Venus In Transit

As mention previously, my e-novella, By The Time I Get To Venus, was published last week by Manleigh Books. It's part of their ongoing series; The Periodic Adventures Of Señor 105.

This is me giving a little context to the story. I am not going to include anything that might be considered a spoiler as such, but one might like to consider my previous blog before reading on.

Señor 105

OK? Right...

Who is Señor 105?

He is the creation of Cody Quijano-Schell and has featured in various short stories published by Obverse Books, both as an associate of the trans-temporal adventuress; Iris Wildthyme and as the central protagonist in his own adventures.

As such, he partially inhabits the stranger fringes of the expanded Doctor Who universe, but that is only one thread of an altogether more elaborate, more psychedelic tapestry.


The character was initially inspired from the Mexican Wrestler movies of the 50's, 60's and 70's. Cody has created an amazing video introduction to the genre here -




When Cody approached me to pitch ideas for the Periodic Adventures, I said pretty early on that I wanted to do an Enter The Dragon type scenario. A tournament or maybe even a flashback to Señor 105's early days, training somewhere. Given the exotic nature of the wrestler's adventures, the location of the training would need to be suitably unusual, on another planet or something.

This chimed with Cody's over-arching plans for the series (he has big, big plans!); other planets in the solar system would be featured prominently.

Then it clicked; Enter The Dragon... on Venus!

Why Venus? Check it out...



What we have here is Doctor Who calming an enraged Aggedor with a Venusian lullaby (roughly translated, the rhyme starts; "Close your eyes, my darling. Well, three of them at least")

Now, during this period of the show; Jon Pertwee's Doctor used martial arts, referred to as "Venusian Akido" or "Venusian Karate". There were a several other allusions to Venus and its inhabitants, mainly as comedic asides. These references eventually disappeared with Pertwee's departure from the role.

Venusian Lullaby 

Twenty years later, Paul Leonard wrote the novel Venusian Lullaby.

In his book, Leonard took the sparse, sometimes quite bizarre information given about Venus in the TV series and imagined what this Venusian civilisation might actually be like.

The result was a novel depicting a compelling, complex and truly alien civilisation; depicted in such a detail as to probably be unique in all of Doctor Who.

I could go on at length about how much I love this book, instead I'll just urge you to track down a copy and see for yourself.

Almost another twenty years later, Cody and I wondered if Paul Leonard would let me borrow his world? Just a small corner of it. It made perfect sense that Señor 105 would have trained in Venusian Martial Arts, had the opportunity arisen.

Paul graciously agreed and I was good to go.

The Enter The Dragon on Venus concept bubbled away in the back of my brain, Lalo Schifrin's iconic theme playing in my head twenty four seven. It occurred to me that Señor 105 would need a sparring partner; someone of equal stature, but a differing motivation. Someone with whom he could forge an uneasy alliance (my absolute favourite sort of alliance!)

Theo Possible

I had just the man.

Theo Possible was a character I had originally created for my short story, Party Kill Accelerator! In that story, he was the mysterious curator of an eerie festival. Possible turned up again, hitching a lift across The City of The Saved in the story; Happily Ever After Is A High Risk Strategy.

Like Señor 105, Possible is a senior character; over fifty at least. Unlike Señor 105, his motivations are unclear, perhaps even dubious. Both characters have mysterious personal histories. It isn't much of a leap to suppose that at least part of their respective mysterious histories might, in fact, be one.

It wasn't until I was half way through writing By The Time I Get To Venus that I remembered in Party Kill Accelerator! that there is a reference to Possible having studied something called "Klatch-Ki" - the ancient Venusian art of style over content!

Clearly, this was all meant to happen!

I hope that that's enough background to inspire you to purchase the book. I haven't even touched on what the story is actually about. You shouldn't need to know anything of the above to enjoy the book.

(Also, it's cheap and quite short)

Let me know what you thought of it and tell your friends!

By The Time I Get To Venus