all of creation hangs in the balance, the Doctor faces his long-awaited future, a future which will at last bring him face to face with the Valeyard, for one final confrontation. I first met Craig back in November 2001 on the BBC Doctor Who forums, a feature which the official website offered at the time. Before this time I had been trying to learn all I could about the Valeyard since discovering the character from the Destiny of the Doctors CD game. After my audio proposal The Seventh Door (a Seventh Doctor/Ace Valeyard story) had been rejected, I had begun to study previous authors’ expansion on the Valeyard and I also visited the online forums to discuss the Valeyard publicly. Craig began to answer my forum posts and was kind enough to explain his viewpoints on the Valeyard and what he had written on the subject previously. We soon exchanged e-mail addresses and Craig and I quickly formed a friendship over the series and everything else. He really was as nice as everyone remembers him. Right from the start of our conversations, he let me know he was trying to pitch a novel called Time’s Champion. On New Years’ Eve, 2001, he even sent me the outline of the book. Now, at this time, Craig was going to be the sole author, but he told me he was happy to discuss the plot with me, and even take any suggestions I might have. So, at the start, my involvement in the book was just as a friendly observer with a little bit of advising thrown in for good measure. Craig had hoped to publish the book in 2003, and at the time I was in Texas. When I came back home in late August, 2004, Time’s Champion was not planned for publication, and Craig was very sad about it. He told me that the book had been commissioned for publication, but never formally rejected. Somehow, as he explained it to me, the fact that it had been commissioned was somehow forgotten. Craig assumed that because the novel featured the Valeyard, the BBC novel range’s guidelines, like the Virgin novel series before it, prohibited the use of the character, and this may have been what halted the story’s publication. However, one thing Craig made clear to me and that I want to make clear here, was that he felt no anger towards the books’ editor, Justin Richards, nor Gary Russell, who authored Spiral Scratch, the story which took Time’s Champion’s publication spot - he considered both men as his best friends and he believed the fall-through of Time’s Champion to have been an oversight, and not a slight against him personally. By the time Craig died I was already in the process of writing the book, and had been since I had found out what had happened. When I learned Time’s Champion wasn’t going to be published, I just felt this deep sense that it needed to be, no matter what. I’m felt this way because, for my part, I really wanted the story of the Valeyard to be completed. For Craig’s part, I think somehow I knew that this book had been the story he had most wanted to write for Doctor Who - his first, ironically also rejected, book proposal back around 1994, Cascade, had featured the Valeyard and a virus attacking the Matrix. Looking back on his other novels, I can see plot concepts of Time’s Champion making their way into the text as well. So, this book really had become, for both of us, the story we just had to tell. The tragedy of Craig’s death is that I’m the only one who gets to tell the story. In terms of the storyline, or plot, about half belongs to Craig. Without giving too much away, everything in the novel’s plot up to the scene which re-introduces the Valeyard was planned by Craig - the actual scene of the Valeyard proper return was my initial idea, but when we met at the Gallifrey One convention in 2005, he and I discussed the specifics of that part of the text. So, essentially, everything in the story after that point of the book (and you’ll have to find out where that part is when you read it!) is my idea. I should point out that this wasn’t how we’d planned to write the book - Craig was as hard-working as he was generous, and he had wanted to plot the entire book with me. But, when I saw throughout 2006 that the stresses and schedule of Craig’s life were beginning to distract him too much, I didn’t want to add to his burdens and took the liberty of scripting the rest of the story. Sadly, all of Craig’s personal and public distresses meant that he himself wrote very little of the book’s published text: the majority of the first chapter, and several other key scenes including the beginning of the Sixth Doctor’s regeneration sequence. The rest of the text is my writing, but what Craig wrote was absolutely invaluable! The book will appeal to fans of Craig’s work, and to anyone who has a working, but not necessarily comprehensive, knowledge of the original series and its history. By this I mean, if you like a moderate amount of continuity, then this will be an appealing book. Those that are nostalgic for the Missing, and Past Doctor Adventure book ranges, I think, will really enjoy this story because Craig and I wrote the story in that vein: the plot is a little more complex and involved in the series’ concepts and history than the current New Series novels. Not that those books are bad-quality, I mean that Time's Champion is for those that want a more adult-oriented book where the Time Lords and Gallifrey still lived. The story should be suitable for younger readers too, as it has no excessive violence or mature themes. As he so often said to me when he was happy, I think that Craig would be "chuffed." But, honestly though, I think he would be crying with joy. I just know he would be so happy, and because of that, so am I. Thank you so much for listening to me. |
Preview: Time's Champion |
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