Doctor Who: The Third Alien Worlds Collection

Ian Marter (1944 – 1986) was an English actor and writer, known for his role as Harry Sullivan in the BBC science-fiction television series Doctor Who.

David Fisher was approached by script editor Anthony Read to write for Doctor Who and the result was the 100th story, The Stones of Blood, transmitted in 1978. Fisher first met Read when the latter was setting up a series called The Troubleshooters in 1965. Fisher went on to write for Orlando (1967), Dixon of Dock Green (1969), Sutherland's Law (1973) and General Hospital (1977). As well as The Stones of Blood, Fisher also contributed The Androids of Tara, The Creature from the Pit and The Leisure Hive to Doctor Who. The first two stories were novelised by Terrance Dicks, but Fisher decided to pen the latter two himself for the Target range.

Following his work on Doctor Who, Fisher wrote for Hammer House of Horror (1980), Hammer Mystery and Suspense (1984) and collaborated with Read on a number of historical books with subjects including World War Two espionage, the Nazi persecution of Jews and the Nazi/Soviet pact of the early 1940s.

Eric Saward has written for both radio and television, script edited Doctor Who for five years and also written four original stories for the show. During this time he also novelised four scripts and wrote the first ever Doctor Who radio serial. Recently he has completed a graphic novel based around the adventures of Lytton.

Stephen Wyatt was born in Beckenham, Kent and brought up in Ealing in West London. He was educated at Latymer Upper School and then went on to Clare College, Cambridge. While at Cambridge, he directed the 1973 Footlights Revue, Every Packet Carries a Government Health Warning, as well as productions of The Mikado, Handel’s Semele and Verdi’s I Due Foscari. His first full-length comedy, Exit, Pursued by a Bear, was produced at the Edinburgh Festival in 1973. After a brief spell as Lecturer in Drama at Glasgow University, he began his career as a playwright in 1975 as writer/researcher with the Belgrade Coventry Theatre in Education team. In 1982 and 1983 he was Resident Writer with the London Bubble Theatre. Stephen has worked widely as a freelance playwright in theatre, radio and television ever since. He also has considerable experience as a teacher, workshop leader and script reader and in the creation of audio guides. The first piece he wrote for television was a play called Claws which led to his being commissioned to write Paradise Towers and then The Greatest Show in the Galaxy for Doctor Who. In 2008, his play, Memorials to the Missing, won the Tinniswood Award for best original radio script of 2007 as well as Silver in the Best Drama category of the 2008 Sony Radio Awards. He spent two years as Royal Literary Fund Writing Fellow at the University of Sussex and in the autumn of 2011 he took up a post as RLF Writing Fellow on Greenwich University’s Maritime campus. Author biography by David J. Howe, author of The Target Book, the complete illustrated guide to the Target Doctor Who novelisations.

After leaving university, Graeme Curry worked as a journalist and a professional singer. In 1982 he won both the Cosmopolitan Young Journalist of the Year award and a screenplay competition with Over the Moon, which he later adapted as a radio play for BBC Radio 4. It was on the strength of this that he was put in touch with Andrew Cartmel to discuss working on Doctor Who. The Happiness Patrol was his first television commission. Since then, Curry has contributed to ITV’s The Bill, BBC1’s EastEnders and the Radio 4 soap opera Citizens. He has also written the plays PS I Love You and The Mantle of the Earth for Radio 4. Curry has penned numerous books of poems for children, mostly with Jennifer Curry, and has also worked as a stage manager and an editor. Author biography by David J. Howe, author of The Target Book, the complete illustrated guide to the Target Doctor Who novelisations.