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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... 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...

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Episode Two

Well, nice to see that some of you have come back for more. Well done. Give yourselves a gold star. Or a Blue Peter badge even.

We\x92re onto Episode Two now \x96 which introduces the majority of the rest of our human cast (but still not really the Silurians... ooohh).

Not really a great deal to note though, but here goes. The Glasshouse was borrowed (or nicked) from Dave Bishop\x92s Virgin novel Who Killed Kennedy, but I clearly moved it. I imagine there are probably quite a few Glasshouses dotted around the UK. The exterior is all lovely thirties art-deco. This has mostly been pillaged from both the marvellous Hoover Factory down the A40 (the route you\x92d take out of London to where the Brig lives and UNIT will one day end up being based) \x96 Elvis Costello wrote a song about it, you know. It\x92s also partly swiped from a similar but smaller white art deco building in Lewisham, opposite Ladywell mainline station. I\x92m a big fan of thirties architecture, as you may have guessed.

The Irish Twins \x96 my most fav characters of anything I\x92ve ever created. Evil personified by beauty. The best evil always is. They\x92re actually cribbed from real people, or at least the male one is. I worked in a PR office once and we had a temp in. He was tall, lean, jet black hair and blue eyes, came from Eire and was called Cellian. I never asked if I could nick him as a villain but I did, and gave him a sister. That started my lifelong love of the Irish accent, a lilt that can still melt me today.

Peter Morely plays a pivotal role in Scales but you know, I have no idea where the name comes from. This is unusual - names or characters are usually from someone I know, but neither the name nor the description reminds me of anyone I know/knew. How odd. How unusual. And, cynics might say, how nice and original of me! I do know someone who was nicknamed, rather unfairly I feel, the Skull, and the toilets are certainly based on the scary ones in the King\x92s Head in a North London suburb I\x92d best not name for fear of libel suites! I suspect they\x92re very nice toilets nowadays, but back then, brrrr....

Dear old Marmaduke \x96 the name rolled off the typewriter, but the no-nonsense approach and dismissal of anyone else\x92s opinion was certainly based on the MD of a company I once worked for. He got kicked out eventually, and Sir Marmaduke is just a cruel caricature of him.

The Brig\x92s house and street is based on a real one in Gerrard\x92s Cross where my old schoolfriend Dave Hall lived. I haven\x92t seen sight nor sound of him since we were 17, so I doubt he knows I tried to make his home famous!

The Brig\x92s neighbours are all probably based on real people \x96 but only the Prys\x92s are ones I can remember (although Prys isn\x92t their name). They too boasted of having the Welsh rugger team on their patio once and I always thought that was an odd thing to be proud of.

I love Mah Jong but it\x92s so hard to find other people who do these days. Cadmore End Common is where an actor chum lives and Kate is of course from Marc Platt\x92s Downtime as, I think, is the phrase \x93Tiger\x94. I don\x92t know why Kate\x92s teacher is Miss Marshall (well, I do, it\x92s taken from Doctor Who fan Jackie Marshall) but it seems odd as there\x92s an unrelated Marc Marshall in the same book. I goofed there, but someone at Virgin ought to have spotted that, too. Fiona was Nick Courtney\x92s name for the Brig\x92s fictional first wife so I nicked it from him. He was always threatening at conventions to write a biog of the Brig, so I thought I\x92d get there first.

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The use of the Daily Sketch is, as any fan of the old Target novels would know, the source of that marvellous phrase "The childrens\x92 own programme that adults adore", which is the best description of Doctor Who, bar none.

Jimmy Turner (from The Invasion) has married his \x93dolly\x94 Isobel Watkins (also from The Invasion). Awww... I love happy endings. Corporal Nutting is about the only UNIT soldier not killed by a Silurian in the TV story, so I thought he deserved a mention here.

Hooray for Police Sergeant Robert Lines, a name stolen from my mate Rob Lines (he was best man at Who writer Rob Shearman\x92s wedding y\x92know). I liked this rather open-minded policeman and he returns in both sequels to this book. Patricia Haggard is the character played by Louise Jameson in BBV\x92s PROBE videos alongside Caroline John as Liz Shaw. Ah, it all fits together...

Seaview Cottage is based, in my mind\x92s eye at least, on an old white cottage built on a shingle beach near Exbury, in Hampshire. It had to be the most ridiculous and impossible to reach cottage in the world \x96 needless to say, in the days when I used to call myself an actor, we filmed an episode of the Famous Five there. Only a TV crew could choose to use somewhere it was impossible to get electric cables near.

Ooh, Silurians at last. The idea that there are different species of Silurians comes from, most obviously, the fact that on telly the Silurians, Sea Devils and other Silurians (in Warriors of the Deep) don\x92t look that alike. It always annoys me that in Star Trek, you have the crew of the Enterprise or Voyager or whatever, all of whom are different heights, hair and skin colours, waist sizes etc. Yet Star Trek aliens always seem to be cloned. I thought if everyone on Earth looks different depending on which continent or even country they\x92re from, then why wouldn\x92t the Reptile People be similar different. Hence this story...

Okay, now onto Episode Three...

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Episode Three

As I write these notes for each chapter/episode, it\x92s important to tell you (well, it isn\x92t but I\x92m doing so anyway) that I\x92m reading the book as I go along. Thus I\x92ve not read chapter four yet. Hence discrepancies may turn up that contradict what I\x92ve written here or earlier. A good example in chapter two was when I stated that UNIT HQ wasn\x92t the one seen in The Three Doctors. Trouble is, here in Chapter Three, it clearly is. D\x92oh! Still, we live and learn.

L\x92ithe, you\x92ll be unsurprised to learn doesn\x92t exist. One cannot nip over to Guernsey or Sark and get into Monsieur Renault\x92s boat and pop over to visit the Silurians. Which is just as well, as if L\x92ithe did exist, I doubt the Channel Islands tourist board would like me very much.

The quick reference to Psychic Shirl is meant to be an oh-so-subtle parody of Mystic Meg. For non-UK readers, she\x92s one of those people who writes a horoscope column in a newspaper and appears on TV now and again explaining how our lives are governed by the stars.

I know some people who are terribly good astrologers and after a couple of pints can almost convince me that there\x92s something in it. Mystic Meg has never taken me out for a pint but were she to do so, I doubt she\x92d convince me anyway.

PC Stuart Halton is named after a lovely mate of mine from Bolton. I hope he didn\x92t mind being used here! Auggi is based on the mother of someone I know. I won\x92t say who because Auggi\x92s none too flattering a comparison, but I even nicked some of her more castigating dialogue direct from her human counterpart.

Tahni is of course stolen from the original name for Sixties Doctor Who companion Vicki. The 1965 story The Rescue was originally known as "Dr Who and Tanni" and I thought it was too daft a name to lose. This whole chapter has so much continuity nonsense as I attempted to draw together Doctor Who and The Silurians, The Sea Devils, Warriors of the Deep and the novelisation of that first story, The Cave-Monsters, Okdel, K\x92to, Morka, the nonsense about the moon etc.

I saw the Silurian Triad (Icthar, Tarpok and Scibus from Warriors) a bit like three Marlon Brandos from The Godfather \x96 with the Silurians being a bit Mafiosi in style generally. No one likes the Sea Devil Warriors because they're like the assassins and no one quite trusts them,. Who knows, you might be their next secret target...

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The background to our two human villains, re-reading this now, disturbs me. Having acknowledged that my books generally contain a degree of infanticide, I now notice that most of my unlikable male characters tend to have a history of spousal abuse and ultimately murder. It\x92s all unconscious. Maybe it\x92s subconscious. Maybe I need to seek some therapy.

I liked the idea of a man so consumed with a love of killing, of creating death to be the ultimate high, that real sex never appealed to him. He never needed sex because he gets off on being responsible for killing people. Hmmm, perhaps I read too much Ian Fleming as a child.

I had also forgotten that, via the scene with the bottle in the door, that I had set up the origins of the pale young man this early. I thought that\x92d only come out of the sequel to this, Business Unusual. Still, it fits in with the concept of the Vault. As does the fact that Traynor\x92s dog is augmented with Stahlman\x92s gas. Nevertheless, it\x92s a horrible over-use of continuity and I apologise. Sadly I just know it won\x92t be the last piece of gratuitous continuity in Scales. Oh dear...

Ooh, we get to see Liz\x92s home. How nice. Mrs Longhurst who lives downstairs is named after a lovely lady called Claire Longhurst who I met at the same time as Rob Lines (see Chapter Two). I\x92ve never owned guinea pigs, but my elder brothers did and I have vague memories of them from when I was knee-high to a grasshopper. They were originally going to be rats, because my friend David Bailey had pet rats when I wrote this. He then got rid of the rats and so John-Paul and George-Ringo became guinea pigs.

Corbett Woodall was a real TV news reporter \x96 I think from a local rather than national BBC service but during the sixties and seventies he found a new career as the man who played newsreaders in everything the BBC did. Alex Macintosh (he was in Day of the Daleks) was the same. But Corbett Woodall was always better.

Alan Morton is named after a Scots Doctor Who fan I knew. I don\x92t think he ever took a bullet for anyone though. Oh and in another piece of naff continuity, Wagstaffe, the reporter who dies shielding Sudbury is meant to be the guy from Spearhead from Space.

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Oh gosh, look, the Doctor is actually in this chapter! But not for long.

I really enjoyed destroying the Lethbridge-Stewarts' marriage. I just enjoyed writing what I like to think is a good bit of real-life drama without spaceships and rayguns, and kept visualising this scene as if it\x92d been done on telly.

I\x92m amazed Alistair and Fiona\x92s relationship got this far \x96 I\x92m always surprised at how well people do cope when they can\x92t discuss their careers with their families because they\x92ve signed the official secrets act, or there\x92s doctor/patient confidentiality for instance.

The Saracen\x92s Head is or was anyway a real restaurant in Beaconsfield Old Town which we visited once or twice. Great food. The Captain Walters mentioned here was clearly Sergeant Walters from The Invasion. He\x92s been promoted. Well done to him.

Now I won\x92t take the blame for this one \x96 this is a bit of bad copyediting by someone at Virgin. It wasn\x92t like this when I wrote it. I know, and I\x92m fairly certain that the Brigadier would know that whilst Smallmarshes and Dungeness are in Kent, Hastings is in Sussex. Grrr\x85

Ooh, I like the ending here. It\x92s the scene portrayed on Andrew Skilleter\x92s book cover, featuring the hologram of Marc Marshall in the Silurian\x92s hand. I was very keen to ensure that the cover Andrew did represented a scene rather than served as just an impression of the story.

Well, that\x92s Episode Three done. What happens next week? And why isn\x92t Basil Brush singing a song with Mister Derek before it starts?