For anyone who missed it in the new DWM. The great Paul Magrs is writing one of the novels for this year’s autumn releases. Having given up on the new series novels after the dire batch from last year, this is enough to tempt me back (for that one at least).
Magrs is author of the Doctor Who novels The Scarlet Empress (DW meets the Arabian Nights); Verdigris (DW meets literary figures and wherein UNIT is memorably transformed, Mike Yates suffering particularly badly); The Blue Angel (indescribable but brilliant); and Mad Dogs and Englishmen (a poodle inspired rewrite of aspects of Lord of the Rings featuring Noel Coward as a time travelling hero). He has also written numerous novels and short story collections including Hands Up (when ventriloquist puppets go bad); Aisles (incorporating the disembodied presence of Iris Murdoch); To the Devil – A Diva (self-explanatory); All the Rage (at last a novel about a band); and a couple of great teenage novels, Exchange and Strange Boy.
Errrr….. oh my. I can’t say I fully understand some of Magrs’ stuff, especially where Iris Wildthyme is involved!
I don’t care if I don’t understand it 😉
He reminds me of the Latin American writers, and for me northern England is as exotic as Colombia or Peru.
The good news for the DW range is that he’s a bono fido writer as opposed to the team of Richards, Cole and Rayner – each of whose most recent novels has marked a deterioriation from the last (and with Rayner I didn’t think that possible).
Whatever Magrs is on, it should be available on the NHS! Never the Bride is deeply weird and set amidst the Goths in Whitby. Can’t wait for him to write Dr Who eps!
I bought that at the start of the week and will start when it makes its way to the top of the pile,
Sorry Scott — previous anonymous message from Shaz!
Marked For Life is another of his cracking books. He was my tutor at university in Norwich before I dropped out – indeed it was he who made me apply for the course, after we met on an Arvon course I attended as part of a school group in sixth form. I felt rotten for letting him down when I left.
He seems a really nice guy. I once posted something complimentary about The Scarlet Empress on a forum and had a really nice reply from him.
The early books are extremely good. I got marked for Like second hand and unread in a bookshop in Carlisle. It was the first of his I bought and from then on I was hooked.