Time's Champion

Time's Champion is an un-authorized novel based upon a story by the late author Craig Hinton and completed by his friend Chris McKeon.

Chris McKeon happens to be a fellow whose parents are in my ward. In fact, his dad was my Bishop once upon a time and his grandparents are good friends of mine. His mom was bragging on him the other day, and that was the first I'd heard about his writing. I knew he was into science fiction before his mission - we'd gotten into a real deep conversation regarding Star Wars once in the hallway at church and at the time ended up missing Sunday School completely - but I didn't know he was into Dr. Who, or that he was a writer.

The story is a thematic sequel to Hinton's earlier Millennial Rites and The Quantum Archangel, and to The Trial of a Time Lord. Published as an unauthorised publication with all profits going to the British Heart Foundation (a charity chosen by Hinton's family).
In 2000 an American writer and fan of Doctor Who Chris McKeon submitted a story to Big Finish Productions, known as 'The Seventh Door' exploring elements of Remembrance of the Daleks and featured revelations concerning the Valeyard and the Seventh Doctor, this story was rejected by Big Finish. Undeterred McKeon continued to work on another story featuring the Valeyard and began to investigate other authors who had successfully written stories featuring the Valeyard.

While investigating previous authors' efforts to feature the Valeyard, McKeon discovered Hinton's novels and the two met online in Doctor Who forums to discuss the Valeyard. This correspondence led to McKeon learning of Hinton's intent to write a novel Time's Champion for the BBC Past Doctor Adventures, which was to feature both the Sixth Doctor's regeneration and the origins of the Valeyard.

However in 2004 the novel was rejected by the BBC. After this decision McKeon returned to his earlier (rejected) Valeyard story concepts in the hope of eventual publication, but when he told Hinton of this, Hinton instead gave McKeon permission to complete Time's Champion itself, with the goal of working together to finish the draft for an unofficial online presentation. Before, during and after this period, Hinton and McKeon developed a strong friendship over discussing their ideas (and met personally at the 2005 GallifreyOne convention in Los Angeles), and when Hinton died on 3rd December 2006, McKeon progressed by himself, determined to complete the novel in his friend's memory.

Upon Craig Hinton's death, McKeon announced his position as the co-author of Time's Champion (Hinton had previously mentioned online that he was working with another, anonymous author). Within days, McKeon was contacted by Simon Guerrier, editor of the Bernice Summerfield audio adventures at Big Finish, who expressed his interest in attempting to publish the book through the company's Short Trips anthologies. Guerrier, however, informed McKeon that the chances of clearing the book's publication with the BBC were slim, and indeed this did not materialise. However, almost immediately after, McKeon was also contacted by David Howe, owner of Telos Publishing, a publishing company which had, until 2004, produced Doctor Who novellas and later the spin-off series Time Hunter. Howe offered McKeon the chance to publish Time's Champion as an unofficial work, using Telos' printing facilities to produce the novel (though not as a Telos Publishing book), whose profits would go to the British Heart Foundation (a charity chosen by Hinton's family, as the author had died of a heart attack). Howe himself offered to serve as the book's editor.

McKeon accepted the opportunity and continued to complete the novel. In February 2007, Howe and McKeon met at the GallifreyOne convention to discuss preliminary publication details. On August 27, 2007, McKeon completed the text's first draft, which came out at 170,477 words. This, when examined by Howe, proved to be too large and very shortly thereafter McKeon went to work on the second draft with the goal to cut the word count to 90,000 words. This second attempt he completed on December 27, 2007, albeit with approximately 115,000 words. Howe began to edit this draft over in early 2008, and on February 10, 2008, McKeon received the edited third draft of Time's Champion, coming in at about 103,000 words. This text he subsequently re-read (at Howe's suggestion during their meeting at the 2008 GallifreyOne convention), to which he made some final revisions. This fourth draft was returned to Howe for final editing. Howe then submitted this draft gto an independent reader for further alterations. By late March, this draft had been completed and turned over to another reader for a final read-through and opinion. On July 6th, 2008, the completed text and a cover drawn by renowned Doctor Who artist Alister Pearson were turned in for final publication, and the novel was released on July 21, 2008.

Anyway, I just had to post this as I'm pea-green with envy that he's gotten this great opportunity. Exterminate! Exterminate! (Just kidding. I think!)