Doctor Who - Audio Details

When the Doctor last visited the city of Excelis, its citizens where about to enter an age of enilightenment and reason.  But returning two centuries later, he discovers a vicious totalitarian regime at war with the rest of Artaris, living off the efforts of a drugged and broken underclass.

Who is the mysterious Lord Sutton, and what hold does he have over the ruling classes?  What are the Meat Puppets, and what role do they play in the eternal war?  And why is the Doctor's arrival the final piece in a plan that has been centuries in the making?

Throughout his lives, the Doctor has fought many legends.  But some legends refuse to die.

When Gary commissioned me to write the final part of the Excelis Trilogy, I set myself a few personal goals.  My Doctor Who novels are renowned for being complete with continuity - Excelis Decays isn't.  They're also renowned and being light-hearted romps - and Excelis Decays most certainly isn't.  But the most important goal for me - apart from writing somthing that people would enjoy - was pinning down the character of the Seventh Doctor.

Six years ago I wrote a Seventh Doctor novel for Virgin called Gadengine, and spectacularly failed to get a grip on quite possibly the most enigmatic of Doctors.  But with Excelis Decays - knowing that Sylvester McCoy would actually be saying the lines - meant that getting the Seventh Doctor right became all the more important., and I'd like to think that I've actually done it this time.  And knowing that Anthony Stewart Head is the villian has made the Buffy fan very, very happy!

There are a few people I'd like to thank: Dave Hysslop, Brian Swift and Dave Whittam for proofing; Paul Magrs, David A McIntee and Jason Heigh-Ellery for creating a world that I could play in; Ian Collier, Andrew Hair, Peter Lovelady and Mike Ramsay for sanity checks, and, above all, Gerard Hall for putting up with me when I was writing this.  That bloke is a saint!

Craig Hinton, February 2002