Happy Birthday, Paul Cornell!
Some of you might know him from his comics, including Saucer Country and Demon Knights, and arcs on Wolverine and Captain Britain.
Others might know him from his books, such as British Summertime and London Falling.
Many of you will know him from his long-standing association with a certain Time Lord; he’s written quite a number of Dr Who books, comics and audio adventures – creating the intrepid Bernice Summerfield along the way – and the screenplays ‘Father’s Day‘ (for Christopher Eccleston’s ninth Doctor) and the two-part ‘Human Nature‘/’The Family of Blood‘ (for David Tennant’s tenth Doctor).
He is, of course, the absurdly talented Paul Cornell, and today is his birthday! And to celebrate, let us unveil our brand new cover to The Doctor Who Discontinuity Guide, which Paul wrote with Martin Day and Keith Topping:
The classic guide to the original Doctor Who series returns! One of the most influential and fondly-remembered guides to the longest running SF series in the world.
When it was originally published, the Discontinuity Guide was the first attempt to bring together all of the various fictional information seen in BBC TV’s DOCTOR WHO, and then present it in a coherent narrative. Often copied but never matched, this is the perfect guide to the ‘classic’ Doctors.
Fulffs, goofs, double entendres, fashion victims, technobabble, dialogue disasters: these are just some of the headings under which every story in the Doctor’s first twenty-seven years of his career is analysed.
Despite its humorous tone, the book has a serious purpose. Apart from drawing attention to the errors and absurdities that are among the most loveable features of Doctor Who, this reference book provides a complete analysis of the story-by-story creation of the Doctor Who Universe.
One sample story, Pyramids of Mars, yields the following gems:
TECHNOBABBLE: a crytonic particle accelerator, a relative continuum stabiliser, and triobiphysics.
DIALOGUE TRIUMPHS: ‘I’m a Time Lord… You don’t understand the implications. I’m not a human being. I walk in eternity.’
CONTINUITY: the doctor is about 750 years old at this point, and has apparently aged 300 years since Tomb of the Cybermen. He ages about another 300 years between this story and the seventh’ Doctor’s Time and the Rani.
An absolute must for every Doctor Who fan, this new edition of the classic reference guide has not been updated at all for the 50th anniversary.
And to celebrate Paul Cornell‘s birthday, every copy of The Doctor Who Discontinuity Guide sold today comes with a free TARDIS and sonic screwdriver.**
** Offer open only to residents of Gallifrey, Skaro or Metabelis III.
