Space is no longer the final frontier. The Darkness is coming and only the Time Warriors stand between it and Earth. Grab your copies today on Amazon!
Posted By Owen Quinn author of the Time Warriors and Zombie Blues
On the outskirts of Belfast in the late 1980s, a thirteen-year-old boy finds his life irrecoverably changed when he becomes embroiled in a mystery connected to the violent death of a young woman, centuries old witchcraft trials, a sinister ice-cream van, and an otherworldly entity known only as Mr. Needlesticks…(Cover by Adrian Baldwin)
Posted By Owen Quinn author of the Time Warriors and Zombie Blues
A comical homage to a city ablaze with recreational rioting where everyone’s fired up with their own twisted agenda. Tommy Bridge, a cop who’s known hard times, now armed with a yoga mat, a Glock and his own – slightly suspect – moral code, is out to seek revenge. Clark Wallace, criminal Kingpin and riot choreographer is on the rampage. Jimmy McAuley, a stoned student who wanders into the wrong place at the wrong time ends up going viral. Grace Doran, investigative journalist with conflicted morals, is good at her job but is she out to get more than the truth behind the events?
Get your copy here https://www.noalibispress.com/title/disorder-gerard-brennan?fbclid=IwAR2EtgEhPcij4IkR0HKIWtSE6TJoWPO1ACOOE0NwmG3RWs-WE46OjKBT-h0
By Owen Quinn author of the Time Warriors and Zombie Blues
Every week Owen looks back at a character from Doctor Who, some you’ll recall, others you won’t, but all were important to the story of our favourite time-traveller…
To date the only known living relative of the Doctor, Susan, played by Carole Ann Ford, was his granddaughter.
We first met her as a mysterious super pupil attending Coal Hill School where her knowledge drew the attention of two of her teachers.
They followed her home to a junkyard where they found a police box and an old man who they believed was holding Susan prisoner. But the truth was far more amazing as they were hurtled into time and space.
Susan’s heritage should have made her a strong independent character in her own right but the newly formed Tardis family saw her fill the role of surrogate daughter to Ian and Barbara (next week’s Heroes). As the stories progressed, Susan became little more than a screamer and was the victim of many a sprained ankle.
Fiercely protected by her grandfather, she was the bridge between their human passengers and the Doctor. She saw a kindred spirit in humanity which the Doctor had not yet embraced. Susan was always intended as the reason young people watched the show, someone they could identify with. She was a frightened young girl in most stories, eager to see the uninverse and show it off to her friends but the character focus was mostly on Ian, Barbara and the Doctor.
Occasionally, her telepathic abilities were touched upon such as the recently released DVD story The Sensorites. It gave Susan a depth and a purpose that was rarely utilised and here we saw a glimpse of the powerful character she could have been if written properly.
In human terms, she was approximately fifteen-years-old and she claimed she and the Doctor were exiles cut off from their own world for reasons unknown. She was the only link the Doctor had to his home so it seemed very strange that at the end of the Dalek Invasion of Earth, the Doctor locked her out of the Tardis claiming she had to settle down and find roots with the freedom fighter David Campbell whom she had fallen in love with.
His decision haunted him and years later when he learned how to pilot the Tardis, it seemed strange the Doctor never went back to see her.
She did return in the twentieth anniversary story the Five Doctors where she was teamed with Turlough and contributed little else except sprain her ankle but she did finally face the Cybermen.
Though we have met Jenny, a girl created from the Doctor’s D.N.A. and the jury is still out whether the woman in the End of Time was actually his mother but none will ever have the connection Susan had.
Of course, Susan reappeared in novels which used the alien part of her to great effect like the Witch Hunters and when, in Legacy of the Daleks, the 8th Doctor returns to Earth after the Dalek Invasion. Susan is separated from David now and hides her aging with make-up. However, the Master has returned to revive hidden nests of Daleks left over from the invasion. In the end, Susan manages to steal his Tardis, leaving the Master hideously deformed leading into the fourth Doctor adventure the Deadly Assassin.
But in the Big Finish world we see a different life. The eighth Doctor makes another visit to Earth and discovers Susan alive and well and hiding a secret. The Doctor has a grandson, played by Paul McGann’s real life son. In it we get to see something we have never seen before with the Doctor; family dynamics where he wants to take his grandson and show him the universe but Susan objects vehemently.
The story is further explored in the McGann final story in the 8th Doctor range when the Daleks again invade 22nd century Earth. But this time the Doctor is joined by his granddaughter, his grandson, the Meddling Monk and Lucie Miller as the race to save Earth is on.
Carole Ann has also completed several Companion Chronicles for the series highlighting adventures during and before her time on the show.
Maybe we will get to see Susan again in the new series but according to the Doctor all the Time Lords are dead. But he has been wrong before; Master anyone? This adds a new dimension to the Time War. Was Susan recalled to help fight or did the Doctor change her to be human to keep her safe as in the Family of Blood? Though these may be questions for fan fiction to answer in the future, for now all we can do is speculate…
Posted By Owen Quinn author of the Time Warriors and Zombie Blues
(The first book in the Shannon McNulty series)
You can’t choose your family-a major career obstacle for DS Shannon McNulty when she takes up a post with the Police Service of Northern Ireland. The move back to her hometown of Warrenpoint following a decade on the force in London coincides with the untimely death of her gangster uncle, Brendan. Now Shannon must balance an unofficial investigation into her uncle’s shooting with her first case for the PSNI. Swift resolution to the disappearance of a politician’s daughter could lead to a stellar career as a Belfast detective. But if she fumbles juggling family and job, she’ll lose everything.
Genre: Mystery
Get your copy today at https://www.fantasticfiction.com/b/gerard-brennan/shot.htm?fbclid=IwAR0UuIc020S7SbRNQmYp7Ju1UQJL4YguoGJYPHANA2HBjbv7Y5c4NfNch4A
By Owen Quinn author of the Time Warriors and Zombie Blues
Once again we look back at the history of Doctor Who and pick out one of the people that helped define one of sci-fi’s most enduring characters…
Doctor Grace Holloway, played by Daphne Ashbrook, was one of those limited number of companions that oversaw one of the Doctor’s regenerations. In fact, she was the first companion ever to be directly responsible for killing the Doctor and triggering his regeneration.
Shot down in a hail of bullets in San Francisco on Millennium Eve, the seventh Doctor is rushed to hospital where he undergoes emergency surgery. Despite his pleas not to administer drugs , Grace goes ahead and his alien biology reacts badly with her work, killing him instantly.
When we meet Grace she is attending the opera, being a fan of Puccini, and has a boyfriend who expects her to stay at home more rather than be a doctor on call. She is devastated at the loss of her patient but knows something is wrong. The x-rays showed he had two hearts but when her bosses burn the evidence and tell her to forget the whole thing she quits.
Unbeknownst to her, a newly regenerated Doctor has followed her and hides in the back of her car, being led there by her CD of Puccini. She thinks he is crazy until he pulls the surgical wire out of his side that caused his death.
Taking him home, she finds her boyfriend has moved out taking all her furniture but there is no time to think about that as the Doctor tells her the Master is somewhere nearby.
It’s not long before the Doctor remembers who he is and Grace becomes the first companion to be kissed on the lips by him, a great source of controversy at the time by fans who declared the Doctor wouldn’t do that sort of thing. If only they knew what would happen in the new era.
Grace falls for the Doctor completely and has no hesitation in following him when he discovers the Master has entered the Tardis and has opened the Eye of Harmony, the power source of the ship.
He realizes the master intends to open the Eye, completely restoring himself but the Earth will be sucked in completely and destroyed.
Before the end of the adventure, Grace is taken over by the Master, having been infected by the same black substance that he has become in order to possess bodies and killed outright. But in another twist that had fans crying, the Doctor reversed time and brought her back to life. If only Adric had been so lucky.
Since Grace was obviously in love with the Doctor, it’s strange she didn’t follow him into the Tardis for a new life. Maybe if the show had gone to a series as intended, that would have changed.
Daphne Ashbrook has returned to Big Finish, albeit as a different character, but you never know with them whether Grace will board the Tardis again.
However, her story didn’t end there; in the comic strip adventure The Fallen she returned. In the movie the Doctor had a habit of telling people about their future and teasing them and he told Grace she would do great things. In the Fallen she finds some of the Master’s essence and believes she can create a cure for all diseases from it but it takes on a life of its own and nearly destroys every living thing in London. The Doctor’s anger about this is silenced when she says it’s his fault for telling her she would do great things. She thought this would be a good thing to help the world and maybe if he had kept his mouth shut it would never have happened.
Grace again refused to go with him, though they did kiss again.
So, for a one-time companion, Grace had a lot happen to her and her time was truly filled with firsts…
By Owen Quinn author of the Time Warriors and Zombie Blues
When I created the Time Warriors cast, Jacke was the first and most defined character of the four. Jacqueline ‘Jacke’ Baker was a black girl born and bred in Belfast. Her natural beauty belays a humble soul ready to help out anyone thanks to her upbringing. She was to empower and break stereotypes. I don’t think there are any Irish black people in science fiction never mind from Belfast. My intention was to reflect our changing times where the world is becoming more international than ever before. As a child Jacke had been abused by a family friend and I wanted to get the message across to any kid in that situation that there is hope. So I surrounded Jacke with a solid family and friends. Her parents, Rupert and Marlene are fiercely protective of their brood with Marlene being a force to be reckoned with just like her daughter. Jacke took her experience and refused to let it beat her. Instead she went to Queen’s University to study psychology to work with traumatised kids. She uses that same fight to battle alongside Varran against all the strange creatures and villains the Time Warriors encounter. She is a martial artist and designed to be the calm centre of the four characters. She is the reasonable one and steps in when Michael and Varran have a huge argument. My intention was to reflect our changing times where the world is becoming more international than ever before.
Jacke is also a tribute to the first lady I ever fell in love with; Star Trek’s Nichelle Nicholsaka Uhura. This beautiful lady captivated me as a kid watching the show and Jacke was created in not only her honour but for all other ladies of colour that followed in strong leads. If Jacke can have half the impact on the audience that Nichelle had then I’ll be a happy man.
Jacke for me represents the heart of the Time Warriors. When she is crippled by terrible nightmares when helping the Mordan colony we learn for the first time her past. Her past is the colony childrens’ present and she is subconsciously linked to their silent cried for help. When the Lothari come to rescue the children, Jacke goes with them to help ease the children into a pain free life. She returns weeks later once her task is accomplished but she is very stalwart in what is the right and moral thing to do.
We also learn that th Baker women share an empathic link that can warn them when one of them is in trouble as seen in Experiment Four. Attacked by giant jellyfish, Jacke’s mother has a vision her daughter is in trouble and calls her. The mobile phone ringing is enough to allow them to escape being killed. This link is further explored in Homecoming hen Jacke’s grandmother, veronica, dies. Grief stricken, Jacke quits the Time Warriors as she feels guilty her grandmother died alone. She feels she has spent too long looking out for the universe while neglecting her own loved ones. Veronica comes to her in a dream and gives her a talking to about quitting. Jacke rejoins the others at the story’s conclusion. She is almost killed by mutant jellyfish in Experiment Four, argues on behalf of humanity in Return To Eden and manages to realise they have all been infected by a nerve gas which is making them turn on each other in Meltdown.
In Tempest Jacke is apparently killed but has been in fact kidnapped by the Family, renegade Xerebans trying to make the Earth a new power base. Using all their own people with latent mental powers, the Family implanted each of them with a chip that reduced them to mindless drones ready to carry out their orders. Again Marlene realises Jacke is not dead after all and storms off to find her daughter.
In Venom Jacke reveals she has now bought her grandmother’s house and has a new boyfriend, Stephen. On his first adventure they are both turned into vampire drones. She is afraid that the experience will drive him off bit not so. Not only does he stick with her but Stephen moves in. She is Varran’s confidant as he tells her about a lost love in Trinity and is hurled with Michael into a future where the Xereban people have been exposed because of something she and Michael did. Battling friends and foes alike she must find a way to restore the timeline.
In The Skull Jacke is kidnapped to be fed to a regenerating Veldrox and faces down the Mentara in The Belbridge Mystery.
Jacke is a vital part of the stories and the team. What the future holds for her, who knows? I know this; I truly hope Jacke joins the likes of Uhura, Dayne from blake’s 7, Jackie Brown, Michael Burnham, Oda Mae Brown and Martha Jones amongst others. I certainly hope some kid scared of the dark will read her story and find the darkness is not as scary as it once was. I hope they look up and see that helping hand and smile that will ignite the light within them to defeat the darkness. It’s all any writer wishes for his characters.
By Owen Quinn author of the Time Warriors and Zombie Blues
Once again we wander through the past of Doctor Who and the people who have helped him on his adventures. This week it’s UNIT’s very own Mike Yates…
Part of the acclaimed UNIT family from the Jon Pertwee era, Mike Yates was the Brigadier’s chief officer charged with coordinating and overseeing the many military operations such as transporting a nuclear missile in the Mind of Evil or securing the village trapped by a heat barrier in the Daemons.
He was a likeable man who loved pulling rank on his friend, poor Sergeant Benton. In Day of the Daleks, he uses his rank to get Benton’s plate of food supplied by Jo but you know by the performance there is no malice in it. These people are friends with a life off screen and their small comments on football and pints opened the imagination of a life for these characters outside the military.
Mike also fancied Jo Grant but the romance went nowhere despite his best efforts. Like the Brigadier, he had no fear of the Master but knew not to underestimate him.
But with every family there is a bad egg and in Mike’s case it really wasn’t his fault. Going undercover in the Green Death, Mike was taken over by the computer known as BOSS to become one of its pawns. Although the Doctor saved him, it left an impression no one noticed. And it didn’t come to prevalence until Invasion of the Dinosaurs when London was evacuated as the great lizards began reappearing. It turned out a group wanted to return the Earth to its paradisical state before man polluted and devastated the forests and jungles with his technology. The Doctor and UNIT seemed to be thwarted at every turn as if the enemy knew their every move. The Doctor was a threat to their plan and someone had to kill him. In a character development that was unprecedented in the show, Mike Yates was revealed to be that traitor. He had fallen under their influence and believed the Earth needed to be put back the way it was. At the climax of the story he was discharged from the army.
But he later contacted Sarah Jane Smith as he believed something alien was going on in a treatment centre he had entered into to sort his head out. He was now more the old Mike we knew, having time to meditate and realize the error of his ways. And to be fair, none of it was his fault and it can be argued the Doctor was remiss in not realizing the effect BOSS had on his friend’s mind leaving him open to influence.
Mike did turn up again in the Five Doctors as a phantom against the third Doctor. Since he appeared in full military uniform it was a dead giveaway this was an impostor. He would roar into Albert Square in the Children In Need multi Doctor adventure Dimensions in Time. Mike drives the Doctor’s car Bessie into the Rani’s forces to save the third Doctor.
Like many, he has had a new life in the novels, earning a trip in the Tardis in one of the Missing Adventures range. The era of the UNIT family was also encapsulated in the BBC books range.
But Mike’s finest hours have come alongside the fourth Doctor in Paul Magr’s adventure series on audio where Mike has become companion and confidant to the Time Lord he never met on screen which includes an appearance by the second Doctor as played by Patrick’s son, David, effectively recreating his father’s role right down to vocal inflection. It shows that even those who have been through a bad time can find redemption when the chips are down but Mike for me was a character badly let down by his friends in a time he needed them and should by all accounts be one of the Doctor’s greatest regrets.
By Owen Quinn author of the Time Warriors and Zombie Blues
Reports are coming out that Jodie Whittaker is leaving Doctor Who after three years at the end of the new eight part season. While the news is supposed common knowledge on set nothing has been confirmed by the BBC. The hunt is apparently on for the new Doctor which will have to be announced soon before the new series airs but as always the question is will it be a man or a woman? Who will it be? Stay tuned!
Posted by Owen Quinn author of the Time Warriors and Zombie Blues
Municipal City: the only place on earth where you can be anyone. Anyone from your favourite movies, books, tv shows, comics, video games or any cult media you can imagine. This is not virtual reality.
This is real.
Tina Lockhart arrives at the City to do exactly that, and is willing to pay any price to get in, willing to take the Elixir drug she needs just to breathe the air, and willing to kill, and risk being killed, just to survive.
Municipal City: the only place on earth where you can do anything. Anything can be replicated, given the right technology, and anything can be done as long as you follow the rules of the game.
But someone isn’t playing by the rules. Someone is murdering players in the safe zones, something that should be impossible. As dangerous as this is for Tina Lockhart, things get worse as she becomes the one accused of these killings, and Tina desperately needs to find the truth in her world of cult fiction.
Get your copy here today https://www.amazon.co.uk/Cult-Fiction-James-Dwyer-ebook/dp/B08L1FQW9J/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=brendan+dwyer&qid=1609706749&sr=8-1
By Owen Quinn author of the Time Warriors and Zombie Blues
The show has always been about Sam and Dean Winchester, two brothers brought up to fight the darkness, the tantalising waft of a normal life always out of reach. They have always been each other’s worlds.
Right up front guys is I hate goodbyes!! I’d be quite happy having my friends and gret craic all around me for the rest of my life but all good things must come to an end as they say. I bloody hate that phrase too. Or things continue but in a new and different form. Friends move on and hopefully the friendship is strong enough to survive distance and the stuff life throws in your way. Loved ones die or emigrate and the kaleidoscope of our lives bumps and impacts us in ripples we aren’t even aware of. Another true saying is that time flies and at a certain point you stop to look around and ask yourself where the hell did that go?
That’s exactly what happened when they announced the end of Supernatural. I stopped and thought, fifteen years? Where the hell did that go? More than that though you suddenly realise how much these characters have been part of your life and now they were going to live on in repeats. After a certain point I would never again see Sam and Dean in new adventures and follow their journeys alongside Bobby, Castiel or Jack. Covid drew it out slightly longer than originally planned but that was alright to me because it meant the end was not coming just yet. I really am terrible at coping with change and goodbyes and this one was going to be tough. But was it the right choice of an ending to the show? Did Supernatural end as it should have or was it a missed opportunity?
Rumour had it that the main story of Winchesters versus God would be resolved in the penultimate episode leaving many to speculate what the final episode would be about. Would it a trip down memory lane or a flashback celebratory story that would set the brothers on a new path free from the writings of God? Could it be the brothers would finally get the chance at a normal life just as they tasted over the years only to have it cruelly ripped away from them? Surely after all they had been through and lost, life would be kind and reward them for all their sacrifice. The actors were doing promo talking about a revival five years or so down the line which was to presumably throw fans off. Personally I had a suspicion that one or both of them were going to die and I was sadly right. I thought the answer lay in the lyrics of the Kansas song, Wayward Son.
“There’ll be peace when you are done. Lay your weary head to rest. Don’t you cry no more.”
I also remembered Death’s words to Dean that he was always destined to be the one to take God down, the slayer of God himself. If that was his destiny then what happens when God is defeated?
So God was defeated in the penultimate episode. Sam and Dean tricked him and his sons into walking into their trap. Jack was now a power void pulling in every bit of God energy displaced when Lucifer and Michael fight and from God beating the brothers to a pulp. This allows Jack to absorb God’s powers leaving the former Almighty mortal to age and die alone. Jack is now God, brings all the people back to the world God erased and restores harmony to heaven and the world. Amara, God’s sister, lives in peace within the newly promoted Jack. Sam and Dean have done it. They have stopped God in his tracks and fulfilled their destiny. What happens to someone once destiny is sated?
Dean and Sam have died so many times before but always eluded it and come back through one form or another. Their slamdown for God was always the reason why.
All bets were off as we see Sam and Dean visit a town where Dean gorges on a selection of pies. This is the brothers at their core; Sam mocking Dean at his love of pie and slapping him in the face with one. They have survived together. The world is still the same. There are still monsters to fight but this time no God pulling the strings. This time we have a nest of vampires killing ritualistically. It’s business as usual for the brothers as they take down yet another evil.
Almost.
In a fluke, Dean is impaled by a vampire on a spike while saving two children. It is just the two brothers alone in a barn in the middle of nowhere. We have seen huge finales in every season with spectacular effects like heaven falling or the battle of the cage. Destiny has been satisfied; Dean has done what he was meant to do so there is only one thing left for him; to die. He had taught Sam well. They had come a long way together but now it was time to end. The show has always been about Sam and Dean Winchester; two brothers brought up to fight the darkness, the tantalising waft of a normal life always out of reach. They have always been each other’s worlds.
The world now is shattered and Dean knows this is the end. Sam’s first instinct is to find a way to bring him back but Dean refuses. Dean makes Sam promise that it’s okay for Dean to die and tears streaming down his face, Sam tells his dying brother that it is okay fo him to go. That is Supernatural in a nutshell; Sam and Dean together against the world with only each other to rely on. This time however the journey must end and Sam is the one who has to end it so Dean can rest in peace. It is gut wrenching and heart breaking and exactly the right thing to do. Death was always going to come when they least expect it because no hunter gets to live a long happy life. They’ve both always known it and seen it for themselves over the years but now it has come for one of them, the indestructible Winchester brothers. No matter what life has thrown at them they have always been there for each other. It’s only fitting that Dean should be the one to go first. He has fulfilled his destiny and made Sam into the hunter with brains and brawn that will continue the fight because he is the one with the best instincts. With that Dean Winchester dies. No one in real life is ever ready for death even when it is expected but somehow when Dean dies it rips the hearts out of the audience. The boys have always found a way out even when the world was burning but not this time.
Sam must burn the body and carry on the legacy. He lives a full life with a son whom the last Winchester names after his late brother. Dean is left to drive through heaven to the song Wayward Son waiting on his brother to show up. In a beautiful symmetry Sam’s son tells him it is also okay for him to go. The camera pans back to show an array of photos above Sam’s bed of those he loved over the years including a family portrait with Dean, his father and mother. This was from the episode where John Winchester was brought to the present but his arrival disrupts the timeline so has to go back to the past. Not before they have one last meal as a family. On a bridge the brothers reunite to the tune of Neoni’s beautiful cover version of Wayward Son.
Yep I admit I was in pieces at this point as were millions of other fans. As I said before I am useless at goodbyes, I’m even tearing up writing this piece. But it’s not a goodbye, not really. It’s a fifteen year tale of family love, the bond between us that elevates friends and those we meet to part of our family circle. Originally the final scene was to feature all the characters the boys have met and been close to over the course of the show but covid put paid to that completely. That’s fine because it’s about the two brothers. The journey isn’t really over; it just takes a new direction. Ironically it is a throwaway reference to the fallen Castiel that gives us hope that the adventures of the Winchesters are not over yet. Castiel has sacrificed himself to the Empty to save Dean. He made a deal wherein he would be the Empty’s prisoner for all eternity once he found happiness. Their surrogate father, Bobby, reveals that Jack restored heaven along with a little help from Castiel suggesting that somehow he escaped the Empty’s clutches to come back to the world. This opens the future door for the Winchesters to still go on more adventures as anything is possible on Supernatural.
Things end but some things are forged forever never to end. Who would have thought two characters we have stuck with over fifteen years would be so ingrained in our psyche that the news they were going away struck as deep as losing a friend or family member? While we may not have any new adventures with the Winchesters any more, we can take some comfort in the fact the brothers are still on the road in the Impala watching over the world.
Bloody good job!
The Time Warriors and Beyond 