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BBC Short Trips
Series of short story books based on the Doctor Who television series
Series of short story books based on the Doctor Who television series
The BBC Short Trips books are a collection of short story anthologies published by BBC Books based on the television series Doctor Who, following a pattern established by Virgin Publishing's Decalog collections. Three volumes were published between March 1998 and March 2000, before the BBC decided to stop publishing the books. The Short Trips name was later adopted for hardback collections published by Big Finish Productions and licensed from the BBC.
The books
Short Trips
The first volume of stories is Short Trips (BBC Books, 1998), edited by Stephen Cole. It contains the following stories:
| Title | Plot | Featuring | Author | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| "Model Train Set" | ||||||
| "Old Flames" | ||||||
| "War Crimes" | ||||||
| "The Last Days" | ||||||
| "Stop the Pigeon" | ||||||
| "Freedom" | ||||||
| "Glass" | ||||||
| "Mondas Passing" | ||||||
| "There are Fairies at the Bottom of the Garden" | ||||||
| "Mother's Little Helper" | ||||||
| "The Parliament of Rats" | ||||||
| "Rights" | ||||||
| "Wish You Were Here" | ||||||
| "Ace of Hearts" | ||||||
| "The People's Temple" |
More Short Trips===
The next volume is More Short Trips (BBC Books, 1999), again edited by Stephen Cole. It contains the stories:
| Title | Plot | Featuring | Author | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| "Totem" | ||||||
| "Scientific Adviser" | ||||||
| "Missing, Part One: Business as Usual" | ||||||
| "Moon Graffiti" | ||||||
| "One Bad Apple" | ||||||
| "64 Carlysle Street" | ||||||
| "The Eternity Contract" | ||||||
| "The Sow in Rut" | ||||||
| "Special Weapons" | ||||||
| "Honest Living" | ||||||
| "Dead Time" | ||||||
| "Romans Cutaway" | ||||||
| "Return of the Spiders" | ||||||
| "Hot Ice" | ||||||
| "uPVC" | ||||||
| "Good Companions" | ||||||
| "Missing, Part Two: Message in a Bottle" | ||||||
| "Femme Fatale" |
Short Trips and Sidesteps===
The final Short Trips collection is Short Trips and Sidesteps (BBC Books, 2000), and was joint edited by Jacqueline Rayner and Stephen Cole. It was intended to show a variety of stories of Doctors and companions that had not necessarily existed in the prime continuity of Doctor Who. Several of the stories were written under pseudonyms, including Tara Samms (Stephen Cole), David Agnew and Norman Ashby. Lawrence Miles wrote two pieces for the collection, one under his own name and one under a pseudonym. It contains the following stories:
| Title | Plot | Featuring | Author | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| "The Longest Story in the World" | ||||||
| "A Town Called Eternity (2 Parts)" | ||||||
| "Special Occasions 1: The Not So Sinister Sponge" | ||||||
| "Nothing at the End of the Lane (3 Parts)" | ||||||
| "Countdown to TV Action" | ||||||
| "The Queen of Eros" | ||||||
| "The Android Maker of Calderon IV" | ||||||
| "Revenants" | ||||||
| "Please Shut the Gate" | ||||||
| "Turnabout is Fair Play" | ||||||
| "Special Occasions 2: Do You Love Anyone Enough?" | ||||||
| "The House on Oldark Moor" | ||||||
| "Gone Too Soon" | ||||||
| "Reunion" | ||||||
| "Planet of the Bunnoids" | ||||||
| "Monsters" | ||||||
| "Special Occasions 3: Better Take Care" | ||||||
| "Face Value" | ||||||
| "Storm in a Tikka" | ||||||
| "Special Occasions 4: Playing with Toys" | ||||||
| "Vrs" |
Following the publication of this book, the BBC announced that they were no longer going to produce volumes of short stories, due to the cost and amount of work involved in producing them.
Audio books
In 1998, the original Short Trips book was also released on a double cassette as an audio book, featuring five stories from the book (Freedom, Model Train Set, Glass, Stop the Pigeon and Old Flames) read by Sophie Aldred and Nicholas Courtney. An additional story (Degrees of Truth by David A. McIntee, featuring the Third Doctor and the Brigadier) is also on the release. Model Train Set was also released on CD as a BBC Audio.{{cite book | author-link = Jonathan Blum (writer, born 1972)
Two further audio book short story collections were released later that year. Earth and Beyond was read by Paul McGann, featuring "Dead Time" from More Short Trips, "The People's Temple" from Short Trips and original story "Bounty." Out of the Darkness was read by Colin Baker and Nicola Bryant, and features "Moon Graffiti" from More Short Trips, "Wish You Were Here" from Short Trips and original story "Vigil". Earth and Beyond was released on double cassette, whilst Out of the Darkness was released on CD.
Those readings were reissued in 2004 as part of the MP3-CD releases Tales from the TARDIS volumes 1 and 2. These were in turn re-released as box sets of standard audio CDs in 2016 and 2017.
References
References
- Various. "Doctor Who: Tales From The Tardis Volume One".
- Saward, Terrance Dicks, Eric. "Doctor Who: Tales from the TARDIS: Volume 1".
- Russell, Terrance Dicks, Philip Martin, Gary. "Doctor Who: Tales from the TARDIS: Volume 2".
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