Authors: Douglas Adams,Douglas Roberts,Gareth Roberts
What I wanted to do was untangle the ravelled threads of
Shada
, to pay off Douglas’s ideas as I think he would have done, if only he’d had more time. The really astonishing discovery, as I sat inside, looking out, was that Douglas – even a stressed, overworked Douglas – had done the groundwork perfectly. And with every new discovery it became more and more clear where this story had been meant to go.
There’s clearly something going on in the first couple of scripts between Chris and Clare. But their relationship and their characters (especially poor Clare) vanish somewhat after that. Similarly the origins of Skagra are wondered at throughout the story, but Douglas only has time to rattle them off in the final scene. Often I discovered whole scenes or plot lines leading up to something that… just didn’t happen. For example, Chris working out the true identity of Professor Chronotis is perfectly placed in Part Five and is clearly leading to an unfortunate but very dramatic blunder from Chris. In the TV version, meanwhile, Chronotis bafflingly blows the gaffe on
himself
at the worst possible moment, rather like Martin Bormann standing up during the judgement at Nuremberg and shouting, ‘Look! It’s me!’
There were many other details that needed nailing down. Things you can casually swerve around on television, but which tend to get picked up by an attentive reader in a novel. The nature of Salyavin – was he a terrible criminal once? How long had Shada operated and how long had it been forgotten? How exactly had Salyavin escaped? This led to many hours consultation and debate with my flatmate and sometime co-writer, Clayton Hickman. These late nights, and the fact that we always came up with answers that seemed to fit everything else in the story, were proof that Douglas had thought long and hard about all of this, but just hadn’t had time to unpack it on screen.
Added to which I took a deep breath and researched the history and traditions of the Time Lords, ancient and modern (something which I always thought best avoided in
Doctor Who
but something I could not swerve on this occasion). Before you feel too sorry for me, this ‘research’ consisted of myself and Clayton watching the DVDs of
The Deadly Assassin
and
The Invasion of Time
, plus certain parts of
The End of Time
, frequently pausing to make notes or just to comment on a bit we’d really liked. I hope the fruits of this research have helped widen the background and the epic scope of
Shada
.
Of enormous help with this book was my access to the most recent, most advanced copies of Douglas’s scripts for
Shada
. When the VHS version appeared in 1992 it was accompanied by a lovely little blue book containing ‘the scripts’ for
Shada
. In fact these were much earlier drafts than the ones I was able to work from. With camera scripts and rehearsal scripts at my disposal, I was able to incorporate many of the changes made during the actual production. Many of the scripts were annotated, by hand, by director Pennant Roberts, with changes that had presumably been worked out with Douglas and the cast during rehearsals. Ranging from tiny changes to one line of dialogue, to whole scenes scored out and totally rewritten. Sometimes for the better, sometimes not. The greatest discovery came in the form of two pages of notepaper on which, by hand, a whole new scene had been written. Never published, its existence never even suspected, it was unmistakeably the work of Douglas. See if you can guess which one it is, bearing in mind I’ve added a fair few new scenes myself.
But back to missed deadlines, crying and screaming (all my own). As the months rolled on, I began to think this story just didn’t
want
to be finished. At certain moments I even began to suspect it wanted to finish
me
. But I owed it to Douglas to get it right, to do justice to his mind-boggling concepts, to produce something that felt true to his vision, but with a scope and scale that would have been impossible for
Doctor Who
to realise in 1979. To finally complete
Shada
, and in a form that Douglas himself would have been happy with.
Because Douglas himself could never quite bear to leave
Shada
behind. His 1987 novel
Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency
is proof of that. I’d like to think he’d never have left
Doctor Who
behind either. When the show finally returned to TV in 2005, it was a terrible shame that we were denied the chance of a new adventure with the opening caption ‘by Douglas Adams’. I bet he’d have been up for it. Deadlines permitting.
I hope that this book will serve as the next-best thing. A new/old
Doctor Who
story by Douglas Adams. And a way for the millions of new, young fans of the Doctor to discover the work of his very best writer. To make Douglas, and his genius, live again.
It’d be a wonderful way for a book to behave.
Gareth Roberts
London 2011
Acknowledgements
Thanks to my wonderful agent Faye Webber; Andrew Pixley for the unearthing of unearthly treasures; Justin Richards and Albert DePetrillo for letting those deadlines whoosh by; Ed Victor for getting the sphere rollng; Ligeia Marsh who never stopped trying for me; Paul Vyse for startling work with his fingers; the NotPlayers, especially Neil Corry, for comradeship and testing; David S. Taylor of Bedfordshire; Ian Levine, his amazing animators and Ed Stradling for taking me back to January 1980; Charles Martin for his invaluable interview with Douglas; Kevin Davies for being brilliant as ever; Tom Spilsbury and Peter Ware at DWM for digging out the necessary;
In-Vision
magazine; Bex ‘Clare’ Levene for Cambridge detail; all at Balans in Chiswick, but especially Sean, David, Ben and Dylan ‘this is how you pronounce it’ Keightley; to Russell T Davies, Neil Gaiman, Mark Gatiss, Peter Harness and Steven Moffat, brothers in arms; to @pollyjanerocket for encouragement; and to Tom Baker, Lalla Ward and the cast and crew of the original TV production of
Shada
.
This book was written while listening to
A Grounding in Numbers
by Van Der Graaf Generator,
Director’s Cut
by Kate Bush,
Clap Your Hands and Stamp Your Feet – The Best of Dutch Glam Rock
, and the beautifully recreated incidental music from Douglas’s
City of Death
from Composer Who. You can find it on YouTube at
http://youtu.be/aCnlyFm8nCI
This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.
Version 1.0
Epub ISBN 9781446417812
1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2
Published in 2012 by BBC Books, an imprint of Ebury Publishing.
A Random House Group Company
Original script copyright © Completely Unexpected Productions Limited
This novelisation copyright © Gareth Roberts 2012
Gareth Roberts has asserted his right to be identified as the author of this Work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
Doctor Who is a BBC Wales production for BBC One.
Executive producers: Steven Moffat and Caroline Skinner
BBC, DOCTOR WHO and TARDIS (word marks, logos and devices) are trademarks of the British Broadcasting Corporation and are used under licence. K-9 was originally created by Bob Baker and Dave Martin
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner.
The Random House Group Limited Reg. No. 954009
Addresses for companies within the Random House Group can be found at
www.randomhouse.co.uk
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 978 1 849 90327 1
Editorial director: Albert DePetrillo
Editorial manager: Nicholas Payne
Editor and series consultant: Justin Richards
Project editor: Steve Tribe
Cover design: © Woodlands Books Ltd 2012
Illustrations: Paul Vyse © Woodlands Books Ltd 2012
Production: Rebecca Jones
To buy books by your favourite authors and register for offers, visit
www.randomhouse.co.uk