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Author's Notes - Gary Russell's guide to The Scales of Injustice.

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Episode One

So here I am, exactly eight years on from writing The Scales of Injustice, and now giving it a read for the first time since then. Golly, but it's full of continuity nonsense, isn't it? There's a temptation to rush through this online version and do a search and replace for all the familiar character names and put in new ones, just so I don't look such a twit. But then again, just as I loathe those filmmakers who go back and create new effects and insert new characters into old movies, it'd be wrong of me to make this book a "director's cut" style thingy. I'm simply not convinced that I wouldn't make it worse rather than better (oh if only the director of ET had shown the same degree of self-awareness!).

So here we are, the Memo prologues and Episode One, and some dreary notes.

I liked the Memo idea, I just thought that was a better 'pre-credits' sequence than an actual chapter, and as the book was created at the height of X-Files mania, it seemed appropriate. Also, the idea of the story being in seven episodes rather than chapters was appealing, although I'd done it before, with my previous book, the so-terribly successful and popular Invasion of the Cat-People. It just seemed neater and more Doctor Who-like than straight chapters.

So, within the Memo section, we face references to Sir John Sudbury and his C19, who of course was first mentioned by the Fifth Doctor in Time-Flight. The memo is from Cambridge (ie an old associate of Liz Shaw) Professor Andrew Montrose, a character from an old amateur Doctor Who audio play I'd directed called Justyce (Montrose was played by fellow Big Finish writer/director Nicholas Pegg by the way. That Montrose however was from the far future - I just ripped off the name).

Of the people Montrose names as the 'team' - Richard Atkinson and James Griffin are two real people I know. Richard indeed designs a majority of our Short Trips book collection covers and also writes scathing reviews of Big Finish's output for TV Zone. Probably in revenge for his inclusion here! I honestly can't remember who Cathryn Wildeman is/was but bearing in mind I rarely just invent names, she must've been based on someone I knew. Perhaps it'll come back to me in subsequent chapters.

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Jimmy Munro was of course the Brig's right-hand man in Spearhead From Space and Dr Sweetman was named as UNIT's CMO in Planet of the Spiders, presumably before being replaced by Harry Sullivan. I tended to prefer to think that UNIT officers went back to the regular army after their UNIT stints rather than dying off-screen, but I wouldn't be surprised if another Doctor Who novel has been written at some point in which Munro or many of the other UNIT bods mentioned herein are said to have died.

Into Episode One then - and I realise that this book is full of nameless characters, the Pale Thin Man with the Scar, the blond assassin, Mister? and so on. I must've been going through a phase of doing that - I know that when the Pale Thin Man returns in my next book, he gets a name and a background.

The Traynor/Stalker sequence in this Episode is then shamelessly duplicated in the sequel, Business Unusual, although I also off the dog in that one. Sorry. Originality - never my strong point!

The reference to the adventure in the tropics and Amelia Grover is a link to Chris Bulis's novel The Eye of the Giant that, chronologically precedes this one.

Gosh, I really wanted to set up Liz's general dissatisfaction with her UNIT life straight away, didn't I? Subtlety, another weak spot it seems. I like Liz, I thought she was great as a kid (Season 7 really made me a fan of the show) but was also annoyed we never saw her leave. Despite Pertwee being my favourite Doctor then and now, I'm amazed at how unlikeable I make him in this story. He really has few redeeming features in Scales which surprises me reading this back now. Many people have said that Troughton is the hardest Doctor to write for but I never felt that, for me it's Pertwee. Which is why I've not tried it since.

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Major General Scobie of course also crops up in Spearhead From Space. Bless him. I notice I also opted to have them moved into the UNIT lab that first appeared in Terror of the Autons and survived through to The Time Monster, rather than the Season 7 one. I think it's the same building, but UNIT budgetary concerns made them move the Doc up a couple of floors into a smaller room. Perhaps he liked the canal view. Perhaps him constantly chucking things into said canal is what made 'em move out of London to the Three Doctors onwards UNIT base. Perhaps I think too much about all this.

Jossey O'Grahame, the failed actor who worked with the greats. Hmmm\x85 wonder what I'm channelling there. Justin (Richards) and Grayson (Fuller) are two real people whose names I hijacked. Trevithick is of course the Nightshade actor from Mark Gatiss's book of the same name. And I wince at the idea of Carry on Digging now, but that said, it does sound like an early Seventies Carry On movie.

"There's no higher responsibility than great potential" was a phrase someone said to me as a kid and it was a philosophy I tried to live by. Which explains the fractured, paranoid, self-deprecating person I became in my adult life by not living up to such perceived potential.

I liked the flashback/race memory thing - lifted in concept from Mac Hulke's Cave-Monsters novel, and I was particularly pleased with the phrase 'Devilbacks' to describe the Silurians. Hey, I can be pleased with something, can't I?

Not sure where the Silurian name Sula is from, but Baal is clearly lifted from Brecht's work.

Oh God, look, another trite continuity reference. Mister Campbell, the electrical storesman is obviously the same "dolly Scotsman" that Jo Grant talks to in Terror of the Autons. Corporal Bell is, well, Corporal Bell from Mind of Evil and Claws of Axos, and Masie Hawke is the name I gave to the character played by Gypsie Kemp in Day of the Daleks. Boyle, however, is I believe someone I've actually made up myself. There's a first time for everything.

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Marc Marshall - names that crop up a lot in my writing, although the actual child isn't based on anyone in particular. I set this in Dungeness because I love the place. It's bleak, depressing and seems to live in a monochrome world of Avengers locations rather than Derek Jarman extravagance. It's cold, inhospitable and bleak. I love it and a visit there the previous summer with my successor at DWM, Gary Gillatt sealed its fate as the setting for this book. I don't think I made use of the lighthouse though, which surprises me now. I want to live in a lighthouse. Always have. God knows why. I'm just weird.

Mrs Petter is based on the mum of an old school friend, and Steve Merrett was my mate and boss at the job I had when writing Scales, working for a PlayStation magazine. Others from the Playstation Plus editorial team, (Matt, Alex, Oz and Jacqui turn up later in this chapter).

Sir James Quinlan of course popped his clogs in Ambassadors of Death and in Terror of the Autons we learn that the Doctor frequents a London club with Lord 'Tubby' Rowlands.

Jeff Johnson, Liz's "partner" is a UNIT soldier from Ambassadors - I gave him the name Jeff cos he was played by Caroline John's hubby, Geoffrey Beevers. It's the Virgo in me. I'm sorry. Oh, and Liz smokes a pipe, just as Caroline John did back then. And I apologise for the blatant and unfunny Shada "May week" rip-off.

In November '95 I stayed at a guest house in Blackpool (I don't think it was called the Bay View though) where the owners were very jolly and nice but were members of something like the Rollercoaster Passengers Club and travelled the world, determined to take every rollercoaster ever. Now, I love Rollercoasters myself (Six Flags Magic Mountain in Los Angeles has the best ever I believe) but my god, these people bored even me.

WPC Barbara Redworth is named after a former flatmate of my old DWM co-worker and chum, Paul Vyse. These days she's not Redworth any more, but here she is, frozen in a moment of time, Redworth forever.

And finally (Esther), yes, I think the chauffeur mentioned here is the same one who shifted his allegiance to the Master in time for The Mind of Evil.

More continuity nonsense with Episode Two, folks...