That's impossible. Robots can't kill.

A literate science-fiction mystery set in an elegant, multicultural future society, The Robots of Death (1977) represents a synthesis of a witty script, beautiful design and clever, sympathetic casting.

This Black Archive examines these elements contributing to the story’s alchemical brilliance, alongside the themes of artificial intelligence, class and power in the works of scriptwriter Chris Boucher, and the titular robots’ legacy, including their reinterpretation in audio and stage plays.

Asked why she chose Robots, Fiona said

I have been fascinated by it since I first saw it during the late 1980s. At a time when even the best of 1970’s TV appeared “dated” rather than “retro,” The Robots of Death stood out because it looked, and sounded, fresh and timeless. Many of my interests as a SF historian and critic may well owe their inspiration to The Robots of Death: the influence of Expressionism; the representation of women and ethnic minorities in SF television; the ambivalence humans feel about robots; and how SF deals allegorically with class, power, and capitalism.

I’m delighted to have the opportunity to explore these concepts in more detail through writing for The Black Archive.

Fiona Moore is a writer and academic who has written guides to Blake’s 7, The Prisoner and Battlestar Galactica.

Doctor Who: The Knight, The Fool and The Dead
by Steve Cole

We live forever, barring accidents. Just like everyone else in the universe.

The Doctor travels back to the Dark Times, an era where life flourishes and death is barely known...

Then come the Kotturuh – creatures who spread through the cosmos dispensing mortality. They judge each and every species and decree its allotted time to live. For the first time, living things know the fear of ending. And they will go to any lengths to escape this grim new spectre, death.

The Doctor is an old hand at cheating death. Now, at last, he can stop it at the source. He is coming for the Kotturuh, ready to change everything so that life wins from the start. Not just the last of the Time Lords. The Time Lord Victorious.

Doctor Who: The Knight, The Fool and The Dead is published on 1ST October 2020 by BBC Books, priced £9.99

Doctor Who: All Flesh Is Grass
by Una McCormack

Even a Time Lord can’t change the past.

A wasteland. A dead world… No, there is a biodome rising from the ashes. Here, life teems and flourishes, with strange, lush plants and many-winged insects with bright carapaces – and one solitary sentient creature, who spends its days talking to the insects and tending this lonely garden. This is Inyit, the Last of the Kotturuh.

In All Flesh is Grass we are transported back to The Dark Times. The Tenth Doctor has sworn to stop the Kotturuh, ending death and bringing life to the universe. But his plan is unravelling – instead of bringing life, nothing has changed and all around him people are dying. Death is everywhere. Now he must confront his former selves – one in league with their greatest nemesis and the other manning a ship of the undead

Doctor Who: All Flesh Is Grass is published on 10th December 2020 by BBC Books, priced £9.99

I love science fiction and have always been a fan of Doctor Who, but I knew nothing about The Lucy Wilson Mysteries until I worked with Shaun from Candy Jar on my novel Charlie Abroad. Shaun was kind enough to send me the first three or four books and after that I was hooked.

I have always liked writing about strong female characters to try to redress the balance. Lucy Wilson is strong, fearless, resilient and quick-thinking. And Hobo’s no pushover either!” Although only young, like the Brigadier, Lucy Wilson is a valiant hero. There is much more to her than meets the eye!

We’ve been working with Paul on a number of projects recently including something rather special to be released later this year. When we asked him to contribute a short story he immediately understood the tone we were after and delivered a cracking adventure for all of us who are stuck at home.

When Shaun at Candy Jar asked me to work on this story I was honoured. I’ve been enjoying and appreciating the work of some of my favourite writers and other creative professionals while stuck at home, including the team at Doctor Who, so I know how magic an escape right now can be. The chance to contribute something small to that brilliant effort was pretty special.

Shaun already had a lot of great ideas for how to tell the story, including the new menace our heroes have to face, and getting it written was a lot of fun. I took the chance to grapple with my own lockdown demons, some sock related, take a moment to appreciate the marvels of modern technology, and of course salute the people who are working so hard to keep us safe right now, including all of you at home. I hope you enjoy Lucy and Hobo’s new adventure, and thanks to Candy Jar for giving me the opportunity to do my little bit.

When Richard Brewer sent us the message from the Brig we contacted him straight away to ask if we could share it with our readers. Richard agreed and we are pleased to present this long-lost UNIT message to Doctor Who fans.

In these trying times, we all need something to focus on, to keep us all sane. For a lot of people that’s writing. So it’s seems the perfect time to run another competition, give people something to aim for; a chance to write something for potential publication.

This time we’re opting for a theme, something to combat the doom and gloom that threatens to overtake us all at the moment. And that theme is The Perfect Day. The challenge is, what can you do with such a theme? What kind of story does it suggest to you? How would such a story work for our characters (the Brigadier, Anne, Bill, Lucy, Hobo, etc)? And, like in the previous entries, everyone is free to use any original character from both the Lethbridge-Stewart and Lucy Wilson Mysteries ranges, plus our licenced characters. But, and I can’t stress this enough, not characters owned by the BBC or any other creator, without express permission (proof will be required).

Our two previous winners are Sean Alexander and Megan Fizell, and we look forward to publishing their new Lethbridge-Stewart stories very soon (subject to world events, of course).

Submission guidelines for the Lethbridge-Stewart South Wales Short Story Competition:

• Maximum of 3000 words.
• You must include your name in the document, along with the title.
• Word (or Word compatible) files only. We do not accept PDF submissions.
• This competition is open to anybody, whether you’re a fan of Doctor Who and Lethbridge-Stewart or not. We’re looking for stories that utilise any character from the Lethbridge-Stewart and The Lucy Wilson Mysteries range of books (list of Lethbridge-Stewart characters here: http://www.lethbridge-stewart.co.uk/characters/). It is not necessary to fit within the timeline; these stories are out of the canon of the series, so feel free to let your imagination run wild!
• A selection of free short stories will be sent to any applicant on request, should you need to see our characters in action.
• Our license is with the Haisman Literary Estate only, therefore you CAN use any character from the Doctor Who serials The Abominable Snowmen, The Web of Fear and The Dominators, or any original character found Candy Jar Books’ Lethbridge-Stewart and The Lucy Wilson Mysteries series (except characters from Doctor Who that appeared in the ranges under express permission).
• You can NOT use any other Doctor Who characters or monsters. (Unless you have proof of permission from the creator of the chosen monster/character.)
• You can NOT use UNIT or any associated characters.
• Any entries that feature a Doctor Who character not owned by the Haisman Literary Estate (and without express permission) will be instantly disqualified, with no refund.

Jonathan Macno is an exciting new talent from Cardiff. In 2014, at the age of 19, he was a runner-up in our second South Wales Short Story competition and was featured in the accompanying book Breaking the Surface. After that, in 2016, Jonathan wrote the Lethbridge-Stewart short story The Two Brigadiers. This was well-received by our fans, so I contacted him immediately and asked him to write for the Lucy Wilson series.

When I first submitted work to the South Wales Short Story Competition back in 2014, which feels like forever ago, I had no idea all the brilliant opportunities that would follow. Telling a story in Lucy’s world is a privilege I’ve been working towards for a while and it’s thrilling to see the book, my first published novel, come together. The whole thing is surreal in the best possible way. The Serpent’s Tongue is special to me for a lot of reasons. I was given plenty of free reign and support from Shaun and everyone at Candy Jar, so I used the world of Doctor Who to give a platform to that most underrepresented of writers: William Shakespeare.

School kids can struggle with Shakespeare because of the way he’s often dropped on them without context, humour or fun, and that means they miss out on some wonderful worlds. I still remember the first Shakespeare I saw, a brilliant production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream my parents dragged me to that changed my life, no doubt about it. Lucy herself isn’t the Bard’s biggest fan, so this book is me trying to get her on board, and hopefully some of the readers too.

Jonathan Macno is an exciting new talent from Cardiff. In 2014, at the age of 19, he was a runner-up in our second South Wales Short Story competition and was featured in the accompanying book Breaking the Surface. After that, in 2016, Jonathan wrote the Lethbridge-Stewart short story The Two Brigadiers. This was well-received by our fans, so I contacted him immediately and asked him to write for the Lucy Wilson series.

When I first submitted work to the South Wales Short Story Competition back in 2014, which feels like forever ago, I had no idea all the brilliant opportunities that would follow. Telling a story in Lucy’s world is a privilege I’ve been working towards for a while and it’s thrilling to see the book, my first published novel, come together. The whole thing is surreal in the best possible way. The Serpent’s Tongue is special to me for a lot of reasons. I was given plenty of free reign and support from Shaun and everyone at Candy Jar, so I used the world of Doctor Who to give a platform to that most underrepresented of writers: William Shakespeare.

School kids can struggle with Shakespeare because of the way he’s often dropped on them without context, humour or fun, and that means they miss out on some wonderful worlds. I still remember the first Shakespeare I saw, a brilliant production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream my parents dragged me to that changed my life, no doubt about it. Lucy herself isn’t the Bard’s biggest fan, so this book is me trying to get her on board, and hopefully some of the readers too.

Jonathan Macno is an exciting new talent from Cardiff. In 2014, at the age of 19, he was a runner-up in our second South Wales Short Story competition and was featured in the accompanying book Breaking the Surface. After that, in 2016, Jonathan wrote the Lethbridge-Stewart short story The Two Brigadiers. This was well-received by our fans, so I contacted him immediately and asked him to write for the Lucy Wilson series.

When I first submitted work to the South Wales Short Story Competition back in 2014, which feels like forever ago, I had no idea all the brilliant opportunities that would follow. Telling a story in Lucy’s world is a privilege I’ve been working towards for a while and it’s thrilling to see the book, my first published novel, come together. The whole thing is surreal in the best possible way. The Serpent’s Tongue is special to me for a lot of reasons. I was given plenty of free reign and support from Shaun and everyone at Candy Jar, so I used the world of Doctor Who to give a platform to that most underrepresented of writers: William Shakespeare.

School kids can struggle with Shakespeare because of the way he’s often dropped on them without context, humour or fun, and that means they miss out on some wonderful worlds. I still remember the first Shakespeare I saw, a brilliant production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream my parents dragged me to that changed my life, no doubt about it. Lucy herself isn’t the Bard’s biggest fan, so this book is me trying to get her on board, and hopefully some of the readers too.

Bloodlines was always about taking a different look at our own characters, so this was a nice chance to offer up a unique look at the world inhabited by Lucy Wilson and her friend Hobo – only seen through a distorted mirror. The obvious choice for me was Chris – we haven’t actually worked together before, but we spent a lovely day at a convention a couple of years ago and after meeting to discuss the potential of this book, I knew he was the right man for the job. We had much success with our Lethbridge-Stewart/Lucy Wilson crossover project last year, but obviously we don’t want to hit the same beats again. The George Kostinen Mystery is a crossover quite unlike the previous one.

Andy and all the writers who have worked on the Lethbridge Stewart range before me have created such an intricate, well-realised universe that I have to confess I was a little nervous about stepping into it. It's somewhat like being given a very beautiful, very complicated grandfather clock and then being asked to service a number of vital parts using only a butter knife while wearing a blindfold. Thankfully, I've been let loose in my little pocket dimension where I can forget about butter knives and go at this thing with a nuclear-powered chainsaw. It's enormous fun putting Lethbridge-Stewart, George, and all other characters through the ringer, transforming jolly old Blighty into a dystopian nightmare, creating new creatures to scare people with, and revisiting my very first addition to this universe – the Clowns.”

This was a fascinating cover to compose because of the various components and the fact I had the honour of being only the second artist to interpret Lucy Wilson on a cover – the less said about getting her hair style right the better! The Kruge were a lot of fun to draw, and if you look closely you’ll spot the little drawings of their victims faces scratched into their armour.

Growing up as a fan of Doctor Who since the early 1970s, it was a dream come true to join the team in Cardiff a short while after it returned to screens in 2005. So much has been written about the series that it may surprise fans to know that there are many stories that they haven’t heard. I was at the heart of production throughout the David Tennant, Matt Smith and Peter Capaldi eras and am looking forward to sharing the secrets from that time.

Not only will I discuss in detail how we made the show, I’m also going to cover all the incredible activity around it such us the conventions, the exhibitions, the World Tours, the musical concerts and the mammoth celebrations in the show’s fiftieth year such as a trip to Buckingham Palace and the recovery of long lost episodes. And it’s not just Doctor Who – we also made Torchwood, Class and the Sarah Jane Adventures – all of which will be included.

It was often hard work and stressful, but it was also a lot of fun and I can’t wait to share the joy of that wonderful adventure.