Philip Purser-Hallard (born 1971 as Philip Hallard) is a fantasy, science fiction and crime author described by the British Fantasy Society as "the best kept secret in British genre writing". [1] [2]
His Devices Trilogy, beginning with The Pendragon Protocol , is an urban fantasy thriller series which combines Arthurian myth with issues of modern British politics and identity. [2] The British Fantasy Society said that the first novel's "writing is crisp and clever, the plotting devoid of flab and the cast of characters appealing, interesting and consistent", and that it was based on "that rarest of fantasy beasts – an original idea". [1]
He has a long association with Doctor Who licensed fiction. From 2015 he is the editor of The Black Archive , a series of book-length critical studies of individual Doctor Who episodes and stories. The series is published by Obverse Books, and features contributions from Simon Bucher-Jones, Simon Guerrier, Kate Orman and others. Purser-Hallard has written or co-written four of the books. He has also written short stories and three novels featuring Sherlock Holmes.
Purser-Hallard received his doctorate in English literature at Oxford University. His DPhil thesis, entitled 'The Relationship Between Creator and Creature in Science Fiction', examined how British and American science fiction of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries explored the relationship between humanity and a putative creating deity through stories about the creation of sentient individuals by scientists, working from Mary Shelley's Frankenstein through to recent authors like Bruce Sterling, William Gibson and Dan Simmons. [3] He also has interests in eschatological science fiction, as seen in his Faction Paradox novel, Of the City of the Saved .
Purser-Hallard has given three talks at the liberal Christian Greenbelt festival, all on the intersections of science fiction and religious themes. [4] Between 2006 and 2009 he wrote a regular column on science fiction and faith for Surefish, the ISP and webzine arm of Christian Aid. From 2009 to 2012 he published regular 140-character microfictions on Twitter, under the username trapphic.
His brother Nick Hallard, an artist, provided endpieces for the More Tales of the City collection and unofficial illustrations for Purser-Hallard's Of the City of the Saved... web pages.
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Paul Magrs is an English writer and lecturer. He was born in Jarrow, England, and now lives in Manchester with his partner, author and lecturer Jeremy Hoad.
Faction Paradox is a series of novels, audio stories, short story anthologies, and comics set in and around a "War in Heaven", a history-spanning conflict between godlike "Great Houses" and their mysterious enemy. The series is named after a group originally created by author Lawrence Miles for BBC Books' Doctor Who novels.
Of the City of the Saved... is an original novel by Philip Purser-Hallard set in the Faction Paradox universe. Laura Tobin, who first appeared in the BBC Doctor Who books, is a major character in the novel.
Professor Bernice Surprise Summerfield, or simply Benny, is a fictional character created by author Paul Cornell as a new companion of the Seventh Doctor in Virgin Publishing's range of original full-length Doctor Who novels, the New Adventures. The New Adventures were authorised novels carrying on from where the Doctor Who television series had left off, and Summerfield was introduced in Cornell's novel Love and War in 1992.
Kate Orman is an Australian author, best known for her books connected to the British science-fiction television series Doctor Who.
Iris Wildthyme is a fictional character created by writer Paul Magrs, who has appeared in short stories, novels and audio dramas from numerous publishers. She is best known from spin-off media based on the long-running British science fiction television series Doctor Who, where she is sometimes depicted as a renegade Time Lord.
Simon Bucher-Jones is an author, poet, and amateur actor. He is best known for his Doctor Who novels for Virgin and BBC and as a contributor to the Faction Paradox spin-off series. Between 1988 and Dec 2018, he worked for the Home Office, in a variety of casework, admin, IT support, and planning positions. From Jan 2019 he was a freelance writer
Jacqueline Rayner is a British author, best known for her work with the licensed fiction based on the long-running British science fiction television series Doctor Who.
Paul Dale Smith is a writer and playwright from Leicester, England but currently living and working in Greater Manchester. He writes under the name Dale Smith, and has had previous works published and performed under the names Paul Smith and Paul D. Smith.
Stephen Marley is a British author, voice director and video game designer. He was born in Derby of Irish parents and was educated in Bemrose School in Derby and at Nottingham. He graduated in Social Anthropology in 1971 in London, gained an M.Sc in the Sociology of Science in 1973 and worked on his Ph.D on ancient Chinese science while lecturing in Manchester. He gave up an academic career and took up writing full-time in 1985. From 1995 onwards he has also followed a parallel career in video games. In one game he designed on PlayStation, Martian Gothic, he voice directed, among others, Fenella Fielding and Julie Peasgood.
Nick Wallace is a novelist and short story writer based in Tunbridge Wells, best known for his work in Doctor Who spin-offs.
Stephen Cole is an English author of children's books and science fiction. He was also in charge of BBC Worldwide's merchandising of the BBC Television series Doctor Who between 1997 and 1999 and as executive producer on the Big Finish Productions range of Doctor Who audio dramas.
Mark Michalowski is the editor of Shout!, "Yorkshire's lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender paper", as well as being an author best known for his work writing spin-offs based on the BBC Television series Doctor Who. He lives and works in Leeds.
Simon Guerrier is a British science fiction author and dramatist, closely associated with the fictional universe of Doctor Who and its spinoffs. Although he has written three Doctor Who novels, for the BBC Books range, his work has mostly been for Big Finish Productions' audio drama and book ranges. Guerrier has also written tie-in books for the Being Human and Primeval television series and co-authored a reference book for the Buffy the Vampire Slayer television series.
Scott Handcock is an English writer, director and producer who has been involved in a number of audio plays for Big Finish Productions. After sixteen years with the company, it was announced in 2022 that Handcock would leave his role at Big Finish and join television production company Bad Wolf as the script editor for the British science fiction TV series Doctor Who, beginning with the show's fourteenth series.
The Adventures of the Diogenes Damsel is a Big Finish Productions audio drama featuring Lisa Bowerman as Bernice Summerfield, a character from the spin-off media based on the long-running British science fiction television series Doctor Who.
The Two Jasons is a novel by Dave Stone, focusing on the life of Jason Kane, a character from the spin-off media based on the long-running British science fiction television series Doctor Who. Jason is the ex-husband of the regular Big Finish series character Bernice "Benny" Summerfield, who appears in flashback.
George Mann is a British author and editor, primarily in genre fiction, and is best known for his alternate history detective novel series Newbury and Hobbes (2008-2019) and The Ghosts action science fiction noir novels (2010-2017), a book series set in the same universe.
Cavan Scott, is a New York Times bestselling comic writer and author. He is best known for his work on a variety of spin-offs from both Doctor Who and Star Wars, as well as comics and novels for Teen Titans Black Adam, Ghostbusters, Transformers, Back to the Future, Vikings, Pacific Rim, Sherlock Holmes, and Penguins of Madagascar.
Stuart Douglas is an author, editor and publisher from Edinburgh. Douglas is the founder of British publisher Obverse Books, an independent publishing house known for its speculative fiction, particularly in the realms of science fiction, fantasy, and weird fiction. He is the range editor for the Black Archive and Silver Archive series of monographs on genre television.
