NAME: AVAN TARKLU
ALIAS: FROBISHER SPECIES: WHIFFERDILL ORIGIN TIME-ZONE: 82nd-CENTURY ORIGIN WORLD: PLANET XENON LISTED OCCUPATION: PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR DISTINGUISHING TRAITS: "AS TRUE OF HIS SPECIES, CAN SHAPE-SHIFT INTO A VARIETY OF DIFFERENT FORMS. HOWEVER, FROBISHER SEEMS MOST COMFORTABLE IN THE FORM OF THE EXTINCT EARTH-STOCK ANIMAL, THE KING PENGUIN. REASON UNKNOWN." From the private tapes of the Save the Zyglot Trust. A quiet moment. In another time, another place... > RECORDING START INTERVIEWER: "This is Doctor Ivan Asimoff of the Zyglot Trust—" FROBISHER: "How 'bout now?" INTERVIEWER: "Speaking with Frobisher on the aforementioned subject of auditorial interest." FROBISHER: "Hence the dictaphone." INTERVIEWER: "No, auditorial, as in—Never mind. For the record, let's start with your good character—" FROBISHER: "If you want an optimistic picture, you'll have to find another painter, ace." INTERVIEWER: "Oh, uh, your meaning?" FROBISHER: "Are we getting into this? Alright, well—" INTERVIEWER: "Frobisher—" FROBISHER: "From the top. A lot of my childhood was spent in the Xenon slums, jack. Options were limited. I couldn't work in the IntraVenus traxis mines. I was too... erm... What's the word...? It'll come to me... A coward. That's it. Too much a coward." INTERVIEWER: "It's... dangerous work, so I'm told." FROBISHER: "No less than living hand-to-mouth as a street urchin. You find bolt-holes, sure. Little patches of dirt and permacrete to call your own, but nothing that'll keep your mind warm." INTERVIEWER: "You didn't have any friends, Frobisher? Any family?" FROBISHER: "Ain't we getting sidetracked?" INTERVIEWER: "Please." FROBISHER: "I had no one. Not a one. The city was big and it was easy to lose people. In every sense, there. The Doc and Peri are probably the closest thing to both, these days." INTERVIEWER: "Let's—er, erm—move on. Yes. You—You left Xenon, I take it?" FROBISHER: "Escaped, let's say. Got myself out into the Universe, sure enough. I've had a few jobs. Private investigator is probably my calling, though belts were worn tighter in the winter." INTERVIEWER: "Your file mentions you were married." FROBISHER: "Long time ago." INTERVIEWER: "Yes. Yes, erm, let's talk about your connection to IntraVenus." FROBISHER: "I knew I should've gone for milkshakes—This is about the Doc, isn't it?" INTERVIEWER: "The trust's auditors have queries about your donation. They seem to think it was awfully convenient for us to come into so much money when our former President, Professor Astro Labus, disappears." FROBISHER: "What? They think we offed him, so you could become President of the trust?" INTERVIEWER: "Erm..." FROBISHER: "Oh, nuts. That is what they think, isn't it?" INTERVIEWER: "They... ah... have unusually vivid imaginations for accountants." FROBISHER: "That money went into the trust. Not out of it. What? Do they think we're laundering money through you guys, too?" INTERVIEWER: "I know it came from IntraVenus Inc, but—" FROBISHER: "We didn't steal it. The Doc and I scored it from their Venus headquarters. Fair and square. Yeah... We made quite the team." INTERVIEWER: "How?" FROBISHER: "From his bounty. Josiah W. Dogbolter's massive bounty on the Doc's head. Just a little switcheroo, between the Doc and me, and voila! We got the mazumas and the old frog got egg all over his face. It was personal for the Doc. Humbling Dogbolter went a long way in his books." INTERVIEWER: "And this Peri, you mentioned?" FROBISHER: "A good friend of the Doc's from before my time. He picked her back up after a sabbatical on Earth. Longer than she expected, but it helped sort out some of the feelings around her Mom. She'd passed away recently." INTERVIEWER: "I'm sorry. And since then, Frobisher? Aboard the TARDIS?" FROBISHER: "Your auditors... You know what we've been up to? The Skeletoid Crisis was all over the GBC, we put paid to it. The Six Champions, they've been calling us. Stopped a generation ship's crew, aboard the Mayflower, from being sold into slavery, too. On Zazz, we relocated all those Servatron robots to the planet's moon on an old-fashioned rocket. And... And! We even dealt with the Cybermen on Sylvaniar and—" INTERVIEWER: "Good gracious, though! You've been busy!" FROBISHER: "Busy? Yeah. Yeah, I suppose we have." INTERVIEWER: "I'm not sure if I'll be able to find records for all of that." FROBISHER: "Does it matter?" INTERVIEWER: "Somehow, I don't think so. 'And'...?" FROBISHER: "'And' what?" INTERVIEWER: "You said 'on Sylvaniar and', what else have you been up to?" THE DOCTOR: "You may as well say, Frobisher. He has that writer's gleam." INTERVIEWER: "Doctor! Doctor, your face..." THE DOCTOR: "Hello again, Doctor Asimoff. Thought I'd indulge in a meeting of the clans. This is my young friend, Peri. She's been travelling with me a while now." INTERVIEWER: "Charmed. B-But your face..." PERI: "I know... Frobisher was just about to mention that." FROBISHER: "Ah, you say that, perp, but I'm not sure. I... Well... It ain't my place to..." THE DOCTOR: "Never you mind, my penguin chum. Never you mind. I'll tell you what, Ivan. Stop the dictaphone and I'll talk about Mandusus Chi myself. All the sordid details." INTERVIEWER: "Oh, yes? Oh! Yes. Fine. Let me just fiddle with that... H'rrm..." THE DOCTOR: "A few weeks ago, Ivan, in another time, another place—" > RECORDING STOP COMING SOON in MARCH 2024 Written Excerpt from the Novel The chemical constitution of the TARDIS galley’s ceiling was an excitonic marvel. Composed entirely of a material alien to most periodic tables, it held itself as stainless, dustless and virtually impervious to harm. Somehow, in the course of a standard hour, the Doctor had managed to perform the extraordinary. Its constituent components consisted of a culinary creole. Pancakes, strips of marinated tofu, a custard Danish pastry and tomatoes from the Ship’s Falloean Gardens. All carefully prepared in a non-stick pan. Exquisite. And all presently stuck to the ceiling. In a cobweb of char to rival the London smokestacks of Conan Doyle’s time. “Very well, old girl. Very well.” He placed the pan back on the stove. “I concede you may have a point. Just this once, mark you.” An opprobrious scuffle outside the main double doors brought his attention to his two travelling companions. One donned in a cork hat. The other carrying a ceramic milk jug. Both went flying. The first was a young American botanist called Perpugilliam Brown. Peri to her friends and enemies. She had joined the Doctor what seemed like a lifetime ago. At the present, she was falling on the second. A whifferdill gumshoe. Monomorphic, on occasion, but nevertheless pleasant. Before the TARDIS, he was known as Avan Tarklu. On their travels, he was called Frobisher. In a vain effort at chivalry, Frobisher had asked Peri into the galley first. Not to be outdone, she’d returned the gesture and beckoned the whifferdill to enter instead. In the ensuing disagreement, both had tumbled through the doorway. Abashed and feeling more than a little conspicuous. The Doctor’s mouth flicked a cat-like smirk. “Certainly one way to work up an appetite.” The rover picked up the cork hat, dropping the milk jug into its inner lining, and placed it next to the stove. “Good morning.” “Hi…” greeted Peri, painfully, climbing up to her feet. “The study was getting cramped.” “With ripe expectations, yeah.” Frobisher righted himself. “Still no go, Doc?” The Doctor placed a hand in his pocket and flourished the other arm at the disaster site around him. “At my best, I could give you the finest delights of Billions Major and Billions Minor. A beautific bonhomie breakfast to salivate the senses. From their native creamberry cakes to imported Gethen beer.” He slapped the counter. “Alas…” “How—?” Peri stopped, cleared her throat and started again. “How long has that been up there?” The Doctor followed her gaze to the ceiling. Small embers of flame, like molten rock, ebbed on the edges of the vulcanised ceiling crêpe. “Oh, quite some time now,” he smiled, sounding quite accomplished. “Ooh…” Peri winced. “Now would be a really good time to move, Doctor.” “Mmn?” asked the time-traveller. Peri and Frobisher pulled him beneath the relative safety of the doorway. From a stand just outside the door, Frobisher handed the Doctor a sky-blue umbrella which the latter deployed with casual disinterest. In the span of half-a-minute, the veritable feast for the travelling trio rained down to the galley floor. String-like eggs, tomatoes with a kinship to gravel and cured custard peelings all embraced the sweet release of gravity. “You’ve got egg on your face,” observed Peri. “That’s an understatement…” the Doctor admitted. “No, no… Frobisher, you’ve actual egg. On your beak.” “What?” The whifferdill looked down at the end of his face. “Where?” Although, it smelt how it looked, he couldn’t quite find it. Peri knelt down onto her haunches and sponged the offending material away with her thumb. Typical of the Doctor’s cavalier piloting, the TARDIS materialised with a floor-shuddering hiccup. Arms clutched at nearby fittings. Shouts were uttered. A chime resounded from the console room to signal the danger had passed. “Ah, splendid.” The Doctor released the umbrella with happy aplomb. “We’ve arrived. Come along.” Hooking it over a forearm, he departed the scene with a breezy rendition of what sounded to Peri like Patsy Ann Noble’s Accidents Will Happen. Peri and Frobisher studied the tableau in silence. Still clutching the umbrella stand, Frobisher dusted himself down and followed. Peri opened her mouth to say something, shook her head and let her legs carry her after the boys. COMING SOON... Early details about Doctor Who - The Alchemists of Fear here
Hi, all!
It's been a while hasn't it? Our socials for Divergent Wordsmiths have been quiet over the last few months and with very good reason. We're delighted to say that we've been hard at work with exciting new stories for Doctor Who. "A Sparkle of Doctors Is Go!" A Sparkle of Doctors is well and truly on the road to production. In fact, things have been going so smoothly for us at Divergent Wordsmiths that we'll be able to release half of it early. That's right, we'll be splitting the collection into two volumes. A Sparkle of Doctors: Volume 1 is set to release early! Leading up to the publication date's announcement, we'll be releasing individual blurbs for many of the seven stories from Volume 1. With them, a portion of the front cover designed by the ever talented Matthew Purchase. Keep an eye out on Facebook, Twitter and Mastodon for a chance to learn more! If you don't want to wait, check out our December 2022 novel, The Ghosts of Peladon. An exciting new adventure starring the Sixth Doctor, Peri Brown and Frobisher. There, you can find an early bird peek at Diamant. One of our major characters responsible for the cosmic danger behind A Sparkle of Doctors. (And if you've enjoyed The Ghosts of Peladon already, check out Eden By Annihilation, for more from that TARDIS trio! Their next adventure is already underway!) Thank you, all, for sticking with us. More to come! Best wishes, Alan Camlann Publisher for Divergent Wordsmiths Hi, all, Let's talk about transformation. One of Doctor Who's fundamental cornerstones relies on the concept. The main lead, due to illness, accident or even the demands of simple pragmatism can be spurred into a metamorphosis. Divergent Wordsmiths has been much the same. Over its five-year lifespan, our catalogue has expanded to include half-a-dozen Anthologies releases, two Novels releases featuring a revived Doctor/companion team not seen since 1987, and numerous uncollected materials grouped across the website. We've accomplished a lot. The time has come for another change. Following Doctor Who's 60th anniversary in 2023, A Sparkle of Doctors will be one of our last Anthologies for quite some time. This has not been for a lack of skilled, talented and eager contributors. On the contrary. We've found a consistent abundance of content creators willing to provide for new stories aboard the TARDIS. The dreaded problem, unfortunately, has been the rising cost of living. A pressure I'm sure many can empathise with. As Divergent Wordsmiths is volunteer-led and volunteer-run, it's become clear over 2022 that it's necessary to change our approach. Our mission statement at Divergent Wordsmiths has always been to provide our Doctor Who content for free. That remains our constant. We believe that, however the media landscape shifts, fans should be able to access something of the Doctor's adventures with no financial barrier. We will not alter that. To maintain that statement, however, we will be shifting towards the Novels range as our primary focus. Active since 2020, that currently features two releases starring the Sixth Doctor, Peri Brown and Frobisher:
It's far from being all over. Best wishes, Alan Camlann Publisher for Divergent Wordsmiths AVAILABLE NOW! THE GHOSTS OF PELADON
Q&A: Q: "I'm new to reading Divergent Wordsmiths, is any prior viewing/reading I have to do before I dive into The Ghosts of Peladon?" A: "None. The Ghosts of Peladon can be approached as a standalone novella." Q: "This is so cool! Are there any more stories with the Sixth Doctor, Peri and Frobisher?" A: "Absolutely. Trapped at the centre of a graveyard in space, the Doctor, Peri and Frobisher face death on a living planet in the full-length novel, Eden By Annihilation. Frobisher also makes a solo appearance in one of our anthologies." Q: "Do I have to make a purchase for any of these?" A: "No, all of our content at Divergent Wordsmiths is free and noncommercial." Q: "I've heard about the upcoming Divergent Wordsmiths anthology, A Sparkle of Doctors. Does The Ghosts of Peladon have anything to do with that collection?" A: "It does, indeed. The Ghosts of Peladon features an early-bird cameo of a prominent element from that collection." Q: "Long-time reader, here. Is there any character progression from our three heroes from Eden By Annihilation in The Ghosts of Peladon?" A: "Thanks for sticking with us! Yes, there is. While accessible to newcomers, The Ghosts of Peladon also builds on a character arc that will become more apparent as the novels progress." Q: "I've really enjoyed this team. Will there be more from them in the future?" A: "The Doctor, Peri and Frobisher will return!" Artwork by Caroline Tankersley Did you know that you can listen to Eden By Annihilation with music? Rare soundtracks selected from Doctor Who composer, Peter Howell! Check out the back of the novel for more! EDEN BY ANNIHILATION On the edge of space lies Natasia Tor, a sargasso of dead spacecraft, through which members of the Affiliation of Outer Free Worlds and the Tyrikan Resurgence are forbidden to travel. When the TARDIS materialises in the eighty-second century, the Doctor, Peri and Frobisher discover the region to be far from unoccupied. At the heart of the mausoleum in space, something vast and terrible has begun to wake. Who are the Vaisyan Lonewatch and their opponents? What links the mysterious object with a planet known as Trailblazer Prime? And can the Doctor and his friends escape a violent and bloody fate from a war set to ignite the Galaxy?
It’s no underestimation to say that this trio has had an unerring ability to get under my skin in the best way possible. Despite the brevity of their tenure, there was a good sense of camaraderie to the three in the vein of the best Doctor/companion teams. Here were a trio that could be picnicking one moment and zapping Cybermen the next and yet, they weren’t terribly well explored in the twenty/thirty years of expanded universe media. Frobisher, the ever-faithful whifferdill, has still had cameos to this very day in comics, audio and novel, but this unerring link between comic strip and videotape remained as it ever was. Incomplete. As open-ended as the vanishing of Liz Shaw or the musing farewell of the Seventh Doctor and Ace.
As a writer, that’s difficult to resist, but where to begin? I wouldn’t be able to do justice to it in a directly visual follow-up to John Ridgway’s full-motion panoramas. My medium was the written word. The same words you're reading now. It would have to be in prose. Better, it would have to be a novel. A good challenge and a possibility to flex those creative neurons. The World Shapers, the final illustrated voyage of the trio, concluded in October 1987, almost a full year after the Sixth Doctor’s exeunt from his trial on television. In that borrowed time, the TARDIS had visited slavers on the hijacked Mayflower, the contrapuntal motion of Raygun Gothic Zazz, an old man’s gentle respite in Scotland and a mythology-cracking development on the planet Marinus. As steady an array of worlds as those visited before (and during) the '86 hiatus. I knew where I wanted to go next, a neat little place on Trailblazer Prime, but something caught the Doctor’s eye in Natasia Tor. The story itself is one steeped in the headlines and pop culture of 1987. One year after, Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home and Aliens debuted in cinemas. One year after, NASA’s Challenger shuttle has exploded on a clear blue day and Chernobyl’s radiation cloud has fallen over Ukraine. It’s a bitterly Cold War at the present. Everything has an urbane formality, almost a chill, to it. But, nevertheless, the characters themselves refused to stay confined to that box (bless 'em). Over time, they've become a halfway-house rendition of how they appeared in Doctor Who Magazine and where they ended up at Big Finish. This is a Sixth Doctor of passion who’s been pitted against both the mad Astrolabus and obsessive Toymaker, a Peri who's negotiated both the Elohim of Paradise 5 and the dungeons of Sylvaniar, and a Frobisher who became both bounty hunter and worshipped as a living god (oops). Life returns to the Doctor, Peri and Frobisher after 33 years in stasis and one which has, so far, endured the test of time in the big ("They seek him here, they seek him there...") and small (who knew the Doctor's fourth self was also a fan of Winnie-the-Pooh?). That was a well and truly worthwhile experience and, best of all, it's a way for others to get into Doctor Who books that doesn't cost a mazuma. With more to come, alongside Divergent Wordsmiths' other projects, in the future." Vworp, vworp~! Alan Camlann |
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