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Forgotten Lives #1
Forgotten Lives
A person is the sum of their memories. A Time Lord even more so.
But some people live so long that there is no longer room for all the memories; they find themselves diminished, whittled away piece by piece…
For many years, Doctor Who has implied that William Hartnell played the Doctor’s first incarnation — but in The Brain of Morbius, we were given glimpses of eight stern-faced men in assorted historical costumes — Doctors before the one we know as the first.
What were they like, these forgotten Doctors? What worlds did they visit, and what adventures did they have there? Who were their companions, and who were their enemies?
And perhaps just as interesting — what sort of stories would this forgotten prehistory of Doctor Who have told?
But some people live so long that there is no longer room for all the memories; they find themselves diminished, whittled away piece by piece…
For many years, Doctor Who has implied that William Hartnell played the Doctor’s first incarnation — but in The Brain of Morbius, we were given glimpses of eight stern-faced men in assorted historical costumes — Doctors before the one we know as the first.
What were they like, these forgotten Doctors? What worlds did they visit, and what adventures did they have there? Who were their companions, and who were their enemies?
And perhaps just as interesting — what sort of stories would this forgotten prehistory of Doctor Who have told?
257 pages, Paperback
First published December 15, 2020
2 people are currently reading
29 people want to read
About the author
Philip Purser-Hallard
44 books52 followersPhilip 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."
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."
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February 2, 2021If The Timeless Children wasn't good for anything else – which it wasn't – then it did at least exhume what had become an apocryphal slice of Doctor Who prehistory, the eight Doctors before the 'First', as seen in fabulous seventies Frankenstein knock-off The Brain Of Morbius. Quietly ignored ever since Hartnell was confirmed as "The original, you might say," they began as a wonderful little throwaway tease, eight members of the writing and production staff (who, brilliantly, included yet another person surnamed Baker) in fancy dress. Now, this charity anthology sees eight writers – including some of Who's best – extrapolating a little further from those images. Images which, one might grumble, perhaps feel a little too directly historical, as against the usual eclectic anachronism...but then, the first four official Doctors did all have costumes a little closer to those of particular moments, didn't they? On top of which, the whole point of the exercise is that the show changes hugely from era to era, that sometimes there's almost no similarity between, say, Hartnell's inability to get back to modern Earth and Pertwee's inability to leave it – and what else might it have been in these hidden eras?
First up, Simon Bucher-Jones, who takes a cue from those historical outfits by having his Doctor blending in, more or less, in 1780s Cornwall, and finding something untoward lurking in the mines. I couldn't help wondering if the complaint 'Barker's knee' was an in-joke on one particularly inglorious bit of fan lore, but aside from that and the element of subterfuge, this is a story which could easily have cropped up in any era of the show, which one might consider slightly disappointing give the possibilities of the exercise and the pedigree of the writer, or equally as a way of easing the reader in. Fortunately, Philip Purser-Hallard is on form in the next piece, demonstrating his usual wonderful lightness of touch - as when, during the Second World War, the Doctor's correspondence includes "a matter-of-fact note in an elderly hand about anomalous bee migration patterns on the South Downs" No name needed, nor any further reference back to that; nothing to tell anyone who's missed the nod that they missed anything at all, but a big smile for anyone who got it. There are also some odd juxtapositions of famous faces from history to match anything in the City Of The Saved setting he previously spun off from a spin-off of Who (and which is far better than that description makes it sound), and a wonderful summary of his Doctor which would do duty for many of the others too: "He is an intensely annoying man, and all the more irksome because it is difficult not to forgive him his multiple annoyances."
Andrew Hickey takes a slightly more method approach, counting back incarnations from the show's 1963 debut and working out what 1940s Who might have looked like – all rocket-ships to Venus, square-jawed British explorers and suspicious socialists. Although it's probably a mercy that he doesn't let it play out quite as it probably would have at the time. Then Kara Dennison's up, her fabulously camp, spyglass-wielding Doctor recalling both of Richard E Grant's too-brief stints in the TARDIS. Next, Lance Parkin, possibly my all-time favourite Who writer, is the only one here making a return visit to one of these particular incarnations (though I confess that if I did ever know the Camfield Doctor had been one of the players in his nineties novel Cold Fusion, I'd quite forgotten it – and of course in turn that sets me thinking anew about which Doctor it was in The Infinity Doctors...). This is a brief encounter with one of the more ruthless Doctors – an incarnation to rank alongside War, though I still reckon Seventh could take them both, or more likely have them take each other. And Aditya Bidakar, better known as a letterer, turns in a fabulously cosmic piece which I can easily imagine illustrated by John Ridgway.
Alas, in the final quarter, the collection does lose some of its sparkle. Jay Eales' story doesn't even have any intrinsic problems; it just suffers from covering fairly similar ground to Dennison's, being the second story in which a flamboyant Doctor is imprisoned by a totalitarian regime, with a more head-down local cellmate providing exposition. Though yes, I am aware that complaining about an excess of imprisonment scenes in Doctor Who is a bit rich (and hey, at least in both the ones here the Doctor actually escapes, rather than waiting around to be rescued while moping over a retcon). And after that is a piece by Paul Driscoll which, if still better than anything Chibnall could ever come up with, does feel a little like one of the more forgettable modern DWM strips redone in prose, being essentially the Gorbals Vampire story relocated to a generic London suburb and then used to deliver a blindingly obvious moral. Even here, though, I did enjoy the Doctor's description of himself as the Apostle of the Universe.
And so as to make sure we exit with a smile – in the back are the Target homages of 'The Changing Face of Dr. Who', all of which imply a wealth of other stories from their eras, mostly while taking the piss to utterly joyful effect.
First up, Simon Bucher-Jones, who takes a cue from those historical outfits by having his Doctor blending in, more or less, in 1780s Cornwall, and finding something untoward lurking in the mines. I couldn't help wondering if the complaint 'Barker's knee' was an in-joke on one particularly inglorious bit of fan lore, but aside from that and the element of subterfuge, this is a story which could easily have cropped up in any era of the show, which one might consider slightly disappointing give the possibilities of the exercise and the pedigree of the writer, or equally as a way of easing the reader in. Fortunately, Philip Purser-Hallard is on form in the next piece, demonstrating his usual wonderful lightness of touch - as when, during the Second World War, the Doctor's correspondence includes "a matter-of-fact note in an elderly hand about anomalous bee migration patterns on the South Downs" No name needed, nor any further reference back to that; nothing to tell anyone who's missed the nod that they missed anything at all, but a big smile for anyone who got it. There are also some odd juxtapositions of famous faces from history to match anything in the City Of The Saved setting he previously spun off from a spin-off of Who (and which is far better than that description makes it sound), and a wonderful summary of his Doctor which would do duty for many of the others too: "He is an intensely annoying man, and all the more irksome because it is difficult not to forgive him his multiple annoyances."
Andrew Hickey takes a slightly more method approach, counting back incarnations from the show's 1963 debut and working out what 1940s Who might have looked like – all rocket-ships to Venus, square-jawed British explorers and suspicious socialists. Although it's probably a mercy that he doesn't let it play out quite as it probably would have at the time. Then Kara Dennison's up, her fabulously camp, spyglass-wielding Doctor recalling both of Richard E Grant's too-brief stints in the TARDIS. Next, Lance Parkin, possibly my all-time favourite Who writer, is the only one here making a return visit to one of these particular incarnations (though I confess that if I did ever know the Camfield Doctor had been one of the players in his nineties novel Cold Fusion, I'd quite forgotten it – and of course in turn that sets me thinking anew about which Doctor it was in The Infinity Doctors...). This is a brief encounter with one of the more ruthless Doctors – an incarnation to rank alongside War, though I still reckon Seventh could take them both, or more likely have them take each other. And Aditya Bidakar, better known as a letterer, turns in a fabulously cosmic piece which I can easily imagine illustrated by John Ridgway.
Alas, in the final quarter, the collection does lose some of its sparkle. Jay Eales' story doesn't even have any intrinsic problems; it just suffers from covering fairly similar ground to Dennison's, being the second story in which a flamboyant Doctor is imprisoned by a totalitarian regime, with a more head-down local cellmate providing exposition. Though yes, I am aware that complaining about an excess of imprisonment scenes in Doctor Who is a bit rich (and hey, at least in both the ones here the Doctor actually escapes, rather than waiting around to be rescued while moping over a retcon). And after that is a piece by Paul Driscoll which, if still better than anything Chibnall could ever come up with, does feel a little like one of the more forgettable modern DWM strips redone in prose, being essentially the Gorbals Vampire story relocated to a generic London suburb and then used to deliver a blindingly obvious moral. Even here, though, I did enjoy the Doctor's description of himself as the Apostle of the Universe.
And so as to make sure we exit with a smile – in the back are the Target homages of 'The Changing Face of Dr. Who', all of which imply a wealth of other stories from their eras, mostly while taking the piss to utterly joyful effect.
April 16, 2021
The mark for this book is purely on the quality of the stories. A couple of 3s, mostly 4s.
While I don’t like the Timeless Child / Morbius Doctor concept, this isn’t the place to discuss it. To be honest, in the best stories, the characters feel like more official Doctors moonlighting. There’s even a definitely TV Comic style story.
If you can, put aside preconceptions and just enjoy some enjoyable and well written stories. It’s for charity too, so you can feel good for having bought it 👍
While I don’t like the Timeless Child / Morbius Doctor concept, this isn’t the place to discuss it. To be honest, in the best stories, the characters feel like more official Doctors moonlighting. There’s even a definitely TV Comic style story.
If you can, put aside preconceptions and just enjoy some enjoyable and well written stories. It’s for charity too, so you can feel good for having bought it 👍
June 12, 2021
4.5/5
The broadcast of The Timeless Children as the finale of Modern Doctor Who's eleventh series last year sent a jolt through fandom. That electrifying effect came in no small part due to the introduction to a new generation of the idea of pre-Hartnell incarnations of the Doctor. Not that the notion was precisely a new one as more than four decades earlier, the serial The Brain of Morbius had thrown out eight earlier incarnations of the Doctor. Each wore the face of one of the production teams involved in Who serials at the time and hinted at worlds full of untold adventures. Despite that, outside of a handful of appearances in Wilderness Era spin-off fiction, the Morbius Doctors have never really had their day. Now, Obverse Books has set out rectifying with Forgotten Lives, a short story anthology collecting tales for those Doctors and raising funds for Alzheimer's charities.
Featuring eight stories by as many different authors, one for each of the Morbius Doctors (presented in wonderfully done illustrations by Paul Hanley), Forgotten Lives offers up tales as diverse as Doctor Who itself. Simon Bucher-Jones' opening tale, set in 1780s Cornwall, sets the tone with an incarnation very much serving as a medical man while looking into "knockers" in a local tin mine. From there, the volume's various authors take very different approaches to both their Doctors and their stories, such as editor Philip Purser-Hallard penning a supernatural thriller set in London as the Blitz reigns down. Or Andrew Hickey's The Cross of Venus doing a story that wouldn't have been at all out of place in the sixties Doctor Who comics (complete with child companions) with its air of Golden Age SF trappings. Aditia Bidikar's Valhalla Must Fall! presents the kind of Who story that would be difficult to pull off on-screen but works beautifully on the page, and in large part due to her portrayal of a most intriguing incarnation of the Doctor, indeed.
Lance Parkin, who was perhaps the primary author using the Morbius Doctors in Wilderness Era fiction, returns to the Doctor Who fiction fold for Forgotten Lives. Past Lives see an incarnation seeking out intergalactic war criminals in a story that's very much a change of pace for the volume. It's also perhaps the shortest tale in the collection, but one that defines its Doctor so well in those few pages. Of the eight Morbius Doctors, this one ("played" in the TV serial by legendary Classic Who director Douglas Camfield) is the one that this reviewer would love to read more adventures featuring them.
Anthologies can be hit-and-miss affairs, and Forgotten Lives does have some slight misses. Two stories have a minor issue, based on something that occasionally pops up in anthologies is having stories that, while good on their own, are perhaps a bit too similar to one another. Such is the case here, with both Kara Dennison and Jay Eales stories being thematically quite close to one another with tales of buoyant, even cavalier (literally in the case of one of their costumes) incarnations being imprisoned and taking on oppressive regimes. Both stories are fun reads, Dennison capturing some fine comedic moments while Eales paints a striking picture of Cold War-style paranoia, but perhaps due to reading them just a day apart, there's an odd sense of deja vu in going from one to the other. Elsewhere, the concluding story of the volume, Paul Driscoll's comics-based moral panic tale Doctor Crocus and the Pages of Fear, paradoxically comes across as slightly out of place and overlong, going a long way to make a simple message. These are relatively minor, especially in a volume as strong as this anthology turns out to be.
For fans of literary Doctor Who, Forgotten Lives is nothing short of a must-have. Not only is it a chance to take in eight underused incarnations of our favorite Time Lord, but it presents some wonderfully done tales that showcases past and present authors of Doctor Who fiction. And with profits from it going to such a worthy cause, it's also a chance to do as the Doctor does and help a little where you can.
The broadcast of The Timeless Children as the finale of Modern Doctor Who's eleventh series last year sent a jolt through fandom. That electrifying effect came in no small part due to the introduction to a new generation of the idea of pre-Hartnell incarnations of the Doctor. Not that the notion was precisely a new one as more than four decades earlier, the serial The Brain of Morbius had thrown out eight earlier incarnations of the Doctor. Each wore the face of one of the production teams involved in Who serials at the time and hinted at worlds full of untold adventures. Despite that, outside of a handful of appearances in Wilderness Era spin-off fiction, the Morbius Doctors have never really had their day. Now, Obverse Books has set out rectifying with Forgotten Lives, a short story anthology collecting tales for those Doctors and raising funds for Alzheimer's charities.
Featuring eight stories by as many different authors, one for each of the Morbius Doctors (presented in wonderfully done illustrations by Paul Hanley), Forgotten Lives offers up tales as diverse as Doctor Who itself. Simon Bucher-Jones' opening tale, set in 1780s Cornwall, sets the tone with an incarnation very much serving as a medical man while looking into "knockers" in a local tin mine. From there, the volume's various authors take very different approaches to both their Doctors and their stories, such as editor Philip Purser-Hallard penning a supernatural thriller set in London as the Blitz reigns down. Or Andrew Hickey's The Cross of Venus doing a story that wouldn't have been at all out of place in the sixties Doctor Who comics (complete with child companions) with its air of Golden Age SF trappings. Aditia Bidikar's Valhalla Must Fall! presents the kind of Who story that would be difficult to pull off on-screen but works beautifully on the page, and in large part due to her portrayal of a most intriguing incarnation of the Doctor, indeed.
Lance Parkin, who was perhaps the primary author using the Morbius Doctors in Wilderness Era fiction, returns to the Doctor Who fiction fold for Forgotten Lives. Past Lives see an incarnation seeking out intergalactic war criminals in a story that's very much a change of pace for the volume. It's also perhaps the shortest tale in the collection, but one that defines its Doctor so well in those few pages. Of the eight Morbius Doctors, this one ("played" in the TV serial by legendary Classic Who director Douglas Camfield) is the one that this reviewer would love to read more adventures featuring them.
Anthologies can be hit-and-miss affairs, and Forgotten Lives does have some slight misses. Two stories have a minor issue, based on something that occasionally pops up in anthologies is having stories that, while good on their own, are perhaps a bit too similar to one another. Such is the case here, with both Kara Dennison and Jay Eales stories being thematically quite close to one another with tales of buoyant, even cavalier (literally in the case of one of their costumes) incarnations being imprisoned and taking on oppressive regimes. Both stories are fun reads, Dennison capturing some fine comedic moments while Eales paints a striking picture of Cold War-style paranoia, but perhaps due to reading them just a day apart, there's an odd sense of deja vu in going from one to the other. Elsewhere, the concluding story of the volume, Paul Driscoll's comics-based moral panic tale Doctor Crocus and the Pages of Fear, paradoxically comes across as slightly out of place and overlong, going a long way to make a simple message. These are relatively minor, especially in a volume as strong as this anthology turns out to be.
For fans of literary Doctor Who, Forgotten Lives is nothing short of a must-have. Not only is it a chance to take in eight underused incarnations of our favorite Time Lord, but it presents some wonderfully done tales that showcases past and present authors of Doctor Who fiction. And with profits from it going to such a worthy cause, it's also a chance to do as the Doctor does and help a little where you can.
August 8, 2021
A brilliantly-conceived and long-overdue collection featuring the eight Morbius Doctors. While half of the stories are great, the other half are somewhat lacking. Four authors took this rare opportunity to breathe life into a previously unknown Doctor, giving the Doctor in their story a unique persona and memorable character. Unfortunately the other four authors produced bland, generic space stories with very little "Doctor Who" about them.
April 10, 2023
Great anthology with a higher than average hit-rate (only one story did I actually struggle with). Standouts were "House of Images" and "Gauntlet of Absolution"
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews