SPOILERS ALERT!!!
Hello everyone! 🙂
Welcome to ‘Bradley’s Basement’ blog and I’m Tim Bradley!
‘A Sparkle of Doctors: Volume 1’ is out! 🙂 The Divergent Wordsmiths have released their latest ‘Doctor Who’ anthology of short stories to celebrate 60 years of the TV show. ‘A Sparkle of Doctors: Volume 2’ will be released sometime soon later this year, but for now, I’m glad that Volume 1 is out.
Over the years since I was invited back in 2018, I’ve contributed short stories to the Divergent Wordsmiths every year and I’m very pleased that these stories are in print. I’m excited that my latest ‘Doctor Who’ story is a two-part story and it’s included to celebrate the TV show’s 60th anniversary.
Volume 1 of ‘A Sparkle of Doctors’ contains seven stories. There’s an introduction by AFJ Kernow and Alan Camlann/Wolfie and the anthology ends with an intermission called ‘Where Reason Met the Dark’ by Alan Camlann. The anthology features a trickster character called Diamant, who is one of the Higher Powers.
My contribution to ‘A Sparkle of Doctors’ is a two-part short story called ‘Interdimensional Rescue’, featuring the Fifth Doctor, Nyssa and Billy. ‘Part 1’ is contained in Volume 1 whilst ‘Part 2’ will be released in Volume 2 later this year. I had fun writing this two-part short story. I hope you’ll enjoy it.
As well as the Fifth Doctor, Nyssa and Billy, there are guest characters in the story to celebrate 60 years of the TV show and to celebrate the Peter Davison/Fifth Doctor era. This is in various forms. As well as the TV series, the story honours the Big Finish audios, the comics and what could have been.
As stated in my ‘coming soon’ blog post, the other stories in ‘A Sparkle of Doctors: Volume 1’ include ‘Palingenesis’ by Rob Nisbet, featuring the First Doctor, Ian and Barbara, and the First Doctor and Steven; ‘L’Amore Ci Terra Uniti’ by Oscar Hampton, featuring the Unbound First Doctor and Susan; ‘The Future of Peladon’ by Kevin M. Johnston, featuring the Unbound Third Doctor and Bernice Summerfield; and ‘The Time Lord All Tattered and Torn’ by AFJ Kernow, featuring the Sixth Doctor and Mel. There are two more stories that I haven’t mentioned before in my ‘coming soon’ blog post.
The stories include ‘A Faerie Tale of Old Gallifrey’ by Chris Taylor, featuring the Curator; and ‘The Station of Possibilities’ by Sherlock, featuring a Ninth Doctor and perhaps more. The ‘Sparkle of Doctors’ volumes are edited by Alan Camlann, AFJ Kernow and Sherlock. I’m pleased with how Volume 1 has turned out. 🙂
The front cover by Matthew Purchase is especially impressive and there are nice pictures of a few Doctors featured in the anthology, including one for the late David Warner who plays the Unbound Third Doctor as well as one for a brand-new Unbound Doctor created by me in ‘Interdimensional Rescue’. I’m so excited! 😀
Volume 1 feels very exciting, considering that Rob Nisbet (a Big Finish writer who has penned ‘The Edge’ and ‘A Heart on Both Sides’ – one of my favourite Short Trip audio stories) has contributed a story to the anthology. Also, apparently one of the Terraqueous Distributors writers has contributed a story.
Here’s a link to the page on my blog for ‘Interdimensional Rescue’. There’s also a link to ‘A Sparkle of Doctors: Volume 1’ on the Divergent Wordsmiths website. Go to page 142 for ‘Interdimensional Rescue – Part 1’ in ‘A Sparkle of Doctors: Volume 1’. The story is also part of ‘The Fifth Doctor by Tim Bradley’ series and it’s a part of the ‘Short Trips by Tim Bradley’ collection on ‘Bradley’s Basement’. 🙂
I hope you’ll enjoy ‘Interdimensional Rescue – Part 1’, featuring the Fifth Doctor, Nyssa and Billy, as well as the other stories by the other writers in this exciting anthology by the Divergent Wordsmiths to celebrate 60 years of ‘Doctor Who’. There’ll be more of this anthology to look forward to in 2023.
Thanks for reading!
For other Divergent Wordsmiths short stories by me, check out ‘Psychic Image’ from ‘Genesis of Terror’, ‘The Crimson Lion’ and ‘The Popiz’ from ‘The Paul Spragg ReCollections’, ‘The City of the Bad Wolf’ and ‘Into the Death-Space’ from ‘Unbound Imaginings, Volume 2’, and ‘The Regeneration Dilemma’ and ‘Girl Out of Nowhere’ from ‘The Paul Spragg ReCollections, Volume 2’.
Bye for now!
Tim 🙂
Bradley's Basement 
Congratulations, Tim, on what I now realise is your *eighth* published story with us at Divergent Wordsmiths. Eight. Good heavens. That has the air of Terrance Dicks’s prolific Target novelisation presence about it. It’s a terrific accomplishment.
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Hi Wolfie,
Yes, you’re right, it is eight stories I’ve written for the Divergent Wordsmiths. I’m looking forward to when ‘Part II’ of ‘Interdimensional Rescue’ gets released in ‘A Sparkle of Doctors: Volume 2’ later this year. Thank you so much for allowing me the opportunity to write some ‘Doctor Who’ stories for the Divergent Wordsmths. I’ve greatly enjoyed writing them and ‘Interdimensional Rescue’ was a lot of fun to write in terms of celebrating the Fifth Doctor era in all its forms as well as celebrating the 60th anniversary of ‘Doctor Who’. Well, Terrance Dicks is someone I greatly admire as a writer and script editor and I’ve enjoyed his style of writing when reading/hearing his Target novelizations. I don’t know if I can match the same level as Terrance, but he’s certainly someone who’s had an impact on me in terms of writing. I’m pleased to have written eight stories for the DW anthologies.
Many thanks,
Tim 🙂
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Terrance Dicks in all the DVD interviews I remember him from, and his interview in the Seven Keys To Doomsday documentary, has had many interesting things to say. As I learned from first hearing what he had to say about Dr. Who for More Than 30 Years In The TARDIS, he easily appreciated the old-fashioned heroism and morality of the Doctor. I appreciated him for saying that because it’s nice that such old-fashioned heroes can still hold up today thanks to Dr. Who.
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Hi scifimike,
Thanks for sharing your thoughts about Terrance Dicks. I had the opportunity to see him at two conventions – the first one at ‘Valiant 2015’ where I asked him a question, and the second one at ‘The Captiol II’ where I got to meet him briefly for a signing and it was a surprise guest appearance. I’m pleased I got to meet him and it’s sad to think he isn’t with us anymore as his contribution to ‘Doctor Who’ was so huge and it’s one of the reasons why the show has kept going in terms of defining the Doctor as a hero. I’ve dedicated one of the ‘Divergent Wordsmiths’ stories ‘The City of the Bad Wolf’ to Terrance as well as to Trevor Martin, who played the Unbound Fourth Doctor from ‘Seven Keys to Doomsday’, because of that.
Many thanks,
Tim 🙂
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You’re welcome.
Alternate universe Doctors like Trevor Martin, Richard E. Grant and David Warner are the ones we can chiefly thank for encouraging all the fan film Doctors like Tony Garner, Luke Newman, Krystal Moore and Ryan Hendrick (for Dr. Who vs. ALIEN: Besieged) to name just a few.
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Hi scifimike,
I’ve seen ‘Besieged’ featuring Ryan Hendrick as the Doctor (the late Hamish Wilson from ‘The Mind Robber’ is in that too) at one of the ‘Regenerations’ conventions in Swansea (the 2013 one, I believe). I must check out the entire ‘Besiged’ story on YouTube sometime.
Many thanks,
Tim 🙂
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