Interview: Simon A Forward

Interview with the author of Drift and Emotional Chemistry.

Tell us all about Drift then

Well, in strictly spoiler-free terms, I always saw it as something of a ghost story - although not necessarily featuring any ghosts...

There's a science fiction premise in there, but that's actually secondary (for me) to the human story. It's highly character-driven, all about our need to have some clear course in life, and ideally find a 'home'.

Hopefully there's a lot of atmosphere and suspense in there and I always loved in Doctor Who where you never got to see the monster till maybe the third episode.

At the same time, there's action sequences in there that I for one would love to see on film. But then, I guess I would say that.

Your biography says you bear little resemblance to the person who wrote One Bad Apple for More Short Trips. Why?

It's the beard, I used to have a beard then (laughs).

More seriously, a lot has happened in the relatively short time since I wrote One Bad Apple, so that's my way of covering all that without really saying anything. Still, it's fair to say I think/hope I've grown as a writer in that time and a full novel, as opposed to a short story, is sort of like a coming of age.

Was this your first full book proposal? What were the others like?

Noooo, far from it I'm afraid. For me - as far as Who novels go - it was somewhere between 12th - 15th time lucky.

Some of the previous ones were probably over-simplistic, and probably not original enough - for example my first, which was an effort called Call of the Siren, involving a sci-fi take on mermaids, with smugglers and wreckers. The only thing that set it apart really was a good deal of local flavour from where I live, here in the South West.

Others though were I think really strong ideas that just needed more development, but they may surface at one time or another in evolved form. I'm chuffed that Drift turned out to be my first one. I'm very proud of that book.

What do you consider to be the influences on your writing?

I'm influenced by a huge range of different writers, from many of the classics - George Eliot, Joseph Conrad, Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky - to James Ellroy and Elmore Leonard, and in sf/fantasy, Tanith Lee, Larry Niven, Michael Marshall Smith.

And movies. Movies are a great influence.

Given the setting and feel of the novel, do you think some of the comparisons that have been made with the works of Stephen King are justified?

Well I wouldn't like to encourage such comparisons, and I don't generally read horror (most of my experience of King's work has been courtesy of films!) - but in writing something of a ghost story set in New England I couldn't discount that influence.

Drift was originally a Third Doctor story. How hard was it to adapt for the Fourth Doctor?

Actually, when I was first asked to adapt it, I thought it was going to be tough. But it was quite the reverse.

The original required more plotting, for instance, just to get the Doc and Liz Shaw shipped over to the States as it were. The Fourth Doc and Leela are another favourite team of mine anyway, so they were both very easy to write for, and the Fourth Doc's gloomier side fitted well with the mood of the story.

Do you think Tom Baker could still convincingly play the Fourth Doctor?

On audio, for sure. There's no beating that voice. (There was a time when he was going to be reading One Bad Apple for an audio book, and I was gutted when that fell through) If he were to play him on screen again, I think the obvious changes would have to be referenced, and I imagine his portrayal would be significantly different.

>We see you've set Drift pre-K9. Where do you stand regarding the metal mutt?

I'm actually quite fond of the little guy - he was a great design, and not nearly as aggravating as some robot sidekicks that turned up in other sci fi shows around that time (Twiki and Muffet, anyone?).

But I'm not sure I'm that bothered about writing for him. In any case, Drift is the sort of adventure where he'd be left back at the TARDIS or get bogged down in the snow.

Chiefly though, it had to be an early Leela outing because I wanted it to be her first experience of snow.

There seem to be quite a few Doctor Who books with an American slant these days. Why do you think that is, and was it encouraged when you pitched Drift?

No, it wasn't encouraged as such. That was just where I wanted to set the story. As to why there are more books with an American slant, I don't know for sure - in some cases, it's because the authors live there.

Whatever the reason, I'd say it was a good thing to see the Doctor getting a bit more international when on Earth. There are so many other good settings in this world alone, and given that he comes back to Earth quite frequently, it's great to make use of them.

What's your favourite memory of snow?

That would either be me, standing high on the slopes of a mountain over Innsbruck, and literally surrounded by white - to such an extent that I could see literally nothing. Like standing in a void. Amazing.

Or in Siberia, where it just lay over the ground everywhere, from horizon to horizon, while I travelled across it all by train. Fantastic. And whenever we stopped, a few of us would fill up a carrier bag with the stuff to help chill our bottles of vodka.

Do you 'cast' the characters in your books? If so, who play the principal characters in Drift?

I do generally - it helps to have a clear voice in my head if nothing else. I wouldn't want to give too many away here, as readers may have their own images in their heads, but by way example, I had John Cusack in mind whenever writing for Captain Morgan Shaw, and most of the cast of Homicide: Life on the Street (my favourite TV show) are in there in one guise or another.

Leela and Krystal seemed to be broadly similar characters? What was the thinking behind pairing them up?

Krystal featured in the original, and when Leela was introduced, they sort of naturally gravitated towards one another. I have a profound fascination with the Native American culture (among others) and that kindred spirit between her and Leela presented itself automatically as soon as Leela had been introduced into the story.

The events in Drift get a brief nod in the previous month's Relative Dementias. How much do the Past Doctor Adventure (PDA) authors work together and consult each other on developments in upcoming novels?

I don't really know!

Mark and I happened to get commissioned on the same day and Justin Richards sent out one email to the both of us. So of course our email addresses were listed at the top, and after patting each other on the back via email, we've stayed in touch and done a spot of proof reading for one another.

Mark wanted to include a little reference from Drift in Relative Dementias, and I was flattered. And that kind of low level continuity actually brings the PDAs together a bit, helps them all become part of one big universe.

Any chance that we'll be seeing more from Melody and Parker? And how strong was the X File influence on the development of this couple?

Melody and Parker were included simply because I felt the story had hints of an X Files episode and I thought, rather than fight off that influence, a nod to that (with a little twist) was a good idea.

They had a secondary benefit of bringing a sprinkling of comic relief to the adventure, and I grew quite fond of them in the process - so I'd love to see them back some day, explore more of their background and so on.

There has been a recent spate of elemental enemies in the Doctor Who books. How did you go about creating the enemy in your novel and what would you like to do next?

The elemental - or emotional - aspects were of most importance to me, so it was just a matter of going down the pseudoscience route - for me, an essential feature of Who from that era - in constructing something that would work.

I'm far keener on the psychology and motivation, not to mention culture and society, of alien creatures than their biology, so whichever Who project I get to do next, you can expect a strong emotional slant to whatever creatures are involved.

What's the hardest thing about writing for the Fourth Doctor?

Um, mannerisms, I'd say. Trying to capture all of those would be a nightmare, so you have to keep it down to the occasional hint, a suggestion, and let the reader fill in the rest.

Was there anything you were trying desperately hard not to be influenced by?

Oddly enough, yes. The original idea came into being out of a single scene from Fargo. The opening shot where a car seems to materialise out of all that white. So naturally, I was anxious to avoid any references to pregnant police chiefs and woodchippers.

What can you tell us about your Sandman script for Big Finish?

I think I'm on thin ice here. Somebody else asked me this recently and I told them if I let on too much at this stage, Gary Russell would probably skin me alive.

Still, I think I can safely say the story does present Colin's Doctor in a different light. There's an original alien race in there too and the setting is something quite different, fairly dark and dynamic.

What can we expect next from you as an author?

Hopefully lots. There are further proposals of mine that met with hearty approval from Justin Richards, so in due course there will be future Who novels - of which I'd best not say any more than that, since no contracts have been signed!

Meanwhile, while I wait to get started on any of that, I have some ideas that I'm going to be submitting to Telos, I'd like to do another audio or two at some point in the future, and I have non-Who projects, some fiction and some sci-fi, that I'm currently developing for submissions to agents and publishers.

It was very important to me that, in the event I did get my first novel published, I didn't simply rest on my laurels. As far as work goes, it doesn't look like there's any danger of that in the near future.

• Simon A Forward
  

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