Doctor Who: The Alien Worlds Collection

Born in South Australia in 1918, Bill Strutton worked as a clerk before joining the Australian army during World War 2. He served in the Middle East and later in Greece. Captured by the Germans in Crete, he spent several years as a prisoner of war. After the war, Strutton came to live in England where he pursued a career writing. He worked as a journalist as well as writing novels and television scripts. Strutton’s only script for Doctor Who was The Web Planet, commissioned in late 1964 and broadcast in 1965. He died on 23 November 2003, the day of Doctor Who's 40th anniversary, aged 85 years.

Terrance Dicks became Script Editor of Doctor Who in 1968, co-writing Patrick Troughton’s classic final serial, The War Games, and editing the show throughout the entire Jon Pertwee era to 1974. He wrote many iconic episodes and serials for the show after, including Tom Baker's first episode as the Fourth Doctor, Robot; Horror at Fang Rock in 1977; State of Decay in 1980; and the 20th anniversary special, The Five Doctors in 1983. Terrance novelised over sixty of the original Doctor Who stories for Target books, including classics like Doctor Who and the Abominable Snowmen and Doctor Who and the Auton Invasion, inspiring a generation of children to become readers and writers. He died in August 2019, only weeks before the publication of his final Doctor Who short story, ‘Save Yourself’, in The Target Storybook.

Sophie Aldred has been working as a professional actress, singer and director in theatre, TV, film and audio for the last 35 years. She is best known as the Seventh Doctor's companion, Ace, who beat up a Dalek with a baseball bat. She has presented a huge variety of programmes on TV and radio, and provides many voices for animations including Tree Fu Tom, Bananas in Pyjamas, Peter Rabbit and Dennis the Menace. Sophie lives in Hertfordshire with her husband and two sons.