Robert Shearman

There's all these beautiful gems of books that get kind of hard to discover again.

Just off the top of my head, I really liked reading Tiny Deaths by Robert Shearman, which won the World Fantasy Award in, I want to say, 2009 or something like that.

But it was Ian Monn's pick.

And just a book that just knocked my socks off, that I'm going to be thinking about for a long time, that really made me rethink how comedy and death can work in fantasy.

Recy and I hosted three Trap 1 episodes, one for each day of the convention.

What you are going to hear next is the live episode where I was joined by Doctor Who writer and author Rob Shearman.

Rob is going to introduce for us a preview from his forthcoming book, a novelization of The Power of Kroll, which is part of a forthcoming six-book volume, The Key to Time, which is a revisited version of the novelizations of the six Key to Time stories.

Three have already been published.

That was James Goss' novelization of The Pirate Planet and David Fisher's renovelizations of The Stones of Blood and The Androids of Tara.

James Goss and Rob Shearman have teamed up And they are covering the remaining three books.

So that will be six key to time renovelizations, all in the same volume.

And Rob was kind enough to share with us an excerpt from The Power of Kroll, which is coming out later in 2026.

That's what we were looking at, you know, and that's what was so thrilling.

What I do remember, funny you mention that, just remembered, um, Russell took me and Steven and Rob Shearman and Paul Cornell out for, uh, an Indian.

Uh, it was called The Chul- the restaurant was called The Chula.

Mm.

So, um, yeah, he's a, he's a good guy, as I say, who I've, uh, who I've enjoyed my brief encounters with and, uh, you know, watching with and engaging with online.

But, um, so he didn't say his name there and, uh, just briefly said what his choice was, which is "The Celestial Toymaker." Now, [laughs] this is interesting because "The Celestial Toymaker," [lips smack] on the strength of the last time I sampled it, which was for Running Through Corridors, the book I did with Rob Shearman, so that's, we're looking, you know, over a decade ago, um, I, I was pretty confident it was, it was the worst story of the '60s, if not of Doctor Who of all time.

Which was a real turnaround for me from my first feelings towards the story, uh, which were that it was p-probably one of the very best.

Um, so it's, it's been quite a journey for me that I will explain as we watch the episodes 'cause, um, of course I have to, uh, accentuate the positive.

So until then, keep dancing.

[upbeat music] Well, this is gonna be awkward because as far as I recall, if I didn't write it down, I certainly felt it.

When I assessed this episode for Running Through Corridors, a book I wrote with Rob Shearman, where we watched every episode in order and tried our best to accentuate the positive, I think I felt this to be the worst episode of Doctor Who from the '60s, if not of all time, the worst installment of the show.

And of course, 10 years on from that, I mean, even then, I wasn't in the business of putting negative thoughts out there where I possibly can.

You don't need a lot of them for that.

Much like Shearman's The Holy Terror, this is set in an almost but not quite recognizable world, filled with repellent people who do wicked things because they don't know how else to behave.

He's in a satirical mood once again, only this time his target is more precise, the trivialization of evil, in this case, the Daleks.

Britain's obsession with the Blitz, the Nazis, and the Second World War is impossible to ignore here, as well as the rise of right-wing political parties that somehow invoke Churchill while espousing the values of Hitler.

Shearman's disgust at this sort of cognitive dissonance gives Jubilee a real fire.

It's angry stuff.

It's also very funny, of course, because it's Rob Shearman.

We get to enjoy the absurd bells and whistles of post-Dalek society, such as a dreadful movie trailer and a cadre of singing Dalekettes.

Because I can remember...

Rob Shearman did an interview for us in it, and I said, I'm really sorry, Rob, yours isn't the best of the series anymore because The Empty Child had just gone out.

I remember saying that to him, and he didn't mind.

But certainly from that point onwards, and then I think Steve Broster did the beginning box set, which looked again similarly really slick, those programmes.

So we just came from your panel.

Rob Shearman interviewed you on the main stage.

Yes, Rob Shearman was also up there with me on the main stage.

That was an

incredible dual interview.

That's good.

Well, it's a good thing I wore my sexiest waistcoat.

That'll be John Peel and Rob Shearman again, and I'm not...

Of our own design.

Um, speaking of Rob Shearman, I wasn't, I wasn't speaking of Rob Shearman.

Isn't he a...

I think he's at LA this weekend.

... and then I interviewed David J. Howe.

You did David J. Howe, Toby Hadoke, um-

Rob Shearman we ambushed and bought him-

Yeah