I am, by now, relatively used to writing books – I’ve been doing it for more than 20 years. I always hope I can still be surprised by the process and do try to arrange that for myself, but I probably didn’t expect quite the level of surprisingness I encountered when I wrote a Doctor Who book. It may not have made me care more, but it made me care differently and, good Lord, it was fun. The process involved the only utterly entertaining and relaxed publishing party I’ve ever attended, readings involving a very gentle breed of fan, very keen, very young people and a variety of character models and mechanisms appearing with enthusiastic owners.

The editorial process was smooth, understanding and enthusiastic. The books were where the Doctor went when the TV show was axed, they kept the faith, in part because those involved thought the Doctor should be there for children. The only downside I’ve experienced has involved the realisation that, if writing a ’Who book means you’re cool and all your free copies get blagged in a week, you must previously have been uncool and had books no one was that bothered about. And very young people now attend readings for my adult work and I have to change some words into other words and worry – although that actually seems, if anything, to help things along. We’ve had fun. Being self-employed and being a writer are not always so much fun.



It’s not that I don’t have fun when I’m writing. I do. I try to make it feel as exciting as sitting on my backside in an orthopaedic chair moving my fingers ever can. But writing for ’Who, it seemed appropriate to end each day’s work with an apparently insoluble problem and then wake up in the morning and see which character had solved it overnight – that kind of risk would give me an aneurysm in a novel that was starting its world from scratch. It was a little unnerving doing it with The Drosten’s Curse, but it was also exhilarating.

I do care about everything I write, but dealing with a hugely loved character and 50 years of world-building – that felt different. Different in the sense of being horrifying and wonderful. Stepping into a world that I adored as a child, watching DVDs of episodes I’d only ever seen once in the days before box sets and VCRs and realising that I remember details, moments, words – that was rather lovely. I normally produce fiction for adults. I think adults need fiction. I believe there’s an important place in any balanced life for vigorously fictional fictions. They’re proof of our imagination’s power. That’s the power that plans a change of socks, a change of government, a change of address – it’s useful. And it’s the power that puts you into the mind and life and body of someone other than yourself – it makes other members of our species less strange and makes us practise empathy in a way that feels entrancing, entertaining and so forth.

None of that is dispensable if you want to live in a stable and humane society. And sci-fi, which I’ve loved all my life, is no more fictional than work set right now in places we happen to recognise and involving people like those we often meet. The clue’s in the title; fiction is fiction. And it matters. Sci-fi gives us a chance to step beyond our own culture, time, place and humanity and to reflect upon them. I, of course, care about that. But delivering that experience for a child, keeping all as it should be for someone who’s starting with the wonder of reading and imagining and life – that’s a horrifying privilege and a lesson.

I was writing an adult novel while I wrote The Drosten’s Curse and I’m hoping the fun and the faith rubbed off a little. I’m certainly trying to keep as much wonder as I can in my process. The project reminded me how precious storytelling is. It can shape a whole life for the better and always be there, making a good time better and a bad one bearable. I like trying to be part of that in general. I hugely enjoyed returning to one of the roots of my creativity and building something my smaller self would have liked.

Extract

Paul Harris was dying. This wasn’t something his afternoon’s schedule was meant to include. Death, as far as Paul was concerned, was one of the many unpleasant things which only happened to other people. He’d never even attended a funeral – all those miserable relatives. He’d also avoided weddings – all those smug relatives. And he’d skipped every christening to which underlings in his firm had thought they should invite him – all those sticky, noisy babies … all those sticky, noisy underlings …

Mr Harris’s death was particularly surprising to him as it involved being eaten alive by a golf bunker. At least, he could only assume that something under the bunker was actually what was eating him alive – now he’d sunk down past his knees into the thing – and he could only assume that it wasn’t going to stop eating him because … it wasn’t stopping.

More about The Drosten’s Curse

“Kennedy is clearly a Whovian: there are cameos for Davros and the Wirrn, the Cloister Bell and artron energy (no Sonic Screwdriver, that aggravating deus ex machina, thankfully). It has the madcap, satirical feel of stories from the period such as The Ribos Operation or The Sun Makers.” – Stuart Kelly, the Independent.

Read the full review here

Buy the book

The Drosten’s Curse by is published in paperback by BBC Books at £7.99. It’s available from the Guardian bookshop for £6.39.