The Lethbridge Stewart Series

[grinch]

tardis.fandom.com/wiki/Lethbridge-Stewart_(series)

tardis.fandom.com/wiki/The_Lucy_Wilson_Mysteries

Recently remembered that this series and it’s more child oriented spin-off series was/is a thing.

Has anyone ever read these and can vouch for their quality or lack there of? Without being rude, they do strike me as merely a means for Frankham-Allen to showcase which characters they own. Hence the apparent overuse of the Great Intelligence.

And do they have anything worth poaching for RP material? I’m

[misterharry]

Aug 22, 2023 15:46:55 GMT grinch said:

tardis.fandom.com/wiki/Lethbridge-Stewart_(series)

tardis.fandom.com/wiki/The_Lucy_Wilson_Mysteries

Recently remembered that this series and it’s more child oriented spin-off series was/is a thing.

Has anyone ever read these and can vouch for their quality or lack there of? Without being rude, they do strike me as merely a means for Frankham-Allen to showcase which characters they own. Hence the apparent overuse of the Great Intelligence.

And do they have anything worth poaching for RP material? I’m

I read a few of the early L-S novels when they came out, and my recollection is that they were a mixed bag in terms of quality. I gave up on them when it became clear that they weren't sticking to the Brig's continuity which had been built up in the Virgin and BBC novels series - in fact, they deliberately contradicted a key element from Happy Endings just because Frnkham-Allen didn't like it. There probably is a good deal of stuff that could be extracted and used, but I'm not sure I have the patience to go through them all to unpick it even as off-off canon stuff, and it would be quite costly to catch up now anyway.

They've done the same with Counter-Measures, starting a new series of novels but going against the continuity built up by Big Finish - and that despite Frankham-Allen actually contributing to the audios.

[grinch]

Aug 22, 2023 16:59:18 GMT misterharry said:

Aug 22, 2023 15:46:55 GMT grinch said:

tardis.fandom.com/wiki/Lethbridge-Stewart_(series)

tardis.fandom.com/wiki/The_Lucy_Wilson_Mysteries

Recently remembered that this series and it’s more child oriented spin-off series was/is a thing.

Has anyone ever read these and can vouch for their quality or lack there of? Without being rude, they do strike me as merely a means for Frankham-Allen to showcase which characters they own. Hence the apparent overuse of the Great Intelligence.

And do they have anything worth poaching for RP material? I’m

I read a few of the early L-S novels when they came out, and my recollection is that they were a mixed bag in terms of quality. I gave up on them when it became clear that they weren't sticking to the Brig's continuity which had been built up in the Virgin and BBC novels series - in fact, they deliberately contradicted a key element from Happy Endings just because Frnkham-Allen didn't like it. There probably is a good deal of stuff that could be extracted and used, but I'm not sure I have the patience to go through them all to unpick it even as off-off canon stuff, and it would be quite costly to catch up now anyway.

They've done the same with Counter-Measures, starting a new series of novels but going against the continuity built up by Big Finish - and that despite Frankham-Allen actually contributing to the audios.

To be honest, that sounds about right from what I have heard. A bit like what BBV do with the characters they own (or rather don’t but hope that nobody notices..) where they craft their own unique worlds around them distancing them further and further from Doctor Who. Properties like Faction Paradox or strangely enough the one-off alien race that is The Makers. 

Ah well, I might give the first few novels a go and then make my mind up from there. Worse comes to worse, you could always say that the greater Lethbridge Stewart universe and Lucy Wilson exist within their own alternate universe.

[misterharry]

Aug 23, 2023 14:59:16 GMT grinch said:

Worse comes to worse, you could always say that the greater Lethbridge Stewart universe and Lucy Wilson exist within their own alternate universe.

That's how my headcanon deals with it - they're not part of the main DW universe but an alternative one.

I know that the estates of Haisman and Lincoln asserted their right of ownership of the character after years of the BBC ignoring the fact. But it does seem arrogant of Candy Jar Books to then fundamentally change aspects of that character's history. It was also Candy Jar/Frankham-Allen who insisted that the character of "the Captain" in Twice Upon a Time couldn't be Lethbridge-Stewart's father (despite that being the authorial intent of the BBC) as they had already sketched out his family tree. A case of the tail wagging the dog!