Author's introduction by Lance Parkin

I didn’t expect that when I got commissioned, but I knew it would be an ‘event’ book, and it had to be special. The editor of the range, Rebecca Levene (who for reasons best known to herself prefers to be called ‘Bex’), and I thrashed out some of the details.

With almost every Who book, the editor will give the author a couple of things that ‘have to happen’ – usually, these aren’t major plot points, just things to bind the range together. When I wrote Just War, I had to put a couple of hints in foreshadowing the death of Roz, one of the Doctor’s companions. With Father Time, there were elements of the ‘Earth arc’, like the physical state of the TARDIS.

The Dying Days was, essentially, a long list of ‘requirements’. It had to both be a fitting end to a range and the pointer to a new future... futures, actually – there was a new Doctor, but Virgin were continuing to publish books featuring Benny, and the book had to act as a showcase, maybe even an introduction, to her.