
Paul Cornell has been talking through his experience as a Doctor Who writer one gig at a time in his weekly news letter, in a surprisingly frank fashion. Despite being a member of rec.arts.drwho in the 1990s, a position from which it felt rather as if one had a ring side seat on what certain Dr Who authors were doing, it transpires I was relatively unaware of much that was happening behind the scenes. That said, I imagine there is still much he is missing out. He's just reached the first of his novels for the BBC books so it feels fitting to post the cover of the last of this Dr Who New Adventures (though he wrote the first Benny novel in between).
Happy Endings is a funny book. When the Dr Who Book Club read it they noted that it was almost impossible to understand without a fairly encyclopaedic knowledge of what had gone before. It's about Benny's wedding to Jason Kane, a romance I was never all that fond of, though its major crime (like much of the New Adventures, frankly) is inconsistent character development across books.
You can sign up for Paul's newletters from
his website though I should note that this week's newsletter is somewhat atypical since it is dominated by a recent family bereavement (consider this also a content warning).