Lance Parkin

Lance Parkin is a British author, best known for writing fiction and reference books for television series, in particular Doctor Who (and spin-offs including the Virgin New Adventures and Faction Paradox) and Emmerdale. He has also written scripts for the Emmerdale television series proper.

Parkin first became known in Doctor Who fan circles, writing both criticism and fan fiction. His most notable work was for Seventh Door Fanzines, including the novella Snare in the Odyssey series (which he edited for a period) and 1994's The Doctor Who Chronology, a detailed timeline of events in the Doctor Who universe. The Odyssey series later included novellas by Parkin's then girlfriend Cassandra May and his later protégé Mark Clapham.

Parkin went professional with Just War, published in 1996, for Virgin's New Adventures series of original fiction Doctor Who novels. This was rapidly followed by A History of the Universe, a re-working of his Chronology, and a second novel for Virgin's Missing Adventures, Cold Fusion. Parkin proved immediately popular with his readership, although he himself would later be somewhat critical of Cold Fusion.

Virgin lost their licence to do Doctor Who fiction and Parkin landed the prestigious job of writing the last New Adventure to feature the character of the Doctor, 1997's The Dying Days, also the only Virgin novel to feature the eighth incarnation of the Doctor, played in the 1996 Doctor Who television movie by Paul McGann. The Virgin Who books went out of print with the loss of the Doctor Who licence and The Dying Days was one of a number of Virgin books that began to attract vastly inflated second-hand prices. Copies of The Dying Days went for over $100. The New Adventures continued without the Doctor Who label and Parkin returned to the series with 1998's Beige Planet Mars, written with Mark Clapham.

Around this time, Parkin joined Virgin alumni Rebecca Levene and Gareth Roberts to work as a storyliner for television soap Emmerdale for a period. (He also appeared as an extra in the series once.) He later wrote both non-fiction (including 30 Years of Emmerdale) and fiction (Mandy's Secret Diary, Their Finest Hour) connected to the series.

Parkin continued writing official Doctor Who prose fiction for the BBC, including a number of event books, including the 35th anniversary celebration The Infinity Doctors. He was often chosen for firsts: The Dying Days became the first of several Virgin Doctor Who books to be re-worked as ebooks for the BBC's Doctor Who website, while Parkin also wrote The Winning Side, the first in the Time Hunter novella series, a spin-off from Telos Publishing's line of official Doctor Who novellas. 2005 sees the publication of the last in the BBC's series of eighth Doctor novel adventures, Parkin's The Gallifrey Chronicles.

More non-fiction work also followed, including guides to Star Trek (Beyond the Final Frontier) and Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials series (Dark Matters: An Unofficial and Unauthorised Guide to Philip Pullman's 'Dark Materials' Trilogy), both written with long-time friend Mark Jones, and Secret Identities: An Unofficial and Unauthorised Guide to Alias with Mark Clapham.

Miranda, a comic based on a character in his Doctor Who novel Father Time and published through the small, independent company of Comeuppance Comics, proved short-lived, only making it to a third issue, but other comic work followed.

Contents
1 Works by Lance Parkin

1.1 Doctor Who and related works
1.2 Other works

2 External links

Works by Lance Parkin

Doctor Who and related works

Other works

External links

See also: Lance Parkin, 1994, 1996, 1997, 1998, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005