Lance Parkin

Lance Parkin is an author who has written professional Doctor Who fiction since the 1990s. He is one of the few authors to write for both the 1963 and 2005 version of the programme — though much of his fiction has actually been based on the 1996 iteration. Indeed, he was notably the first author to write original prose for the Eighth Doctor in The Dying Days. He was also the author chosen to deliver the nominal 35th anniversary story, The Infinity Doctors, and the final volume in the Eighth Doctor Adventures range, The Gallifrey Chronicles. More recently, he has written for the Tenth Doctor in The Eyeless.

He is further notable for his work with Big Finish Productions, where he is arguably most known for writing the Sixth Doctor adventure, Davros. He has also written most of the non-fiction book AHistory that attempts to make a consistent and linear timeline for all Doctor Who stories.

Outside of Doctor Who, he has written things like Warlords of Utopia and (with Mark Jones) Dark Matter, a guide to the author.

Writing novels
Parkin's shortest ever pitch for a novel was, "I'll set it on Mars!", when Virgin editor Rebecca Levene said that she needed a Bernice Summerfield book in six weeks.

His final pitch to Levene was for The Dying Days and went (something like), "Twenty years ago discovered the truth about Mars, and Francis Urquart (the Prime Minister from the  series) put him in prison. Now he's escaped."  Parkin has noted that Just War was a reaction to Timewyrm: Exodus''.

"I like the book, and at the time I was preparing the original submission (Autumn 1993), it was one of the best of the range. It's still very popular - which is why the blurb I wrote for Just War makes it sound like a sequel! There were problems, though: my main criticism being the depiction of Hitler. The frightening thing, to my mind, is that Hitler wasn't possessed by the devil or the Timewyrm; he was just an ordinary man. Steinmann is a reaction to the Exodus Hitler — a talented, intelligent, cultured man who chooses to be a Nazi. That is much scarier than the thought he's been hypnotised by aliens. ...Hitler, of course, isn't mentioned once in Just War — I wanted to try and explore the Nazi mentality without needing to refer to him.""

- TSV 48 Lance Parkin interview by Paul Scoones

In the three years between writing The Infinity Doctors and Father Time, Parkin worked as a storyline editor for Emmerdale. He also wrote a synopsis for a book that was to have been published in the slot that Parallel 59 occupies, known as Enemy of the Daleks. Parkin has also admitted that he "relies on 'continuity references' in my books, and I still do to an extent – but references to the spirit, not the letter. It's good to be looking forward, not back. It's good to have the Doctor centre stage, as the protagonist." In particular following events of The Ancestor Cell/The Burning.

On the PROSEs as a whole; "I think that particularly from The Burning to, say, Time Zero, they’re just about all as good as the NAs, which is about the highest praise I have for Doctor Who."

When writing The Gallifrey Chronicles he noted, "It seems absolutely bizarre to say it at this point but the BBC were keeping their options open. If Doctor Who had bombed on telly, it would have been over and done in thirteen weeks. So part of the brief was to leave things open just in case the EDAs needed to pick up just where they’d left off!" However Parkin has noted concerning The Gallifrey Chronicles and its relation to the new series

"It’s not an open ending - we know what happens because we saw the result on telly. The Doctor gets his memory back, the Doctor restores Gallifrey, the Doctor wins . . . then at what must be his all time high, it’s all taken from him. And it’s this great big epic story full of mysteries and huge events far too grand to spell out in a book on or TV. A lot of people, wanted a book where the Doctor was led to a big glowing ball of his memories and he grabbed it with both hands and went 'Drahvins . . . Voord . . . Nimons . . . that bit in The Dæmons where Bessie’s got a remote control . . . I remember it all!' and I understand that impulse, but . . . well, we know he got his memories back. We don’t need to see and be spoonfed everything."

Doctor Who novels
Virgin New Adventures
 * Just War
 * The Dying Days

Virgin Missing Adventures
 * Cold Fusion

BBC Past Doctor Adventures
 * The Infinity Doctors

BBC Eighth Doctor Adventures
 * Father Time
 * Trading Futures
 * The Gallifrey Chronicles

BBC Tenth Doctor Adventures
 * The Eyeless

Doctor Who short stories

 * Short Trips and Side Steps - A Town Called Eternity (with Mark Clapham)
 * Short Trips: A Universe of Terrors - The Exiles
 * Short Trips: Steel Skies - Doing Time
 * Short Trips: Life Science - Echo
 * Short Trips: 2040 - Observer Effect

Virgin Bernice Summerfield New Adventures

 * Beige Planet Mars

Big Finish Bernice Summerfield Series

 * The Big Hunt
 * A Life of Surprises - Paydirt
 * Collected Works - Anightintheninthage
 * Secret Histories - A Game of Soldiers
 * Present Danger - Winging It

Big Finish Bernice Summerfield audio stories

 * The Extinction Event

Big Finish Doctor Who audio stories

 * Primeval
 * Davros
 * Benny's Story

I, Davros

 * Corruption

BBV Audio Adventures in Time & Space

 * The Root of All Evil
 * I Scream

Time Hunter

 * The Winning Side

Comics
Writer / Letterer
 * Miranda

Reference books

 * A History of the Universe
 * AHistory