Trips Over

The writing's been on the wall for some time, but now the official word's come down that Big Finish will no longer be publishing their Doctor Who: Short Trips range.

This is obviously a great shame, and not just because it closes off another avenue of submissions for me (although that's all the more disappointing since the company's Bernice Summerfield range has also reduced its print output. Bah). For with Short Trips gone any number of new writers will be losing a valuable opportunity to blood themselves. Recent anthologies have given a host of fresh talents their big breaks, notably How The Doctor Changed My Life, a book peopled entirely by previously unpublished writers. What's more, positive reviews for the last three or four volumes suggested that the series was undergoing something of a renaissance.

But ultimately it's out of BF's hands - their licence to publish the books is expiring, it's the end of the line. Simple as that.

If there's a bright side, it's that all the books in the range will be on sale at vastly reduced prices, starting May 1. It's a chance to pick up some great stories on the cheap and you'd be a fool to miss out. Plus, of course, it'll be your last chance to catch my tales in The History of Christmas and Transmissions, if you've not done so already. I'll certainly be grabbing another HoC after a postal stuff-up a couple of years back meant I only received one contributor copy - got to rectify that before they go out of print forever!