Doctor Who: The Invaders Collection

Ian Marter (Author)
Ian Marter is best remembered by Doctor Who fans as the actor who played the Fourth Doctor's companion Harry Sullivan. In fact, his first role in Doctor Who came a couple of years earlier when he played the character of Andrews in 'Carnival of Monsters'. Marter worked with his friend Tom Baker on ideas for a possible Doctor Who film, and together they developed a script. Though the film was never made, Marter continued to write and novelised nine Doctor Who adventures for Target books. Ian Marter died in 1986.

Robert Holmes, the original script writer of 'Ark in Space', served with distinction in the army and also in the police before becoming a journalist and television writer. Holmes went on to become one of the Doctor Who's most prolific writers. He took over as script sditor of Doctor Who in 1974 during one of the programme's most successful periods at the start of the Fourth Doctor's era, and established a background and society for the Time Lords that has endured to this day. Robert Holmes wrote for many other series including Doomwatch, Spy Trap, Dixon of Dock Green, Blake's 7 and many others. Holmes died in 1986, while working on the final episodes of the Doctor Who story The Trial of a Time Lord.

Douglas Adams (Author)
Douglas Noel Adams was born on 11 March 1952 in Cambridge. His parents divorced when he was five, and Douglas and his younger sister Susan were brought up by their mother in Essex. From 1959 to 1970 Douglas attended Brentwood School, and he first thought seriously about writing when a teacher named Frank Halford gave him ten out of ten for a composition. He was the only boy ever to have been awarded full marks.
Leaving school in December 1970, Douglas won a scholarship to study English at Cambridge. His main reason for going there was to join Footlights, although his first attempt to do so was a failure. He succeeded in joining in his second term, but found the group which ran the society a bit stand-offish. He also felt constrained by the limits of pantomimes and mid-term revues, so instead he set up his own revue group, Adams-Smith-Adams, with two friends. It was very successful.

Douglas left Cambridge in the summer of 1974 and took occasional office jobs before joining forces with Monty Python team member Graham Chapman. They collaborated on a number of projects; unfortunately, very few of them were ever broadcast. A while later he was invited to Cambridge to direct the 1976 Footlights revue, but even this turned out to be a disappointment. At the end of the year, broke and feeling like a failure, Douglas moved back home with his mother.
In 1977 his luck changed. Through his former flatmate John Lloyd, Douglas met BBC Radio 4 producer Simon Brett. He felt that Douglas' style of humour should have its own show, rather than being crammed into existing formats. Having been inspired by a copy of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Europe, Douglas came up with a draft for The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. After several delays the first six-episode series was broadcast, with a second rapidly following. The worldwide phenomenon they spawned includes five novels, a book of scripts, two LPs, a television series, a computer game and two stage plays.
In addition to Hitchhiker, Douglas' work included two Dirk Gently detective novels and two humorous place-name 'dictionaries', The Meaning of Liff and The Deeper Meaning of Liff (both co-written with John Lloyd) as well as Last Chance to See, an account of a global search for rare and endangered species which he co-wrote with Mark Carwardine.

In 1999 Douglas moved to Santa Barbara with his wife and daughter to work on a proposed Hitchhiker film. Always a keen advocate of new technology, his last series for Radio 4 was The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Future, a look at the advances mankind was likely to make in future years.He died suddenly of a heart attack, aged 49, in May 2001. A Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy feature film was produced in 2005, whilst both Stephen Mangan and Samuel Barnett have portrayed Dirk Gently on television in recent years.

James Goss (Author)
James Goss has adapted three Doctor Who stories by Douglas Adams for BBC Books (City of Death, The Pirate Planet, and The Krikkitmen). He's also written several original Doctor Who and Torchwood books. His novel #Haterz is in development as a motion picture. He's also written for the stage and the radio.

Nicholas Briggs (Reader)
Nicholas Briggs has been a prolific Doctor Who contributor since 1999, when he began work on the Big Finish Doctor Who audio dramas, for which he has written and directed extensively and is now Executive Producer. Nick is also an actor, and since Doctor Who’s return to television in 2005, he’s worked on set with all four of the new Doctors as the voice of the Daleks (also providing the voice of the Cybermen, and other aliens). Having spent most of his life in London, Nick now lives in Dorset with his wife and son, where he hopes life will be more peaceful... But, so far, London keeps dragging him back.

Ian Marter (Author)
Ian Marter is best remembered by Doctor Who fans as the actor who played the Fourth Doctor's companion Harry Sullivan. In fact, his first role in Doctor Who came a couple of years earlier when he played the character of Andrews in 'Carnival of Monsters'. Marter worked with his friend Tom Baker on ideas for a possible Doctor Who film, and together they developed a script. Though the film was never made, Marter continued to write and novelised nine Doctor Who adventures for Target books. Ian Marter died in 1986.

Robert Holmes, the original script writer of 'Ark in Space', served with distinction in the army and also in the police before becoming a journalist and television writer. Holmes went on to become one of the Doctor Who's most prolific writers. He took over as script sditor of Doctor Who in 1974 during one of the programme's most successful periods at the start of the Fourth Doctor's era, and established a background and society for the Time Lords that has endured to this day. Robert Holmes wrote for many other series including Doomwatch, Spy Trap, Dixon of Dock Green, Blake's 7 and many others. Holmes died in 1986, while working on the final episodes of the Doctor Who story The Trial of a Time Lord.

Douglas Adams (Author)
Douglas Noel Adams was born on 11 March 1952 in Cambridge. His parents divorced when he was five, and Douglas and his younger sister Susan were brought up by their mother in Essex. From 1959 to 1970 Douglas attended Brentwood School, and he first thought seriously about writing when a teacher named Frank Halford gave him ten out of ten for a composition. He was the only boy ever to have been awarded full marks.
Leaving school in December 1970, Douglas won a scholarship to study English at Cambridge. His main reason for going there was to join Footlights, although his first attempt to do so was a failure. He succeeded in joining in his second term, but found the group which ran the society a bit stand-offish. He also felt constrained by the limits of pantomimes and mid-term revues, so instead he set up his own revue group, Adams-Smith-Adams, with two friends. It was very successful.

Douglas left Cambridge in the summer of 1974 and took occasional office jobs before joining forces with Monty Python team member Graham Chapman. They collaborated on a number of projects; unfortunately, very few of them were ever broadcast. A while later he was invited to Cambridge to direct the 1976 Footlights revue, but even this turned out to be a disappointment. At the end of the year, broke and feeling like a failure, Douglas moved back home with his mother.
In 1977 his luck changed. Through his former flatmate John Lloyd, Douglas met BBC Radio 4 producer Simon Brett. He felt that Douglas' style of humour should have its own show, rather than being crammed into existing formats. Having been inspired by a copy of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Europe, Douglas came up with a draft for The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. After several delays the first six-episode series was broadcast, with a second rapidly following. The worldwide phenomenon they spawned includes five novels, a book of scripts, two LPs, a television series, a computer game and two stage plays.
In addition to Hitchhiker, Douglas' work included two Dirk Gently detective novels and two humorous place-name 'dictionaries', The Meaning of Liff and The Deeper Meaning of Liff (both co-written with John Lloyd) as well as Last Chance to See, an account of a global search for rare and endangered species which he co-wrote with Mark Carwardine.

In 1999 Douglas moved to Santa Barbara with his wife and daughter to work on a proposed Hitchhiker film. Always a keen advocate of new technology, his last series for Radio 4 was The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Future, a look at the advances mankind was likely to make in future years.He died suddenly of a heart attack, aged 49, in May 2001. A Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy feature film was produced in 2005, whilst both Stephen Mangan and Samuel Barnett have portrayed Dirk Gently on television in recent years.

James Goss (Author)
James Goss has adapted three Doctor Who stories by Douglas Adams for BBC Books (City of Death, The Pirate Planet, and The Krikkitmen). He's also written several original Doctor Who and Torchwood books. His novel #Haterz is in development as a motion picture. He's also written for the stage and the radio.

Nicholas Briggs (Reader)
Nicholas Briggs has been a prolific Doctor Who contributor since 1999, when he began work on the Big Finish Doctor Who audio dramas, for which he has written and directed extensively and is now Executive Producer. Nick is also an actor, and since Doctor Who’s return to television in 2005, he’s worked on set with all four of the new Doctors as the voice of the Daleks (also providing the voice of the Cybermen, and other aliens). Having spent most of his life in London, Nick now lives in Dorset with his wife and son, where he hopes life will be more peaceful... But, so far, London keeps dragging him back.

James Goss has adapted three Doctor Who stories by Douglas Adams for BBC Books (City of Death, The Pirate Planet, and The Krikkitmen). He's also written several original Doctor Who and Torchwood books. His novel #Haterz is in development as a motion picture. He's also written for the stage and the radio.

Nicholas Briggs has been a prolific Doctor Who contributor since 1999, when he began work on the Big Finish Doctor Who audio dramas, for which he has written and directed extensively and is now Executive Producer. Nick is also an actor, and since Doctor Who’s return to television in 2005, he’s worked on set with all four of the new Doctors as the voice of the Daleks (also providing the voice of the Cybermen, and other aliens). Having spent most of his life in London, Nick now lives in Dorset with his wife and son, where he hopes life will be more peaceful... But, so far, London keeps dragging him back.