Erimem (series)

Erimem was a series of stories published by Thebes Publishing. They starred the character Erimem, who was previously a recurring companion of the Fifth Doctor in stories released by Big Finish Productions. Iain McLaughlin, the creator and copyright holder of Erimem, was the series editor.

The series had Erimem living in modern day London with a group of close friends, sometimes travelling to other times and places using a time machine called the Habitat.

Erimem was largely divorced from Erimem's period in Doctor Who, with Erimem forgetting all of her life from around the beginning of The Eye of the Scorpion to the moment just before she appears in the first Erimem novel, The Last Pharaoh. , The Eye of the Scorpion is the only Doctor Who story from which Erimem has derived elements; however, elements from the non-Doctor Who stories The Coming of the Queen and Return of the Queen have been included (such as Carra Wilton, Kerides, and Adrea).

2015
The Erimem series began on 5 June 2015 with the release of The Last Pharaoh. The Last Pharaoh introduced the Habitat, the London Museum of History and Antiquities, and series regulars Andy Hansen, Ibrahim Hadmani, Helena, and Tom Niven. The novel also set up an ongoing mystery in the series – that of Helena's immortality – in a brief scene near its end.

The next release was the novella The Beast of Stalingrad, which had the main characters dealing with the emotional consequences of the events of The Last Pharaoh while also involved in a standalone story. It included the short story The One Place by Claire Bartlett, which greatly expanded on Andy Hansen's backstory.

Around the release of The Last Pharaoh, Thebes Publishing began offering a three-book subscription to the Erimem series which covered The Last Pharaoh, the not-yet-released Into the Unknown, and a third book which has still not been released. On 10 October, subscribers were emailed the first part of the novella Angel of Mercy. They received the second and third parts over the course of the next month.

There were originally plans to release the anthology Into the Unknown in late 2015, but the book was delayed to the beginning of the next year; because of this, the Christmas short story In Search of Doctor X was released for free on the Thebes Publishing website.

2016
The first 2016 Erimem release was the short story anthology Into the Unknown. Several of its stories started or continued ongoing threads in the series: Alone in the Dark integrated Trina Barton into the main "cast" of Erimem; Wardenclyffe, Tomorrow's Fish and Chips, and Serpent's Child all gave hints towards Helena's immortality; Echoes foreshadowed Adam Docherty's relationship with Erimem; and Tom's Story introduced Tom Niven's mother.

The next release was the novella Prime Imperative, which included the short story Home by Iain McLaughlin.

The next novella, Buccaneer, introduced Olivia Parson, who became a recurring love interest for Andy Hansen. It included the short story Arrrr... by Claire Bartlett.

14 December saw the release of All I Want for Christmas, an anthology of Christmas short stories; including Lonely This Christmas, which showed Tom Niven continuing to be manipulated by his mother, and Last Christmas, which gave more hints about Helena's immortality and foreshadowed Ibrahim Hadmani's potential death in the coming year.

2017
The first release of 2017 was the novella Churchill's Castle. Its story had Trina Barton deciding to quit having adventures with Erimem and friends, ending her time as a series regular. It included a prelude to the novel The Three Faces of Helena.

The Three Faces of Helena was originally slated for release in early 2017 as a collection of three novellas by three different writers, but behind the scenes creative differences caused one of the writers to be dropped and The Three Faces of Helena was rewritten by Iain McLaughlin into a single novel, delayed first to May, then to 26 August. After two years of build-up, the novel finally explained the nature of Helena's immortality and revealed her previously secret motivations. It also featured the prevention of Ibrahim Hadmani's previously foreshadowed death and the marriage of Ibrahim and Helena. The novel also heavily used two major characters from the works of Henry Rider Haggard to tie-in with Thebes Publishing's reprintings of Haggard novels.

The next Erimem release was The Collected Adventures 2015, a volume containing all of the Erimem stories released in 2015: The Last Pharaoh, The Beast of Stalingrad, The One Place, In Search of Doctor X, Angel of Mercy. The Collected Adventures 2015 was the first release to use a new, curvier version of the Erimem logo on its cover. It was the final Erimem book of 2017.

2018
The first Erimem release in 2018 was the novel Return of the Queen, an expanded adaptation of the Kerides the Thinker audio drama of the same name.