theolismith.com

The Digital Doctor

Oli Smith — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 15:21:13 +0000

I am proud to announce that I have story-lined and scripted the Doctor Who games for both the Nintendo Wii and Nintendo DS. This is a huge honour for me, especially in a medium which I have been enthusiastic about for many years. I’ll post a few more details on here as and when I’m allowed, but in the mean time here are the sexy covers:

Bookstores and Revamps

Oli Smith — Sat, 10 Jul 2010 16:07:08 +0000

In the TARDIS, in an anorak.

Oh look, I’ve gone and changed my site again; what am I like?! I thought it could do with some slimming down, especially since I’m trying to really push things forward on the work front at the moment, and is absolutely nothing to do with me putting off any writing…

So whilst the ridiculous weather plays havoc with my work ethic, I’ve spent the last week outside enjoying the sun. First off, me and the lovely Emma headed down to Brighton for a day by the sea. It’s a city of contrasts, with lovely little alleyways tucked away from a rather grim town centre. However I did buy the coolest anorak known to man- which counts for something.

Whilst exploring the high street I found Nuclear Time in a branch of Waterstones. It’s not the first time I’ve seen my work in print (an honour reserved for last year’s Storybook) and I always feel like I should be far more excited than I am (although obviously it’s still ruddy exciting!). If anything I end up feeling quite self conscious- an imposter hiding amongst the real authors. It’s one of those weird things where you live and breathe this work for so long, and when it’s finally finished it’s still months away from publication, so you need to really psyche yourself up again for that moment where it all pays off.

Speaking of things paying off though, the following day I travelled to rainy Cardiff- where sunshine and blue skies are things of myth and legend- to visit the gorgeous TARDIS set.

Now that’s something I’ve been psyching myself up for since I was six!

The July Update

Oli Smith — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 14:35:48 +0000

Again, my updates are becoming more and more sparse, so to make up for the lack of posting recently, I thought I’d reveal a few pieces of news in one go!

First off, Nuclear Time! with only a week to go until its official release, Amazon have posted an exclusive prelude to the novel which you can read for free here. In fact it’s not strictly a prelude and slots into the middle of the book quite nicely whilst adding a bit of illumination on the mysterious blue folder…
And it’s not just Amazon that are celebrating the launch of these latest three Doctor Who novels. On the 17th of July, Forbidden Planet’s London Megastore is playing host to Gary Russell, Una McCormack and myself for a signing from 1-2pm, which should be a great laugh. (more details here).
Also I’ve recently been allowed to reveal that I have contributed a short story to the Bernice Summerfield Anthology Present Danger, although not straying too far from the world of Doctor Who, this was a great opportunity to try something a little darker than usual.

And I think that’s it for now, although I reckon there’ll be a few more updates to come over the next couple of months as a few other things come to fruition…

I, Toddler

Oli Smith — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 15:28:15 +0000

Nuclear Time on Bluray

Oli Smith — Sat, 05 Jun 2010 00:24:52 +0000

The new DVD and Bluray

Well this is rather darn exciting… The first volume of Doctor Who Series 5 is out on Monday in futuristic Bluray and DVD format, and both copies feature a shiny booklet containing the prologue to Nuclear Time! Hopefully that should whet people’s appetites for its forthcoming release on July the 8th. Needless to say, I’m over the moon.

Nuclear Time and the secret TARDIS traveller

Oli Smith — Tue, 25 May 2010 15:27:54 +0000

Lee Binding's sexy cover

It’s always a busy time for me these days, but this past month has been especially packed as a number of projects all drew to a close with lots of polishing, amendments and the other fiddly bits that you think won’t take much time and then do. But now’s when it all starts to pay off, and the most exciting thing last week was the big reveal of the Nuclear Time cover (right); Lee Binding has done an incredible job and I couldn’t be happier. This next month and a bit is going to be painful as I wait for it to come out, and it’ll be interesting to see the reaction as I think both the blurb and the cover reveal very little about the main thrust of the plot. I’m very proud of this book and I do believe that had I been given free reign to write a novel about anything, Who or non-Who, at this stage in my life and career, this would still be the best thing I could’ve written. Not that I’ll ever be able to read it myself, I seem incapable of looking at anything of mine once it’s been published (and therefore unchangeable) as I just seem to cringe at every page. It’s much nicer to remember these things as they were when you were writing them rather than after the millionth proof-read. Maybe when the audiobook version is released I’ll dare to revisit it.

In other related news, two factual books I have written for BBC Children’s have both been announced; Doctor Who: TARDIS Traveller and Doctor Who: Secrets of the TARDIS are up on the Penguin website and you can click the links for more details.

Doctor Who and the Daily Telegraph

Oli Smith — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 20:50:08 +0000

Here it is, the cover to my Doctor Who Audiobook, the Runaway Train, which is being given away free in the Daily Telegraph on Saturday the 24th of April! I urge you all to go out and pick up a copy, and then again the next day for the first part of Peter Anghelides‘ Tenth Doctor Audiobook, Pest Control, which is ace as well.

Doctor Who and the Daily Star

Oli Smith — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 12:39:04 +0000

Article in today's Daily Star

It’s been a while since the last update on here, but that’s because the last few days have been incredibly surreal. Really fun, but surreal nonetheless. Today was the icing on the surreal cake though when it turned out that my first 11th Doctor strip for Doctor Who Adventures (out today) was covered in the Daily Star of all things. It was a real privilege writing such a story and I hope everyone enjoys it.

Deciding the Destiny of Borrowed Time

Oli Smith — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 11:16:17 +0000

It’s been a busy couple of weeks but finally the end is in sight for the bigger projects I’ve been working on, and I’m looking forward to taking a couple of weeks off in the near future. But whilst I was locked away in my study, a couple of nice announcements happened:

Firstly my Doctor Who: Decide Your Destiny: Judoon Monsoon was made public and given a vague release date. Although the title seems to be derived simply from “things that rhyme with Judoon”, writing a “choose your own adventure” has to be one of the hardest things I have done, and planning it became a nightmare of flow-charts and spider diagrams.

The second item was “Borrowed Time”, my Doctor Who Adventures comic, out today. A poignant tale about an old woman with a weed problem, and illustrated in a lovely muted pallet by John Ross, this is my last Tenth Doctor adventure and I aimed to make it my fond farewell to the character as he meets someone with a similar outlook on life.

Torchwood vs. The Deckchair Trilogy

Oli Smith — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 10:46:33 +0000

Well it’s always the way, I self-publish comics for five years and when I finally get the chance to do it professionally, two come along on the same day! The first, “Ma and Par“, is a Torchwood strip written in conjunction with Torchwood Magazine for the Sky Channel justwatch.co.uk as part of their Alien Invasion Week. It’s the first time I’ve written anything for Torchwood and it was a challenge cramming action, a plot and making our heroes recognisable in just four pages, but I’m very pleased with it. Special credit must go to the phenomenal Brian Williamson who is an artist I’ve long admired and did a fantastic job on the script!

My second strip out today is in issue 153 of Doctor Who Adventures Magazine and is entitled “Arctic Eclipse”. It’s illustrated by the wonderful John Ross and marks the end of what I now call my “deckchair trilogy”. Back when I first wrote this I was pretty certain it would be the last Tenth Doctor story I’d write (that’s no longer the case as it happens) and looking back at my previous two stories; one in the 2010 Storybook and one for the BBC Doctor Who website, I realised that both had the Doctor chilling out in a deckchair. I decided that, if this were to be my final story of the Tenth Doctor’s era, I’d kill it off and give the readers some deckchair closure! So, for the two people in the world (hi mum!) who have read all three and actually care about such things, there’s a nice little mini-arc for you!