23-532: Ben Dylan Aaronovitch (born 22 February 1964) is an English author and screenwriter. He is the author of the series of novels Rivers of London . He also wrote two Doctor Who serials in the late 1980s and spin-off novels from Doctor Who and Blake's 7 . Born in Camden , Aaronovitch is the son of the economist Sam Aaronovitch who was a senior member of the Communist Party of Great Britain , and
46-484: A lot better... So it did come in quite handy later, for work”. During one of the short-term jobs he submitted some scripts to the BBC, which led to him writing Doctor Who stories, and finally, while working at Waterstones , Aaronovitch published his first Rivers of London novel, which rapidly became a word-of-mouth success, enabling him to write full-time. He is passionate about diversity in literature, and in 2020 he founded
69-1082: A recurring character throughout the Second Doctor to the Fifth Doctor and last appearing in " The Five Doctors " (1983). Anthony Ainley returned to play The Master in Survival , having last appeared in The Trial of a Time Lord (1986). This was Ainley's final television appearance in the role, though he portrayed the Master one last time in the 1997 computer game Destiny of the Doctors . Jean Marsh , who had portrayed Joanna in The Crusade (1965) and Sara Kingdom in The Daleks' Master Plan (1965–66), appeared in Battlefield playing
92-477: A semi-regular in the New Adventures . He has also written a novel and several short stories published by Big Finish Productions featuring the character of Bernice Summerfield , who was originally developed in the New Adventures . He also co-wrote a Doctor Who audio drama for Big Finish, and has written a number of Blake's 7 spin-off audio dramas. In May 1987, Aaronovitch submitted Knight Fall to
115-557: A three-part adventure story for Doctor Who’s 27th Season (which never came to fruition), and was called Bad Destination . The story would feature The Doctor seeing Ace as a captain of a hospital spaceship which is being under attack by the Metatraxi. The story, however, was abandoned when, in September 1989, the BBC cancelled Doctor Who after its 26 Season , due to declining audiences. In July 2011, Big Finish Productions released
138-513: The Doctor Who production office for Season 25 . The story concerned privatization. Script editor Andrew Cartmel liked the story ideas, but felt that the script was inappropriate for the series and had too many supporting characters. After failing to feature Aaronovitch's Knight Fall storyline to production, Aaronovitch submitted a story in June 1987, entitled Transit . The story would see
161-560: The Daleks (1988) and Battlefield (1989), for BBC television, and also the novelization of the former. He wrote one episode for Casualty (1990) and was then a regular writer on the science fiction series Jupiter Moon . He subsequently wrote or co-wrote three Doctor Who spin-off novels in the Virgin Publishing New Adventures range; he created the character Kadiatu Lethbridge-Stewart who became
184-639: The Doctor and Ace in the future, land in a metro station, and discover transportation portals that could lead any body throughout the Solar System, but one of the portals leads a gate way to hell. Even though Aaronovitch's scripts of Transit never came to fruition, he would adapt the story as a book for Virgin New Adventures series in December 1992. During Summer of 1988, Aaronovitch submitted
207-512: The Folly, a short story collection, was published in November 2020. The graphic novel series is cowritten by Andrew Cartmel . Initially published serially, the individual story arcs later appeared as graphic novels. All the graphic novels are published by Titan Comics. Aaronovitch has announced some forthcoming titles on his personal blog. Aaronovitch has announced several works within
230-669: The Future Worlds Prize, then known as the Gollancz and Rivers of London BAME SFF Award, aimed at opening up science fiction and fantasy publishing to more diverse writers. In 2023 it was announced that Rivers of London would be adapted for TV as a co-production between Pure Fiction Television, See-Saw Films and Aaronovitch’s own production company, Unnecessary Logo. Aaronovitch lives in Wimbledon, London . Aaronovitch wrote two Doctor Who serials, Remembrance of
253-613: The Sunday Times bestseller list...Aaronovitch’s work has been translated into 14 languages and sold in excess of five million copies worldwide, and has its own wiki, Follypedia. Reviewing the ninth book in the series, Amongst Our Weapons , in The Guardian , Lisa Tuttle wrote: Aaronovitch has no peers when it comes to successfully combining the appeal of a down-to-earth police procedural with all-out fantasy: here are real places, real history and real problems complicated by
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#1732786595161276-483: The existence of magic, ancient spirits, fairies, ghosts and talking foxes, all dwelling alongside ordinary, clueless humans. His plotting is still satisfyingly inventive and the continuing characters maintain their charm in the ninth novel of a series that began in 2011. On 1 May 2019 it was announced that a television adaptation of Rivers of London would be produced by Simon Pegg and Nick Frost 's production company, Stolen Picture . However, according to Aaronovitch,
299-429: The official series order (compare Foxglove Summer and The Furthest Station ). The short story collection Tales from the Folly includes a note above each story indicating which of the novels it is set between. Sarah Shaffi wrote for The Guardian : The books have consistently featured on bestseller lists, with the most recent two novels – 2022's Amongst Our Weapons and 2020's False Value – going straight to No 1 on
322-440: The part of the main antagonist. Season 26 continued Andrew Cartmel's trend of bringing a darker and more mysterious tone to the show, with a particular focus on Ace's past and the Doctor's manipulative nature. The season aired on Wednesdays, as per the previous season's schedule. The entire season was broadcast from 6 September to 6 December 1989. The Curse of Fenric was originally intended to be aired before Ghost Light , but
345-459: The same fictional universe, but set outside the chronology of the main series. These works include a short story entitled 'Cock of The Wall' focusing on Petrus Aelius Bekemetus, who Aaronovitch describes as a "temple official/Londinium wideboy " – i.e. set in Roman London which Peter Grant briefly visited in the third book of the series. In a blog entry, the author has provided a list of
368-481: The series is "still in the same state of permanent pre-pre-production". On 7 July 2022, a new TV adaptation of the book series was announced, to be produced by Pure Fiction Television, See-Saw Films, and Unnecessary Logo—Aaronovitch's production company. On 2 November 2023, it was announced that John Jackson would be lead writer on the television adaptation. At Dragonmeet convention in London, on 30 November 2019, it
391-523: The show was revived in 2005 . John Nathan-Turner produced the series, with Andrew Cartmel script editing. Sylvester McCoy and Sophie Aldred both continue their roles as the Seventh Doctor and Ace for their final season. Nicholas Courtney returned to play Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart in Battlefield . He first appeared with the Second Doctor in 1968 in The Web of Fear before becoming
414-527: The stories, by internal chronology. On the page where the official order is given, the author writes: "One caveat – the short story The Home Crowd Advantage is obviously set in 2012 during the London Olympics, but because it was written before the chronology of the series had firmed up it contains a number of anachronisms. I've learnt to be philosophical about this sort of thing." Many of the stories give vague dates, and some of those dates conflict with
437-651: The story as Earth Aid , by Aaronovitch and Cartmel. Novelizations: Virgin New Adventures : The short stories below are published in Tales from the Folly : Peter Grant (book series) The Rivers of London series (alternatively, the Peter Grant or the PC Grant series ) is a series of urban fantasy novels by English author Ben Aaronovitch , and comics/graphic novels by Aaronovitch and Andrew Cartmel , illustrated by Lee Sullivan . Tales from
460-420: The younger brother of actor Owen Aaronovitch and journalist David Aaronovitch . He attended Holloway School . Aaronovitch left school with no particular plan. “Instead of going to university I basically faffed about. I had a series of terrible jobs, the kind you get when you have no qualifications.” These included working as a security guard for Securitas , which he says taught him “to understand shoplifting
483-487: Was announced that a role-playing game based on the book series would be published by Chaosium . The game was released in PDF version on 30 November 2022, pending book version. Doctor Who (season 26) The 26th season of Doctor Who premiered on 6 September 1989 with the serial " Battlefield ," and consisted of four serials, ending with " Survival ," which was the final episode of Doctor Who for over 15 years, until
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#1732786595161506-432: Was subsequently rescheduled. All releases are for DVD unless otherwise indicated: Midway through 1989, Doctor Who's production team began initial planning for Season 27, which would have aired at the end of 1990. Andrew Cartmel and the writers he had worked with regularly, including Ben Aaronovitch , Ian Briggs , and Marc Platt , brainstormed possible story ideas. One of the major proposed plot points for Season 27
529-550: Was the departure of Ace, who would have been taken to Gallifrey to become a Time Lord herself. This would also have seen the subsequent introduction of a new companion, planned as an "aristocratic cat burglar". The cancellation of the series meant that no detailed work was undertaken beyond these initial ideas: Four of the five proposed serials were subsequently adapted by the authors alongside Big Finish Productions into audio adventures that were released as part of their Doctor Who: The Lost Stories range in 2011: The only one of
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