the last such collection of adventures for the Forgotten Doctors (AKA the Morbius Doctors, the Mindbend Doctors and the Pre-Doctors), and so my last opportunity to write for the Christopher Baker Doctor and his two children. (Well, excepting anything I write purely for my own enjoyment and post here, but this will be the last in print.)
The first Forgotten Lives was a real treat, taking those eight face in their various hats and false beards and extrapolating them into distinct characters, all unique versions of the Doctor. Andrew Hickey created the Christopher Baker Doctor in “The Cross of Venus,” a wonderful retro-futuristic adventure which introduced this jolly Doctor and the mischievous Jilly and Cedric. I practically begged editor Philip Purser-Hallard to be considered for the second volume, and was fortunate enough that he asked me to submit an idea.
I actually submitted two (there’s another reason for some indulgent fanfic), one for the Baker Doctor and one for his predecessor, PPH’s own creation, the Robert Banks Stewart incarnation. These Doctors – the explorer and doting father, and the wartime occult operative – were the ones who sparked my imagination the most. The second volume was presumably intended as the last, at the time, and was meant to deal with the various Doctors’ regenerations. By the time I was asked to submit, it had changed direction, with two stories for each Doctor, and only a handful involved regeneration. Andrew Hickey gave us another for his Doctor, “Swan Song,” a more melancholy story than his first, while I got to write “The First Englishmen,” very much a silly romp in an lost, imagined past than a lost, imagine future.
I was surprised when PPH asked me to submit another story for the Baker Doctor, with a short turnaround due to the upcoming revamp of the series which, potentially, could make it harder to get away with unauthorised publications. (These things go in waves.) He came up with a brilliant hook for this collection, tying the eight stories together and back to their inspiration. We batted some ideas back and forth, coming back often to the transition between our Doctors. PPH’s story “House of Images” had introduced the Banks Stewart Doctor into a fully realised setting, with his own fascinating companion, Miss Weston. Kenton Hall’s “The Hounds of War” and Matthew Kresal’s “The Rosewell Incident” expanded this, and PPH was now working on a story to move his Doctor and Miss Weston onto the next phase of their story.
Yet this Doctor had no regeneration, so my Doctor had no beginning. This, certain story coincidences, a joke by the first volume’s artist Paul Hanley (whose Doctor portraits were as vital in breathing life into these Doctors as the stories were), allowed us to come up with the bare bones of the story that saw the Banks Stewart Doctor become the Baker Doctor.
"Scientific Advisor" is not that story. It does impact on it, rather heavily, but it isn’t the story either of us wanted to tell. No, my story was informed far more by my own experiences. Between the second volume and my being asked to write for the third, my partner Suzanne and I had a mischievous child of our own. This led me to want to tell a very different story this time, although it also made it much more difficult to find time to sit down and write the thing in the very tight turnaround we had.
I managed it, though, with some much-needed encouragement and support, and a new and essential chapter in the Christopher Baker Doctor’s life is nearly here. So thank you to Philip for working with me and creating this wonderful set of books, Andrew Hickey for giving life to my new favourite Doctor, Suz for making me sit down and work, TVMigraine for being my first, honest-to-goodness fan, and to Astrid for changing how I view my world (through very tired eyes).
I hope you enjoy it, and the stories by seven other wonderful authors.
You can order Forgotten Lives 3 here until the 1st of December 2023.
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