The Time Warriors and Beyond

Heroes of Doctor Who: Leela

By Owen Quinn author of the Time Warriors and Zombie Blues

Once again we look at the massive catalogue of characters from Doctor Who’s history, those who helped make him the man – Timelord – he is today. This week we look back at Louise Jameson as Leela…

I love Leela. There, I said it. She was perfect in every way and is as much a part of the golden age of Doctor Who than anyone.

She was unlike any other companion ever to have graced the Tardis. Raised in the jungle under the rule of Xoanon, she saw through his false God image and challenged his power. Aligning herself with the fourth Doctor, she drove him mad with her quick reflex to kill her enemies as whether it be with Janus thorns which paralysed and killed you instantly or a quick knife to the ribs. Having defeated the mad computer that the Doctor helped to create, she forced her way aboard the Tardis.

Now it is well documented that Tom Baker wanted to be a solo Time Lord and was dead set against the idea of a companion, especially a savage killer. For him to not see the appeal of a companion wearing a leather bra every week is amazing but there are many dads out there who were very happy to see her. But sense prevailed as Leela adapted her dress sense to the era eg Horror of Fang Rock and the classic Victorian urchin look in Talons of Weng Chiang.

But Leela was more than just a bikini. She was a noble warrior who saw the Doctor as the wisest man she knew and she was his protector. So the Doctor decided to tame the savage beast and they evolved an Eliza Dolittle relationship where he would educate her in the finer facets of civilisation. However she taught the Time Lord more than he ever taught her.

Together they embarked on some of the best known and regarded stories ever. Whether it be the Robots of Death or the supernatural driven Image of the Fendahl (this one is my absolute favourite) Leela protected her Time Lord at every step. There was also the political satire of The Sun Makers which saw Leela nearly steamed to death and face the Sontarans’ arch enemies Rutans for the first time in the show’s history in the Horror of Fang Rock. I remember this one well and it is another personal favourite of mine. In this Leela’s eyes changed colour from brown to blue as the contacts hurt Louise’s eyes. She later found a new friend in K9 in the Invisible Enemy and it was Leela who carried the story as she battled to save the infected Doctor falling to the virus that was trying to invade our level of existence.

In the classic six-parter – and for many the only six-parter to ever work – she and the Doctor faced Magnus Greel, giant rats and the Talons of Weng Chiang. I remember being terrified as Leela was dragged off by a giant rat. Critics laughed at the puppet rat but for this young one it was the only time I thought Leela was going to die. And her Janus thorns came in handy to save the Doctor from the minions of the Black Tong.

Behind the scenes things were intense between the lead actors which led Louise to eventually decide to leave. In the Invasion of Time Leela became the first companion to be allowed to visit Gallifrey to battle the Vardans and Sontarans and surprisingly this is where she stayed along with a certain robot dog that was as loyal to her as she was to the Doctor. Her loyalty was severely tested when the Doctor seemingly betrayed Gallifrey and banished her to allow the Vardans to invade. Even trapped outside the walls of the capital, she defended the Doctor, her belief in him unwavering that he was up to something. She was right. The Doctor had been faking all along but the Sontarans tricked him instead as they had used the Vardans as a cover to gain access to Gallifrey and all its secrets. But in the end she stayed for the love of a soldier, a most wimpy thing by any warrior’s standards, but the producer had prayed Louise would change her mind about leaving right up to the last minute which explains the soft exit.

In the years that followed, Leela and the Doctor fought again in various novels including a sequel to the Robots of Death called Corpse Marker and the chilling Drift that sees a new force test Leela to her limits. She also featured in the seventh Doctor’s final story Lungbarrow.

And again Big Finish couldn’t leave the character alone and she became part of the companion chronicles. But bigger things were in store as they launched a new series called Gallifrey which saw Leela’s adventures on the Doctor’s homeworld following her leaving him. Various characters from the show joined her including Romanas 1 and 2. This has been a great success and it is down to Leela’s character and the fantastic stories written for her. She was also in the surprise cliffhanger for the Jago and Litefoot adventures, two characters she fought alongside with in the Talons of Weng Chiang who now have their own series with Big Finish. She was sent by the Time Lords as the two Victorians battle a new foe. Indeed we were blessed that she and the Doctor gave us more stories as Tom Baker agreed to reprise his role in the Big Finish series. Hearing them together again is a pure joy.

For many she is the best companion ever to grace the show and Louise is such a talented actress I could watch her forever.

To think that in 2011 we would witness not only the fourth Doctor and Leela returning to new adventures but some sequels to their original televised stories, I would never have believed them.

I met Louise finally at a comic con in Belfast and we spent quite a while just chatting about the show and life in Northern Ireland. The fact she was interested in more than just signing autographs just showed me the wait to meet her was worth the wait. An amazing lady that is genuinely loved by fandom. I also Remember Tenko and her role in EastEnders which was tragivcally cut short.

There is a timeless, magical quality about this era, filled with images that have stayed with viewers for years. If these new adventures are half as gothic and classic as their old ones then this will be one very happy man. And if I’m going to follow anyone into danger, it’ll be the lady with the Janus thorns and killer instincts that I’ll be following. Girl power never looked so good.

Doctor Who The First Sontarans

By Owen Quinn author of the Time Warriors and Zombie Blues

Remember that moment in the Predators trailer when Adrian Brody was targeted by dozens of predators’ red triangles and it never appeared in the movie? Well, that’s how I feel about the title of this story featuring the sixth Doctor and Peri (Colin Baker and Nicola Bryant). Such a title suggests strongly that this will be Genesis of the Daleks for the potato-headed soldiers that have been updated for the twenty first century for the tenth and eleventh Doctors.

The Doctor and Peri find a transmitter on the surface of the moon in the year 1872 that keeps saying ‘We are here’. Landing in London, the Doctor is recognized as a time Lord, but who exactly knows him? By the end of the first episode he finds himself in a prison cell face-to-face against a Sontaran. This Sontaran is voiced by Dan Starkey, who has appeared on screen in all of the new Doctor’s encounters with the Sontarans, this is a smart move, tying this into the new era. However, using the image of the poorly devised Sontarans from the Two Doctors isn’t so smart. In that story they were super tall and military buffoons, like something out of the Carry On movies, completely out of character for this species that first appeared in the Jon Pertwee era that had cemented themselves as dwarf-like aliens.

It turns out that the Sontarans are in fact being dissected by a husband and wife team, part of the Kaveech, a race that has developed a weapon that is Sontaran specific. Making them ex-partners is a nice twist, as the wife, Leandra, blaming her husband, Meredit, for the death of their children, is exactly what I’m looking for in a character. This gives them an identifiable connection with the audience and something I applaud. The Doctor’s horror is well founded but I must admit that I was bored by the end of the second episode. Although the actors give their all, the story lacked direction, but then everything spins out of control and the reason for the title , The First Sontarans, is revealed. This fills in the Sontaran background nicely; adding a new dimension to them, which is what a returning alien should do in a story.

Add to that the return of the jellyfish Rutans and the story suddenly takes off in a new direction. And, as a monster, the Rutans are always welcome back with their strange other-worldly sound effects that were last heard on screen in the Fourth Doctor story Horror of Fang Rock.

The Doctor and Peri have the relationship they should have had on the show, good friends that bounce off each other well, and the entire cast is excellent. I wonder if this story could have benefitted from a slight trimming of episodes. Nevertheless, by the end of the story I felt the Sontarans had been complimented well in this adventure and I had listened to something different akin to a twenty first century upgrade.

How The Timeless Children Completely Screws Doctor Who

By Owen Quinn author of the Time Warriors and Zombie Blues

‘Be afraid Doctor because everything’s about to change!’

The Master’s chilling warning should really be directed to the audience. These words certainly do not prepare anyone for the revelations to come which would change, no shatter, the Doctor Who landscape forever. The problem is that the choices of writer and head honcho Chris Chibnall made in writing this story, single handedly wiped out the entire history of the show.

Reboots and resets are nothing new for example when the seventh Doctor in the 25^th anniversary season declared to Davros in Remembrance of the Daleks that he was more than just a Time Lord. Lady Peinforte knew the Doctor’s secrets; secrets of the Old Time, the Time of Chaos. It thankfully restored the phrase Doctor Who? just as the 50^th anniversary did with the Name of the Doctor when faced with the Great Intelligence. Indeed discovering a secret part of the Doctor’s life via the reveal of the War Doctor was nothing short of brilliant. It worked perfectly utilising existing parts of Who history like the Tenth Doctor’s regeneration in Journey’s End into himself. Its logic fitted in seamlessly with the history we knew demonstrating great planned storytelling. However, this doesn’t apply so much for The Timeless Children which only served to undermine everything we ever knew and shoehorning things in.

It also made every single emotional investment we as an audience have made meaningless. The lonely traveller from Gallifrey that ran away, the proverbial mad man in a box was made nothing more than a God. Such a fundamental change in the lead character literally makes no sense along with the overall story itself. The episode reflects the jarring cliché inconsistencies that undermine the character of the Doctor itself. Listen, with a show like Doctor Who that has a huge tapestry of story telling there is of course going to be inconsistencies and contradictions which we as fans love to try and connect to what we know.

I wrote an article once asking why the Doctor began to regenerate at Lake Silencio when he was shot to death by the Impossible Astronaut when he was in fact the last incarnation. In the Time of the Doctor he was only saved from death by another wave of regeneration energy from the Time Lords due to the desperate pleas of Clara Oswald. Now after the Timeless Children we the audience now know that the Doctor was going to survive after all because he is the Timeless Child. The Doctor is now immortal. The danger is gone. We no longer need to root for the Doctor because the Doctor will always survive.

That contradicts the death of the Tenth Doctor in 2008’s classic Donna Noble showcase Turn Left. The agonising of both the Twelfth and First Doctors about not wanting to regenerate in Twice Upon A Time means nothing. Now we as an audience look at it and think what a great story but they’re going to regenerate no matter what so the angst is empty. Add to that the Third Doctor sacrificing himself to stop the giant spiders of Metebelis 3, the Fourth dying to save the universe and the Fifth giving his own life to save Peri from spectrox poisoning are all now empty. The Fifth Doctor believed there was a chance he would not survive this time and that death would take him. Handy salvation thanks to regeneration was not guaranteed but with the Timeless Children it actually is. No matter how the Doctor dies he/she will always come back to life.

All that beautiful build up about being such a lonely child, not fitting in which was highlighted in such episodes such as The Girl in the Fireplace (Madame Pompadour’s touching speech) and Clara being transported to the Doctor’s childhood where she sees first hand his loneliness and how he is treated. Now I know everyone has a story and an unhappy childhood is not a unique thing but it is vital to the overall story of the Doctor and why he/she is the way he/she is. The Doctor never fitted in and is forever always running away from the people he saw as complicit in allowing evil to run wild in the universe. Now however we know he/she spawned the entire Time Lord race and culture. His very DNA runs through every Time Lord that has ever existed.

The Doctor has always been the outsider. Now the reveal of the Timeless Children that the Doctor is not even from Gallifrey and has never been a true Time Lord is too much of a break.

Now we are to believe that the Gallifreyan Shobogan scientist Tecteun discovered this alien child near a mysterious portal whom she subsequently discovered had the power to regenerate their body. After decades of research Tecteun used that ability to create the Time Lord society we know today limiting the number of regenerations to thirteen.

So how does this fit in with the Shobogans from the 1978 Fourth Doctor story the Invasion of Time, Leela and K9 mark one’s swan song. The Shobogans there were Time Lords that rejected the Time Lord society that also included those deliberately exiled by the arrogant Time Lords. It is this method of exile that allows the Fourth Doctor to save companion Leela as he knew she would fit in perfectly with them protecting her from the Sontarans.

Yet when we reach the Timeless Children the Master has murdered every last person on Gallifrey. The dialogue indicates this is only the Citadel. What about the Shobogan tribes in the wastelands? Indeed we saw families living outside the Citadel in the Twelfth Doctor story Hell Bent. What about them? What about other places like Arcadia? Has Gallifrey suddenly been reduced to one Citadel? What about those citizens that do not possess the regeneration gene? Are they dead too?

This lack of attention to detail reflects the shoe horning writing here in open disregard to the show’s history. A hidden unexplored history should be exciting and speculative but sadly the Timeless Children make it a frustration in blatant ignorance of what has gone before.

So what are just some of those things ignored for the sake of making you think the Timeless Children is a good and valid reboot and explanation of the Doctor?

I might note that we don’t really need an explanation at all. Mysterious origins install a character with a drive we as an audience love because we all devour a mystery. We prefer nibbles of a mystery rather than the full plate because very often it leaves us unfulfilled. Part of a writer’s success is leaving things to the audience’s imagination as it sucks them right in to the story. As I say, evil does not need an explanation hence why the Rob Zombie Halloween movies don’t work. Showing us Michael Myers felt the wrath of his mother’s abusive boyfriend and that he killed a school bully serves to dilute Michael Myers just as the Timeless Children dilutes the Doctor. Indeed that is an insult to all other kids who have been in an abusive situation and survived to be strong positive people in the world. Yes there are other factors but why is this part of the psyche of Myers? However that’s studio interference for you; generic stereotype rather than logic and hope. We don’t need to know why Michael kills. He is much scarier as a relentless silent killer who never stops. His presence is enough explanation for us. Similarly the time traveller with no origin is more delicious. We grabbed at the moment the Second Doctor told Victoria about his family. We gasped when questioned about Gallifrey the Ninth Doctor simply turned his head eyes full of tears. No words, just our imaginations doing the job for us.

We have seen how regeneration energy can be powerful enough to destroy a Tardis to the point the ship has to repair itself. Indeed at Trenzalore it was enough to wipe out the Daleks and the entire planet surface. Yet in the Timeless Children a Cyberman can regenerate without so much as a scratch to its armour. Add to that when a Time Lord dies as we saw in Turn Left the body is just decaying flesh. Yet the Master has murdered all Time Lords and used their cold dead bodies for Cyberman parts. Fusing their lifeless flesh into cyber suits apparently allows them to regenerate once again…

.Come on!! Use a bit if sense. This ignoring of established fact reminds me of the short story in the 20^th anniversary magazine called Birth of a Renegade.

In that we learned that Susan was not the Doctor’s real granddaughter but a direct descendant of Rassilon. The Master along with the Cybermen wanted her for his own machinations. Part of the alliance was that the Master has promised the Cybermen time travel and become rulers of time. Coincidence?

Where does Rassilon and Omega fit in to Time Lord history now? Together they harnessed the power of a black hole to give Time Lords the power of time travel. Indeed Omega was thought to have died in the attempt but ended up going mad in an antimatter universe returning years later to reclaim his home twice. Was this after Tecteun or a result of her actions? Why is Tecteun not held in the same reverence as Rassilon and Omega?

The Division had an endless resource in the form of a being that could endlessly regenerate and be used for the most dangerous missions as there was no risk. That was until the Doctor rebelled and left hiding herself on Earth in the form of tour guide Ruth. Yet even that dodgy premise, did the Division really fall with the death of Gat? Would they really allow Doctor Ruth to escape so easily? What happened then between that and the First Doctor going on th run with his granddaughter? With the introduction of the CIA, Celestial Intervention Agency they from time to time used the Doctor to sort a few things out for example the second Doctor in the Two Doctors and the Fourth Doctor in the Brain of Morbius.

Speaking of Morbius this is another example of the past being twisted to fit the Timeless Children. In the famous mind battle between Morbius and the Fourth Doctor, we see faces of the first three Doctors and others. For years fans have speculated those other faces may be other incarnations of the Doctor. The reality is it is Morbius’ previous incarnations in the form of production staff dressed up in costumes. Here when the clip is shown in the section where the Thirteenth Doctor floods the Matrix with her memories to escape it, it is clearly a hint that those faces were other Doctors like Ruth. So now we have an endless number of Doctors roaming space and time. Clive in the episode Rose must have missed all those other ones and he seemed a very thorough guy when it came to researching the Doctor and his blue police box.

Just at the mention of the Tardis this in itself is another disregard to the past. Ruth’s Tardis is a police box which shocks the Thirteenth Doctor.

Now a wiped memory would work if it hadn’t been for another character; the character of Susan. It is clearly established in the Dead Planet, the first episode of the initial Dalek story, that the Tardis became a police box because it landed in 1963. A Tardis changes shape to blend in with its surroundings so when it lands on Skaro the Doctor is clearly surprised at this. Problem is, so is Susan who has been with her grandfather for some time and clearly cannot understand why the Tardis won’t blend in any more. Are we to believe that Susan is mistaken? Is it even the same Tardis that Ruth had? Was the First Doctor influenced by a repressed memory to make his Tardis become a police box because something in him missed it?

I don’t think so.

After all the effort of the Time War, bringing back Gallifrey, redeeming the War Doctor only to have it all wiped away by the Master seems to be a smack in the face to everything that has come before. I understand reboots and resets but this one fails spectacularly because it takes only what it wants to make it fit. All the points above are ignored.

Perhaps the biggest one is the death of the Doctor at Trenzalore. In the Name of the Doctor we see his tomb. The Doctor explains all his travels are like a scar across time and space. The problem is if it truly is all the Doctor’s travels then Clara failed in her mission and it didn’t make sense. Both Clara and the Great Intelligence entered the Doctor’s timeline and yet were limited to only the ones we know. Wiped memories or not this tomb is in fact a trail of all the Doctor’s travels which cannot be wiped or premeasured. You cannot erase where you have been especially if you’re a time traveller. We know the other Doctors like Ruth time travelled. Brendan the Irish Garda didn’t but Ruth did so therefore her travels have to be part of the scar. So why aren’t they? The Doctor should not be alive because his/her entire timeline has not been saved. Add to that Clara states she has seen all the Doctor’s faces except for the War Doctor who wasn’t there. Again Ruth should be there in his subconscious. It triggers hidden memories in the Thirteenth Doctor when faced with the Master’s revelations. This is proof positive that Ruth is part of the Doctor’s mind.

The Timeless Children should have been an event as big as the Avenger’s Infinity War for the Doctor. Instead it became a damp squib that trips on its own attempt to reset things. Hopefully someone will come up with a story where these events are reversed and it isn’t the Doctor after all.

But until that happens the acclaimed trumpet that everything is about to change will remain the sad thud of the final nail in Doctor Who’s coffin.

The Mandalorian Chapter 14

By Owen Quinn author of the Time Warriors and Zombie Blues

SPOILERS

To be honest I haven’t been enamoured by the Mandalorian like the rest of the world seems to have been. This opens some interesting discussions between myself and my buddy Stephen who loves it. Before you say it, I’ve bought my giant Funko Child figure, a Mando T shirt and I’m getting some action figures from Santa. For me, it’s been pretty weak but I still watch it hoping for that magic moment that will finally convert me.

Guess what?

I’m finally converted. We have progressed beyond the mere sprinkling Star Wars references and characters to cover up weak stories just as in the Tremors episode with the giant worm. Yes you R5D4.

But here we go. We finally have the answer to much fan speculation in an episode that is so quiet in its undertones that it screams classic.

We learn that the armour the Mandalorian got in the Tremors episode belonged to Boba Fett and now he’s back to reclaim it. To be honest the reveal could have been done a lot better. When we see Slave flying through the atmosphere it was clear who was coming. However seeing the cloaked scarred figure threw us off. Could it be him or was it just someone in a similar ship?

But like Luke Skywalker pulling his hood back when confronted by Rey at the climax of The Force Awakens, the reveal of the face of Temuera Morrison confirms that Boba Fett survived the Sarlacc pit. This is referenced by a throwaway line of being left for dead in the desert.

But this episode rectifies what I always complain to Stephen about. Now the show is using the elements of the Star Wars universe we know so well and expanding upon them in an imaginative way. This now only adds new dimensions to the characters we know from the movies but does it for the better. Boba Fett as a skilled almost Ninja like warrior is a joy to watch. It wets the appetite for his return in full armour to take down the Imperial ships is a punch the air moment.

Add to that the capture of the Child and his tapping into the Force at the ruin on Corvus as well as the loss of the Mandalorian’s ship was gripping stuff packing a lot into the thirty minute episode. It pushes the story forward as Moff Gideon has the Child in his clutches and his intentions are far from pleasant.

We know Thrawn is out there and things are bleak. If I were to rate this episode it would be on the Empire Strikes Back score. Things look hopeless so just how are they going to resolve it all?

I for one can’t wait to see.

TW remembers Quatermass and the Pit

By Owen Quinn author of the Time Warriors and Zombie Blues

Hammer Horror tackled every story possible to scare the life out us and in 1967 they ventured into science fiction territory and brought Professor Bernard Quatermass to the big screen. It was a perfect mix for Hammer as it incorporated elements of black magic and science fiction…

In Hob’s Lane, the old name for the Devil, a skull and skeleton are found, both of which predate human history. But when a strange craft is also unearthed Quatermass is called in. This craft defies all known attempts to open it and strange markings are found which form pentagrams. Further investigations reveal that the entire area is riddled with stories of ghosts and strange happenings. Claw marks are found on walls and the locals are wary of the place. The remains turn out to be both a primitive human skull and the body of an insect-like alien, aliens that may have a bigger connection to humanity than was first thought.

Quartermass links a volunteer to a machine which shows images of the aliens in full force as they cleanse Martian hives of any of their species that doesn’t fit the society anymore via mass slaughter. It turns out they took primitive humans from the Earth and augmented them to better serve their species. Hampered by the military and the government, Quatermass knows this thing is dangerous but is powerless to stop a press conference in the cavern where the ship was found which results in a new Martian cleansing as psychic energy floods the area, turning humans into killers and tears the area to the ground. As the image of the Devil himself rears above London, people start killing and Quatermass falls victim to the mass hysteria, can anyone save the planet?

This was originally a radio broadcast series written by Nigel Kneale and was part of a trilogy that included the Quatermass Experiment and Quatermass 2. Here, the aliens are part of our legends of black magic, the Devil and poltergeists. People report sightings of ghosts and goblins and the impact on their mental stability is well played through two scenes, one featuring a sweating policeman in a haunted house from which the previous family fled and a workman who witnesses the creatures for himself. This combination of black magic and aliens has been used to great effect in Doctor Who – most notably, Image of the Fendahl, The Daemons, which remains one of the most loved Who stories and The Awakening. Each uses the premise that human evolution has been interfered with by alien intervention leading to our myths and legends about the Devil. But instead of the Doctor, Bernard Quatermass is left to fight the battle against a force that uses our primal fears as a weapon to manifest into an unstoppable psychic force.

In the climatic scene where the full power of the alien ship is unleashed and the mass murders begin, Hammer went all out and the results are electrifying. Whole streets begin to crumble as buildings are torn down, the streets split apart as something forces itself up from below. Fierce winds storm through the city as hapless victims are torn apart on the streets by blank faced crowds who stand amid the burning landscape. The city is descending into meltdown and no-one can stand against the psychic force as it compels murder and destruction to pave the way for a new Martian colony. And then, from nowhere, a giant image of the Devil himself appears in the sky. Hell itself is rising.

In reality it was one of the horned Martian creatures, manifesting itself a new body from the chaos of the mental energy it had released through the populace. These images stand the test of time and remain some of Hammer’s most iconic. The huge ghostly white Martian creature blankly gazing over its new realm scared the life out of me as a child and the movie does a great job of meshing ghost stories with the alien culture. And given this alien threat cannot be harmed physically as it exists as an invisible force only serves to make the audience believe that there is no hope, no salvation. And with Quatermass affected, Hell on Earth has really arrived. The salvation lay in our own myths that iron was a defence against supernatural forces, something also used in the Daemons, and the scientist character, Doctor Roney, a friend of Quatermass’s and the only one who believes that he is right, climbs a crane and swings it into the Devil, short circuiting it and cancelling out its power.

Andrew Kier played the good professor but didn’t really enjoy this movie as he believed director Roy Ward Baker, known for his experience with technically demanding movies such as A Night to Remember, had wanted actor Kenneth Baker for the role. This was something Roy later denied, claiming Kenneth Baker would not be suitable for the role of Quatermass, praising Kier’s performance. Kier, who had also appeared as a rebel leader Tyler in the Peter Cushing big screen adaption of Dalek Invasion of Earth, played the role with fervour and conviction making him the perfect choice. Other cast members included Barbara Shelley who later appeared in Planet of Fire, a fifth Doctor story and Julian Glover who would also appear twice in Doctor Who and go on to not only Star Wars but Indiana Jones and, more recently, Game of Thrones.

This movie was also filmed at MGM in Borehamwood – where they now film EastEnders – instead of the usual Associated British Studios, but this was down to lack of space at the time. Quatermass and the Pit received good reviews and was successful enough to warrant Hammer announcing a second Quatermass movie but this was never to materialize. This is a classic movie quite rightly regarded as a gem in the Hammer crown and, as a footnote, the character of Quatermass would become part of Doctor Who lore when he’s mentioned by name in the story Remembrance of the Daleks starring Sylvester McCoy.

The Time Warriors Aliens: The Lothari

‘Your pain is their pain.’

Soul Scream: Book 2 The Voalox Horror

By Owen Quinn author of the Time Warriors and Zombie Blues

Offering the Juggernaught’s assistance to an alien colony the Time Warriors discover a cover up. Jacke is suffering from crippling nightmares, Michael faces a bully and Tyran plays with fire. Varran plays a battle of wits with the Morda leader Veloras. While the deadline approaches and the Mordans prepare to leave the new colonists behind a secret is revealed; a secret that will reveal Jacke’s past. The angels are coming. When they finish there won’t be a child left on the colony.

In The Time Warriors book 2 The Voalox Horror is a story that is one of Jacke’s landmark stories. That story is Soul Scream.

Varran has discovered an alien colony being set up and offers his assistance so he can learn more about the space neighbouring Earth. Using the jump engine drive given to them by the Etherians, Varran takes the entire Juggernaught to the colony world.

Their offer of help is accepted by Citizen Veloras, leader of the installation of the Mordan colony. But Jacke is being plagued by nightmares. Some dark figure pursues her to the point it is affecting her health.

Despite the happy feeling shown by the Mordans the Time Warriors are not convinced all is well. They are right to be. The angels are secretly visiting the children and whispering sweet promises to them.

By the time the Warriors discover the colony is in fact a colony of exiles the angels arrive en masse taking all the children. Why exactly they do this I won’t reveal here (you have to read the book) but Jacke finds her past catching up to her. What could possibly link Jacke and alien children from another world? It’s a secret that Citizen Veloras is ready to kill to keep from public knowledge.

When I wrote Soul Scream it was while I was still a teenager. I always envisioned them as humanoid butterflies. I have always loved butterflies and their beautiful colours. They also have spirituality about them carrying the souls of those we have lost. When they appear it is a sign that those we have lost are saying hello. So choosing them as the aliens for this story was an easy choice for me. Indeed while researching this article I discovered that there is in fact an organisation called Butterfly Angels that support families who have lost a child. You only read these words but let me tell you, I have just had to catch my breath at learning that. I honestly didn’t know that and now Soul Scream is a beautiful story whose themes have now grown even closer to my heart.

‘The tall salamander like creature flexed its wings threateningly at them, snarling, its baby face creased with anger. It moved in front of the children who were walking into the light, their faces filled with joy.’

The Lothari are in fact good guys and protecting the children. They can sense the fear in a child across the dimensions like a spider can sense a fly trapped in one of its web strands. They cannot stand by and let the children suffer no matter the species so they take them to safety in their own dimension. They had to be graceful in design especially for the children to think they were angels of some type.

Little did I know until years later when watching the Sightings TV show that there was in fact a report of real life Butterfly People protecting children in 2011. After a tornado that struck the town of Joplin, Missouri, children told stories of the Butterfly People that protected them from the tornado. One family told of how one of the Butterfly People put its body across a hole ripped in the ceiling to prevent any debris getting through or anyone of them sucked up through the gap. There were even reports of the Butterfly People carrying off those close to death to the afterlife.

Science fiction and fantasy is a wonderful genre that is easily dismissed by many. But when you see things like this you have to wonder. Soul Scream is an important story written to show those individuals suffering in silence that there is always someone else somewhere that understands your pain. It’s a lesson that there is someone hearing you even if you don’t realise it and can offer a helping hand. Soul Scream for me is a message of hope that there really are guardian angels in the universe; that there are still good people in the world that can show you the true meaning of love and family.

To say I’m proud of this story is an understatement given what I have learned today. I’m happy to share.

Heroes of Doctor Who: Amy & Rory Pond

By Owen Quinn author of the Time Warriors and Zombie Blues

Amy and Rory Pond are the longest serving companions of the new era of Doctor Who. And their journey has been unlike any experienced before by any other person to travel in the Tardis.

Young Amelia Pond lived with her aunt and was haunted by voices in the night that came from a crack in her wall. She prayed for someone to come help her and, on cue, a flaming Tardis with a newly regenerated eleventh Doctor crashed on her doorstep. Together they discovered a new found love for fish fingers and custard.

At first the Doctor couldn’t control the Tardis and he arrived back years in the future where Amy was all grown up, angry at having waited for him to come back. Even then, she saw the Doctor as a way out of her life and once Prisoner Zero had been defeated – the monster living in the crack in the wall – the Doctor disappeared on her again for another two years before coming back again to collect her. She cleared off with him without telling him her secret. She was running out on her groom to be the night before her wedding.

In the beginning, Amy was very obviously lusting after the Doctor and, in the most distasteful scene in the show, she threw herself on the bed seductively but the Doctor knew she confusedout and in came Rory Williams. Also first seen in the eleventh Doctor’s debut story, Rory found himself taken back to Venice to fight vampires and his dislike of how dangerous the Doctor was to normal people was never hidden.

He loved Amy from she was a child, as seen in Let’s Kill Hitler, but she thought he was gay until her error was pointed out by her daughter Melody, in the guise of Mels in the same episode. Rory joined them mid way through Matt Smith’s first season and, in Amy’s Choice, the Dreamlord’s twin reality trap makes Amy realize that Rory really is her true love when he is killed. And that became Rory’s trademark.

The man that dies again and again but keeps coming back to life. He dies in May’s Choice and is murdered by the Silurians in Cold Blood before being wiped from existence and Amy’s memories by a crack in time, a crack that would be revealed as the result of an exploding Tardis as seen in the Big Bang. But the other thing that makes Rory and Amy unique is their love for each other that not even the universe could stop.

Somehow Rory is reanimated as an Auton replicant in the guise of a Roman soldier. When he is activated his love for Amy stops him converting to a full Auton but is unable to stop himself killing her by shooting her in the stomach. He spends the next two thousand years protecting her inside the Pandorica, a prison designed by the Doctor’s enemies to keep him from destroying the universe but becomes the only thing keeping Amy alive until she emerges in the 21st century with her younger self as the universe is collapsing. Confused yet?

It turns out she was exposed to time energy for years by the crack in her bedroom wall which allows her to see beyond changing timelines, something which is further seen in The Wedding of River Song when she remembers two realities; one where the Doctor is murdered at Lake Silencio and one where he isn’t. She has an office on a train covered in drawings of recalled adventures and even Rory is still in her memory. Only Amy remembers the universe as it was and was able to restore it when the Doctor sacrifices himself to reboot creation itself. And it is at her wedding that she is able to recall the doctor and bring him back from the dead.

For years she had told stories of her Doctor, the raggedy man, her imaginary friend and no one believed her. Until he turned up in the Tardis at her wedding on the dance floor. They told their families they were travelling Thailand when they both took full time positions in the Tardis. However their darkest hour was to come when at the end of The Almost People Amy was revealed to be a flesh avatar and the real one was being held prisoner in Demon’s Run by Madame K ovarian and her army. Rory had become a legend in history as the Last Centurion who had guarded his lost love in the Pandorica and in A Good Man Goes to War, the centurion comes back to face down the Cybermen as the Doctor gathers his team to storm Demon’s Run and rescue Amy and his baby Melody.

However, Amy’s exposure to the crack and her time travelling in the Tardis had left her baby part human and part Time Lord. And the trap had been set. The baby was successfully stolen and raised as the perfect weapon to kill the Doctor, a weapon that went by the name of River Song, the mystery woman that had helped them at various points in the series but always keeping her real identity a secret. When she revealed herself to be Amy and Rory’s daughter it was one of the highlights of the entire series.

Life with the Doctor had brought them pain as they lost their daughter and as we later discover, the experiments on Demon’ s Run left Amy infertile leading her to give Rory up and sign divorce papers. But, as usual, life with the Doctor showed their love was eternal and as they are trapped in the Asylum of the Daleks, Amy and Rory reunite.

They were also the first companions to be left behind to live a normal life and keep being visited by the Doctor again and again for adventures. As he tells Amy in The Power of Three, she and Rory were the first ones he met when he regenerated and they had burned themselves into his hearts. He is running towards them before they fade from his life just as he does with all the wonders in the universe. They are more a part of him than any other people he has met, especially when they become his mother and father-in-law when the Doctor has to marry River to bring history back on track with his death at Silencio. And they are the first to have sex on the Tardis.

It seems fitting that their final adventure in the Angels Take Manhattan that it is their love for each other that becomes the crux of the story. When Rory begs Amy to let him fall to his death to prevent the Angel farm from ever having existing, the viewer’s heart is breaking because these two are bonded together forever so when they commit suicide by throwing themselves off the top of the building, that beautiful slow motion shot of them in each other’s arms is the stuff of Greek tragedy.

However, with that timeline wiped, they all find themselves in a graveyard where the final heartbreaking irony happens. A lone Angel has survived and sends Rory back in time where no-one can help him, not even the Doctor. He is lost to them forever and Amy, as she chose in Amy’s Choice, knows her world is not worth living without Rory; that he is her world and the second she gives herself to the Angel to be with her husband as the Doctor screams in despair is so sudden and shocking that the only consolation the Doctor can give himself is that they are together and live a long life with one another.

Their journey is now ended, a journey that has left them in the past where all they have is each other. But in the end, take away the Doctor, the Tardis and all their adventures, and each other was all they ever needed.

The greatest love story ever told.

TW presents Defrost written by Laurence Doherty

By Owen Quinn author of the Time Warriors and Zombie Blues

Here at the Time Warriors, not only is it a vehicle to promote the Time Warriors and Zombie Blues book series but it also stands for all the other writers, actors, model makers, filmmakers and artists like me who are trying to make it. We do what we do because it’s part of us and trust me it’s not an easy journey.

Laurence Doherty is an extra, director but more prominently a writer whose latest feature Defrost is now doing the rounds at film festivals.

Defrost synopsis: After the death of Anne; a loving mother to Hazel and a devoted wife to Ted, Ted and Hazel find themselves drifting apart and Hazel feels like she is drowning in her Dad’s apathy. Unable to turn to Anne for help, Ted and Hazel are frozen beneath the surface of a fracturing family.

The heart of any good story has to be a human element which the audience can relate to. Identification like this is the hook that will transport the audience into your story which will help cement the events and characters into their minds. If an audience takes away a piece of your story away with them then that for me is a success.

For more information on Defrost’s cast and crew, check out the IDMb page by clicking on this link https://m.imdb.com/title/tt12723964/?fbclid=IwAR2R37iF6jzyU-Wz1GncIF7_NFt50AGcTiZ8aWGUbPqMCOj6TlaHBRp1Uig

The Time Warriors :The Mentara: A Lesson in Arachnophobia

By Owen Quinn author of the Time Warriors and Zombie Blues

copyright Owen Quinn Artist Stephen Mooney

Buy your copy here on Amazon https://www.amazon.co.uk/Time-Warriors-Belbridge-Mystery/dp/B08KHGDZLK/ref=sr_1_2?dchild=1&keywords=owen+quinn&qid=1607287778&sr=8-2

From the get go when I first thought of worthy monsters and villains for the Time Warriors from the tender age of fifteen, I always knew the arachnoid Mentara were going to be the big bads.

When creating on a new villain part of what you think of is what scares people. What could potentially make people sit up and notice? What facets of your creation will burn themselves into an audience’s mind?

For me personally spiders do not annoy me in the slightest. I remember going into my back garden one morning to photograph some spider webs. To my amazement there were at least ten species of spiders living outside my back door. For some people that would freak them out to the point thy may never hang the washing out again. It only served to remind me that I had made the right decision in going with an arachnoid species.

But it had to be more than that to make them memorable. I have always loved giant spiders in television and movies so knew I had to honour that love of mine.

I decided the Mentara would hail from the planet Mentar. They would be the size of race horses and be centaur like in body shape. Rather than eight segmented legs their bulbous hairy bulks would be carried by six. Powerfully muscled they would have an additional set of arms to assit in the harvesting. They would retain their bulbous tarantula bodies but have a humanoid torso attached to the front. This would allow them to speak and interact with characters.

Imagine you’re standing on a empty motorway. The horizon is a curtain of shimmering hazy heat. From that curtain gallops a tarantula the size of a racehorse right towards you. It wields a mace or a weapon intent on braining you down. You are going to freak out right there. Your mind will try to reason it out as your body screams at you to run. The arachnoid appearance automatically brings a wave of terror to millions of people so imagine a group of Mentara in your street rounding helpless humans up for harvest.

Over the horizon come their scoop ships that reflect the Mentara appearance. Large circular craft in steel grey that have girders like spider legs folded beneath them. Shafts of purple light sweep down across the streets, scooping up humans like a hoover while the Mentara ground troops use their net guns to take down any stragglers. Their very appearance is enough to cause terror and confusion. Armies will be swept away beneath their might leaving them triumphant.

But that would be too easy.

What if I gave them limited time travel capability? Somehow they have stolen it from somewhere and don’t know quite how to use it.

Therefore their trips through time would be limited; confined to certain points in history. Thanks to things like Star Wars, Star Trek and the likes it’s really hard to come up with an unique alien that can make an impact but when I had realised the Mentara in my head, I immediately thought they’d make a great action figure lol. Well, they do.

but trying to describe them to someone is hard. Racehorse sized centaur tarantulas with 4 arms seems pretty straight forward but only one man has come close to what I see in my head. So I commissioned him to do the cover for the Belbridge Mystery. Stephen Mooney is a local artist and gets the stories which is all I can ask. Below are his concept drawings for the Mentara; mace wielding Mentar and scythe Mentara. A couple of these concepts I integrated into the actual story.

Copyright Owen Quinn drawn and designed by Stephen Mooney

In the first Time Warriors book First Footsteps (available to buy here https://www.amazon.co.uk/Time-Warriors-First-Footsteps/dp/1461080894/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=owen+quinn+first+footsteps&qid=1607285503&sr=8-1)

In the story Infinity Web, something is causing ripples through time almost breaking down the barriers between realities. it turns out a Mentara scoop ship is causing it with an unstable time drive. Caught in a hopeless battle both ships are drawn into a pocket prison dimension. Here the Warriors are split up into scenarios designed to break their minds allowing the resident alien parasites to possess their bodies and escape their prison. Jacke is trapped alone on an alien world with her childhood imaginary friend where she faces a lone Mentara. Tyran finds herself in a future where Mihl is leader of a band of rebels but has formed an alliance with the Mentara in exchange for his freedom. Tyran is the first to see the Tir in action; wood lice like creatures that burrow into their victims and attach themselves to the brain. Their bodies split the skull with their their armoured backs protruding. Their victims are willing slaves which serve the Mentara. In the latest story the Belbridge Mystery we learn the Tir are desert rodents that are poisonous to the Mentara and digest their victims once implanted into their bodies.

Only by breaking the illusion do they all escape but the fate of the Mentara ship is not explained.

It isn’t until Summer’s End in book three entitled Red Water do we meet the hungry arachnids again. (buy here https://www.amazon.co.uk/Time-Warriors-Red-Water-Book/dp/1463594275/ref=sr_1_11?dchild=1&keywords=owen+quinn&qid=1607286666&sr=8-11)

This time we discover the Mentara have been visiting one point in time for some years now. It is a Celtic village celebrating the annual Summer’s End festivals. It’s Halloween and what better to scare the children than demons in the shape of giant spiders? At some point the Mentara have managed to implant a monolith in the village which emits a mind control signal at Summer’s End, allowing them to subdue the villagers and make the harvest easier. The Time Warriors meet a group of druids who protect the village and when the sacred Shield of Scathach fails the Mentara launch their attack. Varrn manages to fly through the Mentara dimensional portal and destroy their centre of operations for the Summer’s End harvestings.

Capturing one surviving Mentara Varran keeps it prisoner on the Juggernaught starving it of all human flesh and blood. Carrying out tests he discovers the Mentara secret behind the harvests. In his fury he lets the Mentara die much to the disgust of Tyran.

In the Time Warriors book The Moon Once More and other stories history distorts in Twisted. Jacke and Michael end up in a future where the Xereban existence has been revealed. they have been taken into camps, the Juggernaught lies a stripped wreck in Hyde Park and Varran is apparently working with the enemy. General Castle leads the forces keeping the populace in hains and has made a deal with the Mentara. He will receive technology beyond his imagination if he hands over millions of Xereban people for the harvesting. Can Jacke and Michael restore the timeline with the help of a nest of rebels who blame them for everything?

The threads of Summer’s End play out in the latest book The Belbridge Mystery where we finally get to the Mentara homeworld where nothing is what Varran expected. They face off against the leader of the Mentara, General Cade. Cade and his father brought their species back from extinction through a literal gift from the gods. If a Mentara warrior is Spider-man then General Cade is Venom. Bigger, broader and more powerful than any Mentara alive he is ruthless in protecting his father’s legacy and keeping his people alive. Who are the Butchers of Carden? Who are the Nasgul? No matter what, the Time Warriors will never be the same again after this one.

Buy the Time Warriors the Belbridge Mystery now on Amazon by clicking on https://www.amazon.co.uk/Time-Warriors-Belbridge-Mystery/dp/B08KHGDZLK/ref=sr_1_2?dchild=1&keywords=owen+quinn&qid=1607287778&sr=8-2

Belfast Girls author Gerry McCullough

By Owen Quinn author of the Time Warriors and Zombie Blues

Gerry McCullough, born and brought up in North Belfast, is an award winning short story writer, with a distinguished reputation. She has had around sixty short stories published, broadcast, or collected in anthologies. In 2005 her story Primroses won the Cuirt Award (Galway Arts Festival) and she has won, been short listed, and been commended in a number of other literary competitions since.

Gerry lives in Conlig just outside Bangor. She is married to singer-songwriter, writer and radio presenter Raymond McCullough, and has four children.

Gerry’s first novel, Belfast Girls, published by Precious Oil Publications, is a #1 bestseller on paid UK Kindle. Danger Danger, her second Irish romantic thriller, is fast catching up on Belfast Girls, as is her collection of 12 Irish short stories, The Seanachie: Tales of Old Seamus. Her new book Angel in Flight, featuring Angel Murphy, the new Lara Croft, described as ‘a feisty wee Belfast girl’, was published in June 2012. Gerry’s plan is that this new book will be the first of a series about Angel, the strong-minded Belfast Girl.

Now Precious Oil Publications has published a new venture – a YA Time Travel adventure, Lady Molly & The Snapper. This is a very different field for Gerry, who hopes that a younger audience will enjoy her writing just as much.

Being a Writer.

The other day, as I travelled on a bus to Bangor to do some shopping, I noticed a man sitting in front of me reading something on his Kindle. Presently a woman got on. She apparently knew him, for she sat down beside him and they started chatting.

‘What’re you reading?’ she asked after a few minutes.

‘Oh, it’s a book called Belfast Girls,’ he said. ‘By a local writer. You should read it, it’s very good.’

It isn’t the first time I’ve met someone who has recognised me as the author of Belfast Girls or has heard of the book. But it’s still an enormous thrill.

Not many years ago, the idea of someone reading a Kindle on the bus would have been unheard of. When Belfast Girls first came out, only two years ago, my family and friends expected it to appear in the local bookshops. They one and all, when buying it from Amazon, bought the paperback version. They had just about heard of Kindle.

But at a family gathering this past Christmas, nearly everyone in the room now had a Kindle and used it regularly. Moreover, most of them, when buying my second, third, fourth and fifth books, had at some point moved from paperback to Kindle, and had recommended the eBook version to many of their friends. How quickly life moves on!

I remember, about a dozen or more years ago, no one had a mobile phone. It was a pretty unheard of thing. But now, and for some time, those who don’t have one are the exceptions. But that doesn’t mean that they don’t have a landline too. In the same way, a lot of people are now buying on Kindle – but they still buy paperbacks from time to time as well!

When I was first offered a publishing contract (not for Belfast Girls, but for a comic fantasy not yet published) the publisher intended to use the new Print On Demand system and sell through the Internet. I was worried and uncertain. How would it work?

In the end, I accepted the offer, but after six months, spent by me in hours of editing in line with this publisher’s suggestions, the agreement finally broke down. ‘Irreconcilable differences,’ I joked in explanation to those who asked. On the whole I was glad – the worries hadn’t gone away.

But when, a year or so later, Night Publishing, a small English Publishing House, offered to publish Belfast Girls, using Print On Demand and selling on the Internet, my views had changed dramatically. This was the year during which eBooks really began to take off. I hadn’t really understood, at that point. I still expected to sell mainly paperbacks. But by the end of the first year Belfast Girls had sold over 3,000 books, and the vast majority of these sales were eBooks. Three months later the book began to sell thousands per month, instead of per year. By this time I was fully aware of the eBook revolution!

By then I’d moved from Night Publishing for my second book, Danger Danger, and for my book of short stories, The Seanachie, to my husband’s newly set up publishing company, Precious Oil Publications, and in July of that year (2012) I transferred Belfast Girls to him as well. Shortly after this my next full length book, Angel in Flight: An Angel Murphy Thriller, came out, to be followed by my YA Time Travel Adventure, Lady Molly & The Snapper. Currently I’m working on the second Angel book (the plan is that this should be a series) to be called Angel in Belfast.

I’ve said, in my previous interview for this site, that I always wanted to be a writer. Included in that dream, I’ll now confess, was the expectation of making a lot of money and being recognised in the street.

Well, I’m a writer now, and neither of those things has exactly happened yet.

But the money is starting to come in – although in smaller amounts than I’d like!

And I saw a stranger on the bus reading and enjoying my first book!

It may not be the sort of fame and success that I’d dreamt of.

But, hey, it’s nice all the same! It’ll do me!

Links to my books.