The Ark

The Black Archive #81

by Philip Purser-Hallard

‘Nero, the Trojan wars, the Daleks… but all that happened in the first segment of time.’
A far-future parable set aboard a generation starship, Paul Erickson and Lesley Scott’s The Ark (1966) makes full use of the possibilities of contemporary television to interpret ideas drawn from literary science fiction. Exploring the power imbalances of colonialism and its aftermath, it considers the long-term survival of humanity – both the species and its values – while creating one of the strangest monsters, and most vivid settings, in early Doctor Who.

Genres: Doctor Who

ebook

Published February 1, 2026

About the author

Philip Purser-Hallard is a widely published and occasionally acclaimed author, editor and critic. He has written four Sherlock Holmes novels for Titan Books, all favourably reviewed in Publishers Weekly, and the Devices trilogy of urban fantasy thrillers for Snowbooks, as well as a plethora of shorter fiction. He is a founding editor of and frequent contributor to the Black Archive, a series of critical monographs about individual Doctor Who stories.

From his webpage:
"In my writing I like to reimagine and question established cultural icons, hence my four Sherlock Holmes novels for Titan Books. Writing dialogue between Holmes and Lady Bracknell, from Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest, may be the high point of my career. The Devices trilogy, published between 2013 and 2016, considers some of the icons of British mythology that I loved as a child, and how they relate to the political reality of Britain in the 21st century."