When James Moran started writing his return to David Tennant and Catherine Tate’s era of Doctor Who, he had no idea just how relevant it would become.
“No one told me!” Moran tells RadioTimes.com. “So that was quite a surprise.
“It’s nice of them to give me a publicity boost for my book.”
Yes, with Tennant and Tate back filming for Doctor Who’s 60th anniversary and showrunner Russell T Davies once more behind the scenes, interest is sky-high in the Tenth Doctor and Donna – which makes Moran’s new Target novelisation of his 2008 episode The Fires of Pompeii feel all the more relevant.
“It just felt immediately familiar and comfortable,” Moran says. “And I said this at the time: I could just write for Donna, and nobody else, forever. Because she’s so much fun to write for.”
Alongside other new Target novelisations of modern and classic episodes including Rona Munro’s The Eaters of Light and David Fisher’s The Androids of Tara and The Stones of Blood, Moran’s revamped and novelised version of Fires of Pompeii is out this week – and RadioTimes.com can exclusively reveal a first-look extract from the book taken from a new prologue for the episode.
Read on, and step back into The Fires of Pompeii…
Prologue – Dramatis Personae
They had slept, for thousands of years, deep under the ground, unaware that they were even still alive.
No dreams troubled their slumber. A sleep so deep, it may as well have been death. They were the last of their kind, fleeing from a lost planet, searching for a new home. They hadn’t intended to come to this world; the conditions were all wrong for them. Too cold, too wet, too small. A tiny, dirty ball of mud, infested with unremarkable, watery, cattle-like creatures. They hadn’t even given the place a second look, dismissing it immediately. There would be better worlds, worthier homes, more comfortable temperatures.
But things didn’t work out the way they’d planned. Sloppy navigation and a series of malfunctions resulted in them getting pulled down by the mud planet, and they fell, so fast, so hard, it was almost over before they knew it.
They knew they couldn’t survive this. With mere seconds to go before impact, they contemplated the end.
If this was to be the final line of their story, then they were still proud to tell it. Proud of who they were, who they had been, the mighty world they had once ruled.
Their main regret was that nobody would ever know who they used to be. They would be forgotten, for ever. They deserved better than this. They deserved an empire. But they would face their end with honour and stoicism.
They hit the ground, everything went dark, and that seemed to be the end of it.
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Thousands of years later, the earth shook violently, disturbing their rest. They were surprised to find that their consciousness had survived, as had their physical bodies, albeit fragmented into dust. But it was enough. Enough to be aware of their surroundings, aware that they were still very much alive. Their story was not yet over. A new chapter had begun.
Bodies could be rebuilt, gradually. Their ship was mostly gone, although part of it survived, and could be repurposed. But they would need help.
Their minds reached out, to see what was nearby.
Examining the watery, cattle-like creatures more closely, they were thrilled to discover that they could reach into their minds, and whisper to them. And whisper they did. They found the watery creatures to be slow-witted and limited in scope, knowing nothing of the stars. But they were able to fill those tiny minds with information, commands, instructions. Their words fitted neatly alongside the watery cattle’s superstition and willingness to serve. They had long searched for a new planet to rule, and the natives here were ready for gods to rule over them. It was almost a shame that the servile cattle would eventually have to be destroyed, when they had served their purpose. A necessary sacrifice, to further the cause.
It was going to take a while. But they had already waited for a long, long time and could wait some more. They were nothing if not patient.
Patient, and ruthless.
Extracted from Doctor Who: The Fires of Pompeii by James Moran (BBC Books, £7.99), on sale from 14th July.
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