Authors Electric

It's that time again. The third week in November: when, here in America, we give thanks for all our nonmaterial blessings a mere 24 hours before we quite literally try to kill each other over the latest toy or electronic gadget we just have to get our Sweet Baby Boo-Boo for Christmas (because of course, nothing says "Happy birthday, Jesus" and "Welcome Prince of Peace" like a bloodstained plasma television set with surround sound and built-in blu-ray player). Screw you, Tammy! Sweet Baby Jesus wants me to have this! Well, as I did last year, I'd like to take a moment here to give thanks, in no particular order, for the things reading/writing related that I am thankful for this year. Venture and Hold Fast Presses: This year has been good to me as a writer. The first two volumes of my Western retelling of the King Arthur legends, Guns of the Waste Land , were picked up by not one, but two independent presses. Venture Press  purchased the ebook right...

The first Doctor Who I remember being conscious of as a child was Jon Pertwee, and the story was The Green Death – all about toxic slime, rogue industrial chemists, and malignant maggots. I liked Jon Pertwee, but then the following year his face metamorphosised into that of another actor, Tom Baker, and this new incarnation was such a spectacle of drama and bombastic tour de force that for me, looking back, my “Dr Who years” must be the Tom Baker years. He came into the role straight from a stage of thespian unemployment which had led him to take up a job operating a Kango drill as a labourer on a building site. He must have thought he was never going to get anywhere as an actor during that period, and then the next second there he is in the Dr Who role, hat and scarf in place, and throwing himself so hard and desperately into the performance that the Dr Who sets sometimes shook even more than they always had, perhaps set off just by the timbre of his voice alone, though h...