Fying High

 

It's here!

Star Flight was released on Thursday, and although of course most people will probably buy it to stream or download, it also exists as an actual, physical version on CD. Which I was able to get a copy of on release day - rather pleasingly, World Book Day. And even though it's not a book-length story, audiobooks still count, so it was nice to be able to welcome a new member of the 'family' on that day of all days.

Also out on Thursday was the latest issue of Doctor Who Magazine, which contained a review of Star Flight. It's not a bad verdict at all, although it's fair to say I was a little disappointed that their reviewer David Richardson didn't enjoy the story as much as the online reviewers I mentioned last week. Interestingly, his main issue was that it didn't quite feel true to the era of the programme in which it was set - something which one of those reviews last week praised it for. Which just goes to show how people can have very different views of the same piece of writing! And proof, perhaps, if proof were needed that you shouldn't allow yourself to get either too downhearted nor too carried away by the reviews.

But I am pleased that - so far! - nobody has given Star Flight a real pasting. Mentioning the DWM review also gives me the opportunity to correct a small but important error which creapt into it, which really does need to be noted. The sound design work on the story is, rightly, praised - but credited to David Darlington, when in fact sound design was by David Roocroft.

I should also, of course, thank Christopher Naylor for performing the reading, Morrison Ellis for producing the whole thing, and Lee Johnson for doing the cover. And Michael Stevens, John Ainsworth and Steve Cole for giving me the opportunity and getting it into a fit state for publication. So, thank you all!

It's still strange, and rather wonderful, to think that I have written an official Doctor Who story for the BBC, and that it is out there in the world and a part - a tiny part, I know - of all that history. I thought I'd feel more emotional when I put the CD on and heard my name being credited over that music, but it was actually the end which really got me in that sense. Hearing the sound of the TARDIS over my description of it in the closing moments of the story. That's when I really felt it, if that doesn't sound too sappy.

Well, even if it does sound too sappy, I've said it now - so there!

Something else I've been very pleased with myself about is that Star Flight has spent much of the past few days at number one in Amazon's chart of Doctor Who books and audiobooks. Which is, admittedly, probably not surprising when it is the latest available Doctor Who release, but still an achievement in which I take some pride. After all, how often in your life to you get to have a chart-topper of any sort? Never mind one in a chart of one of your great passions in life. I quite like the little "No. 1 Best Seller" tag which got added to the Amazon listing, too!

Look, these sorts of things don't happen very often in your life - probably never again will I have anything like this - so I am determined to enjoy it while it lasts, okay...?

Flight Mode

It's March, which is an exciting month for me - not generally, I mean, but specifically this one. March 2026. Because this is the month - indeed, this week will be the week - which sees the release of my first professional work of fiction, my Doctor Who audiobook Star Flight for BBC Audiobooks / Penguin Random House.

It will be out there in the world from this coming Thursday, the 5th. But excitingly, it is already out there in some senses - because the first reviews have begun to appear. And the good news is, so far... they're very good indeed.

This is, admittedly, only from a sample size of two. But they are both very positive, extremely flattering reviews. The kind of thing which makes you stand up and pace up-and-down the room when you've read them. Or makes me as the writer of the work in question do so, anyway! Of course, I know that not every review will be this positive, and if you allow yourself to get too high from the nice verdicts you're also running the risk of allowing yourself to be brought down too much by the negative ones.

But what the hell. I've waited a very long time for this, so I am determined to enjoy it while I have the chance!

The first review to appear was by Tony Fyler for the website Mass Movement. I was nervous opening the link, but almost immediately reassured, and indeed fairly staggered, by the first paragraph which declares that Star Flight "drips competence and class from every syllable". Blimey! And at the end, "leaving you feeling breathless and satisfied and eager for more," too. 

Then a few days later came Rod Bell's review for the Flickering Myth site. This was another review which was also far better than I could have imagined: "Paul Hayes knows exactly what he is doing," indeed! Bell even draws a comparison with TV episodes such as Blink and The Girl in the Fireplace - admittedly, purely in terms of this being, like them, a one-off self-contained story rather than part of some grand larger narrative. But still, if you know your Doctor Who you'll know that even to be mentioned in same breath as such episodes is pretty dizzying stuff.

There were two things I was particularly pleased about with both of these reviews. One was that the work of Star Flight's reader Christopher Naylor and producer Morrison Ellis has been rightly recognised and praised. The second was that both reviews felt that the story does give a sense of character to the original TARDIS team who are its stars, and feels as if it does a good job of fitting into their era. "This never feels like an interchangeable 'Insert any Doctor here' adventure," writes Bell in his Flickering Myth piece. "It feels lived in."

That is one of the things I very consciously tried hard to do with Star Flight - I mean, self-evidently, of course, it's what you have to do with a shared universe story like this. Write the characters as recognisably the ones people know from their television stories. I know I shouldn't take too much pride in this, given it's a bare minimum requirement for such a piece, and I have effectively been training for this for decades. With so much television material on which to base the characterisations of the First Doctor, Susan, Ian and Barbara, it ought to be easy for any fan. But I'm still pleased it seems to have worked.

Of course, there will be bad reviews to come, and people who simply don't enjoy Star Flight. For whom it's not their cup of tea. I understand that.

But I had occasionally thought, down the years, about what might happen if I ever got an opportunity like this. To write an actual, real-life Doctor Who story. And I have worried that I might blow it, and write The Worst Doctor Who Story Of All Time. That nobody would like it at all, and it would be the final proof that I don't have a clue what I'm doing when it comes to writing fiction. These two reviews, at least, prove that I haven't done that. That I have written something some people will enjoy.

And that's an enormous shot in the arm. A boost in confidence for my other efforts at writing fiction, too. Because despite the decades I have spent as a Doctor Who fan, this wasn't easy. It didn't just role off the laptop. It took effort, and work, and revision, and sometimes I get dispirited when my fiction writing seems to need so much of that.

But if I can come up with something people seem to enjoy, which seems to work, like this... Well, then perhaps I shouldn't get so down on my other efforts. Perhaps I really can do this, after all.