Martin Day

Interview: Martin Day talks about his favourite books.

What's your favourite Target novelisation?

The one that had the biggest impact on me was The Ice Warriors - it was the first I owned, bought during a wet summer holiday in Wales, if I remember rightly. (I have a feeling a library copy of Doctor Who in an Exciting Adventure with the Daleks was the first I ever read, though.)

I literally read and re-read The Ice Warriors until it started to fall apart. It was one of the first books I remember as a child really drawing me into its world.

What's your favourite Who novel?

In post-Target terms there are many: I love Paul Cornell's Timewyrm: Revelation, for example, because I adored the serialised fan fiction tale on which it was based. It was a real eye-opener to see that one of 'us' could do something like this.

Russell's Damaged Goods was also amazing, but my two favourites are Daniel O'Mahoney's Falls the Shadow and Andrew Cartmel's Warlock. I read them both back-to-back (so should that be the other way round? I can't remember now) when I was ill in Athens and I thought each was quite extraordinary. It might have been the medication I was on, I suppose, but again both sucked me into their stories and I kept thinking "I'll read just one more chapter..."

The most fun Doctor to write for?

I almost always used to write for the Fifth Doctor in my fan fiction stories and think there's an awful lot you can do with him that you wouldn't be able to with the others. The fact that I've never written for Davison's Doctor professionally, so to speak, is kind of interesting - maybe I'm scared of screwing up something that's so important to me. Ditto Tom's Doctor, though I have just done a short story for Paul featuring him. Tom was always 'my' Doctor.

Which is the Doctor you dread writing for?

I imagine - from a position of ignorance - that the Sixth Doctor would prove... interesting.