I’ve mentioned before that I’m a long-time “Doctor Who” fan. At least I think I have. Never actually wrote fanfic but I did subscribe to “Doctor Who Monthly” and the fanzine Frontier Worlds.
One of my favourite DWM covers featured this photo of Peter Davison as The Doctor, all fetching in his pierrot costume. It’s from an episode ‘Black Orchid’, which I’d characterize as being in the DW subgenre “history-mystery-romp”.
In these stories the Doctor and companions typically visit an exotic past which enables them to get into costume and generally have fun with some stereotypes whilst also solving a murder, defeating a monster, etc.
“Black Orchid” is set in the 1920s in an English country house, with more than a nod or two at Agatha Christie – there’s a costume ball and anthropological intrigue.
With TWO real-life historical characters mentioned in “The Joshua Files” (two famous Mayan archaeologists) I had always planned to bring in something like this to Joshua Files.
An old country house. Hidden papers belonging to a dead archaeologist. A costume party. How could I resist temptation like that?
I couldn’t. So it’s there…and I wonder if you guess what costumes will feature?
It’s not by accident that the hero and a certain other person appear wearing the same costume. A free signed copy of ICE SHOCK to the first person to tell me who and why…
Professional writers aren’t allowed to play, by the way!
Oh and the other Doctor Who homage in ICE SHOCK – as I’ve said before, is in the title, which was inspired by EARTHSHOCK, a classic Peter Davison/Cyberman story.
There may be one other reason why I love that issue of DWM. I believe it may be the issue in which a letter appeared from a Mexican DW fan asking for penpals. That was, as Rick tells Capt. Louis Renault in ‘Casablanca’, “the start of a ‘beautiful friendship”. (Martin – am I right?)